by Rolf Nelson
Communion was given, with Charles “Clint” Gronsky acting as the “altar boy,” the tallest anyone had ever seen. The novice monks who could not yet take Communion stood silently and respectfully aside while the Eucharist and wine were consumed by the abbot and then the other brothers.
When Communion was completed, a prayer for the day’s coming activities and the men performing them was said, led by Father Mathews and added to by Mickey, Hugh, and Aziz. Joshua led them in Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus, which required most of those present to read from a hymnal to follow along. It wasn’t a pretty rendition, as most of them sang “in the key of pirate,” but it sufficed to introduce the tune and words so they could practice later. But as Prior McKale reminded them yet again, God heard the heart of the singer much more loudly than his voice.
With Mass concluded, Bill approached Mathews quietly. “Been thinking. It might be time for you to show us how baptisms are done.”
“Oh, really?” the prior replied with a big smile. “Anyone I know?”
“Yeah, I think so. And I don’t have a very heavy schedule this afternoon.”
“I believe we may find the time to work a baptism in. Indoor, or are you set on the outdoor commitment?”
“Outside.”
“In this weather? You sure?”
“This thing only happens once. May as well make it something I can’t forget.”
* * *
The upcoming sacrament had been the subject of more argument than Abbot Cranberry had expected, though Mickey said he wasn’t surprised at all, given the background of the men. As many people were looking forward to it as dreading it. On Abbot Cranberry’s part, he’d performed many baptisms and knew the rite well. He longed to see the first member here who had never been baptized receive its grace, but when he’d explained what exactly it involved to the assembled men, some who were not raised Catholic thought it was a very wimpy ceremony for the significance it claimed. For a man who’d had airborne wings pinned to his chest—quite literally so—getting a bit of water sprinkled and a dab of oil while holding a candle seemed more than a tad anticlimactic. They associated candlelight vigils with useless pacifist virtue signaling and socialist competitive victimhood claiming. And hadn’t John the Baptist used a river for the baptism of Jesus himself?
Thomas had argued that it wasn’t what they thought that was important but what God thought, and the Catholic way involved water sprinkling, not immersion. That was what the Baptist sect did. The unbaptized men were divided. Most, including Bill, thought such a small ceremony would be something they’d be able to dismiss too easily and wanted an event which was more memorable to help them keep their vows. Besides, it wasn’t like they had a real church to perform it in yet.
Others, such as Ken, were fine with the ceremony being as small and convenient as possible because, well, it was just a ceremony that had to be done to move on to the next stage of things. Thomas had to talk to him for a while after that, but he still wasn’t sure that his student understood the significance of it all.
In the end, after a long prayer session for guidance, Abbot Cranberry relented and agreed with Father McKale Mathews and those who opted for a more old-fashioned approach. A procedure rather more significant than he was used to was outlined, discussed, and readied, but it didn’t get used immediately.
* * *
Everyone was gathered at the little creek that flowed out of the next valley over and across the edge of the abbey’s property. It was shallow and rocky, but they had spent time clearing out and dredging an area the size of a modest hot tub in the first month. Not having anything like a proper church, Thomas agreed that a creek would suffice. The clear water chuckled merrily along the rocky course, fed by snowmelt, tugged by gravity, and slowing in the wider, deeper baptismal pond. An icy wind blew lightly under cobalt skies with a whip of cirrus. Stark white snow contrasting with black water, dark green trees, brown earth and robes, and with the bleak sun overhead it made a striking impression on all the brothers present.
“Looks very inviting, Brother Bill,” said Clint. “Downright tropical, if I may say so.”
Bill stood on the bank of the creek wearing the white baptismal alb but wearing a parka over it. “Care to join me, Brother Tough Guy?”
“Nope. Been there, done that. Got dunked in the Murghab River after one too many really close calls on patrol. In summer. Warmer, but a whole lot more polluted.”
