CATHOLIC BROAD ENTERS PANDEMIC MONASTERY

   First off, I do not know anyone currently who wants to join a monastery, except perhaps followers of Thomas Merton and other faithful dudes.

 Certainly, as a female I could not enter a monastery, nor could I do a Convent due to my age and being happily married with two adult children. I don't think celibacy and I would suit somehow.

 But first, let's look at what Monasteries actually do, even though I am no expert.

1/ The religious life brings us closer to God, through Daily Prayers, observing the Liturgy of the Hours, 

keeping silence in some communities, and working together, as in ora et labora. Praying and working.

2/ As I understand it, monasteries are places where people get stripped down to the essentials, to their souls. By separating from ordinary life, men can focus on the interior life, listen for God messages, and till the soil of their hearts. A priest I once adored talked about the Bible passage of the "Gospel of Second Chances," where the gardener told the owner of the field not to cut down the unproductive fig tree.

Essentially he pleaded, "Give it one more year, one more chance, and I will till the hard-pack soil around it." I need lots of tillage around my heart, and I gather that monastery life can help with that.

3/ These are communities where the routines simplify the people within: meals are plain and not-fancy (see "Monastery Soups," a great cookbook on tasty but simple food);

and the rooms, beds, and furniture are bare with no frills or furbilows. By taking away the worries of, "What will I eat later on?" "What shall I cook?" or "What do I do next?", the community places its people squarely in God's presence and hands.

4/ Merton speaks eloquently of the balm of silence in the Monastery at Gethsemane. It allowed God to enter his heart, to do away with external distractions, and to calm his mind.

  So, how am I doing with all this during the beginning of the 3rd-year of the pandemic, although we had a few cherished months of freedom last summer? 

1/ Catholic Broad admits to not doing well at all. I follow one food blogger called, "All Day I Dream About Food." I am so with her. 

Before swinging out of bed in the early a.m., I think: "Yes! A homemade banana nut, chocolate chip muffin! With a big mug of tea with 2 Earl Grey Bergamot tea bags and cream!" I only am missing clotted cream to have a true Brit breakfast here.

2/ But then, I do redeem myself a tad by following the Daily Readings each morning as I sit on the couch and finish my rich English tea. Looking out at the birds, I thank God for bluebirds, for the Carolina Wren with its festive, jacked-up tail, for the dark-eyed Juncos on the deck picking up Nyger seed, and for Goldfinches. I imagine Thomas Merton watching birds as he walked out to the fields to help in harvesting at the Monastery at Gesthemani, 

or maybe looking out one of the windows in his hermitage to see the trees blowing in the wind and birds alighting. I read something he said, not a direct quote, that "Seeing the wind in the pine trees will tell you all you need to know about God." So, chalk up 1 for Pandemic Monastery for Catholic Broad Annie.

3/ I have the "ora" bit of Monastery living, although I do not follow the 7 times of prayer, and I work on the "labora" part as well. No harvesting of vegetables in January or February in the hills of cold Western Mass., but I do get many vegetables through a delivery service. Does that count? Does it count to make sweet potato, veggie broth, grated ginger and garlic soup with Miso paste in it? It is as simple as something from "Monastery Soups" I do believe. And making food for homeless people in "Cathedral In the Night" in Northampton, MA. should count for something.

4/ I think de-cluttering might come in under the "labora" part of Monastery living, and I am doing this with a vengeance: throwing away every speech I have ever written (many of those as I used to be on the circuit), all my Power Points, and all the books I began but never finished in my 50 years as a writer. Here's the monastery thing, I think: I have been praying to God; "Please take away my ego, my need for approval, for applause from others. Please quench my comparing myself to others and judging others. Please." I imagine God whittling away at my ego like Michelangelo standing before the huge block of marble before chiseling "David."

 There's got to be a lot of work there and a lot of detritus on the floor.

5/ Pray, work, simplify, get rid of ego. All of this I have been working on during the Pandemic, with some successes and many failures. But luckily, it's not up to me. Or as Fr. Rohr succinctly says, "Your life is not about you." Thank God for that. It's not up to me after all.

Now, if only this Catholic Broad could stop thinking about food and cooking.....