There’s a Monk in My Tea
Three times I saw him keying the cash register. He appeared serious but not worried. He seemed to move around his own orbit. There was grace and discipline with the way he used his hands. Around lunch time just when students began walking in, he bowed out for Curly. Curly was the bald man who took orders all afternoon. Curly called him “Father.”
I was friends with Curly and the cook. Curly knew my breakfast consisted of banana and water. I’d have early lunch at 10:30 with Curly behind my back . It turned out “Father” was Curly’s brother. “He’s a Benedictine monk,” he said.
We talked over tea. I had my first fill quick, my second came just as fast. My third, fourth, tenth… DOM Elias Ma. Serra, OSB, appeared to be talking behind a wall of glass.
Pardon me, but my idea of the monastic life is fairly traditional. I was thinking you should be living on top of a mountain in a cave. He flashed a beatific smile. I am a city monk. OSB, Order of Socializing Boys. He laughed. The place where I eat is owned by his brother who’s a ship captain. This place is new. I can see that. I’ve come here for my nephew and niece. They need guidance now and then. I should be with my community in the Monastery of the Configuration in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. I’m having a short break for the time being. Perhaps I’ll come back to my community around second week of August.
You intrigue me, I said. What’s it like to be a monk? Not much different from you lay people. It’s only a matter of perspective. I live a life of prayer and solitude. But I am of this world so I must blend in. It’s wrong to think of monks as social outcasts. That’s what I think of them, I butted in. In the past perhaps. There are four kinds of monks: the Cenobites, the Hermits, the Sarabites, and the Gyrovague. The Benedictines belong to Gyrovague monks because we associate ourselves with people. Heard about the Trapeeze Monks on Guimaras Island? Yes. They’re Benedictine monks originally but they separated from us.
When you come around and have your meal here I have the urge to talk to you. Me? Yes, you. Maybe because of my wide forehead. Not that. I can see an aura around you. Not over my head? Don’t be foolish. I can sense that you have a strong spiritual side. Strong sexual side is more like it. We laughed.
How did you enter the Benedictines? I was fresh from college. San Agustin, double degree in Biology and Medical Biology. I wished to enter medical school but my plan went awry when things took a different turn. Would you believe I had worked as a research assistant in a chemical company? But I was called to the religious life through friends. I had a friend who entered the Franciscans, so I tried it myself. Didn’t last long though when another friend invited me to another retreat in San Beda. There I met Dom Benito, OSB. He never let up until I said yes. So here I am.
How do monks pray? Benedictines pray in a certain way under the principle of Ora Et Labora. So do the others. But setting aside my religious bias praying is ultimately a matter of opening and surrendering yourself to a greater force out there. There’s vocal and spiritual prayers but no amount of pleading can bring you closer to God if you go inside, going interior. Which is why the best prayer is not saying and thinking anything.
Do you believe in magic and mysticism? Mysticism, yes, magic no. Mysticism is beautiful in that it is an affirmation that indeed the world is not flat and one-dimensional. There are certain things that may be perceived and taken as wisdom without the aid of reason and science. Mysticism is going–and breaking away–beyond the parameters of known knowledge. Some monks are mystics, right? Right, and they’re very difficult to understand. So are some saints. What about the non-Christian mystics whose revelations risk the teachings of the Catholic Church? They are against the Church as an institution but they’re not against it as the Mystical Body of Christ. That alone is too mystical thing for them to attack.
In Blakean mysticism ( I know my English lit), there’s no evil and good in the sense that one needs the other to be. The students of Zoroaster believed the same. In Hindu mythology their God of Creation is their God of Destruction at the same time. I can’t comment on anything I consider alien to my training. There’ ll always be evil and good whether you like it or not.
How important is music to a monk? Oh I used to be a glee club member in high school. In my community in Malaybalay I put up a choir. To a monk music is a form of prayer. So we go for real spiritual music. Have you heard of Sun Ra? Father said no. Well Sun Ra was a black jazz artist who believed himself the missing link between man and aliens. Said his music could build spiritual bridges between galaxies. Far out, father.
In the seminary we sang so many similar out-of-the-body-experience enducing songs too. (Sings a sample) Not soul, mind you. Finally, how can we run away from noise? You can’t. How can we ward it off, if not put a stop to it for once? The process, my child, is not changing the the outside to go inside. It must be from the the inside going out. So no matter how noisy and chaotic the world is you can float on the light of your own aura.
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GANGRENOUS 