“Ah, best of shepherds,” the kitchener murmurs, as he finds the tape sewn onto the corner of the blue and white cloth, hanging it up tidily on the nail where it belongs, “you know what it is to feel the tug of loss when one sheep strays. Does not your heart follow after, wondering about brambles and ditches and vicious traps? Did you not break your heart for Judas, when he kissed you goodbye? Our Abbot John, dearest shepherd, he has gone through a lot this last year or two. Comfort his heart, give him faith and hope. Let him keep his flock entire. Bring this one home.” He takes off his apron and hangs it on its hook behind the door. He casts a final glance round the kitchen, to make sure he has left nothing undone. Oh, yes. The birds.
On the table, apart from the bread saved for later, stands a bowl of scraps. These are not the ones for the midden, to rot down into good loam for the vegetable garden. In this bowl are a very few pared cheese rinds, some cut apple cores, apple skins pared away by the older brothers whose teeth are not so good, fragments of torn buttered bread left behind on the plates of one or two.
When Brother Cormac passed the care of the kitchen into Brother Conradus’s hands, he didn’t say much. Conradus, who is no fool, knew this did not result from indifference but from heartache. It cost Cormac dear, that act of obedience, turning away from the work where he felt at home, connected up to times past; especially since he was asked to shoulder, instead, the burden of a difficult area of responsibility. The work of the cellarer is tough and complicated, and Conradus doesn’t envy him one bit. What Brother Cormac did say, that day he took off his filthy apron and tossed it with every appearance of utter carelessness into the laundry pile, was, “You won’t forget to feed the birds, will you? They rely on it. And there are some mice underneath the woodpile. And the fox, he comes to the door at dusk.”
Brother Conradus has his own opinions about feeding the mice, and was not astonished to discover how persistently they hang around the frater, despite the best efforts of the cat. No wonder, if Brother Cormac has been feeding them. Come inside, why not? Same man, nicer weather. He feels undecided about the fox. Will feeding it kitchen scraps save a few lives in the hen coop? Or simply encourage an extended family of hangers-on? He knew a householder who went in for hens in a big way, thought he would make a fortune selling eggs in the market, only to have thirteen foxes – thirteen! – move in, setting up house in a ring all around the farmstead. At a discreet distance. But not too far off, either. So Conradus has mixed feelings about feeding foxes. He remembers that.
He’s willing to feed the birds though, trained as they are, by Brother Cormac over sixteen years, to expect the men in black to keep it coming. He carries the bowl out into the yard, where a hopeful Benedictine crow knows the hour of the day and sits waiting on the ridge of the small roof sheltering the well from falling birdlime.
Looking across at the watchful crow, chirruping to it in a friendly way as he broadcasts the scraps he’s brought out, Conradus thinks of Jesus saying, “Semper pauperes habetis vobiscum.”13
Too true! A magpie lands on the jutting corner of the building, flicking its tail and scoping out the breadcrumb situation. Two sparrows come fluttering down, completely unafraid. No wonder. It would be entirely understandable if they mistook him and Cormac for their mothers.
Then a new thought enters his mind, surprising him. That thing Jesus said – “semper pauperes habetis vobiscum me autem non semper habetis” – the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me… he said it in response to his indignant disciples complaining about that woman who used up her expensive perfume anointing Christ’s feet. They grumbled about it – jealous probably – and said she could have raised a lot of money to feed the poor if she’d sold it. So the point Jesus made was that some things were just for the everyday routine – but the chance to touch him was special and not to be missed. What Father Theodore, in Conradus’s novitiate days, would have identified as the difference between chronos – time that is normal and just goes on and on – and kairos, the moment of opportunity that shines out from among all the other moments, saying “Now!” Though he treasures his full profession as a monk, Conradus misses those mornings in the teaching circle in the upstairs room with Father Theodore. Even the difficult Greek, and learning new pieces of music.
