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Walking the road with tears and a twinkle

My faith does not provide answers to all the questions, or a complete and rational explanation for life, the universe, and everything. Nor does it guarantee a perfect, unambiguous and carefree way of living.

But it does give expression to the wonder and gratitude I so often feel, and to the questions, the grief, the anger and the longings of my heart. And it gives me hope, a sense of purpose, and a framework for living.

So, in spite of – or perhaps because of – all my doubts and uncertainties, my scepticism and frustration, I keep walking this road with both tears and a twinkle in my eye.

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Pilgrim: a journey of discovery, part 6

VI            The Abbott

With a little trepidation in his heart, the pilgrim knocked on the Abbott’s door. He need not have worried. The door was opened by a warm, jovial man, his white beard and hair encapsulating a smiling, wrinkled face. Something about that face suggested that here was a person who had lived through deep pain. But, far from leaving him bitter or broken, that suffering had somehow been transformed into an even deeper compassion. This was a man who knew his own belovedness, and that rich assurance spilled over in love and care for others.

‘I was wondering when you might come and see me.’ Gently placing an arm around the pilgrim’s shoulder, the Abbott led him to a couple of comfortable chairs set over by a large window looking out over the monastery grounds.

‘I didn’t want to bother you father, but I have so much to try and think through’ the wanderer began. But as he looked into the Abbott’s wrinkled face, he felt as though all that he was bursting to say just melted away. It was as though the Abbott knew and understood it all already.

‘Only you can make your choices,’ the old man said, answering the question that was burning in the pilgrim’s heart. ‘Each of us must walk our own road, creating our journey as we go along. There is no right or wrong way, just your way: the path you choose, and what you make of it.

‘I am not going to tell you whether you should stay here or go. But one thing I will tell you: whatever you choose, to remain or to leave, you will not be alone.’

 

When, an hour or so later, the pilgrim got up to go, he did so with a heart full of peace.

They had talked in that time of many things, and as he stepped over the threshold to go his way, he did so carrying the Abbott’s blessing: of love and joy, hope and peace.

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Pilgrim: a journey of discovery, part 5

V             Brother Tim

The pilgrim didn’t know how long he had sat there in the pew, nor when it was that the young monk had come, silently, to sit beside him. It could have been just a minute or two, or it could have been hours, but to the pilgrim it didn’t matter. It was as though time itself had ceased to hold any meaning or power in the presence of a stillness far greater.

They continued to sit in silence, side by side in the pew. The pilgrim did not feel in any way uncomfortable, nor did he feel any need to speak or explain himself. It was as though – though they had never met – there was a bond of understanding between them.

After some time sitting there – again, he knew not how long – the young monk gently said, ‘would you like some food? We have all eaten, but we set some aside for you.’

The pilgrim looked up with gratitude and nodded. He had been so unaware of the passage of time, or how long it had been since he shared that mug of coffee and freshly-baked muffin with Brother Mattheus, but now, at this fresh invitation, he realised just how hungry he was.

The new brother led him back through to the refectory. ‘My name is Brother Tim,’ he said, ‘Our food is simple – just a bowl of soup and some crusty rolls – but it is always good. We normally eat in silence, but as the others have all gone about their afternoon tasks, please feel free to talk or not, as you wish. I’m in no hurry to do anything this afternoon, so afterwards, if you’d like, I can show you round the grounds, or you could join me in the pottery where I’m working on a pot – it’s a gift for my little sister who is getting married next month. But here we are. Why don’t you take a seat, and I’ll go and get your soup.’

Although this brother had been talking as they walked to the refectory, it had been a very natural, gentle conversation, with none of the pressure of speech the pilgrim had found in Brother Mattheus.

 

The pilgrim ate his soup in silence, savouring the nourishing goodness. When he had finished, Brother Tim once more extended his invitation to show him round the grounds.

They spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering round. The afternoon was warm and bright; occasional clouds drifted across the blue sky. As they walked, they talked: each sharing something of his life’s journey, as though they were long-lost brothers catching up on years of separation.

