Not of This World: Part 2
A Short Stay in an Orthodox Monastery
My YouTube vlogs about my stay in the monastery
Introduction
Monasteries are places of quiet and reflection. So, it is only correct that, after telling the tale of my stay in the monastery, I then reflect upon it. After all, if it hasn’t taught me anything, then what was the point?
People asked me afterwards how I found it all and, the strange thing was, I could not answer. “It’s too early to say,” was all that I could reply, and I meant it. My brain was still processing; perhaps it still is. What the monastery represented was a window onto another world. A reality quite different to the one that I live now, despite occupying the same physical space and having certain commonalities. The reflections that follow will focus on that other world and how I reacted to it. And I am going to begin with something that is always at the forefront of my mind…
#1: Give us each day our daily bread
The food. Let’s begin by talking about the monastic meals.
Everything prepared at the monastery is fresh and cooked from their own ingredients. Whilst I was there the diet was entirely vegan save for on the Sunday evening when a piece of fish was offered as part of the tea. This was because I stayed during Advent, one of the fasting periods, but Sundays, being celebrations of Our Lord’s Resurrection, do not count as fasting days.
The food was wholesome and, I would imagine, extremely healthy. There was a pasta dish with tomatoes, various soups, green salad, bowls of beetroot, potato dishes and home baked bread. In the mornings for breakfast, it was just the bread served with vegan spread, jam, honey, peanut butter, or Marmite. None of the food was objectionable but, conversely, aside from the bread (which was some of the tastiest I have ever eaten), none of it excited me. It was plain. Wholesome but plain.
To be honest, I struggled with it. It was the vegan diet I guess, since vegetarian food (let alone vegan) always makes me feel weak for the first week or so during my Lenten fasts as my body adjusts. Coupled with that, there was a shortage of caffeine. Most tea was herbal and the black tea — drunk from glass bowls in the Russian style — was weak. I suffered from headaches and fatigue that, I believe, was due to caffeine withdrawal more than anything, but not helped by the vegan diet. The moment I rolled into London, I made myself a strong cuppa… and then another… and another. And at dinnertime I rushed out to buy steak and chips from an Argentinian stall in the street market.
The Muslims use the term “jihad” to denote a struggle, and I guess one of my toughest jihads is around food. The fact is, I love it. I adore trying new cuisines, experimenting with different ingredients, and experiencing the world through its cooking. And because of that, I have a strong tolerance for spices and other flavours. All of which meant that I struggled with the food in the monastery. I found it samey and boring, and I longed for something with a bit of bite to it.
Religious diets have always been a stumbling block for me. Okay, so I understand why Buddhists might go vegetarian because they see animals as sentient beings whom we shouldn’t really be butchering for food. I get that; it makes sense. And I also get temporary fasting so that we appreciate what we have all the more when not fasting. That is why I give meat up for Lent every year. But missing out certain foods on a permanent basis with no strong rationale for it, just strikes me as a bit, well… silly. Take the Jewish and Muslim avoidance of pork. Why? Pigs are just as sentient as cows or sheep, and they are no dirtier than other animals. If you avoid all meat, fine, but why that one? It is no healthier or less healthy than all the others. I have read that it is because, in ancient times, it didn’t keep well in the desert heat. Fine, but we have fridges now and most of us aren’t in the desert.
A friend of mine who is Buddhist follows a different set of dietary restrictions, namely avoiding garlic and daikon. It is to do with meditation apparently and, if it makes him happy, then all well and good (he insists this is so and it would be disrespectful to not take what he says at face value), but, practically, what it means is that most of his food is pretty bland and he struggles to eat outside of his home for fear of accidentally imbuing some of the verboten ingredients.
I mention this because his lifestyle is rather monastic and, indeed, he regularly goes to stay in (Catholic) monasteries. I think he would love the food at St. John the Baptist and, if I spoke with him (and the monks) would argue that, after a while you get used to the plainness and don’t miss it.
And he would have a point. Human beings truly are remarkable beings when it comes to the ability to adapt. It is how we survive wars, holocausts, and a whole lot more. Yes, I do love my flavoursome food and strong cuppas, but after a month or two I would adapt to the monastic norm and find the fayre on offer there quite fulfilling.
Which brings me to the crux of my dilemma: Would that not be better? Should I follow the monks and my friend and adopt a diet that is dull but healthy and thus eke out a few extra years on this earth? Try vegetarianism properly since it would be good for the planet and also save some money too. Yes, I would be missing out on certain experiences, but once I have normalised it, that would be okay. Indeed, one might even come to the point where meat or spicy food becomes objectionable.
That is the path one follows in a monastery but is it the right path for me? Part of me says yes, for the reasons above, but another part of me disagrees. The fact is, there is something in me that wants to try the unknown or the different, to continually explore and expand my horizons. True, the downside is that one normalises it and then finds the plainer meals boring, but what does that matter when one can learn and experience so much? When I see people who haven’t tried different foods and are scared to do so, I feel such pity. There is so much they do not know.
And it goes beyond food. I love travel and long to explore the entire world and beyond. Some people are not like that. My mum for example. She has no yearning for the unknown, instead she likes the comforts of home and routine. Surely, it would be better to be like her (and the monks), content with what you have.