But as to this business of having the poor always with you, but not always having Jesus, he thinks, it’s tricky though, isn’t it? Because, when it comes to the sheep and the goats – or Dives and Lazarus, for that matter – Jesus identifies himself with the poor! “Quamdiu fecistis uni de his fratribus meis minimis mihi fecistis.”14 So, just as you might miss the kairos in the general muddle and jumble of the ongoing stream of chronos, you might overlook the Christ in the ever-present rabble of the insatiable poor. Because, when it comes down to it, perhaps it isn’t as easy as you thought at first to tell the difference.
Here Brother Conradus pauses, checks himself, as his conscience intervenes with a footnote to the effect that “ever-present rabble” and “insatiable” betray a derogatory and disrespectful estimation of Christ’s poor. For was not the Lord himself a poor man – poorer even than these birds, seeing they have their nests, but he had nowhere to lay his head. “Mea culpa,” murmurs Conradus in penitence; then he hesitates. He’s supposed to strike his breast, but he’s got butter on his hand now, and doesn’t want to transfer it to his scapular. He wishes he’d kept his apron on. He wonders if it will be all right to do it later, but knows he’ll forget; so he strikes the air just adjacent to where his breast-bone lurks hidden beneath his robes and his own natural padding, and hopes that will do.
He stands to watch the birds chattering and squabbling over the scraps he’s thrown, then takes the bowl back into the kitchen. He pours a little water into it, distressed at the bad job he makes of washing both his hands and the bowl, given that both are greasy and the water’s cold. So he fetches the blue and white cloth, wiping the bowl and his hands and the water jug handle free of butter. He goes to hang the cloth up again, decides his ways are getting perilously similar to Cormac’s, and tosses it instead on the laundry pile, where his apron should have been too, by rights. Oh, bother it, the apron will do until the day ends; let it stay where it is just for now.
But what about the poor? And the birds? The fox? What about Brother Cedd? Is he, as it turns out, not the poor that will always be there, waiting for crumbs of love left over and flung his way, but the Christ himself, only briefly among them? Has he gone? Have they missed Jesus? Or is his soul still poor and hungry? Will he come back, begging for forgiveness, for understanding, for another chance?
Brother Conradus determines that if, in the trickling out of the day, the chronos flow of barely distinguishable moments, a sparkle of light picks out the kairos in amongst them, he will be ready. He walks along the cloister, thinking about it… the Benedictine crow, waiting humbly to be remembered… Brother Cormac begging him not to forget the wild birds who depend on them… his abbot, asking him to set aside a portion of something hearty… Christ’s poor… Christ himself in humility among them… and Brother Cedd.
Chapter
Eleven
Father Theodore waits. Though he holds his rosary loosely wound about his hand, his finger and thumb no longer isolate a bead to landmark his journey through the Joyful Mysteries. His murmuring of the holy words has ceased; but he hasn’t stopped praying. His mind drifts, wondering, but all his searching unfurls within a consciousness of God watching over him, enfolding him. His reflections quest down into presence. Dumbly, blindly, he feels his way to the living water, not moving. His eyes are open, but now they do not see; he is reaching beyond the friendly confines of this familiar room – not outward; inward to where his heart is planted and derives its nourishment. He does not speak. His lips do not frame the shapes of customary intercession and invocation. Only his soul inches its urgent way to some kind of understanding. Where is he? What’s happening?
He’s waiting for Colin, but Cedd so occupie
s his mind that he doesn’t even notice the postulant enter through the open door, presenting himself as the novice master asked him to, after the midday meal.
“Father Theodore?”
With a start, Theodore comes back to the present moment. “Colin! Your pardon – please – I was miles away. Do come and sit down.”
It is only routine, this meeting, the novice master’s care and oversight of someone new to the life, finding and feeling his way. Observing the young man now, Theodore can see too clearly the trust and admiration, the sense of privilege bordering on awe at this opportunity for private audience with his mentor. And Theodore – always – feels less than comfortable with this. What is he, after all? Only a man. What is his life beneath his best efforts at dignity and composure? The same struggle as everyone’s, as Colin’s own life. Scrupulously careful not to let his unease at being put on a pedestal manifest as evident irritation – for he knows how nervous that makes them – Theodore asks the usual questions, sits patiently with the usual silences and hesitant half-replies. Why is it like this? Why don’t they have the sense to look ahead, to come prepared with whatever it is they need his help with, want to discuss with him? Why is it always like taming wild birds, shy and poised to take flight? He tightens his lips on a sigh that wants to escape. No.
