by Albert Holtz
He was, in fact, a close friend of the patron saint of lost articles, whom he sometimes referred to as “Tony.” Never in a rush, he always had time for his plants, his prayers, and the people around him. Although he never took himself too seriously, Denis had a lot to teach us younger monks about seeking God: Br. Denis, you see, had it right. I remember the exact day when I discovered that he knew the secret of where to look for God. It was right after Christmas.…
It is December 28, 1972. St. Benedict’s Prep has been closed for six months. The monks of Newark Abbey have decided to open some sort of a school using our now vacant facilities. We’ve come up here to “The Inn of the Spirit,” an old Catskills hotel-turned-retreat-house in Yulan, New York, for three days to share our dreams and try to give some practical shape to our vague hopes for a school.
We’re gathered in a circle in the sitting room of this old hotel. All but four or five of the monks are here. For two days now, in between walks in the wintry woods, we’ve been spending hours listening to one another’s ideas and hopes for a new school. We’ve been working our way through our own homemade questionnaire, answering questions about our personal philosophy of teaching, our own strong and weak points, our hopes and dreams, and then sharing the answers out loud with the group.
We’re on the question: “What is your theology of education?” It’s my turn to read my answer.
I clear my throat, to make sure everyone is listening. After all, I have just finished my Masters degree in Philosophy of Education at Columbia Teachers College, and this question gives me a chance to use what I’ve learned—and show off a little. I deliver a brief but dazzling discourse on the dignity of the individual and the school’s duty to call out the God-given gifts in each student. After finishing, I lean back in the squeaky sofa, quite pleased with my eloquent answer and look around at my brothers. If anyone else is impressed they’re not showing it. In the chair to my left is sixty-three-year-old Br. Denis. Now it’s his turn.
“What’s my theology of education?” He coughs self-consciously, shrugs, and looks down at his hands folded in his lap. The knuckles are all swollen with arthritis. Then he looks up and in a firm, gentle voice he says, “My theology of education? Well, I guess you just love the kids. That’s about it, I suppose. You just love the kids.” His jaw set firmly, he looks around quizzically at the rest of us through his thick glasses, as if wondering if there’s some catch behind such an obvious question.
There is an awed silence in the circle as his answer sinks in. We all seem to realize that Br. Denis has got it right. I, the expert with the Masters degree, try to make myself smaller by shrinking into the cushions. He has just laid out for us in five words the guiding principle for everything we need to do from now on: “You just love the kids.” Denis has taken Christ’s command “Love one another,” which is the principle by which he lives his own life, and has applied it to our nonexistent school with a logic that is frighteningly simple.
I wish now that I had listened to him better. Over the next few years, preoccupied with the practical details of designing a curriculum and organizing the nuts and bolts of the school, I often lost sight of Denis’ principle. I aimed instead for efficiency, for getting things done, not always appreciating the presence of Christ in the students who were all around me. I could quickly become irritable and cold with anyone whose needs or wants disrupted my efficient plans. But all that time, while I was so involved in what I thought was serious business, Br. Denis was quietly seeking and finding God in the really important things: cheering people up with a joke, caring lovingly for dozens of philodendrons and geraniums, sitting alone in church at 5:00 a.m. with his long list of names, and praying to “Tony” when something was lost. The whole time he still had it right.
I’m startled by a gentle tap on my left elbow. The reader has finished his account of Br. Denis’ life, and Fr. Mark wants me to pass the butter.
Maybe Denis has been praying for me lately, because I think I may finally be starting to catch on. It’s taken me a couple of decades and some difficult experiences of loving and grieving, but slowly I’ve discovered what Br. Denis knew all along: that loving is more important than “getting things done.” I’m starting to see that when people “interrupt” my work they are giving me a surprise opportunity to meet Jesus and sit and listen to him, the way Martha’s sister Mary did when he dropped in on them. All those urgent projects, those quizzes to be graded and deadlines to be met, seem less stressful when I see them as simply so many ways of using my gifts to “just love the kids.”
“You just love the kids.” Br. Denis had it right all along—and maybe I’m finally starting to get it right myself.
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
Imagine that it is early morning on Palm Sunday. Jesus is setting out from Jericho toward Jerusalem, about twenty miles away, where he is going to suffer and die. As the procession to the Holy City gets under way, join the crowd. Feel the jostling. Smell the smells. Listen to the crowd noises, and hear what various people are shouting. Get into the atmosphere of excitement. All at once Jesus stands still and puts up his hand as if to say, “Wait! I thought I just heard something!” The great parade to Jerusalem grinds to a halt. Everyone seems confused. “What’s happening? What is he doing?” people ask in hushed voices. “Why are we stopping?” You are wondering what Jesus could have heard to make him stop so suddenly. Then you hear it too, a feeble shout: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” It’s some blind man. A couple of disciples have gone over to tell him to be quiet (Mark 10:46–52).
A stranger beside you asks, “How could Jesus hear that faint voice in the middle of all the shouting?” Finish the scene.
