Hangin’ with the Brothers: a walk on the mild side
The quarter moon was still high and the stars were bright as I hurried through the darkness to join the monks for Vigils.Four days into a five-day retreat at Mepkin Abbey, I had promised myself to rise with the brothers and join them for Psalms and Readings to start the day. The alarm chirping at 3 a.m. made me question the pledge, but I pulled on a shirt, blue jeans and sandals and made it to the church on time.
A nun from Cleveland and I were the only guests that Thursday morning as the brothers trickled in, also rubbing away the sleep. Sitting in this darkened solemn place in the dead of night, I smiled as I thought, “What in the name of God am I doing here?”
We worshipped by the light of a dozen candles, chanting Psalms and quietly signing hymns of praise to welcome the day, ask God for forgiveness for our sins and for strength for the day ahead. I hoped the power and intensity of their faith might lift my own prayers higher and, perhaps, I might find some of what they have found.
Vigils ended at 4:20 and I returned to my cabin. I reset the alarm and fell quickly to sleep, rising a half hour later refreshed and energized to hurry back through the starlight for 5:30 Morning Prayer. I wanted to keep with the brothers’ schedule and join every service on this, my last full day on retreat.
The brothers of Mepkin Abbey nurture and maintain a natural paradise on the banks of the Cooper River as stewards of the land to the glory of God.
Mepkin is a quiet community where two-dozen men share a life of obedience, prayer and meditation, hard physical labor and spiritual reflection. They have dedicated their lives to God and to the monastic traditions of an order that began in 1098.
Monks are known for their hospitality, and they welcome people of faith for spiritual and personal reflection and renewal and share the monastic life, if only for a few days.
I am not a Catholic, and I am no monk.
Like others of faith, I came to this Roman Catholic monastery to get away and nourish my spirit. Prayer, it is said, is talking to God; meditation is listening to Him. There may be no better place to come and look closely into your heart, your beliefs, your soul, and your connection to God.
I have used God’s gift of writing skill to “render unto Caesar” during my secular life; I share my story of soul-searching at Mepkin to “render unto God” and to tell others who search for their own answers about a wonderful place to look. Writing is therapy that helps me re-live my spiritual journey and find deeper meaning with each rewrite as I continue to search and grow.
The Brothers, the Sisters, and Me.
I was anxious but excited on the 45-minute drive from Charleston to the abbey, feeling much as I would at the start of a backpacking adventure into the wild. You never know what is going to happen when you step into a forest for a wilderness hike; you know that you will not be the same when you come out.
It was hot and still that Monday afternoon, and the friend who phoned seemed alarmed to hear that I was 10 minutes away from a monastery. “You’re going where? To do what?”
He was calmed when I explained that I just needed to unplug, and compared it to a wilderness camping trip. But I had tough questions for myself -- and for God. Why had my journey become stumbles and disappointments, financial setbacks and family crises? Why the pain of three job layoffs, lost love and lost friends? Would seven years of famine turn into a few years of feast?
I also came to praise God for His many blessings and to open myself to His will. Despite the hurdles, fears and doubt, I am happy, healthy, and optimistic. I am keeping my head up and above water, although tiring from years of treading water and swimming against a tide.
A week with the brothers would surely be refreshing, but I was walking into unfamiliar territory and was uncertain about the week ahead.
My anxiety soon faded when Brother Robert made me laugh.
He was pushing a cart through the guest dining room as I walked in from the heat. “We have new kinds of cheese this week!” he grinned, excited to be sharing such wonderful news. I laughed along with the women who had walked in with me.
We knew these monks are vegetarian, but we all expected more for supper than a plate of provolone, Swiss, and cheddar slices and three different kinds of breads. We also knew the rule of silence at meals, but we whispered and giggled like children as we pondered the cheese and the week ahead. My three new friends are nuns, and I figured if nuns could break the silence, I could, too.
Two of the Sisters really are sisters. Sister Carole joined the order of the Humility of Mary when she graduated from high school 55 years ago; her sister, Sister Praxades, became an Ursuline nun a few years later. They came to Mepkin with their Ursuline Sister Patricia Marie to visit her longtime friend Brother Vincent.
We walked together to Vespers and were assigned seats, as this was our first time in the church for services. The three sisters would sit together in choir spaces on one side of the church for the week, and I sat on the other. The monks took their places along both walls, some seated, some standing and facing the altar in prayerful wait for the service to begin.
