Downtown Monks

by Albert Holtz

  OF THE JOURNEY

  HOPE: ADVENT ON MARKET STREET

  The December wind lashes my face as I turn onto Market Street for the last leg of my long walk. These days it’s already almost dark at four o’clock. As I lean into the wind and head up the street, I’m struck by the fact that although Christmas is only ten days away, there are hardly any holiday decorations to be seen. An anemic string of lights blinks in front of the Chinese take-out place, and a few strands of tinsel do their best to liven up the hardware store window. On each of the light poles the city has put up a colorful banner displaying a generic holiday symbol: a candle, a trumpet, a snowflake, a wreath. The candle banner reminds me that this evening the monks will gather in the refectory before supper for the Abbot to bless the third of the four candles on our family advent wreath.

  The rich readings and rituals of Advent speak right to the heart of the Christian life and the monastic project: waiting in joyful hope. Like our Israelite ancestors, we are a people of the promise, being drawn forward through history not by the sight of God’s face here and now, but by the vision of a mysterious, glorious future. St. Augustine in his Confessions puts it, “We are made for you, O God, and our soul is restless until it rests in you.” Hoping in a future is part of being human. Hope has inspired people throughout history to deeds of heroism, sacrifice, and greatness.

  The sad saga of humanity, however, is that as the hoping stretches on and on, and our expectations are repeatedly frustrated, we often lose our nerve. Impatient and depressed because our life seems to have no meaning, we turn to cheap substitutes—money, prestige, possessions. Somehow, we trust, they will give life some semblance of meaning, and more important, some immediate satisfaction.

  “Fr. Al?” It’s the mother of one of my French students.

  “Mrs. Winslowe? It’s good to see you,” I respond, shaking her hand. “How’s everything?” Then I notice her daughter, a kindergarten student in St. Mary’s school, holding her mother’s hand. “Hi! How are you this afternoon?” I ask the little girl. But she’s being shy today. So I wink at her and turn back to her mother.

  “Well, anyway,” I continue, “how are you doing?”

  “Oh, fine! I’m just so busy with shopping and whatnot, trying to get ready for Christmas.”

  “I know what you mean! It can get crazy this time of year.”

  “You got that right! I’ll be glad when it’s all over!” she admits.

  “Well, listen, I’ve got to get back up the hill. Nice seeing you. And you too, Alicia.”

  “Alicia, say g’bye to Father.” She crinkles her fingers in a bashful wave, which I return with a smile. Then I turn back into the wind.

  Mrs. Winslowe said, “I’ll be glad when it’s over.” How many people, if they were honest, would say the same thing?

  The hectic, pre-Christmas shopping season is probably our culture’s most powerful example of misplaced hope. The deep hunger and longing inside each of us draws us to the shopping malls by the millions as merchants count down the days left before Christmas. Even Christians, who are supposed to know better, get caught up in consumerism’s blind rush after false hopes and empty promises, scurrying around faster and faster to finish their shopping. Year after year we go through the exhausting ritual of preparing for “the holidays,” waiting for a payoff that never comes. The fact that every year we get disappointed doesn’t seem to deter us, though. By next year we’ll have forgotten the fiasco and join one more time in the hectic rush, determined that this time it’ll work. “Hope,” someone said, “springs eternal. …”

  Yet when you picture life in the center of our cities, “hope” is about the last word that comes to mind. Not even holiday shopping time seems to help. If the pre-Christmas season is often shallow and materialistic in the suburban malls, it’s even worse for the poor of our cities for whom even the hollow promises of the consumer religion are out of reach. That’s why celebrating Advent downtown is so crucial: folks who live here seem to need its message of promise more than most people.

  The insistent booming of a rap song throbs from a speaker in front of a clothing shop, assaulting everyone, young and old, with a stream of angry obscenities—not exactly Bing Crosby singing “Silver Bells.” I hurry to get past without being too obvious about it.

  In our neighborhood, where there is little hope of escaping, and no sense of looking forward to a brighter future, the holidays provoke a wave of frustration, anger, and violence. That’s why one of the surest signs of the holidays downtown is the presence of more policemen on the streets—along with an increase in assaults and domestic disputes.

  Monks, even more than other Christians, have the chance to lead lives that clearly point past the material preoccupations of the world to a realm visible only to the eyes of faith, a kingdom of mustard seeds and buried grains of wheat. Our way of living ought to make us a sign of hope to our neighbors, a sign that says “Be patient! There’s more to the Kingdom than what you can see right here and now—and we’re betting our lives on it!” Here in the center of the city, this witness of quiet, patient hope is our most subtle, but also our most important gift to our neighbors. Another candle banner flutters unnoticed overhead. “May this candle,” says tonight’s prayer over the advent wreath, “remind us of Jesus the light of the world as we call upon him whose coming we prepare for and await.” As I climb up the last two blocks of our hill, I look at the school buildings and the church tower. I’m suddenly humbled by the thought that God has called us to be keepers of the vision in the middle of the city’s bustle, busyness, and holiday frustrations, like advent candles quietly reflecting the promise of another and better world.

