by Albert Holtz
Monks are supposed to be specialists in this sort of travel, like veteran backpackers who refuse to carry one ounce more than they need to. We promise through our vows to choose carefully what we put on our backs, so as not to weigh ourselves down with over-concern about the things the world deems essential: pleasure, possessions, power, and popularity. The way we live can remind our brothers and sisters outside the monastery that they can travel carrying much less weight than they might think.
We get to the top of a long, steep hill. My heart is pounding and my breath coming in quiet rasps.
“Okay, guys,” the thirteen-year-old captain shouts, “hold up. Let’s take a break!” I try not to look too relieved as I sink heavily onto a boulder and let it take the weight of the pack off my shoulders. There is a light breeze rippling through the pale green haze of spring buds and tiny leaves. Beneath the backpack, my wet shirt is clammy against my skin. As I look around and enjoy the lovely play of the gray rocks of the ridge against the blue sky, I also sneak a quick look at the freshmen around me. Some of them are finally starting to look tired, too, thank God!
One of my favorite backpacking stories is the one about Terrence. Halfway into his hike, Terrence spots a beautiful piece of granite about the size of a cantaloupe. He’s so taken with its pretty, sparkling colors that he decides to bring it home with him. So he picks it up and starts carrying it. Down a steep ridge. Up the next mountain. After twenty minutes the new weight is making his hand ache. He switches hands a few times as he lugs his prize across a wide meadow in the blazing sun. At the next rest break he takes a long, hard look at his rock: somehow it’s not as pretty as it seemed at first. Back on the trail again, the rock keeps getting heavier and heavier and Terrence’s face longer and longer. He starts to picture himself hauling his homely treasure for another three days. After a few more minutes, when he thinks no one is watching, he just casually lets it slip from his hand. It rolls under a laurel bush by the side of the trail a mile and a half from where he picked it up. So much for pretty rocks!
We each have a light pack when we start out on life’s way, but are always tempted to add unnecessary junk to it as we go. The most obvious example of this is our way of grabbing on to material possessions. Even a monk with a vow of poverty has to be careful that his room doesn’t start getting stuffed with all sorts of junk. There is a more subtle and therefore more dangerous kind of baggage, however—the invisible kind. Some people, for example, collect grievances, holding on to them doggedly for months, even years. Others accumulate destructive emotions such as jealousy or resentment, and stagger through life bent and exhausted under the extra weight. My own tendency is to load my pack with worries. Now, of course I know that they don’t accomplish anything and just use up energy, but that hasn’t stopped me from hauling quite an impressive number of them up and down the hills of life over the years.
The monastic tradition offers some ways of keeping your pack from getting heavier once you’re on the road. One is frequent, careful, and honest introspective prayer. This is a way of inspecting your own backpack to discover things that are keeping you from loving, that are just slowing you down on your quest. When you dare to look into your pack, you will gradually come to see the useless items for what they are, and you’ll have a chance to toss them aside, like Terrence did with that piece of granite.
Benedict suggests a second way of keeping your pack light: let someone else see what you’re carrying. By humbly disclosing to a superior, a spiritual director, or a soul friend “the movements of our heart,” we can avoid collecting there all sorts of useless and destructive baggage.
“Okay, let’s get going!”
The captain is moving us out already? I grumble to myself, I thought we were supposed to rest! I struggle to my feet with a resentful grunt and settle the pack on my back, trying to let the waistband take more of the weight this time. After a couple of these trips, as I’ve gotten a little wiser, my backpack, which used to weigh over thirty pounds, has gotten lighter.
I hope one day I’ll be able to say the same for my spiritual luggage, too. Seeking God is that much easier the fewer favorite burdens I carry in my heart.
We’re picking our way down a steep, rocky hillside. At the bottom is the campsite where we’ll stop for a lunch break. At that point we’ll be exactly halfway to the Delaware Water Gap. And I’ll celebrate by taking this pack off completely for a little while—I think I’m still carrying some extra weight!
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)
Jesus calls to those who are “weary and find life burdensome.” In what way does that description fit you? Open up your life’s backpack and look at the burdens you find there. Sort them into two piles: ones that are there because you choose to hold on to them, and those which someone else or some circumstance has put there. Now go back to the first pile and choose one that you’re ready to leave behind.
WISDOM OF THE DESERT
“Abbot John used to say: ‘We have thrown down a light burden, which is the reprehending of our own selves, and we have chosen instead to bear a heavy burden, by justifying our own selves and condemning others.’” (Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert [New York: New Directions, 1970], 71.)
THE BANQUET GUEST: OTIS
The long buffet tables are loaded with huge bowls of salad, piles of rolls, and trays of seafood. There is a line of guests in front of the barbecued chicken, and another at the dessert table. Everything is bathed with a golden glow as the sun filters in through the canvas sides of the giant, white tent.