Over the week we would put names with faces and individual personalities would emerge.
Father Joe used smiles and gestures to show me the Psalms and order of service; he was a helpful and patient guide as I learned my way through the liturgy.
The men of Mepkin are gentle, friendly, and kind. Their personalities peek through with nods, smiles and perhaps a wink, but they also are engaging and affable hosts and welcome conversation when talk is appropriate.
Brother Vincent is bearded, rail thin and very tall – his 6-5 height exaggerated by the hooded black stole that hangs over his white robes from shoulder down to his knees. He waved happily as he drove past me with the Three Sisters headed to the farm after Vespers, on a private tour of the grounds.
At 72, he is a happy man who says he is still fascinated by Greta Garbo, and, like many of his brothers, enjoys the New York Times that comes to the Abbey each day.
When I compared my retreat to a backpacking trip for the soul, and he replied that it “sounds like a good title for a book,” somehow knowing that he was talking with a writer who would share Mepkin’s tale.
The monks sometime read aloud to the community at lunch, Brother Vincent said, and they had shared Bill Bryson’s hilarious, sometimes profane, but always entertaining and iconic backpacking classic, A Walk in the Woods, about his Appalachian Trail hike.
Kevin, a young man considering a life commitment here, was eager to meet with the Sisters after services and hoped one of them was Ursuline. He had gone to an Ursuline high school on Long Island, and shared a funny story about one the nuns who taught him.
The personality of this holy place is as obvious as Brother Joseph’s smile as he pedals by on a bicycle headed to the farm, or as quiet as Brother Stephen’s love of hot peppers. It is as patient as Father Guerric’s instructions to volunteers who are helping him with native plants. When I told him how much I enjoyed the labyrinth, he quickly and happily tried to recruit me to work there.
The Abbey’s personality also stays as subtle and hidden as the tiny cabin in the trees near the farm and far from the gardens and public spaces.
This very private place has a table, a chair, and a lamp; various key thoughts and meditation points are pinned to the walls. If needed, a cot hangs against the wall. This room was built and used by Brother Luke, who died a few years back. His Bible, his Rosary, and his spirit remain.
The monks say that their prayers are not just for their monastic community, but the prayers also flow down the Cooper River to wash across the South Carolina Lowcountry and beyond.
Mepkin is a historic 3000-acre rice plantation owned by Henry Laurens, a patriot and Founding Father, in the 1700s and by industrialist and publisher Henry Luce in the 1900s. The Luce family gave Mepkin to the monks in 1949.
A large white cross marks their small family cemetery on the top terrace of the Clare Boothe Luce gardens that sweep from the bluff to the river. The oaks, native grasses and wildflowers are breathtakingly beautiful in late summer and are surely even more magnificent when the azaleas and spring shrubs bloom.
The Tower of the Seven Spirits sets the tone and marks time in this timeless place.
Its bells sound a call to prayer and “give voice” to those who have lived here and are buried here – native-Americans, African-Americans who worked the lands, the Luce and Laurens families, and friends of the Abbey, and the monks. The bells give voice to the monastic community “in glory” and for the monks now here and those yet to come.
The abbey will welcome as many as 12 guests on retreat, but there were only six of us there that week in August.
Folks on retreat bring their own expectations and plan their own time. They are welcome to share any, all, or none of the monastic services.
Guests are given a room with a bed, a desk, and a chair in a cabin on the grounds and they share a dining room next to the monks, eating what the monks eat when the monks eat. Silence is to be observed during meals, and shorts and tank tops are not permitted in church where knees and shoulders must be covered.
The brothers live and worship on the monastic green. Their private spaces curve along the river with the layout designed to take advantage of prevailing breezes and accommodate their routines and prayerful schedule. They work the grounds and operate a nursery, mushroom farm, and gift shop.
The brothers rise at 3 each day and gather for Vigils at 3:20, then an hour of study, followed by Morning Prayer at 5:30 and breakfast of a hard-boiled egg, cereal, and toast at 6. The brothers spend an hour in meditation then share 7:30 Mass before being assigned their tasks for the day.
The Main Meal comes after Midday Prayers at noon, and guests follow the monks through the food line, eager to fill plates or bowls – sometimes stewed squash and potatoes and salad; sometimes cheese and bread, and perhaps a slice of cake or pie.