The pilgrim found himself laughing and smiling as Brother Tim recounted little anecdotes of life in the monastery. He, in turn, shared much of his life: the ups and downs, the joy of love, and the grief of parting. They spoke, too, of some of the darkness of their world, and the pilgrim found in Brother Tim a kindred spirit who had wept over some of the injustice and violence of this broken, hurting world.

At times they just walked in companionable silence, or sat in the shade, enjoying the gentle murmur of the brook and the song of the blackbird in the tree.

They were still sitting there when they heard the bell calling for None. ‘Come my friend,’ said the monk, ‘I’ll race you back.’

And they did. Picking up their sandals and shoes, they sprinted back across the meadow to arrive, breathless and laughing, at the chapel door.

 

‘Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.’

The words of the Psalm, chanted by the monks, seemed to reach right down to the core of his being. As the prayers continued, the pilgrim’s mind wandered back over the day he had spent at the monastery: of the brothers he had met, and their very different characters; and of his own life’s journey. He reflected, with regret, on some of the bad choices he had made, and wondered, with gratitude, at the blessings he had known. And he pondered where his journey might lead him next, or even whether he had, indeed, found his destination – right here in this monastery.

Afterwards, he went with Brother Tim to the pottery, where he marvelled at the young man’s creativity – how he took a lump of clay and, working it on the wheel, gradually fashioned it into a pot of great grace and beauty. Their conversation had ceased now as Brother Tim, his sleeves rolled up, stood fully engrossed in his work.

Eventually, deeply satisfied with the work he had created, the young brother allowed the wheel to spin to a halt. The two men stood, side by side, enjoying the beauty now crafted before them.

In a strange way, the elegance and simplicity of this earthen pot seemed to reflect, for the pilgrim, the fullness of this monk’s life, and he started to share with the brother some of the thoughts he’d had while sitting in the chapel. ‘Should I stay here, do you think?’ he hesitantly asked.

The young man chuckled, a sparkle in his eye. ‘I think it’s time you met the Abbott’ was his gentle reply.

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Pilgrim: a journey of discovery, part 4

IV            Sext

Before Brother Mattheus could go any further with his tales of the monastery, the bell started tolling for chapel. Mattheus showed the pilgrim where he could go – either to join in the chapel prayers, or, if he preferred, to wander round the monastery or gardens. The monk then scurried off to join his fellows, leaving our pilgrim alone in the refectory, pondering, and listening to the steady, low toll of the bell. Dong… dong… dong… It seemed to call him, stirring something deep in his stomach.

The pilgrim made his way to the chapel and sat in a pew at the back as the monks filed in, softly chanting their reverence to God.

After the service was over, the pilgrim continued to sit, appreciating the silence and the still coolness of the place. Something about the simplicity of the Sext liturgy had touched him – as though some deep mystery were present in the very stillness between the words. He sat there in silence, relishing the sense of presence; feeling no need to understand or explain his experience, but just to live it, fully, now. As he sat, he felt an incredible sense of peace, of lightness in his being, such as he had never known before. Unbidden, gentle tears trickled down his cheek and an easy smile came to his face.

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Pilgrim: a journey of discovery, part 3

III            Brother Reginald

Brother Reginald was an austere man: tall and solid, and always immaculately turned out with his neatly-pressed habit carefully arranged with symmetrical tucks on either side. His face, cleanly-shaven, was stern and thoughtful, yet somehow gentle, as though the passage of time had softened what might otherwise be considered harsh, demanding features.

Brother Mattheus spoke to the pilgrim of the brother in reverential tones, with deep love and a sense of awe at this brother who was clearly so different from him. Brother Reginald spent most of his days in silence: reading in the library; wandering the cloisters deep in thought; or on his own in his reading room, working away at his books and papers.

He was working, Mattheus said, on a grand theorem to explain human behaviour and the Divine image.

