A Day in the Life...

A day in the life of a Monastic member.

So far we have had a bit of an unusual experience. When we arrived on Sunday the community had begun the funeral proceedings for a monk who had died very unexpectedly the week before. While funerals are usually a time for celebration in the monastery this one was difficult for many because of the abruptness. The funeral itself was on Monday which was quite different from anything I had ever been to before. After the service there was a long processions where the monks sang and carried the coffin out of the church and all the way to the graveyard where the casket was then lowered in.

On Tuesday, however, hearts had been lifted a bit by the annual 4th of July celebration. This year it was on the 3rd because of CSB 150 year celebration. The 4th of July celebration, however, was great. We gathered around the flag and sung America the Beautiful and other songs of that nature, then we had a water balloon toss competition, followed quickly by a water balloon fight. Unfortunately it began to rain before we were able to compete in the relay race, which would have consisted of 1 member "speed walking" from the monastic gardens to the abbey beach where they would jump in and swim out to a canoe. They would have to climb into the canoe where the two other members of the relay were waiting and then paddle out past a buoy and back to the beach and then all three would have to "speed walk" back to the monastic gardens. It would have been a blast to see.

On Wednesday we all bused over to CSB to celebrate with the sisters their 150th year anniversary. This was pretty interesting and fun to meet a lot of the sisters.

However, these have not been usual days. A usual day, and what will be for most of the next week and half will be:

7:00am morning prayer followed by breakfast (in complete silence)
8:15am work (so far we have painted, pulled lots of weeds, gardened, basically a lot of physical manual labor)
12:00 midday prayer followed by lunch and then free time until 5:00
5:00pm mass
6:00pm Dinner (first 15min in silence while one members reads aloud)
7:00pm evening prayer
7:45pm Class (we meet with a monastic member where they share what it's like living in the monastery, their experiences and then we have some readings that we are to do each day that we can talk about as well)
8:45pm Free time

Reflection

I thought a lot about how to start this post. Maybe try to find some funny movie line, a moving lyric from a song, a poem, maybe even a passage from the Bible...ok, maybe not so much the last one, but I do have to say that my time in the monastery has been very interesting so far.

So, the answer that most of you are looking for is, no, I haven't been moved enough yet to think about joining the monastery. But I have been moved enough to begin doing a lot more personal reflection. I know once I get to Africa this will be the main way that I will be able to feel a connection with those of you that I will miss the most.

I have weened myself off of TV, which surprisingly hasn't been very difficult, and I have been trying to limit the use of Internet access. I think that this separation from technology has impacted my dreams, because they seem more vivid and I remember them more often than I normally do.

Since I've been here my dreams have mostly been about separation. The separation from family, friends, significant others, colleagues, and, well, pretty much everyone. The monastic life, while very heavily community based, is, at the same time very solitary. This solitude, while more often than not can lead to feelings of loneliness, also gives the appreciation of what its like to be fortunate enough to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

Last night as I was lying in bed listening to my ipod the song Motorcylce Driveby came on. I closed my eyes and tried to really focus on the lyrics of the songs. And as I listened I began to reminisce on all the wonderful times and moments I've had with so many different people. And I began to think about giving it all up to spend a year in Africa. 'What an experience and opportunity to be given this chance, but what a commitment and sacrifice that it is to miss being around the people I truly love for a full year' And then the refrain of the song came on:

"I've never been so alone, and I've never been so alive."

This next year is sure to test my limits of health, spirituality, personal reflection, culture shock, homesickness, and loneliness. But as I am learning, sometimes it is the things that you care about the most that you must sacrifice in order to truly understand how special those things are and that they really do make you feel "alive".