Abbot Cranberry waded without flinching into the icy water to the deepest part. The water rose to mid-thigh and his robes trailed into it and moved gently downstream around his legs. Knowing that it was the first baptism of a new monastery warmed him, and part of him wanted to make a big deal of it. But in keeping with the desire for an ascetic “simple and to the point” rite, and a practical desire to avoid hypothermia, he decided that the straightforward approach was best.
Abbot Thomas addressed the assembled. “What is your name?”
“William Hewett Strohheim.”
“And who sponsors you here today, William?”
“I do,” replied Clint and Hugh together.
Abbot Cranberry waved William “Bill” Strohheim down into the water with him; Bill shed the parka and carefully walked down into the icy creek, doing his best to make no more obvious notice than the older abbot had. Bill knelt in the frigid current, letting the water rise past his waist. With Thomas’s assistance he plunged in to become fully immersed in the creek.
“I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” intoned Abbot Thomas, saying it three times rapidly while holding the brother beneath the glacially clear and placid surface for the full, if brief, ceremony before lifting his face back above the crystal flow.
When Bill stood, Thomas put a dab of chrism oil on his thumb from a conveniently located oil bottle on his belt (Ken had reckoned earlier that the rigid leather pouch looked, quite appropriately, like a magazine holder) and put a cross of the holy oil on the newly dunked man’s forehead.
“Welcome to the Communion-able, Brother Bill!”
Bill smiled as he waded back to shore. Clint, waiting for him by the shore, handed him a tall candle lantern with a tall white candle in it that flickered in the slight wind. Through clenched teeth to keep them from chattering, Bill said jokingly “Water’s fine, Brothers! Next!”
To everyone’s surprise, Allan and Tim both started carefully down the slippery bank simultaneously. Seeing each other move, they each tried to make way for the other.
“You first! Age before beauty,” began Allan.
“Oh, no, learning before concussions, my good brother,” replied Tim.
“Brother Allan, you are closest,” prompted the abbot. “You may go next.”
Allan stood before his abbot. “What is your name?” Thomas asked formally.
“Allan T Bransfield. No middle name, just the initial.”
“And who sponsors you here today?
Ten hands went up. “Any preference, Allan?” asked Cranberry.
“Not sure. They all look pretty shady.” The abbot looked at Allan severely. “Ah, I guess Joshua and Luke. Clint and Hugh will be awfully busy with Bill.”
Thomas had to laugh in spite of himself. “So be it. Kneel.”
Another quick immersion and chanted words, and Allan was welcomed as another newly minted member of those who could take Communion. When he emerged, Bill handed him the candle lantern and peeled off the white alb to drape over the other sodden man’s shoulder. Then, Bill wiped a mix of tears and creek water from his eyes as he also moved vigorously to generate body heat. Fortunately, Bishop Cranberry had heard of adult baptisms that resulted in a chain of more submersions and incantations (though those were usually among the Baptists rather than the more stately and organized Catholics), so he’d been at least prepared enough to have Mickey bring a couple of extra blankets in case any of the brothers decided that now was the time in spite of—or maybe because of—the temperature.
Thomas
couldn’t feel his toes, or really anything below the knee, and he suspected his legs were blue by the time he’d done his eighth submersion. They didn’t have enough blankets for everyone.
The eight soggy brothers were alternately crying, whooping, standing motionless, and running around. It was at a moment a silent, solemn affair and a circus with the clown-car escaping. It was an emotional afternoon, and the run back to the house was as much to burn off the sudden excess energy as it was to warm up and get back to the heat of the stove.
Amos added more water to the pot for hot tea, and the recently submerged stripped off wet clothes, toweled briskly dry, and donned dry garments as fast as they could amid the rejoicing.
Thomas was right—his legs were blue. So were his lips, hands, and most of the rest of his body. But, oddly, the normal painful tingle associated with returning circulation when cold didn’t bother him in the least, or at least he didn’t notice when he had four extra volunteers to sing Vespers that evening.
So a new tradition was instituted, with this first and highly memorable baptism.