Brother Reginald had been away to study psychology and sociology as well as the usual disciplines of theology and philosophy. He often travelled – to grand conferences amid the towering colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, or to meet with other great minds in universities across the country and throughout Europe. He had even travelled once to Rome, to present his thesis to a panel in the Vatican.

Brother Reginald also represented the public face of the monastery, often accompanying the Abbott on civic duties in the regional town, or meeting with visiting dignitaries or theologians who came to use the monastery’s great library.

Brother Mattheus spoke respectfully about how Brother Reginald could always be relied upon to know how things should be done. He knew the rule of the order by heart, and followed it assiduously. Brother Reginald was punctual to a tee, and if one of the young novices stepped out of line, or did something not quite according to the book, it was Brother Reginald who would gently take him aside and explain to him the way things should be done.

Brother Mattheus dropped his voice to a whisper. And with a mischievous grin on his face, told the pilgrim of one time, while he and Brother Reginald were themselves novices, when Brother Reginald had spoken out in the middle of a chapel service, disagreeing with something the Abbott had said. A sharp intake of breath from all the monks had greeted this interruption, but the Abbott, unperturbed, had heard the novice out, told him that he had made a very good point and that he would love to discuss it further following the service, then carried on with the liturgy as though nothing had happened. Mattheus recalled how, after the service, Brother Reginald had been mortified, hardly believing that he had done such a thing, and how, since that day, he had never spoken again of his misdemeanour. Nor had he ever, to this day, put a foot out of line with the many rules – spoken and unspoken – of the monastery.

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Pilgrim: a journey of discovery, part 2

II             Brother Mattheus

At the sound of the great iron knocker, resounding down the stone-paved corridors, Brother Mattheus came scurrying. A rotund figure, slightly breathless as he pulled open the ancient doors, silently swinging on their well-worn hinges.

‘Welcome, welcome, welcome!’ said the monk, his eyes sparkling with warmth and hospitality. The glow in his cheeks could as much have come from the genuine joy of welcoming a stranger as from the willing effort of bustling down the corridors.

‘Come in, my friend, come in. You must be weary from your travels. We have rest and refreshment for all in need. Come, let me take your cloak and staff. Come and sit with me in our fine refectory, and you will find rest for your soul.’

With what seemed an inordinate flurry of chatter and activity, Mattheus led our pilgrim, somewhat bemused, but chuckling inside, down simple, unadorned halls, to a great refectory where he was greeted by wonderful aromas of fresh home baking. The pilgrim warmed to this bumbling monk: sandal-clad and wrapped in his brown habit. He judged him to be an honest and simple man, who almost fell over himself in his eagerness to please – a genuine longing to make the stranger feel at home.

Sitting the pilgrim down, the brother scurried off to the kitchen, returning moments later with two great mugs of frothy coffee and a great piled plate of muffins and biscuits.

Brother Mattheus took up his coffee and invited the pilgrim to tell him about himself and all his travels. Then, hardly pausing for breath, the monk launched straight into his own tale. In a cascade of information and anecdotes, he told the pilgrim of the life of the monastery and all that went on within and without its doors. He told him of the brother healer and how he, Mattheus, loved to help out in the infirmary – tending the sick, sitting by their bedsides, bringing them cups of tea, cleaning their wounds or mopping their brows. How he would often accompany the Brother Healer on his rounds of the nearby villages, visiting poor families with ailing loved ones.

Brother Mattheus spoke of the village school, where he went twice a week to teach the young ones in religious instructions. How he loved to gather them round him and tell them tales of our Lord, and how he reached out to any in need, or of St Francis and his great love for all creatures. Oftentimes he would linger in the classroom, to help some of the less able children while their teacher guided them through the complexities of maths and grammar. Listening to him, the pilgrim wondered how much he actually helped these youngsters, but concluded that the very presence of a caring, affirming soul might do more for some than any amount of carefully constructed pedagogy.

