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Books Abbey insights linked to life
BEYOND THE WALLS:
MONASTIC WISDOM FOR EVERYDAY LIFE By Paul Wilkes Doubleday, 244
pages, $21 |
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By THOMAS C. FOX
Monastic life is making a book-publishing comeback. We live in a
time that prizes virtually everything monastic life teaches us to abhor:
individualism, materialism, sensual gratification, speed and form above
substance. Meanwhile, everyday pressures take their toll, wear us down, send us
into that spiritual desert from which it can be difficult to exit. Our search
for serenity and endless desire to embrace the divine, while sometimes buried,
rests at the core of our soul. No wonder, then, when someone appears willing
and able to direct us to a spiritual oasis we take up the offer.
There is not much new about monastic life -- and thats the
point. It is timeless while we are slaves to time. What is new is a willingness
to recognize the need to slow down and rediscover some of Catholicisms
centuries-old spiritual lessons. They have been with us all along. Recently, a
number of what I call monastic evangelists have arisen in our
midst.
First there was the poet, Kathleen Norris, who, in The Cloister
Walk, exposed us to her 10-year association with monastic life and her efforts
to link the sacred and secular. Hers was an essay that gave us glimpses of
monasticisms rich inner rewards. Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittisters
The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages connected the spirituality of
monastic rule with the pressing needs of human family and wider planetary life.
She showed us that Benedictine spirituality, focused on stewardship, community
and relationships, is uniquely suited to respond to the needs of the modern
world.
Two years ago, Trappist Abbot Francis Kline wrote Lovers of the
Place: Monasticism Loose in the Church and showed us why monasticisms
contrary message deserves a wide hearing. Last year Trappist Fr. James Stephen
Behrens, in his first book, Grace is Everywhere: Reflections of an Aspiring
Monk, offered us some simply beautiful essays that connected us anew to the
monk and his monastic way of life.
Our latest evangelist is Paul Wilkes whose book Beyond the Walls:
Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life represents yet another attempt to connect the
secular and sacred, life within the walls with life beyond the walls. In some
ways it is a more complex book because the author purposefully attempts to
connect us not only to monastic life but also to his own spiritual journey.
Written from the viewpoint of a husband and father, the layperson may find it
especially satisfying.
Those not familiar with this Catholic author will enjoy the
discovery. He is among the nations finest writers on church matters. In
1991 he wrote a two-part New Yorker profile -- 34,000 words long! -- of
Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland that depicted the prelate as an urbane
musician-monk, a concert-pianist-turned-abbot and Vatican insider who but for a
turn of history (the election of Pope John Paul II) might have reached the
highest episcopal rank. Wilkes painted the picture of a generally humble,
occasionally arrogant and always reflective archbishop who had been passed over
by Rome as it promoted lighter-weight and more obedient men.
Wilkes, the inescapably Catholic author who enjoys wearing his
Catholicism on his shirtsleeve, always brings intelligence and grace to the
subject at hand. His ongoing frustration with the institutional church is often
balanced with his appreciation for Catholicisms spiritual and cultural
treasures. Wilkes brings enthusiasm to work. Unashamedly he says he likes to
write about Catholics.
In his book, Seven Habits of Successful Catholics, he wrote:
I find myself continually drawn to a certain kind of Catholic
. It
might be an unaffected yet distinctive look in their eye, the way they speak, a
certain presence they have or a natural goodness they seem to radiate. They
have a certain moral vitality that is both palpable and appealing. And I can
immediately sense that they seem to really enjoy being Catholic.
Was Wilkes writing about himself?
In Beyond the Walls, Wilkes declares that his fascination with
monastic life dates back to his adolescence and his early encounter with the
Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who introduced a generation to monasticism. (Many
years later Wilkes would co-write a PBS documentary on Merton.) Though Wilkes
says he never heard the call to be a monk, he retained his love of
monasteries through the years, often visiting them for monastic retreats. It
occurred to him, he says, only after several visits to Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist
monastery a few hours from his North Carolina home, that monasteries might hold
special lessons for him as one who is in search of an authentic spirituality in
the secular world.
Mepkin Abbey rests on land once owned by Henry and Clare Boothe
Luce. The monks of Mepkin support themselves with the help of 35,000
hard-working Leghorn chickens that supply supermarkets with eggs and gardeners
with what the monks call Earth Healer, their euphemism for chicken
manure. Wilkes visited the community monthly, exploring it to deepen his own
spiritual awareness and to use the experiences as a sounding board for further
reflection on his life outside the walls. Through Wilkes visits the
reader is introduced to the routines of monastic life, to the spiritual
heritage of monasticism over the centuries, but most intimately to the soul of
this husband, father and contemporary spiritual seeker.
Wilkes finds Mepkin both a strange and wondrous place. It
does not matter what hour of day or time of year I arrive, for the Trappists
laugh at time, bending it to their resolute wills by obeying it precisely. They
gather for prayer at 3:20, 5:30, 7:30 a.m., noon, 6:00 and 7:40 p.m.; meals and
work periods begin and conclude at similarly uniform times. There is no other
place in my life so comforting in its sameness.
During each monthly visit Wilkes focuses on a particular aspect of
monastic life: faith, detachment, prayer, chastity, community and mysticism
among others. Each becomes a chapter in the book. Each chapter begins with a
description of Wilkes arrival that month, his state of mind and general
reception or lack of reception by the monks. The visits become stepping-stones
to deeper spiritual exploration, with the author always attempting to take his
monthly insights back to the world from which he came.
The effort to connect the two lives, Wilkes finds, is as difficult
as it is necessary. No matter how rich the spiritual experience may have been,
sustaining it out in the world seems virtually impossible. Yet seeds get
planted, and transformation occurs. The author finds himself being drawn into
deeper personal discernment. The book is most successful in portraying the
process of that discernment.
Wilkes shares his aspirations but also is willing to share his
failings. The effect is both disarming and oddly encouraging. We recognize our
own shortcomings in Wilkes narrative. Monastic wisdom, meanwhile, shines
forth throughout. The narrative unfolds as the educated Catholic professional,
the husband and father, forced to face timeless questions of meaning and means,
manages to uncover the pathways out of the desert.
Tom Fox is publisher of the National Catholic Reporter
Publishing Company.
National Catholic Reporter, April 21,
2000
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