Searching for something different









In the background, my 2-year-old granddaughter is screaming, kicking, hitting her crib, and generally making it clear that she’s mad and unhappy. In her case, it’s a simple matter of fighting a bug and a slightly elevated temperature.
I feel just like her at times. So much happening in the world that is horrifying, anger-inducing, disgusting, disillusioning. The people in charge of our nation, many of them — virtually all at the top of the current administration — are terrible people. Selfish, vain, greedy. Every time a new appointment is made, it’s another one of that ilk. People who in previous eras would have skulked at the edges of civilized society have somehow made it to the top of the ladder.
The world has seen their likes before. But we’ve had a long run of somewhat more sane leadership, so the disjointedness is unsettling. And even the opposition is often uninspiring, lacking in passion and in desperate need of a sense of gravitas.
But this isn’t a political post. It’s really part of an argument I’m having with myself—about how much (and how) to fight, how much to watch in horror, how much to wait it out, and how much to invest in other ways of being in the world. Don’t worry: I’m doing many of the things the experts advise, the things to do to oppose tyranny, say no to authoritarians, and fight for the rule of law, democracy, tolerance and basic decency.
But there needs to be more, I feel.
The other day Kim and I drove down to Mt. Angel, Ore., about an hour south of Portland, to visit the Mount Angel Abbey, a Benedictine community started in 1882 by the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland. The monks of Mount Angel “maintain a monastic tradition that has been a vital part of the Roman Catholic Church for more than 1,500 years,” they say, and the place positively radiates calm. Part of that is due to its natural beauty, with views of surrounding farms, fields and forests. Part is the charming care taken by the abbey and its groundskeepers to cultivate nature. They brew beer too, which may help.
But a big piece of it has to be the silence, peacefulness and calm of a community that says little and does much, prays much and contemplates much. There must be a message for many of us here: not the theology, necessarily, but a focus on many things that modern America shuns.
We watch one monk in a dark robe and another in a brown robe and backpack walk toward one another on the sunlit path that crosses from one side of a large central lawn to the other. They pass by in silence.
Beautiful trees and shrubs dot the landscape. Well-tended graves in orderly rows honor the brothers who have departed. An odd museum boasts a large number of animals preserved via taxidermy, including a giant bison, along with lots of dishes and kitchen implements. We didn’t go into the church or famed library, since we had our dog with us, but saw enough and felt enough to get the gist of the place nonetheless, I think.
Even the small gift and coffee shop radiated peace and contemplation.
Although I’m very much a lapsed Catholic, much of the Church’s traditions, liturgy, music and art still resonate with me, despite my reservations in other areas. And the abbey’s atmosphere couldn’t help but remind me of the role that similar places played in medieval times. They preserved the wisdom of the ancient world along with the works of Church luminaries, along with beautiful music and the arts of husbandry, viticulture and other earthly delights.
To be honest, I don’t know exactly how all this informs my other efforts in this time of conflict and unhappiness, loneliness and dysfunction. But I do believe we need some of what one finds in the atmosphere of a Mount Angel to make it to the other side of the abyss.