One of the underappreciated truths about the ecology of the plant kingdom is the fact that much of the activity that needs to take place to provide for the health of growing things takes place out of sight, in the soil. The plethora of specialized reactions which occur within the soil’s horizons which must take place for plants to survive and thrive is astounding. One handful of living soil will contain millions of individual microbes silently living in a world unavailable to our eyes, yet whose function is critical to such things as soil aeration, the breakdown of plant debris which is in turn made available to the roots of plants, and many more fascinating tasks. These things are worth knowing especially as our world experiences more and more serious ecological challenges.
This is analogous to the living reality taking place within a monastery. Within it’s cloister, also hidden from the eyes of the world, there is a rich plethora of relationships taking place as monks quietly live their lives. The ecology of the cloister is familiar in its human interactions: monks sleep, eat, take care of their physical, mental, and emotional needs, have friendships, suffer dissapointment, loss, and pain, experience joy, and happiness, look forward to special occasions, have hopes, suffer from anxieties, have jobs, and other resposibilities they are expected to meet, and on and on I could go. Quite simply monks are folks just like the rest of us.
But monks are immersed within a lifestyle quite different than what most of us will ever know. It is a life lived at a deep level, like that of the living earth, hidden, yet alive with rich ecological interactions; call it monastecology, if you will. I’ve written about what makes monastic life unique, but the ecology of the cloister is so subtly rich I could reflect on it until my fingers freeze at the keeyboard and I would barely scratch the surface. Besides, more qualified folks could say it better than me anyway. But the point I want to make is the monastery is really another world, and any attempt to water it down and make it familiar and comfortable would be a failure to understand it or appreciate it.
Entering a monastery means crossing a border into a very different world, one that operates by laws sometimes the opposite of what is familiar and valued. No longer will he pursue his own ways and hold jealously onto his own ideas, but he’ll freely submit his desires to the rule of life he takes on, to an abbot, and to the needs and requirements of the community.
It is interesting to note that the longest chapter in the Rule of St. Benedict is Chapter 7 on humility, which takes us back to the beginning, for humility and humus share the same latin root, meaning soil. May God continue to water the soil of the clopistral world and send young men and women to fertilize its secret and mystical garden.
3 Responses to “Monastecology”
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March 21st, 2006 at 11:53 pm
I visited a Trappist Abbey last year and someone asked the monk giving us a presentation what he thought the benefit of his vocation. He answered in much teh same way - that his prayers and the prayers of the monastery provided an “underground river” of faith to the whole Church. God bless you and your brothers for your work for us!
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Thanks m4dc4p for your kind words. Unfortunately that “underground river” is threatened with drying up due to lack of vocations. Pray God sends a “new rain” of youthful vocations! Peace, Tim.
April 1st, 2006 at 9:02 am
I went to a Trappist monastary last weekend for retreat. While I was there, one of the elderly brothers passed away. I was struck with the simplicity of the burial — no coffin and no embalming. The brother was simply lowered into a grave by his brothers, a cloth was reverently placed over his face, and the brothers filled the grave with dirt. There was a very real sense that this brother was “home” with God….a very humble and simple funeral for a man who dedicated his life to God.