Spring
If a principle exists it must be immutable, for that is what a principle is—a truth standing apart from the mood of the times.
—Col. Jeff Cooper
With spring came the thaw. The mud didn’t last long, but it quickly became obvious that the fields they’d thought to start plowing and planting for a garden would take a LOT of work. The soil was rocky. Very rocky. In some places the rocks were soiled. Neighbors told them most of the folks in the valleys like this grazed cattle and sheep and did the occasional bit of logging rather than planting fields.
During a meditation break, Clint stared off across the field with a magnificent crop of cobbles and small boulders for the fifth time in as many days. The stones clearly needed stacking. So he hummed a tune they’d been working on for a new song—a canticle or hymn, he was a little fuzzy on the difference, still—while he started clearing an area and stacking a cairn in the middle of it. He worked steadily and carefully. Soon he had a very noticeable and neat pile of rock. He used the more angular, broken pieces for “walls,” and the more rounded, weathered, or water-smoothed rocks as fill. Jack and Amos joined him, mostly picking up the obvious ones on the surface but also digging a few half-buried rocks out if they looked like they might be useful. It was nearly two hours later that they really stood back and admired their handiwork.
“Ya’know,” said Clint thoughtfully, looking back and forth between the cairn, the arena, the ranch house, and the field littered with igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary residue, “ya’know, I bet… I bet there is enough rock here to build something serious. Serious and beautiful.”
Amos and Jack looked at him, followed his gaze, and thought about it, too.
“Local building material,” replied Amos, “would cut costs. Drive the tractor along with a dump trailer, toss in rocks, and make a heap where the next building will be. Toss them in when making foundations and all. It would stretch the cement a long way.”
“Huh. It would. Rubble walls like how castles were made, too.” The others looked blankly at Clint, not getting his reference. “Middle Ages. Castle walls were closely fitted stone on the face to make them hard to climb, but between the two vertical faces it was just a jumble of field stone like this, with just enough cement or binder to make it stick together. A lot of this—” he hefted a piece of smooth-faced and angular sedimentary rock “—should be easy to build real walls with. Add some re-bar, rubble fill, and cement, and you’d have something classic looking and amazingly durable.”
“Dunno. Be a lot of work.”
“Doubter. We’ll have hundreds of guys here for years. Tractors for the real backbreaking hauling and big lifting, but hands for the trimming and fitting and cementing. It might be a lot of fun.” He looked out across the many acres of field. “Must be at least enough for the foundation. And if more comes up when we plow, we just walk the field again. If we have too much, we start to make fences, like the things you see in the postcards from England or Ireland. Or even colonial America. Lots of stone walls and fences in New England.” He started to warm to the subject. “I mean, can you imagine what a newcomer would think, coming out to a place like this? Instead of seeing a beige sheet-metal arena, he sees a stone fortress to God, built by hand by his brother monks, with crenellations and everything? Something that looks like, I don’t know, steam-punk medieval, with stone and iron and wood and bronze? Big hairy-assed Possenti Cross on the door–”
“Ahem.”
“–scuze me, very large and impressive Possenti Cross, maybe up on the entry tower. Big church with flying stone buttresses on one side showing up impressively over the wall, with big beams over the nave—heck, we could get a portable sawmill and use local trees for those, too. Perhaps a moat and drawbridge outside. Model it somewhat after the Knights’ Templar churches and forts. It would look impressive, and it could also act as a very real defense in time of insecurity. Stone doesn’t burn, and a foot or two of rock would be pretty bulletproof.”
“At least against rifle bullets. Masonry walls are not so good against tank rounds, as I recall,” said Amos.
“Well, no, course not. But I don’t think we’d have to worry about those here.”
“Also great temperature regulation. Lots of thermal mass in rock.”
“Crenellations?” asked Amos.
“You know, those up-and-down things to hide behind, or toss things over between, on a castle wall? The merlons—the high part—usually had arrow loops in them, so the defender could stay well protected while shooting. To hit him you’d have to get your arrow through a two or three inch wide gap, and at that distance it would be hard. Like firing ports on an APC.”