No one seems to mind that it’s so crowded in here. In fact, the close quarters add to the festive atmosphere of the dedication of our new gymnasium.
Men in suits and ties, women in pretty dresses, religious sisters, and black-robed monks are all standing around in knots of conversation, or eating at the dozens of round tables. Teenage students stand in threes and fours listening to alumni from the 1940s tell tall tales.
“Oops! Excuse me!” I blurt out as I bump into someone who has just turned away from the buffet with a plate loaded with shrimp.
“Oh, hi, Father!” he greets me. “Hey, this is great, man, you know?”
It’s Otis, a man in his late twenties, who lives on the street. His clothes, as usual, are filthy and worn. His wiry hair is matted and badly in need of a brushing.
“Otis! How are you doing?” I answer with a wide smile. “Yeah, this sure is great! Glad you’re here!” I really am glad, too.
Some of our other guests peek discreetly at this unsavory character in their midst. I can’t blame them—at first glance you might think that he’s completely out of place at this nice affair. Sometimes there’s a voice inside my own head that can huff, “What’s a character like that doing here? ” This is my little judge. I picture him dressed in a black judicial robe and wielding a gavel which he pounds on anything nearby as he pronounces sentence on the endless stream of people who don’t live up to his high standards.
“Listen, I got to go check out the chicken, okay? See you later.” Otis melts back into the crowd, eating shrimp as fast as he can.
I think about Jesus warning against judging your neighbor. It’s simple: If you want to be accepted at the messianic banquet, then you have to accept others now. In fact, if you can’t stand “them” (whoever the particular “them” is) in this present life, you are warned that there will be lots of “them” seated at the heavenly banquet with the rest of us. So you might want to start looking at “them” differently now, or else the heavenly banquet table will be hell for you because you’re sitting next to one of “them.”
The monastic fathers and mothers in the desert used to caution against judging others, but for another reason. For them, humility was at the
center of the Christian life, and the best way to stay humble was to identify with the sinner instead of condemning him or her. You can keep in close touch with your own human frailty by identifying constantly with the sinner: today it’s that person who’s sinning, tomorrow it’ll be me. I keep trying to follow their advice, and let the humbled, broken sinner who’s inside of me head off the judge before his gavel comes down. The results so far have been rather mixed.
Otis looks right at home, though, enjoying the excitement and the crowd. And why not? Our friends, relatives, and alumni, our students and their parents, are a wonderfully diverse group. We are African-Americans, Latinos, and European-Americans, Christians, Muslims, and Jews.
I think of Isaiah’s image of the Heavenly Banquet, the Banquet of the Kingdom that will mark the end of time.
On this mountain, for all peoples,
Yahweh Sabaoth is preparing
A banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines,
Of succulent food, of well-strained wines.
On this mountain, he has destroyed
The veil which used to veil all peoples,
The pall enveloping all nations;
He has destroyed death forever.
Lord Yahweh has wiped away the tears from every cheek. …
Otis makes our party complete. Wandering among the other guests in his dirty wash pants and grimy shirt, he is drawing us all into that parable of Jesus, where the king sends his servants out into the byways to invite beggars to the wedding feast.
The image of the Heavenly Banquet is, in fact, one of Jesus’ favorite ways of talking about “the Kingdom that is not of this world.” Every Christian lives in the shadow of the end-time, knowing that the present age is passing away. Monastic men and women, however, witness to this belief more intensely by a life that says clearly: “There’s more to life than what the world offers!” The monastery, where we own everything in common and live a frugal lifestyle, points beyond the mad passion for acquiring things. Our life of obedience and humility points past the world of power and popularity to a different Kingdom. Everything we do whispers, “Psst! There’s more! There’s so much more!”
If the life of the cloister points beyond itself to the day when all people will feast at the table in the Kingdom, then this afternoon’s buffet is just the kind of party that we Benedictines ought to be throwing!
As I walk around greeting people, I keep trying to catch another glimpse of Otis, and I’m not sure why. He’s just a guy who stops by now and then looking for food or soap or a few dollars, and then disappears for weeks at a time. He survives on the streets by his wits: stretching the truth here, working an angle there, and not trusting anybody. Still, there is just something about him today that I can’t quite put my finger on. … Then it hits me, and the little judge inside of me blushes deep red: To God, I must look exactly like Otis! Don’t I always try to “run games” and work angles with the Lord, instead of just trusting? Don’t I often stretch the truth in conversations with God, and try to fast-talk my way out of spiritual challenges rather than face them? Don’t I sometimes wander off somewhere without saying good-bye, instead of staying single-minded in my commitment to God? Otis has brought me face-to-face with my real self, and has reminded me that I don’t measure up at all.