But then, with time and gentle encouragement, the questions come. And Colin wants to admit his bafflement about obedience and permission. “I mean, what’s the point?” As he takes heart, warming to his subject now, he lets the novice master see the frustration he’s been feeling. “Every blessed thing! Humbly begging some vellum to write home on, a rag to wash the cloister floor, permission to get a drink of water for a cough or to leave our teaching circle to go to the reredorter – it’s endless! So petty. Surely we can just be trusted to use our initiative? And the business of stopping right now – even if I’ve only that minute mixed some ink, or sized a letter and got the gold all ready. The bell starts to ring, and if I try to hurry, finish off, there’ll be somebody’s quiet voice saying ‘Colin!’ – and I have to leave it and start all over again later. What’s so good about it? What’s the point? Not to mention kissing the ground and confessing in Chapter every time I break a cup – even if it was already cracked – or lose my handkerchief. Or for the size and the gold I wasted because the Office bell interrupted me and I had to start over. And bowing! All of us on our feet and bowing when the abbot comes along the cloister – and then having to follow him and kneel and confess if I didn’t notice the first time! It –”
“Whoa! Whoa! Steady on! Can we try and untangle those things from each other? One at a time!”
Theodore unwinds his fingers from his rosary, rubs his eyes, thinking. “It does get a bit much,” he agrees, “when you’re new. And being in the right place at the right time – oh, that reminds me; you won’t forget to go to Father Chad in the library at some point after None – and to Father Gilbert as soon as we’ve finished here, to practise the music for Mass and rehearse your readings?”
The young man nods. “I’ve remembered. And Father, I’m sorry I made such a pig’s ear of the refectory reading yesterday. I went through it and through it, but…”
“It’s the Latin,” says Theodore, in quick sympathy, “along with being nervous. You’ll get the hang of it. Don’t worry about it. My fault. I should have realized you weren’t ready for it. Still, never mind, it was only a first foray.
“So, then; what about this chafing obedience? Let’s start with the matter of asking permission. I think of this as teaching us about community and responsibility. One of the main things we’ve given up is being able to say: ‘This is mine.’ Now nothing is mine. Having to ask every time is what reminds us. It recollects our minds to holy poverty. It makes us think about ‘us’ instead of ‘me’. It teaches us a discipline of being responsible and accountable too. You know, we could get almighty comfortable living as we do – defended by stout walls, provided for. A roof over our heads, food for our bellies. We have our own farm, our gardens and orchards, our bees and dovecotes, money coming in from our desmesnes. Without humble obedience, seeking permission to use things and asking pardon for clumsiness and carelessness, without even noticing it we could drift from a common life of holy poverty to the complacency of corporate wealth. Expecting it all to be there for us, no strings, no consequences to our actions.
“As to the ink and the gold – well, there’s the chance you wanted to use your initiative, surely? Pay attention to time passing, remember the wholeness of your day, the calling of your over-arching vocation. Remember that earthly things must be put aside, that there’s a call and a context to your life. Otherwise, like some worldly people do, you’ll get a shock when your time comes to die, lay it all aside however engrossed in it you are. Being alert, being watchful – it takes practice.”
He looks, questioning, at the postulant. Reluctantly, not entirely convinced, Colin nods in acquiescence. So Theodore continues. “It’s a renunciation of self-promotion and self-will, too. It fosters humility – all too beautiful at arm’s length in other people, a lot less attractive when it comes home.
