A Monk

By The Abbot

“The monk is someone who takes up a critical attitude toward the contemporary world and its structures.” – Thomas Merton

Agnostics, atheists and “spiritual but not religious” are the largest growing areas of identified faith in the world. This is due in large part to science and humankind’s understanding of its place in the universe. With this deeper understanding of subjects like astronomy, physics, biology, chemistry, and genetics, many of the more absurd laws and claims of Biblical scripture become either incredulous or ridiculous. Gay people, largely vilified due to a 1^st millennia BC understanding of human epigenetics, are still reviled and hated to the point of murder in almost uncountable incidents.

This makes what I have to say even more incredulous than say a man, centuries old, tasked with building a giant boat to save life on earth. I am a gay Catholic. Now, I am what most “orthodox” or conservative Catholics would label a cafeteria Catholic. I’m vehemently pro-choice, yet I still deeply respect life in all of its iterations; not merely the human embryonic one. I do not believe that every word of the Bible is the inerrant word of God. I think a ban on women and married men in ordained clergy and leadership is ridiculous. But at the same time, I believe very deeply in Christ’s Gospel message and its practical application to our lives, even from a secular point of view. I do not think that God to be to petty as to punish those who, though they may not be believers, nevertheless, live their lives structured in a way that is in complete accord with the Gospel philosophy of Jesus.

My, sometimes antiquated or naïve belief system, by its very nature makes me a “monk” within the umbrella of Thomas Merton’s definition of what a monk is. I have a deeply critical attitude towards the way most of the contemporary world operates. And it is this that has propelled the founding of St. Gertrude’s Abbey; a home driven monastic practice. Being a monk can be the formulaic kind- found in both Christianity and Buddhism. It can also be a person who makes a conscious decision that they have grown exhausted by modern life and modern people and have determined to live their lives in a different way.

I do not advocate for total Amish-like abandonment of our smart phones, laptops, kindles or Tik Tok. One way to radically oppose contemporary culture in light of modern technology is to deny the power of these things in one’s life and to reorient oneself towards a new focus. For those like me who are religious, you may turn your focus to God- whatever that word means to you. If you are like the vast majority of Westerners, your life will find a different focus. This Abbey provides a sanctuary and a resource to determine what your focus could be and how to attune your living in accordance with that focus.

I advocate wholeheartedly for kind and compassionate self-care. Self-care is not the same thing as being selfish. An individual with a healthy habit of daily self-care is in a much better position to live a self-less life than someone who succumbs to their own delusions of glamour. It is a good thing to exercise, or go to the spa, or take a wonderful vacation. It is a good thing to eat healthy and maybe on occasion allow oneself an indulgence. (Mine happens to be chocolate…milk, bars, ice cream- you name it.) It is a good thing to curl up with a good book or pain or draw or sketch or knit or bake or do any of those activities that make you feel both alive and joyful.

The Abbey would never ask anyone to give up these pursuits and passions. These nurture in myriad ways a people ready to serve others. We are putting on our oxygen masks first. But Western culture goes further than this and it is here that the Abbey seeks to be both a fortress and a refuge from the selfish world. In the West in general, and in the United States specifically, one’s worth is largely determined by what one has rather than by who they are. But even more dangerously, the United States’ political system has itself become closely linked to this distorted economy of stuff despite claims of a religious conservative revival.

We have seen families, friendships, communities, professions, schools, states and indeed our very nation shredded into a confetti of discord. Merton wrote, “We place an exaggerated emphasis on some partial aspect of [the] life, thus unbalancing the whole.” This is not an uncommon problem and even though Merton was talking about life in a monastery, it absolutely reflects the wider modern world. We see whole groups of people laser focused on some aspect of living- usually as it pertains to others. Its not a surprise that so many people are so unhappy. This obsession with the destruction of joy in others is a new and dangerous trend. People seem hyperfocused on all issues LGBTQ and the supposed evilness of these people all the while harming those-who through no choice-must live daily with the reality of who they truly are.

Those who do not understand Pride and the festivities surrounding Pride have never been defined by their neighbors in such a crass and demeaning way based upon solely who they love. Imagine for a moment that you, an anti-gay pride person, were suddenly defined by a trait of yours that you had no control over but had to be reminded daily, hourly even, that it is vile. I tend not to like hair or eye color since these can at least be changed temporarily. You are reminded by neighbors and unfortunately sometimes friends and coworkers, whether consciously or unconsciously just how strange and abnormal you are for possessing this characteristic. You might also find brief rest in a month dedicated to dispelling unreasonable beliefs of society and for a moment take pride in how beautifully, wonderfully and mysteriously made you are.