The Brother spoke of the gardens and the fields, how each day he would spend a couple of hours with the Brother Gardener, tending the plants, pulling up weeds, or preparing beds for planting out seedlings. He loved his time in the garden – whatever the weather. Spending time in good, wholesome labour, with God, in God’s good creation, always lifted his soul. He spoke of the immense excitement, at Harvest time each year, as the monastery transformed to a hub of activity, with all the preparations for the great Harvest Festival. For days beforehand they would clean and tidy, inside and out. Having brought in the crops, they would select out the very best of their produce and lay them out in the chapel. And then, on the day of the feast, all the villagers from miles around would join the monks in a celebration of goodness – singing hymns in the chapel, then sitting down, side by side, to enjoy a feast together: old and young, rich and poor, tasting of God’s bountiful goodness.

On those days, more than ever, Brother Mattheus loved to help in the kitchens: carrying and fetching; chopping vegetables; kneading and baking bread and cakes. Surely, he mused, there was no better place on earth than a kitchen, where you could not only roll up your sleeves and serve others in good, hard work, but at the same time enjoy all the little titbits and morsels as you went along.

And he told the pilgrim of the regular prayers of the monastery, the daily rhythm of the hours: Vigils; Lauds; Terce; Sext; None; Vespers; and Compline.

The pilgrim wondered how this brother ever kept quiet during those times. And yet, for all his chatter and effusiveness, he seemed, too, to love these hours: times when he could sit, quiet, in the presence of his Lord. And as he spoke, it was as though this enthusiastic, eager monk seemed to drift into another place. He spoke quietly now, with a slower pace, and with a reverence that had somehow previously been hidden.

Mattheus told him of the chapel, of the chanting of the monks and the reading of the Psalms. He told of the silence of the cloister in the cool of the day. And he told of Brother Reginald, tucked away in his reading room, day after day, deep in his studies and oh, so very clever.

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Pilgrim: a journey of discovery in six parts

I               The Monastery

In the heart of rural England, where winding roads weave their way through silent coppices and gentle meadows, and industrious farmers nurture their fields through the annual cycle of ploughing, tilling, sowing and reaping, an adventurous pilgrim, lately set out from a certain bustling town, might chance to find himself rounding a bend and pausing in wonder at the scene of goodness and beauty laid out before him.

An ancient monastery was there – solid as the hills themselves, and as much a part of the landscape to lead our pilgrim to question whether God himself had not planted it there, crafting its rough-hewn stones, and laying out its cloisters, gardens and fields so that they truly became the very landscape in which they sat.

The monastery had stood there for generations: a bastion of the traditions of faith and culture. Within her cloistered walls, the monks went about their daily rhythms of rest and work, celebration and prayer, as they had done – day in and day out – for centuries untold. And yet, though her hours might be as dependable as the stones with which she was built, this monastery was far from being a silent relic, consigned forever to dwell in the past. She was, rather, a flourishing community of life and joy – an integral part, not just of the landscape, but of the social fabric of that region.

Her monks were known and loved throughout the area. Every Saturday their produce sat, along with others’, on the market stalls: fruit from their orchards; fine herbs and vegetables from their walled garden; sweet honey from their bees. Each May, when youngsters wove their ribbons round the Maypole in the village, the Abbott himself would be there, serving wines and ales to boost the celebrations. At harvest time, when the farmers went out to gather their crops, the monks would be there, alongside them, bending their backs in fulsome labour. If any in the neighbourhood were ill, the Brother Healer would go out – day or night – to work his charms. Throughout the seasons of life – birth and marriage, sickness and death – the community would look to the monastery for both mystery and meaning, comfort and celebration.

 

Our solitary pilgrim, knowing nothing of this, but weary from the road, wandered down to the monastery gate. He was not a religious man, but something about the place seemed to draw him in – a welcoming presence, silent and hidden within those walls. The great oak door, iron-studded and darkened with the years did not seem cold or unwelcoming. Its rustic beams seemed rather to be inviting him in – to knock and enter, to enjoy the hospitality of heart and hearth.