Is there some important job, occupation, or activity that keeps you so busy that you might not hear the voices of others in your life when they call to you for healing or help or simply for some attention?
RULE OF BENEDICT
“To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers; to God, loving fear; to their abbot, unfeigned and humble love.” (Chapter 72, “The Good Zeal of Monks,” vv 8–10)
THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM: WILLIAM
“Well, we finally found out who’s been getting into the gym locker room at night,” Fr. Ed says as we walk down the hallway toward the cafeteria.
I shiver as I picture some shadowy stranger rooting around in our building in the middle of the night.
“Somebody’s been stealing stuff?” I ask. I hadn’t heard anything about it.
“No. But the maintenance guys were sure that somebody was getting in there at night. Nothing was missing, but there were little things out of place. You’ll never guess who it was.”
“Do I know him?”
“Sure!” he answers. “Remember William? A kid from last year? Tall guy, skinny?”
“Oh yeah! William! Had him in class.” A quiet kid, but he’d had a rough time trying to get it together. One of the few students I’ve ever flunked, in fact. He had failed several subjects and so had decided to transfer to another school where he could graduate on time.
Fr. Ed starts answering my next question before I can ask it: “His family life is a disaster. Maybe you knew that already.”
I didn’t, but it doesn’t surprise me.
“The last few weeks it got worse. His life just started coming apart and he had nowhere to turn. No real family to speak of. The only place he could think of where he felt safe after dark was here. So he started sneaking in at night to sleep on a bench in the locker room.”
I try to imagine how it feels to be sixteen and to have no family to count on, no stable world around you. But then, I think, we must be doing something right if William remembered this as a safe place, somewhere where he would feel okay, protected. Maybe he got something out of his two years with us after all.
The big chain-link fence that runs around the edge of the Abbey’s property is more than just protection. (And maybe not even very good protection: It didn’t seem to stop William!) It also mar
ks off the boundaries. It says, “This place is different. It’s not like the rest of downtown. Strange things happen here: Guys walk around in black gowns and hoods, get up at five o’clock in the morning to pray, work for no pay, and spend lots of time in prayer and silence.” Definitely different—and strange, at least to the outside world’s way of thinking.
For example, it’s the date of your entry into the monastery that determines your rank in the community. The things that establish the pecking order in society—intelligence, ability, personality, social standing, wealth, and so on—don’t count for much here. This flies in the face of the wisdom of the corporate world and the street, where Darwin’s rules of survival favor the strong and the smart.
There’s a painting by the Quaker Edward Hicks called “Peaceable Kingdom” which shows an image from the prophecy of Isaiah, where a lion is lying down beside a lamb and a little child is playing with a snake. The monastery works at creating a “peaceable kingdom” where the mindless pursuits of power, prestige, and possessions are done away with and replaced by the single-minded search for God. This monastic ideal, which is really just the Christian ideal anyway, is what life, at its best, is actually about. This is what we human beings are made for: not for material accomplishments but for selfless, mutual love. It’s what we are all searching for, whether we realize it or not, and it’s where we’re all heading in any case. The Peaceable Kingdom is supposed to be coming into existence in our hearts, our homes, and our schools, but it doesn’t just happen. Like all Christians who pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we have to work consciously at creating it all over again every day.
Monks live out this reality a little more explicitly than other Christians by our life of common ownership, humility, celibacy, and obedience. Our life can remind people that some day, when all the things the world values have passed away, there will be nothing left but love, the one thing that lasts.
We mark off a very real space in downtown Newark as a peaceable kingdom that includes a monastery, a parish church, a few school buildings, a garden, and some playing fields. Then we share the good news of the kingdom with others by inviting them inside the boundaries of our place. They come for lots of reasons—to celebrate a prayerful liturgy with us, to join the parish community, to be educated in our schools, to get a bag of canned goods, sometimes to join the monastic family by taking vows. It’s far from perfect, of course. We have our share of sin and pain and ugliness, but we keep at the business of searching for God. The people who are drawn to the place manage, too, despite our imperfections, to meet and be touched by the Lord.
“I talked with him a while this morning,” Fr. Ed continues. “It’s really sad. The poor guy couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, anybody to turn to.”
In the Prologue of the Holy Rule, Benedict calls the monastery “a school of the Lord’s service.” Any school is, like the monastery, an artificial environment. It’s not supposed to be like the rest of the world, but is meant to be a place apart. In the Peaceable Kingdom, unlike the larger culture, you take special care of the young, the elderly, the sick, and the weak. It is expected that all of us will make mistakes, and that we will use them to learn valuable lessons in humility and patience. Not surprisingly, some of Benedict’s rules for the monastery also make good Christian educational philosophy. Take, for example, this maxim: “Let every attempt be made that the strong have things to strive for and the weak nothing to flee from.”
To those who might object that the Kingdom inside our fence is “unreal,” I suggest you talk to William. When the rest of his world was collapsing he remembered the feel of the Peaceable Kingdom and was drawn back to it because the love and genuine acceptance he’d found here were the most authentically human, life-giving, and “real” experiences he’d ever had.
