I have been researching what it takes to become a monk at a monastery and have already visited Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery in Conyers, GA. Next will visit a monastery in Berryville, VA followed by Gethsemani in KY, a eastern orthodox one in AZ only because some of them practice Hesychasm which I happen to do as well, although, I don’t do the Jesus prayer, I use a latin phrase “agla Dominus adjutor meus”. I also want to check out this really cool monastery in NM. The monastery in KY, takes people up to 55 yrs of age, although almost all of them will make exceptions for really old dudes, because quite frankly not many folks are becoming monks. But it is a long drawn out process.
The group I was with was pretty pathetic, though. I think the monastic life seems to attract lost souls. There was one dude who had tried to commit suicide (but obviously not very well), he was the youngest at 28. A few were recovering drug addicts, alcoholics (one had liver disease and would not be allowed to join until he got a liver transplant), mid-life crisis types, lonely old gay guys (apparently, as long as you give it up some will allow you to join, others not), guys who tried to be monks or priests but couldn’t hack it and had dropped out only to find they couldn’t hack the real world either. I was there for the spiritual journey and pretty much bucked the daily monastic routine preferring to connect with God thru my daily hikes into nature and tended to pray in their Cathedral at odd hours of the day and night. But there was no way I was going to wake up at 4am to pray! That would take some getting used to, everyone else did as they thought they were expected to do, all trying to brown nose the monks there. Silly, actually.
My research has also uncovered various scandals at monasteries around the US and the world. For example, the monastery at Gethsemani where Thomas Merton lived had tried to establish a school for young boys in the 40’s only to have it shut down due to a sex abuse scandal. There are other stories of monks raping nuns and having illegitimate children. Another disappointment is their so called industries, what they do to earn money and be self-sufficient. It seems they do a fair amount of misleading marketing. The monastery I visited supposedly made their own fudge but during my walks off-road, I found a dump (actually many dumping sites, they were terrible stewards of nature) with boxes of commercial fudge mixes. I imagine that a commercial company supplies many monasteries claiming to make their own secret recipe or such nonsense. But at this particular monastery I also found dumps with tons of jugs of wine, beer cans, and other forbidden food items. I can just see monks in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s going thru drinking and eating binges because they just couldn’t hack the isolation from the rest of society or the strict vegetarian diets. It’s a tough life, they even hint at it during the vocational retreat. But they don’t show you the bad side. It’s there to discover, if you decide to look.
The funny thing is that in the Rule of Benedict, which they follow, it states not to trust visitors. And, man, let me tell you, they were keeping an eye on my little off-road adventures. I almost got busted a few times in places I am sure they would not have liked me to be but I always seemed to just escape getting caught with my hand in the “proverbial” cookie jar.