  The bells start to sing out from our church tower, riding the cold wind down the hill, inviting everyone to Vespers. As I quicken my pace up the windy hill, I start humming tonight’s advent hymn:

  O Come, divine Messiah,

  The world in darkness waits the day

  When hope shall sing its triumph

  And sadness flee away.

  SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION

  Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4–7)

  St. Paul encourages the Christian community to live in love because “the Lord is near.” For Paul, belief in the future coming of Christ is not just an intellectual idea, but a call to live in a certain way: to be charitable, joyful, peaceful, and persevering. Look at your personal priorities, and ask yourself whether they reflect your belief that there is more to life than the passing promises of this world. Do you ever respond to the plight of victims of urban poverty or world hunger so that they can have some sense of hope for the future? How might you share with others the gift of hope that you have received?

  RULE OF BENEDICT

  “Let us get up then, at long last, for the scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep.” (Prologue, v. 8)

  DIMINISHMENT: CHUCK TAYLORS

  One morning some years ago, back when we could all fit into the cafeteria for convocation, I came to realize that I still had a long way to go before I could start pointing a finger at teenagers.

  “What?” A junior who has been sleeping his way through morning convocation in the row in front of me is now suddenly wide awake. “No way! He’s gotta be kidding, man!”

  “Chucks? I ain’t wearing no Chucks!” The sophomore sitting next to me grumbles under his breath. All around, a rebellious rumble of complaints is welling up among the three hundred students seated in neat rows in the cafeteria.

  The headmaster has just dropped a bombshell: from now on, the only kind of sneakers that students will be allowed to wear for gym class will be Converse All-Stars, the “Chuck Taylor” model, with b
lack tops. Known popularly as “Chucks,” they sell for about twenty dollars a pair.

  “Well, that’s what’s gonna happen in September,” the headmaster continues. “The Executive Committee of the Parents’ Organization suggested it a while ago, and we announced it to your parents at the meeting last night. They all clapped. They thought it was a great idea.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t have to wear them!” quips a comedian in the back. Everybody laughs, but there are still grumbled protests in the air.

  A few of the young faces around me show disbelief, disgust, and disappointment. For a lot of our students, your sneakers are a way of expressing who you are, a statement about your deep-down self. The more you spend on them, of course, the better. (In fact, if your mother has the good sense to buy basketball shoes at a discount store, you save face by simply telling everybody you paid a higher price.)

  “How come? Why can’t we just wear whatever sneakers we want?” comes a respectful but pointed challenge from a senior.

  “Because you guys are dopey enough to pay $125 for a pair of basketball shoes,” answers the headmaster, “and then you leave them sitting around somewhere. And after you lose them, your parents are dopey enough to go out and buy you another pair. It’s ridiculous. If you have that kind of money to waste on sneakers, then I’m going to raise the tuition!”

  The dissent is now reduced to tooth-sucking and headshaking. Fr. Ed has just won another battle in the never-ending war against the Street.

  Besides being easier on parents’ pocketbooks, the move to have everybody wear “Chucks” is teaching something important: with all the needy people in our city (not to mention the Third World), a Christian should want to think hard before spending $125 for a pair of gym shoes.

  I can almost feel the sense of loss in the crowded room. It makes me feel kind of smug. Look at these kids! I grumble to myself. They put so much stock in material things. They need to have some idea about living frugally and simply, like us monks. Take me, for instance. I’m not attached to anything. There’s nothing that I have that I couldn’t let go of easily.

  Suddenly a vivid memory comes back to me. I’m rolling on the frozen grass clutching my knee and shouting in pain through tightly clenched teeth. A circle of worried faces is staring down at me, causing a time-out in the student-faculty touch-football game. Just when I think I’m going to pass out from the pain, my kneecap seems to readjust itself and the agony subsides. At the age of thirty-eight I have just said goodbye forever to the anterior cruciate ligament in my left knee.

  As I hop to the locker room, leaning on a fellow faculty member, I realize vaguely that I’m leaving something important behind me on that field: The ideal of perpetual youthfulness. I don’t like the feeling, and don’t let go very gracefully. Eleven weeks on crutches, however, will give me plenty of time to get used to the idea.

  “Any more questions about sneakers for gym class?” asks the headmaster. A brief, stony silence.

  I start to think of other things that I have had to say good-bye to. Every time I get my hair cut, for example, Joe the barber tells me in his Italian accent, “Hey, Padre Alberto, you know, I can remember when your hair was black like coal. Now it’s all gray.” Entries in my journal during the early 1970s often start out something like: “Feb. 19, 1974. 12:45 a.m. Today was a busy day. …” It was after midnight and I was sitting down to write in my journal! Nowadays I start wilting before nine o’clock.

  “What if you already bought some other kind of sneakers for gym?”

  “I can’t stop you from wearing them at home,” Fr. Ed answers, “but you’re not wearing them in gym class.”

  Everybody knows that life is a process of constant diminishment. As our bodies and our various abilities and powers start to weaken and fade, some of us accept this and make it part of our story, but others go kicking and screaming—yet diminished just the same.