“And then, the bowing; well, that’s humility too, in part. It teaches us what it’s hard for every man to grasp – that I am not the epi-centre of the world. But as well as that, when I rise in acknowledgment of our abbot entering, and bow to him, for me it’s saying ‘thank you’. It’s such a burden he carries, such a responsibility. Sometimes he gets so weary and so despondent – who wouldn’t? I bow to his courage and faithfulness, to his willingness to serve us. I bow to say how grateful I am that I don’t have to do it. Is that… does that help?”
Colin frowns. “You know what, Father? I’m not sure I really think like a monk yet. I see it but I don’t see it, all at the same time. When you explain it like that I catch the vision, but when it comes to the daily application, it irritates like getting dust in my eyes.”
Theodore smiles. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I ought to make one thing clear: it’s not that monks think any differently or get used to it. It goes right on being like mud in your leeks. It’s meant to. Humbling yourself, apologizing, giving way, speaking mildly, yielding your position – it’s not even second nature, it’s just hard. Only, it was what Jesus showed us to do because it’s necessary for love. I tell you what makes it feel worthwhile – it’s when you come to see that you’re on the receiving end of it, too. When it dawns on you that the kindly welcome held out to you is not your brother’s good luck in having a sunny nature, but him choosing to be gracious. Or when the ready forgiveness of some snide remark you made isn’t because it didn’t hurt him, but because he’s passing up resentment in favour of forbearance. In the battle that rages over every human soul, he’s got your back.”
Colin considers this, turning the thoughts over in his mind. “Going back to what you said about obedience and having to ask permission,” he says: “that it fosters community and responsibility. I can see the community bit, but how does it foster responsibility? Surely a man out in the world learns to be responsible because there’s no one to help him – no one else to do it for him. Here, we just learn to do as we’re told and leave the responsibility to our abbot.”
When there is no immediate answer to this, Colin glances at his novice master, and it crosses his mind that today Father Theodore looks very tired and somehow sad. He feels worried in case his questions push too hard and seem impertinent or feel burdensome. He wonders if he ought to apologize, but Theodore says: “Cast your mind around the monastery. Let it travel. Think of Brother Michael in the infirmary. I know what he’ll be doing today. Washing urine and excrement from men too old and ill to have control over their own bodies. Patiently feeding gruel to men who can no longer feed themselves. Washing their soiled sheets and bandages. Seeing to it that they get the right physic in the right doses at the right times so they aren’t in pain or too chesty. Talking to them so they aren’t lonely or afraid. Taking them outside to sit in the sunshine
, tucking them round with blankets so they aren’t cold. Checking supplies. Teaching Brother Benedict the skills of nursing. But I wonder what he was doing last night? Was he at Nocturns – did you see? I didn’t notice. Maybe he was sitting up all night long, keeping watch over someone near death, judging when to intervene, when to simply support someone’s journey home with all gentleness. If that isn’t responsibility, I don’t know what is.
“Or you might like to think about Brother Cormac in the checker. If he gets the orders wrong, or doesn’t keep up with market-place prices, or keeps slipshod records, the consequences will pass right along to the whole community – what repairs we can afford, who we can afford to employ, whether we have enough to eat, the standard of hospitality we can offer. Responsibility? I think so. The man in the checker decides what all of us eat.
“Or Brother Conradus in the kitchen, evaluating all the time how much to dole out and how much to spare, keeping the place clean and tidy, using his wonderful skills to see we have enough to fill our bellies and keep us in good heart, at the same time keeping faith with our commitment to simplicity and seeing we are not wasteful. Thinking about provision for guests and the abbot’s table as well as the community. Planning ahead. Ensuring the meal gets to the table when the bell rings, even on days we’re having hot bread. Managing to actually get to the Office himself! I’m glad I don’t have to do it!
“I won’t go on and on, I’m sure you get the point – but look: all these men live every day of their lives in obedience to their abbot. They surrender every skill and talent, all their strength and intelligence, to the community, in service of Christ. It’s all laid down, nothing held back. And what’s more it’s to be done in cheerfulness, making light of it, saying ‘this is nothing’ when it feels like barrel-scraping, scoured-out, gut-wrenching, wrung-to-the-dregs everything!”
A Day and a Life Page 8