One day, though, it’ll be my turn to go to the banquet. There’ll be this big white tent crowded with people of every age and race and language and nation, and tables heaped with rich food and bottles of fine wine. And I will have to show up just as I am, unkempt in my faults and my weaknesses, my insincerity and my faintheartedness, an obviously unworthy guest at the party. I breathe a silent prayer that I’ll feel as comfortable at that feast as Otis does here this afternoon.
He has worked his way over to the table where they’re serving the barbecued chicken. Seeing another familiar monk, he waves his plastic fork at him in greeting. His mouth still half full, he calls:
“Yo! Brother Tom! Great party, huh?”
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. (Luke 16:19–23)
Picture your life as a banquet table where you’re seated with various friends, family, and acquaintances. You’re having a wonderful time enjoying the company and the good food. Now look away from the table, searching the dark corners of the room for a Lazarus that might be lying there unnoticed. Who are the people that you are most likely not to notice, who might be “invisible” to you the way the beggar was to the rich man? Think of one of these “invisible people” and ask God how you might reach out to him or her.
RULE OF BENEDICT
“You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing.” (Chapter 4, “The Tools for Good Works,” vv. 14–19)
THE NEW JERUSALEM: EASTER VIGIL
St. John is on to something in the last chapter of the book of Revelation. He says that in the end, we’re all going to wind up in the city. The victorious Lamb, the conquering Christ, the River of Life, all of these will appear on the last day not in a lush garden or a majestic forest, not in a misty valley or on a snowy peak, but in a beautiful city—downtown!
The damp night breeze whips across the ball field from Springfield Avenue, bringing with it the familiar grumble of traffic noises. A hand reaches out to protect the tiny flame the Abbot has just struck. Stooping low, he touches the lighted taper to a small heap of sticks and kindling piled in the middle of the brick-paved plaza behind the school and monastery. The wood slowly crackles to life, spewing ragged flames into the breeze and sending flickering shadows dancing across the wide circle of monks and a few dozen other worshippers. The white vestments of the ministers turn a dull orange.
The big white Prudential building, the old Bamberger’s department store, and the Midatlantic building look on silently in the dark from a few blocks away. A stone’s throw to the north, the stately Essex County Courthouse stares at us with wide window eyes. Behind me loom the ghostly shadows of our school buildings. Using the silvery glow of the security lamp mounted on the wall of the gym, Abbot Melvin reads a prayer from the book:
Father, we share in the light of your glory through your Son, the Light of the World. Make this fire holy, and inflame us with new hope.
The heat from the fire brushes my face and my hands. I smile as I stare into the bright, joyful flames and feel that familiar rock-solid certainty deep inside. It comes back like this each year when we celebrate the Easter Vigil. At this moment I’m as sure of this as I am of anything: in the end, Good is going to win.
The prayer continues,
Purify our minds by this Easter celebration, and bring us one day to the feast of eternal light. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Fr. Theodore holds the new five-foot Easter candle while the Abbot, tracing over the cross that is painted on it, says:
Christ yesterday and today,
The beginning and the end,
Alpha and Omega;
All time belongs to him
And all the ages;
To him be glory and power,
Through every age and forever. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” There it is, Christ’s promise in the book of Revelation that through all the upheavals of history, through all the dizzying ups and downs of the city, through all the problems and sorrows of my own life, he will remain Master and Lord of the Universe. Sooner or later he will overcome the world’s darkness once and for all.
The Abbot lights the tall candle,
and Fr. Theodore, lifting it up, starts carrying it across the parking lot, towards William Street. We all follow in procession while its fragile flame flickers against a cloudy sky made lavender by the lights of downtown. A motorcycle spatters and roars a few blocks away; a jet rumbles into Newark Airport. The sounds of the city seem magnified by our silence.
We walk out through the gate of the parking lot, turn right, and follow the candle up the steep William Street hill. Lay people in winter coats, black-robed monks, whiterobed priests and servers slowly and reverently climb the sidewalk alongside the abbey church. A car driving up the hill beside us slows down for a look at this curious collection of hooded figures in black robes and white albs. I wonder what the car’s passengers are thinking?
Walking on the city streets in a liturgical procession in the middle of the night is an important sign to the world that the Kingdom is already present and is breaking in on us. It’s a reminder to all of us that the city is at the center of the Christian vision of the end time. John says in the book of Revelation:
I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, “Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain.”
If God wants to live among people, then where better to go than a city? What better place to start wiping tears away?
An ambulance wails somewhere in the distance.
One of the signs of the end-time is the unsettling reversal of merely human expectations: the mighty get knocked from their thrones and the lowly are lifted up; the hungry are filled and the rich go hungry. The world’s system of values is turned upside down: money, military might, and moral self-righteousness count for nothing, and the kingdom goes instead to the poor and repentant.