Abbey of Gethsemani – 1

I have been in this Kentucky abbey a whole day. In one way it feels the hours have flown by, in another it seems I have been here longer than a mere day, and in yet a different way it seems time has acquired a different dimension here. More than once in these hours I have felt faced with contradictions but, when I examine them, I find they do not really contradict. Rather they seem to be two complementary sides of a single coin.   

I always believed that words can allow one to describe anything, but right now my mind is full of thoughts I struggle to articulate truthfully. I have not spoken a word to another person since I reached here and no word has been spoken to me. Aptly the signs say ‘Silence is Spoken Here’. I think this silence allows us to travel inside our minds and focus on shaping our thoughts. I hope I will eventually find the words to express these thoughts. 

The only words I hear are in the singing of the monks during the several prayer services I attend. They sing timeless monastic prayers in Latin. It is unreal how they sing for themselves and for us. While the world around them fights and sins and struggles and carries on – they sing. Eight times a day starting at 3.15 in the morning, never having missed a service in this abbey since 1848, they sing! All the Retreatants seem to be American and Catholic and I am conscious of being neither American, nor Catholic, nor Christian. Still, listening to the prayers and hymns and readings transports me to the scripture classes in school and I find myself reading from the bible that is placed in my room. Before I know it, I become absorbed and two hours go by. I am surprised at how many of the stories in the Old and New Testaments are familiar to me, as well as so many psalms and parables and passages… While I have not planned for this to be a religious experience, the environment insists it become one. And it is a pleasant and comforting feeling after all…