We’re at the door of the cafeteria. “Okay,” I say to Fr. Ed, “See you later. Thanks for the news about William.”
“Sure. See you around. Let me see what’s going on in here.” As the headmaster turns to step into the lunch room, I continue down the hallway. I have a French quiz to give in another part of the Kingdom.
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
Here is Isaiah’s vision of the “Peaceable Kingdom” as found in Isaiah11:6–9:
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the
adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Reflect on the family or community in which you live. Think about the times when it is most “peaceable” and then the times when it is full of discord. Is there something you are willing and able to do to make that group more of a peaceable kingdom? Is there something you are unwilling to sacrifice in order to build a peaceable kingdom there?
RULE OF BENEDICT
“Therefore we intend to establish a school for the Lord’s service. In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome.” (Prologue, vv. 45–46)
“The only sound is the steady, whispered crunch of six inches of new snow beneath my feet.” (Page 48)
2.
SEARCHING
IN THE EVERYDAY
THE GOD OF TODAY: CROW TALK
Never listen to crows; they can be a very bad influence.
The air in the cloister garden is cool and fresh. Since the sun has barely begun to lighten the eastern sky I decide to wait a few minutes before starting to read, so I lay my Bible beside me on the bench and just enjoy the calm. Everything is quiet, except for the muted background whisper of distant cars and trucks. The reds and purples of Fr. Maynard’s impatiens and the yellows and pinks of the roses are still gray in the semidarkness. In the far corner looms a twenty-foot sequoia, planted thirty years ago as a seedling. No one told the little tree that giant sequoias can’t grow in downtown Newark, and it has taken root and grown lush and tall, proud. Talk about blooming where you’re planted!
A raucous crow breaks the silence. I spot him five stories up on the edge of the monastery roof. When another crow answers him from the shadows, I smile knowingly. I’ve recently come to understand some of their language, thanks to one of my favorite saints.
A week ago I read a sermon by St. Caesarius of Arles, who died just about the time St. Benedict was born. In it the bishop says to his listeners, “Hear what the Lord says to you if you hope wrongly and procrastinate from day to day: ‘Delay not to be converted to God.’ You however, reply: tomorrow, tomorrow! O crow-like word!”
The Latin word for “tomorrow” is “cras,” which sounds to Caesarius like a crow’s call. He continues, “The raven sent out from the ark did not return, and has now grown old and says: Cras! Cras! It has a crow-like voice—a white head but a black heart. Cras! Cras! is the voice of the crow.”
The bishop is referring to a verse in Genesis, chapter eight, “At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark, and he sent out a raven to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.” That’s the last we hear of the raven. Despite that fact that there was no place to land, it never came back, presumably because it kept telling itself, “Cras! I’ll return tomorrow.” But tomorrow never came. So Noah sent out a dove instead, which, as we all know, did return, and gave to the world the symbol of the olive branch. Caesarius concludes, “The raven did not return to the ark, the dove did. Therefore let the noise of the crow perish, let the sigh of the dove be present.”
The doves that live in the sequoia tree are quiet th
is morning.
A second big crow swoops up and perches high on top of the school building. The two continue their loud plans,
“Cras! Cras! Tomorrow!”
“Cras! Cras!” agrees the other enthusiastically. The lively conversation goes back and forth.
“Cras?” asks the crow from his perch atop the monastery.
“Cras! Tomorrow things will be different!” answers the other.
A few devout Christians think like crows, always looking ahead to heaven, their gaze fixed on the next life, and never living in the present. They spend their todays getting ready for tomorrow. Others of us sound more like crows when we say things like, “After I’ve overcome this particular vice and get myself together, then I’ll be ready to start praying.” Or, “When I get that raise, then I won’t be so stressed.” Or, “Maybe next fall I can make time to go and help in the soup kitchen.” The crow’s call robs today of its meaning and lets us waste our lives in inaction and laziness.
We have other ways, too, of letting today slip by. It happens to me sometimes when I get too busy. You can’t tell just by looking at me that I’m living outside of the present moment. For instance, if you saw me sitting in the monastery refectory during one of these attacks, you’d probably say that I’m eating breakfast. But I’m not really—most of me is already over in my office working on the first job of the day, a printout of students who received Fs on their report cards. Then I shift to the lesson plan I still have to do for class, and thirty seconds later I’m reminding myself to sign out a monastery car for this afternoon’s meeting. Then I calculate what time I’ll have to leave to get there by 3:30. At this point you’ll notice me suddenly stare down at the now-empty bowl trying to remember what kind of cereal I’ve just eaten. I wasn’t around to taste it. Too bad, too, because I’ve just blown an opportunity to meet the Lord. I could have been enjoying the flavor and the color of the cereal, or looking out at the morning sun bouncing off of the roses in the garden while I ate. Or I might have thought to give thanks that while lots of people in the city have to go hungry this morning, I’ve got something to eat.