A short service in the dining room after lunch gives way to a short siesta, an afternoon of work, and then a supper that’s often a cheese or peanut butter sandwich at 5 p.m., Vespers at 6, and final prayers at 7:30 before retiring at 8 p.m.
After Vespers that Monday night, Brother Vincent and the Three Sisters drove around the property and I went first to the gardens and then the labyrinth to collect my thoughts and adjust to this very solemn and somewhat forbidding new place.
Backpacking for the Soul
The stars grew brighter and the moon rose as I wandered barefoot through the labyrinth, the idyllic path that wends to a prayer circle at the center of a lush meadow. The labyrinth is perfect for 15 minutes of walking meditation and then 20 minutes of thoughtful breathing and tai chi. I prayed for guidance as I thought about how I would spend the week and what I hoped to accomplish.
A week in a monastery was a more evolution than great leap, as my life had already become a slow slide toward monasticism, solitude, and simplicity.
I traveled light. Packing simple clothes, a Bible, a few books about the life of Christ and spirituality, a notebook and a pen, I quickly fell into the rhythms of the Abbey.
Adjusting to their schedule, I joined the monks in many of their services and ate what they ate when they ate. While they worked the farm or handled chores, I went to the river or gardens to look around inside myself and do some hard work on my mental health and my spiritual growth, to sit and read and think and walk. And write.
This is surely a holy place, a place of such peace and natural harmony that a chameleon wandered idly across my shoulder as if to visit and a grasshopper calmly paused in my path to be petted before leaping lazily into the grass.
This was backpacking for my soul, a journey more challenging than any wilderness adventure. It meant toting a heavy spiritual pack through difficult terrain, one with psychological and spiritual forests, valleys, but also with joyful vistas, insights, and discovery.
I was a very long way from my religious roots in Greenville, where we lived in the shadow of Bob Jones fundamentalism and where street preachers praised Jesus and shouted Scripture for all who would listen.
Raised an Episcopalian, I was an altar boy, sang in the choir, played church basketball, and was active in youth groups. I spent hours learning to worship while kneeling on the cold hard floors of the Christ School chapel, where boarding school life also taught me hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.
I raised children and was “active” in the church with scouting and sports, but I also continued my spiritual search because religion, or church, did not bring me to inner peace and harmony.
But I was still angry with God for taking my father and older brother from my mother and me during a terrible 18 months nearly 40 years ago. No doubt He had plans for them and both are with Jesus; but my mother never really got over the loss of her husband and firstborn, and I could have surely used their friendship and counsel through the years.
But God gave his only Son, so who was I to complain.
Then I began a return to God and to Jesus Christ.
With a few quiet words of emotional support, friends led me to pray with them at work, and my life seemed to improve the more I opened it up to God and worked on my soul. When I collapsed at work one day, the doctor blamed low iron, but I think, now, that God was sending me a message.
Another message came when a friend took me to church, with the caution that the pastor was a charismatic and the service might be unusual for me. She faced a health crisis and was praying for a healing miracle. The pastor rejoiced in the “new wine” of the Holy Spirit and preached of signs and wonders. This was my first experience with people “in the Spirit” and speaking in tongues.
I cannot explain the energy that coursed through me as I prayed that night for her to be healed, but it knocked me from my comfort zone and put me on my knees.
The pastor and his flock were convinced I was being filled with the Holy Spirit and had a very strong connection to God. They urged me to help them cast out devils and heal the sick at a food bank in the parking lot of a Moncks Corner shopping center.
The spirit was very strong on an amazing morning that staggered me with its power and filled many people with joy and religious fervor. Our prayers did not give my friend a healing miracle, but they raised her spirits and gave her hope. God heard our prayers and guided the doctors who repaired her ailing body and cared for her.
At the time, I believed that the energy surge we shared felt like a heavy dose of chi, the universal life forces that I have studied and worked toward during years of tai chi and martial arts training. Now I think that my friend and her pastor might have been right – God was trying to get my attention and it is time for me to listen.
My spiritual path has gone through the martial arts, and I have worked to learn the explosive kicking, punching, and ancient fighting drills of karate and kung fu as well as the gentle rhythms and movements of tai chi.
Those disciplines are much the same but so very different, the yin and the yang of martial arts. The hours of grueling drills and routines also teach breathing, stretching, focus, and concentration and you relax deeper and deeper into stances and movements that strengthen your body and connection to the earth and align your joints to “open the gates” to universal forces of life and energy.