  For Christians, this natural process has a deeply spiritual dimension: it is a way of identifying with Christ who emptied himself for us, taking on human weakness, even to his passion and death on the cross. As limitations start to close in on me, I can see them as my share in the diminishment that Jesus suffered. They are God’s way of getting me right where I need to be—vulnerable and open to divine grace. My losses are a way of warming me up for that one final act of detachment when I’ll be bereft of everything. They are unmistakable signs that the Bridegroom I’m waiting for will be coming some time, and I had better be ready to go out and meet him.

  Monks practice poverty and asceticism, and meditate often on the cross and on the Lord’s coming at the end of time. We ought to be able to show the rest of the world how to do this right, how to suffer little diminishments gracefully. But even though I try to do this “getting older” business with as much good humor as possible, deep down inside I still don’t like letting go of these things—it’s like someone taking away my Air Jordans and making me wear Chucks instead.

  “So in September,” the headmaster concludes, rubbing a little salt in the wound, “the Physical Education department will have sneaks on sale here.” Their long faces are eloquent—they don’t like the idea at all.

  Hang in there, guys. I know the feeling.

  SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION

  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

  who, though he was in the form of God,

  did not regard equality with God

  as something to be exploited,

  but emptied himself,

  taking the form of a slave,

  being born in human likeness.

  And being found in human form,

  he humbled himself

  and became obedient to the point of death—

  even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)

  Jesus emptied himself to become one of us. Have you ever experienced being “emptied” against your will, or had something taken away from you that you were attached to? What did it feel like? What did God teach you by the experience? Is there some way in which you are being called to voluntarily let go of some privilege or power that is rightly yours? Ask yourself if this very moment might just be one of those times when God is giving you a special grace—the ability to let go right now.

  RULE OF BENEDICT

  “The disciples’ obedience must be given gladly, for God loves a cheerful giver. If a disciple obeys grudgingly and grumbles, not only aloud but also in his heart, then, even though he carries out the order, his action will not be accepted with favor by God, who sees that he is grumbling in his heart.” (Chapter 5, “Obedience,” vv. 16–18)

  TRAVELING LIGHT: THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL

  I stick my thumbs under the shoulder straps of my backpack and shrug the weight up a little higher on my shoulders. The eight students hiking single file in front of me have been chattering non-stop. They seem to have a lot more energy than I do this morning. I’m already aching in muscles that I didn’t know I had, and the blister on my left foot is starting to bother me—and it’s only ten o’clock!

  This is the third day of the fifty-three-mile freshman backpacking hike along the Appalachian Trail in the mountains of northern New Jersey. We’re due to finish up in the Delaware Water Gap in another two days.

  “Oh, sweat!” a voice shouts from the front of the line. The students collect in a circle to stare at something on the ground. I bring up the rear and peek between two backpacks to see the great attraction. All I can make out is an ordinary groundhog hole about ten inches across. I don’t know why that should be such a big deal.

  “Damn! Imagine the size of the rat that lives in that hole?” someone marvels nervously, his voice a mixture of wonder and fear. I stifle a laugh. The teacher in me wants to correct him, but the child in me says to keep my mouth shut.

  “Man, I ain’t waitin’ around here to see,” a second voice chimes in.

  “Let’s get goin’!” adds another, uneasily, stepping backward, his eyes riveted on the ominous opening in the ground.
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br />   The city slickers hustle off down the trail and plunge into a green tunnel of mountain laurel and dogwoods. Nobody dares look back.

  Little incidents like this are only part of what makes the hike so enjoyable. Early this morning I stood with a group of hikers at the edge of a cliff and watched in awed silence as, far below us, a hawk soared above the cottony fluff of clouds that filled the valley. Yesterday there was the top of Sunrise Mountain, with its welcome breeze and breathtaking view. Monday it was a noisy brook that chuckled and sloshed invitingly alongside the trail.

  The Appalachian Trail is not always a smooth path. At times it is nothing more than a series of white blazes on trees and stones stretching across a field of sharp, punishing rocks. At other times it’s a stairway of boulders, with steps two feet high. This is why I want to keep my pack as light as possible.

  I’ve picked up little hints from avid backpackers, people who make it a point of honor never to carry even a single ounce more than they have to. You can, for example, cut the handle of your toothbrush down to two inches, carry only a quarter of a bar of soap, half a towel, and a quarter of a roll of toilet paper (we call it “all-purpose paper”) with the useless cardboard core removed. You have two sets of shirts and socks: you wear one set while the other, which you’ve washed in a stream, gets pinned on the outside of your pack to dry in the sun as you hike. The demands of traveling light force you to decide what you really need and what you can get along without.

  All Christians are called to be seekers, to journey toward the kingdom. In the Prologue to his Rule, Benedict uses several images of journeying, such as, “If we wish to dwell in the tent of this kingdom, we will never arrive unless we run there by doing good deeds.” The trick is to “travel light” through life, carrying only the most necessary baggage. Jesus tells his seventy-two disciples as they set out, “On the journey do not carry a walking stick nor a traveling bag. Do not wear sandals on your feet.” He wants them to rely on God’s providence alone to see them through.