I still don’t get the bells. Normally, one learns things by asking questions, but I’d like to get through at least one day not having to ask what every Orthodox toddler already apparently knows.
The bells I’m talking about ring before meals…and during. I was sure there’s a wonderfully esoteric name for the bell, but I asked Fr. Madai what the dinner bell thing was called the other day, he said, “The bell? It is called ‘bell.’”
On Day 1, I heard the distant tinny chime from precisely the opposite side of the big square monastery. It ricocheted and rebounded all the way down the hard wood hallways around right angles and to my room. Er…my “cell.” I knew it must signify something, and it was a bell, so…I went to investigate.
Turns out it was food. That was good. Having recently been cleaned out by the move, Super Fun Legal Stuff, and a road trip, I didn’t have a lot of that. Food, I mean.
There was a line of people there outside the dining hall, or “trapeza,” or “refectory,” (not just a bar back home), or “dining hall.” It was just a small handful of us. What I would soon think of as The Regulars. They’re a colorful bunch who I’d love to interview (and maybe will).
When Profurios the 11-year-old postulant (?) came out and rang the bell for the second or third time, we all filed in to the hall.
I was directed to the right-hand side of the hall with a group of people who were obviously not clergy of any kind. I sat…and then noticed that I was the only one sitting. Everyone else stood behind their chairs. I looked up and saw Anna, caretaker to Fr. Benedict raising her eyebrows and smiling, as if to say, “Stand up, rookie.”
I stood up.
The monks filed in, robes flowing, and stood around a separate table between the two main long tables. On the opposite side of the hall a woman began reading the prayers, the priests responded with prayers, another bell rang, and we all sat down.
Dying from thirst, I flipped my simple little silver cup over and reached for a pitcher. Seraphim the Iconographer held up a hand and said, sotto voce, “Not until the next bell.” I looked around - everyone was beginning to eat, but apparently this was a Rule. Everyone’s cups were upside down.
I made a mental note to write that down under my list of monastery rules.
The woman, who I later learned was Profurios’ mother, read from a book about the lives of the saints. At some point, Fr. Madai rang a small bell and it was evidently alright to pour the water. In doing some basic research for this piece, I discovered that this might actually be holy water.
We Catholics didn’t drink holy water. It’s going to take me a long time to get over the more-than-subtle feelings of sacrilege there…
At the final bell at the end of the meal, we all stood behind our chairs again. More prayer. Father blessed the fragments. Then we filed out past the hieromonks with their hands raised in blessing, stood in line, and filed past them again to receive another blessing.
Honestly, the whole experience left me a little uneasy. Had I just moved into a military base? Was this boot camp?
Well, yes. Pretty much.
Nobody put me through an orientation when I came to the monastery. It was on-the-job training from the get-go. A casual, “We do this now,” or, “Can you do X?” And then X becomes your job. I learned as I went, delighted, basically, to discover more and more of the quiet, hidden routine going on from sunrise to sunset.
Doors must always be shut.
Dishes must be washed in three sinks: One to knock the gunk off, one to soap them up, one to rinse them off.
Your chores are your “obedience.”
For things you want to do, like any big thing like projects, trips, etc., you get a “blessing.”
It’s lights-out at 9:00, although that evidently means that nobody should be grouping together. I hear doors shutting, footsteps, and the work of private projects going on well into the night.
And, of course, the real work is the liturgy. That’s literally what “Divine Liturgy” means: work.
There’s another percussive time-keeping method in the mornings. One of the monks will walk down the halls beating a log with a stick in a catchy little rhythm. You get the 6:30 log alarm, then the 6:45, and then the 7:00. It’s audible everywhere in the monastery. No excuses.
My obediences include mowing the courtyard and, thanks to mission-creep, all of the grassy spaces around the church itself, sweeping and mopping the trapeza, kitchen and pantry. As of last night, I may have a role in putting together the web store for the gift shop. It’s going to start with taking product pictures, but I can see that expanding too. I don’t mind - it’s right up my alley.
It’s all a joy, though. I’m happy to do it. Even the myriad one-offs like picking pears and grinding them into jam. I don’t know if I could hack 50 years of that, but for now at least, here in the “quaint new experience” stage, I enjoy living with, and sometimes like, the monks
It did become too much a couple of weeks ago, however. I have some serious work to do here. “Serious” as in life-changing. Part of it is building a freelance copywriting business, and at this stage, it’s all about acquiring clients. It’s time-consuming. It’s a numbers game - I just have to pitch or reach out to hundreds of people and companies in order to land that first client. Then I have to do it again. And again.
All the praying, cleaning, and mowing were cutting into the business-building and legal stuff. I actually love helping to maintain and maybe even build this amazing community, but there are only so many hours in the day. So, I brought it up with one of the priests. He gave me a blessing to skip morning prayers in order to use the time for my main objective here - rebuilding my life.
And now I feel guilty for doing so. Of course.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all this was scandalous to some people. So many rules for “freedom in Christ…” But you know what St. Jocko says: “Discipline is freedom.” It’s absolutely true, especially for ambitious slackers like me who haven’t met a project they could turn down. Want to get mired in a swamp of details and go decades before you get anything done? Just do what you must “when he spirit moves you.” Want to become a highly effective, laser-focused productivity machine? Impose chafing discipline onto every hour of your day, leaving your “creative time” for an hour or so after the rest of your obligations are met.
I hate it.
I despise it.
I need it.
I’m making it work.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, having thus published this, I must coax the mower back to life and handle the eastern lawn today.
Well we call it a ‘bell’. 🤣🤣 So simple!
Priorities are made of discipline- to each time the thing- that’s a technical term.
Any chance they have a riding lawnmower? Nah. Probably not. Still, I know that's something you're good at... if there aren't spider webs!