Three Days a Monk
“Bienvenue à l'abbaye, Monsieur Brett”
The door closed behind me with a thud. My stay at a French monastery had begun.
Feeling Nervous
A week before my upcoming silence retreat, I was still waffling. “Monks are weird, though, right?” “I’m not even Catholic- or French- what am I doing?”
In the end I recognized my indecision as the usual “fear of the unknown” that always (and must) come before any life-expanding new experience. So this past Thursday I knocked on the door of the 12th-century abbey and went inside.
The Abbey
The Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque is a 12th-century Cistercian monastery tucked into a quiet valley on the edge of the alps in southern France. Most people come for the tour and gift shop. Lesser known is the silent monastic retreat that’s open to the public.
For €43/day you get a simple room, three meals, and a whole lot of quiet.
A Day in the Life
What does a day look like? In short, whatever you need it to look like.
The eight monks who run the cloister keep a consistent schedule of meals and services. You can attend as much- or as little- as you like.
For me, the schedule for success was:
Morning
7:30: Wake up Slow
9: Walk trail into mountains
10: Think/Write/Pray
12: Come Back for Lunch
Afternoon
1: Walk different trail into mountains
2: Think/Write/Pray
6: Come back down for dinner
8: ~15m “Compline” (liturgy-ish thing in chapel)
9: Read and Sleep
Experience
“Ok,” you might ask. “Spill the beans- what did you get out of it? Why would you (or I) do something like this?”
In short: peace, clarity, and God.
Peace
Your addictions will surface within an hour. For the first day you’ll check your phone- probably a lot- even though there’s no signal. Sports scores, updates from the latest war, S&P 500 updates. Your modern brain will resist the silence in search for its regular dopamine hit.
The withdrawal will be uncomfortable. But after some time, in lieu of having to process what Bo Burnham rightly calls “anything and everything all of the time” your brain will do a funny thing. Something it hasn’t done since you put that little rectangle in your pocket. It will engage in this strange reality called the present moment.
Your surroundings, your thoughts, your feelings. All the good and all the “yuck” spewing out in random fashion to recognize, put before God, and to begin to process. And as you walk down that mountain as the sun sets, there might be a new feeling at work: peace.
Clarity
For me, the volcano of repressed thoughts “ascends” throughout the day, from minutiae to meaning.
8a:“I need to get a new pair of jeans and email Ryan”
11a: (Let’s do a project inventory). “Whoa- I’m trying to do 13 different projects at the same time while leading a trip through Europe, holding down a full-time job, speaking French everywhere I go- all with three kids. Could that be why I’m a frustrated, anxious ball of stress?
2p: Man, missing my kids. Can’t believe I’ve got less than nine years left with these boys- and then they’re gone. “Lord, what do I need to focus on in this season?”
5p:Whoa- the graves of the old monks right next to the abbey. That’s a little intense. These monks were just picking lavender and leading liturgy. Now they’re bodies are six feet under. Just like the current guys will be soon… Just like I will be soon. Am I ready to meet God? Our time is short and we’re all just a small link in the chain of the big story.“Lord, help me to be faithful with my little link”.
You won’t have everything figured out. But by the time your head hits the pillow, there’s a good chance you’ll have organized, prioritized, and most importantly- remembered.
God
If you had to slap some labels on my theology these days, they’d be familiar. Reformed, evangelical, bible-believing. Luther and Calvin are still my guys.
But if you teased out my thoughts on how people experience God and grow, what church should look (and sound) like, what people need in the age of overstimulation … I wonder what labels I’d use?
Contemplative? Quiet?
Maybe I’d muse on how much baby the reformers threw out with the bathwater. What did we lose when we turned our back on millenia of hard-won experience in prayer and spiritual formation?
I’d probably ask if a church service could (at least sometimes) look more like a lectio divina reading than a rock concert or a TED talk.
I’d put forward the crazy idea that if we could just be still, we’d know he’s there. If we could just be quiet we’d hear his voice again.
Should you be a (temporary) monk?
You don’t have to come to the Luberon Valley to get some quiet. There’s probably a place like this near you. (Pacem in Terris if you’re around the twin cities. I found my Abbey on Google.)
In theory, you could try this at home. In practice, between kids, tasks, wifi, and all the rest- it probably definitely won’t work.
As strange as it sounds, the best thing for your soul just might be becoming a monk… at least for a few days.
“Be still and know that I am God”- Psalm 46
