Glimpses of a Quiet Life

Maybe because I grew up Catholic in a very Catholic town, I have always had a fascination with monks and nuns. To me, both as a child and even today, there is something very brave and romantic about them particularly the ones who choose cloistered lives. For one thing, I find the monasteries and convents in which they live endlessly fascinating. There is something about that combination of stark simplicity and ornate artwork that is very alluring.

I received a book, Brothers and Sisters: Glimpses of the Cloistered Life by photographer Frank Monaco with a forward by one of my very favorite writers Ron Hansen. I love Hansen and I’m fascinated by the mystique and the aesthetics of Catholic monasticism. It is a wonderful book, full of wonderful photography. Monaco obtained permission from several cloistered orders to go and live among them for awhile to take the photographs. What an interesting experience that must have been.

There is such beauty here. I don’t understand it but then beauty is not to be understood, is it? One of the cover photos shows a nun standing on the sill of huge, arched and window scrubbing the window clean. At her feet is the sepulchral monument of some ancient lady. It is a beautiful photograph filled with stillness and the two guiding principles of the Benedictines — Pray and Work.

What surprised me most in the narrative in this book is how many cloistered monasteries there still are. I know the Benedictine monastery in my home town at one time housed over 100 nuns and now is home to less than a quarter of that. Most of the photographed places in this book seem to be in Europe but the photos capture both the simplicity and devotion of their lives as we as the joy and humor. There is a story retold in the book that I’ve heard before about a meeting between one of the Popes and the Dali Lama. Curious eavesdroppers pressed their ears to the door hoping to garner great pearls of wisdom, but all they heard was laughter.

Humans live in a material, sensory, absolute world but the religious among us live in proximity to another world that many claim does not exist. Those who have made the choice to leave as much of the world as they can and live daily in communion with that other world are intriguing to people like me because, despite my faith, there are those times when I wonder if that world exists, and what it is like. In my novel Triad, which I hope to get back to work on this winter, Father Peter Black is a priest who lived in proximity to that world for years and then, one day, it was gone and his life now is a struggle to regain the sweetness he once knew.

Faith is tough. It is wonderful and precious when it is with you but there are times when it is very difficult to stay connected to. But for me, like it is for many, the best times are the times working alone on some quiet project. Some nights when the wind is blowing in the trees and the world is quiet, I putter in my sewing room and feel the sweetness that is so beautifully depicted in these photographs.

My favorite photograph in the book shows a plain, rough wooden room with statues and holy cards and, in the foreground, a monk in his rough habit bent over an old Singer sewing machine. I love that photograph — for me it embodies the mystique and the allure of the life lived in faith.

We live in a busy world but I have chosen a way of life that may seem boring to a lot of people. I love the freedom to have quiet times and to avoid cities and traffic and chaos. But even in my quiet world I can appreciate the deeper simplicity of these lives. There is great strength in silence and contemplation. Ora et labora. It’s not a bad way to live.

Thanks for reading.