This unhealthy hyperfocus has also found its way into other areas of life. Lately, DEI. This acronym has become a rallying cry for bitter, talentless, lackluster white people who have become all too complacent in their white bubbles and who claim to be only interested in rewarding “the most qualified” instead of giving a job or promotion to someone of a different race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or disability. The entire purpose of DEI as well as programs like Affirmative Action is to help right a subtle but pervasive wrong that a majority of Americans have rigorously perpetrated on those who are different. And those are differences that are once again immutable – in other words, a difference that a person was either born with or acquired through chance alone.

Yet, we have Fortune 500 companies threatened by boycotts if they dare embrace DEI and entire companies brought to their knees by hate and jealousy. I have never understood why people care so much. So what if the executives at Ford or Target believe that encouraging DEI has benefits beyond what some unemployed, undereducated, ignorant jerk is capable of seeing or understanding. Why does this matter so much to you? My guess is that either people like this are afraid to confront the reality of discrimination and prejudice because they are ashamed of their own activities or they are afraid that DEI may actually force others to learn something outside of their normal, beige, white bread and mayonnaise routine. I ask these folks one thing – at a birthday party- does the celebration of that one person’s birthday negate the specialness, dignity, or personhood of either those who actually are attending the party or even those who were not invited or who didn’t even know the party was going on in the first place? Or does a birthday party set aside a day or a few hours for that one person because there exists something special worth celebrating? Those who are anti-pride, anti-BLM, or anti-DEI are like those people walking by a child’s birthday party screaming at the birthday girl that “My birthday matters too!”

So how does Abbey life negate such thinking? First is a recognition of something greater than oneself. This could be god for some, a goddess for others, Allah, Yahweh, Hestia, Thor, or even the very physics that drive our universe itself and all the unknown power and mystery that it includes. It is only by acknowledging our own smallness that we can go on to a recognition of the commonality of every single human. We are all small in the same way when judged against the immensity of time and space that is readily apparent. The universe has existed for billions of years. Even if you deny the measurable reality of science and feel that our world is only a few thousand years old, you cannot deny that your life span of, if you are lucky, 85 or 90 years cannot possibly be worth more than anyone else’s. We are not even grains of sand on a beach- for that would be too large. With a recognition of our smallness and the shared experience of that smallness, we can really and truly love others because of the preciousness of time made manifest in all humans. We are, in actuality, time incarnate. For without a conscious, knowing creature capable of measuring it- the universe is not aware of time’s existence. Your self-care, your contemplation or meditation, or moments of deliberate self-compassion are a necessary reward for bearing the weight of time and space on your conscious shoulders.

Finally, after all of this, we can begin to ease and even help one another bear the immensity of conscious existence. Why make an already difficult life harder. Because you believe you “worked harder” than someone else? Because it’s “unfair”? Because “that’s just how life is?” Your work and whether it is hard or easy is relative only to the challenges you face through no fault of your own. A person dealing with crushing depression, or crippling anxiety is simply not as able to work like a healthy, vital person. Someone somewhere at sometime has worked harder than you. Compare automotive line workers of today with those of the early 20^th century. No one can doubt that assembly line work can be grueling but imagine doing it with no safety standards and without the protection of a union.

We are the authors of world’s working. It is we who decide what’s in or out or what’s acceptable and what is not. Our society and virtually everything in it, is make-believe. Money? It isn’t real but the idea of it has kept billions of people in crushing poverty and under the boots of the obscenely rich. We decide which values and goals are our collective priorities. And it is through this ethos of a nation or a community that we become great or die by suicide. Anytime a nation-state seeks to subjugate and control others based on race, sex, sexuality, religion, et cetera, they risk their own demise. The mechanics of authoritarian nationalism are in direct opposition to liberty.

Nations like the United States, blessed beyond measure, take upon itself with the fruits of those blessings a responsibility. We are faced with a choice – will it lead by example, a world desperately hungry for the most basic of human needs? Or will we forgo our ethical responsibility and impress upon the world a false narrative that because our people are richer, or more “hard working” or militarily stronger that we then hold the right to dominate them?

It might seem like a stretch, but being a home monastic, embracing the ideals of compassion for the world and oneself, can lead to the disintegration of deadly selfishness on a global scale, but it can and it must. If we are to succeed as a nation- as a people we would do well to look to those who believed the same things we do. Persia? Greece? Carthage? Rome? All great nations by our definition. All gone.