A Monk's Life

I am not a monk, but I am intrigued by those who choose this kind of life.  Right now, I am especially interested by the life of Thomas Merton, a monk who spent almost thirty years at the Trappist Monastery of Gethsemane near Louisville Kentucky.  After his death, Merton’s journals were published leaving an intimate and unique chance to peak into the day-to-day life of a contemporary monk who lived in cloistered silence apart from the world. He also self-recorded many hours of talks that as novice director he gave to the novices at Gethsemane. The combination of the journals and the talks – along with the many books and articles on topics of not only faith and contemplation but literature, philosophy, social justice, and interfaith dialogue - gives us a multilayered and rich access to this monk’s path in life.

“What is the purpose of our lives here in the monastery?” is something Merton asked himself and his novices again and again.  Merton’s answer, “Not only for ourselves,” may be surprising.  For Merton, being a monk wasn’t only about the individual chance to live in close connection to God  - a personal vocation - but to give people who live outside of monasteries insights into what the path of deep and prayerful silence and solitude can offer all who long for it.  That their lives of devotion, poverty, and humility may help to heal the suffering of the world by holding some of that suffering in their own hearts was also Merton’s message. For centuries, monks like those in Gethsemane who take the radical path of turning away from the outer world, have shown us all how solitude, silence, and prayer might open a doorway to the divine, an infinite flow of love, a possibility of a peace and joy in the midst of suffering.

Merton’s life, like the lives of all the monks at Gethsemane during his time, was stripped of all interaction with and distraction from the outer world.  When entering the monastery, the monks made vows of poverty, humility, obedience, and silence.  They used hand signals to communicate and only when necessary.  (Talking was allowed sparingly and only in certain circumstances like during the classes that Merton taught to the novitiates.) The monks owned no personal possessions nor earned any personal. All the money they earned through cheese or jam making went into the communal pot to the support the monastic community.  They had no choice in what to eat – two and half simple meals were served to them daily when there were not fasting as penance or in prayer. In winter, they went without the comfort of enough heat and in summers nothing to cool them. According to their vows of obedience, the abbot decided what kind of work they would do, whether they could read letters from the outside, receive visitors, or leave the grounds to care for an ill or dying family member.  No outside news came in beyond what the abbot felt was appropriate and non-distracting.

Each day followed exactly the same as the one before with prayers starting at 3am and ending at 8pm.  In between, work and prayers were threaded throughout the day at six regular intervals.  The daily prayers read and sung rotated according to the liturgical calendar.  

It is hard for me to imagine staying sane with this kind of stripped down, isolated life.  There was no TV, fiction, or special treats for desert to look forward to.  No vacations to plan, trips to the beach, or a strolls around a garden before afternoon tea. No concerts, movies, family celebrations, or beer on a hot afternoon.  No sex, flirting, parenting, or visiting with friends. There was no shopping for anything, sporting events, or cake and ice-cream on your birthday.    There was only 365 days of silence in prayer and work. 

Merton entered the monastery when he was only 25 years old and remained there until shortly before his death almost 30 years later.

What could we possible learn from people who live in such extreme deprivation and poverty?  

Of course, many of the deepest wisdom teachings have come to us from such monks, hermits, and other solitary people.  Didn’t Jesus spend 40 days meditating in the desert and praying in solitude in the garden before his crucifixion?  Certainly, the Buddha spent a lot of time alone. To be stripped of most comforts of life, Merton said, gave him a chance to “live without care” by which he meant a life without the possibility for being pulled into care for the trappings of material life.  Without money, experiences, relationships, accolades to grasp Merton had a chance to let go of the outer world and instead go deep inside of silence and solitude to find a closeness to the God who is always there but rarely glimpsed because of our near constant outward focus.  Because we are so easily distractable, and live in a culture that glorifies such distractions, it can take drastic measures to find this kind of inner peace.  The distractions of the world are many, and God requires us to slow way down. As monks make it their life’s work to find this internal peace by emptying their lives of distraction, we may be inspired to slow down a bit too in order to catch a glimpse of something greater than the small self we usually feel ourselves to be.

Through Merton’s and other monk’s teachings, we can learn that when we fall into our own “monasteries of the heart” – those times of loneliness, poverty, humility, and loss – that there are in these difficulties a path toward inner peace, to a connection with something that is greater than ourselves, and to that peace that surpasses all understanding.