“Hmmm. Yeah,” said Jack, warming to the idea. “And if the walls were wide enough, it would be a great place to sit, look out over the field, and meditate. Or walk a guard detail. Or sing Matins. We can’t get very many on the roof safely as it is. But a big castle wall? Oh, man, that would be cool. Awesome tribute to God and a magnificent fort to bring out the child and chivalrous knight who hides in every boyhood dream.”
“And if we need more stone, just expand the field a bit further.” Clint did a quick mental calculation, looking at the rock cairn, the cleared area, and a simple estimate of wall volume. “Or maybe a lot further. Depends on how much usable stone plowing kicks up.” Thomas had been talking about longer-term plans and thinking about a building with an interior courtyard some hundred yards or more on a side, like an ancient Roman walled compound, so there would be sufficient training space, individual cells, a refectory for meals, storage, kitchens, a cloister for running laps or inclement weather, and all the other things they wished to include. It wouldn’t happen fast, but with a hundred or more strong backs, a tractor with a dumping trailer, some plowing…. It was doable. Not today, or this year even. But laying the foundation could happen before he left, he was sure. And it would make reunions more exciting, to see how it all progressed, knowing that he’d helped build it. Yes, it would make an excellent monument for future generations.
It was mid-day before they were done discussing some of the possibilities, stopped building a second cairn, and started walking back to the ranch house. Amos stopped and sniffed the air. The other two did as well, catching the same whiff of smoke.
The three scanned the horizon. A slight bluish-brown haze to the west. Without a word spoken the three broke into a trot for the ranch house. When they arrived, Mickey was just leaving with binoculars and a radio, headed for the ridge to see what he could. Inside, Thomas was in the early stages of a quick meeting to see what they could find out and who had firefighting training. It was one of the rare times the single television was on, one monk channel-surfing looking for related news while another looked online (they finally had an almost decent internet connection) for information about the fire location, size, and direction.
Joshua didn’t look up when he spoke. “Due west. F
ive hundred acres. Mostly grass, not a crown fire. But only about three miles away and headed this way. Break out the blessed shovels, chainsaws, and holy water, mates! Looks like a hot time to be had for all.”
“Please don’t joke about the sacred, Joshua,” chided Thomas.
“Even if a few thousand gallons of the stuff in a water-bomber would be really helpful?” asked Clint.
“Even then.”
“Drat.”
“So what’s the plan, yer abbot-ness?”
“Depends, I suppose, on what Mickey sees from the ridge. Joshua should be in charge, though. Yes, I’ll make it official. Brother Joshua, you are in command for the duration of this emergency, at least as far as dealing with the fire goes. What’s the order of the day?”
The seated brother didn’t respond immediately as he surfed weather reports, satellite images, and news channels and awaited a call from Brother Finnegan. But after considering it all, he started snapping out orders to the rapidly gathering monks. “Get the hoses. Hit the house and surrounding area. The arena will be fine. Then start misting further away, work your way to the tree line if you can. Douse them if possible.”
“On it!”
“No problem!”
“I’m with you!”
Three brothers nearest the door sprinted out the door.
“The rest of you, the habits are flame resistant, so make sure you wear them. Who’s got training?” six hands went up. “You’re squad leaders. Everyone else team up on them. We don’t have Pulaski tools, so everyone get a shovel or mattock, several water bottles, a pack, and a bandanna or scarf to cover your face with. Each squad should have an ax or saw. Leaders take radios. One team in the truck. Go up to the north end on the road. Take a chainsaw and fuel. One to the entry. One up to the range. Two others spread out up to the ridge. One here in reserve. If it comes this way, make firebreaks in the grass and pull brush and fallen limbs out of the way. Things like that. If it turns into a crown fire, beat feet back here ASAP. The arena is the rally area. Save timber if you can, but lives come first!”