Workouts and tai chi sometime lead me to this place of inner calm where action flows without thought, where chi flows freely, and where peaceful breath and gentle movements find a graceful harmony and allow for an empty mind.
Those are the currents that brought me to Mepkin Abbey, a place where East would meet West on my spiritual journey, where the lessons taught for centuries by monks in China would meet the ancient disciplines of the Catholic monks in South Carolina.
Asked what monks do, the monk replied, “We fall and we get up; we fall and we get up; we fall and we get up.” The Abbey, like the dojo, teaches humility.
Yin and yang. Holiness and wholeness
My retreat on the banks of the Cooper River brought me much closer to God and to Jesus Christ. My time with the brothers of Mepkin will continue to help ease my burdens as I keep working toward peace, balance, and harmony with them and with myself.
That Eastern path led me to 10 hours or more of training at the dojo each week, so my body was very tired when I came to the Abbey and I looked forward to taking the week off from workouts and classes. Though it was tempting to just nap in the gardens, I planned my days to work on my spirit and soul while resting my body.
I came to Mepkin on a continuing quest for peace and harmony in a world where “who we are” is judged by “what we do” or “what we have” and where our validation too often comes from what we think that other people think. I came looking for context and meaning while looking for work – again.
Job searches can be agonizing and dispiriting.
Your professional life is reduced to entries in a computer that are reviewed by a cold and faceless process that decides whether you are worthy of an interview. Hope leads to disappointment, and sometimes to despair. You might hear that you were not selected (but thanks, anyway); more often, there’s no response.
I cannot (and probably would not) change the fact that I will be 60 in January, but I know age can be crippling to a job seeker during difficult economic times. I also kept pointing the finger of blame inside, and questioned my faith in myself and in God’s plan.
The yin/yang symbol on the cover drew me to “Urgings of the Heart,” a book on spirituality and Christianity that brought Eastern and Western principles together.
“Urgings” guided me into imaginative contemplation and helped me take myself into the life and times of Jesus for a journey of self-awareness to deal with the shadows and, through meditation, to learn from Biblical lessons and teachings.
It took me into the shadows and steered me onto a path to awareness, forgiveness, and acceptance.
The shadows are where the voices inside grow louder and louder as the noise and clutter of everyday routines fade away. The shadows are the places inside that we try to ignore, the parts of ourselves that frighten us, the areas that convince us that we should not love ourselves and we deserve our failures, pain, and unhappiness.
This is where we judge our lives and the lives of others, or where we obsess on past slights, failures or mistakes. This is where we doubt ourselves, question our faith and fear for the future.
“Urgings” teaches how to embrace the shadows as parts that enrich us, and to welcome them as critical to who we are. This self-awareness leads to self-acceptance and to a place of peace where our conflicting but complementary parts work together in harmony and where we keep the faith that all things work in God’s will.
With work and prayer and faith in God and ourselves, wholeness will lead to holiness, the place where we embrace God’s love, accept our flaws, and find the peace and courage to live like Jesus and to love like Jesus.
Lightning did not strike during my week at the Abbey. There were some flashes of inspiration and “ah-ha” moments, but I know that the hard work of my spiritual journey and growth will last as long as I breathe, whether at the Abbey or wherever life takes me next.
I am closer to comfort with my shadows and continue to work at the dojo and at the Abbey. I balance life by spending as much time at the monastery as I do in martial arts training, and I spend one day a week working at the nursery, cutting lawns or potting plants, and sharing a noon meal and prayers with my new friends, the men of Mepkin.
I told my friend Sister Carole about my walk in the labyrinth when I asked God whether I should come here for retreat. An explosion of butterflies flew from the wildflowers and circled, giving me a mystical answer that I already knew. She smiled, “Butterflies are a sign of the resurrection.”
The Three Sisters have returned home to Ohio and Nebraska, but they continue to pray for me and believe that I am being called to join the brothers and follow the religious path that has been the center of their lives.
I will settle for inner peace and harmony. The butterflies are my symbol for renewal, and God willing, I will get there. I do not believe my path goes through Brother Luke’s cabin in the woods at Mepkin Abbey, but, then, I never thought I would find myself chanting Psalms with the monks in the middle of a lovely Carolina night.
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