MONKS CURL UP with their cats in caves they carved into cliffs surrounding the ancient rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. When I peeked inside of one while walking the path from one church to the next, I caught a glimpse of a sleeping ascetic next to her white cat and an open prayer book, its pages flapping in the wind. The green metal door to her dwelling stood ajar in the mid-afternoon light. A single red rose bloomed by the door.
Alone in Lalibela for four days, I found my way there to these cliff dwellings while walking around the churches. At first, I explored this holy place by myself, which I would have preferred. But later, I reluctantly accepted the help of two persistent guides who wouldn’t leave my side until I eventually surrendered to their assistance. All I remember now about the cliffside monks were their mustard yellow scarves and the many cats that paraded back and forth on the narrow paths in the mountains.
“A monastery is a school” in which one “learns from God how to be happy,” writes Thomas Merton about his decision to enter beyond the gates of Gethsemane. He’d been so drawn to the silence, relieved to have his final conversations with the peopled world, that even entering its folds in the depths of Kentucky winter seemed to please him, gardens barren and ready for new seeds come spring.
There’s monastic intention and then there’s joining a monastery. The master of the novices asks him, “Does the silence scare you?” to which he replies no, he’s entranced by it, and feels that he’s entered heaven. I don’t know why I’ve been so drawn lately to writings by and about mystical Catholics, but I suppose it has something to do with this lifelong tug to know what’s beyond the here and now—and record my observations about what I experience—however fraught or foiled by illusion.
I admire those who can dip into pools of silence and stay there long enough to tell us what they hear.
When I was teaching poetry in public schools, I led a writing exercise in which I asked fourth graders to “go inside the silence,” and see if any images, words, or sounds appear. They always came back to the room with delightful ideas—one kid said that being in the ocean while it’s raining is like “double-swimming” and I loved that then and I still love it now.
I may not be a thousand percent comfortable with silence but I still work with it—not perhaps in the monastic sense but in a contemplative one. I notice a squirrel dead on the sidewalk that’s so silent in its deadness while the wind still blows through its delicate fur. I notice the single wasp trapped in the window panes in the upstairs bedroom and I think about how I wish I could save it and I also fear that if I tried, it’d sting me.
Noticing is a bit pretentious when you announce it, I suppose. The way memorizing a poem might get perceived as pretentious, or thinking your familiarity with silence is any more precious than anyone else’s date with infinity—but the difference is that saying it might inform one’s relationship with silence for years to come—with poetry—with wasps—and so why not say so if there’s one tiny ripple you’ve made in the silent waves?
All I’m saying is, say it.
Alone in Lalibela for four days, I found my way there to these cliff dwellings while walking around the churches. At first, I explored this holy place by myself, which I would have preferred. But later, I reluctantly accepted the help of two persistent guides who wouldn’t leave my side until I eventually surrendered to their assistance. All I remember now about the cliffside monks were their mustard yellow scarves and the many cats that paraded back and forth on the narrow paths in the mountains.
“A monastery is a school” in which one “learns from God how to be happy,” writes Thomas Merton about his decision to enter beyond the gates of Gethsemane. He’d been so drawn to the silence, relieved to have his final conversations with the peopled world, that even entering its folds in the depths of Kentucky winter seemed to please him, gardens barren and ready for new seeds come spring.
There’s monastic intention and then there’s joining a monastery. The master of the novices asks him, “Does the silence scare you?” to which he replies no, he’s entranced by it, and feels that he’s entered heaven. I don’t know why I’ve been so drawn lately to writings by and about mystical Catholics, but I suppose it has something to do with this lifelong tug to know what’s beyond the here and now—and record my observations about what I experience—however fraught or foiled by illusion.
I admire those who can dip into pools of silence and stay there long enough to tell us what they hear.
When I was teaching poetry in public schools, I led a writing exercise in which I asked fourth graders to “go inside the silence,” and see if any images, words, or sounds appear. They always came back to the room with delightful ideas—one kid said that being in the ocean while it’s raining is like “double-swimming” and I loved that then and I still love it now.
I may not be a thousand percent comfortable with silence but I still work with it—not perhaps in the monastic sense but in a contemplative one. I notice a squirrel dead on the sidewalk that’s so silent in its deadness while the wind still blows through its delicate fur. I notice the single wasp trapped in the window panes in the upstairs bedroom and I think about how I wish I could save it and I also fear that if I tried, it’d sting me.
Noticing is a bit pretentious when you announce it, I suppose. The way memorizing a poem might get perceived as pretentious, or thinking your familiarity with silence is any more precious than anyone else’s date with infinity—but the difference is that saying it might inform one’s relationship with silence for years to come—with poetry—with wasps—and so why not say so if there’s one tiny ripple you’ve made in the silent waves?
All I’m saying is, say it.