Or would it? Is my mum really that content and happy? Or is her lack of adventure the result of a lifetime of not facing her fears and living with anxiety? How many monks are in the monastery eating their plain food because it is their deep spiritual quest, a place where they can delve internally and explore within? And how many are there because the outside world is a scary place, complex, complicated, unethical, frightening? Within the institution they are safe and the monsters that plague them can stay locked in the wardrobe even if they never fully disappear.
With all of this, I am reminded of the maxims of Ingsoc, the political party that runs Oceania in George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. Emblazoned across the four ministries in London were the following slogans:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
And it is that last slogan that sticks. Ignorance is Strength. Is it better not to know? Not to know about different foods, about different faiths, about the world beyond the monastery walls. With such ignorance can one focus better on the spiritual task at hand?
Or is that ignorance just an illusion and, to really reach enlightenment, should one instead be more like Buddha and explore every avenue, taste every food, and face every doubt?
Something to think about as I eat my beetroot and lentil soup…[1]
#2: All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.[2]
I have been thinking a lot about communal living. The monastery does that to you. It may be a religious place, it may have mystery and routine, but above all it is communal. People elect to live their lives in the company of others, others whom they did not choose personally. This is not like a marriage as you have no say in whom you fellow brothers and sisters will be. They are who they are. In that sense it is more like family.
I believed that I am not a communal person. I live alone and like doing so. I value my own time and when I was married resented always having someone else around. I am a loner perhaps. When looking at the monastic life, I was always more attracted to the eremitic (hermit life, like the old Celtic saints on their lonely islands) than the coenobitic (communal). And I am in good company. The original monks, the Desert Fathers of Egypt were eremitic. They left civilisation behind for a desert place where they could be alone with their thoughts and their God. Coenobitic monasticism was a borrowing from Paganism. The word coenobites was initially applied to the followers of Pythagoras in Crotone, Italy, who founded a commune not just for philosophical study but also for the “amicable sharing of worldly goods.”
Christian coenobitic monasticism was founded by St. Pachomius in Egypt in the 4th century. Solitary living did not suit everyone. Some monks found the eremitic style to be too lonely and difficult; and if one was not spiritually prepared, the life could lead to mental breakdowns. Therefore, organised monastic communities were established so that monks could have more support in their spiritual struggle. While eremitic monks did have an element of socialising, since they would meet once a week to pray together, coenobitic monks came together for common prayer on a more regular basis. The coenobitic monks also practised more socialising because the monasteries where they lived were often located in or near inhabited villages. ‘The Life of Saint Pachomius’ states that the monks of the monastery of Tabenna built a church for the villagers of the nearby town of the same name even “before they constructed one for themselves.” This means that coenobitic monks did find themselves in contact with other people, including lay people, whereas the eremitic monks tried their best to keep to themselves, only meeting for prayer occasionally. Nowadays coenobitic is the norm, particularly in the Catholic church.
The St. John the Baptist Monastery is coenobitic, but it is a far cry from the factories of faith that some Catholic institutions seem to be. There is a Rule, but it seems to be more loosely applied. I should like to stay in a Catholic or Anglican monastery later to compare the two, but I noticed that there seemed to be no obligation to attend meals or even all the services in the church.
The other thing that is very different from most monasteries is that the St. John the Baptist Monastery has both monks and nuns in the same institution. Catholic monasteries have been strictly sex-segregated for centuries; some nuns never even see a man, let alone live communally with them. It is also rare in Orthodoxy too; most are male or female. I believe that the reason it is this way is because when St. Sophrony founded his community, he did not have the financial resources to establish two separate ones for his male and female disciples.
Personally, I like the unisex model. Immensely. I find gender segregation to be unhealthy. Environments that are either all male or all female tend to objectify the other sex. I believe that whilst sexual attraction is real (although so too is same-sex sexual attraction for many people), we also need to be friends with the other sex and see them as fully-formed humans rather than merely on a sexual level. Also, I have read about Celtic or Saxon monasteries that were male and female and, sometimes, were ruled by an abbess (in particularly, I recall the establishment at Breedon-on-the-Hill in Leicestershire to have been one such monastery), and I had always wondered how that worked. Now, with my own eyes, I got to see a living example of a tradition eradicated in the British Isles for over a millennium.
But that is the monastery in general, what about me? How was I, the great loner, going to cope with communal living? Would I find it oppressive or liberating?
In truth, it was a bit of both. Waking up early for services was never going to come easy to me, but the set meal-times I rather liked. They broke up the day and gave me some structure. Now was the time to stop reading or writing and eat. Whether I would appreciate that regularity on a long-term basis is another matter, but for the time I was there, it was good. I guess the key is as to how mandatory it all is. If one can skip meals or eat alone in one’s room from time to time, then I believe it would not be too oppressive — and that does seem to be the case — but I am unsure exactly as to how it works for a monk or nun.
One thing I did find challenging though, was the formal nature of the dinner and tea.[3] Although I sat with my fellow visitors, there was little chatter beyond asking to pass the dishes around. That is because we were meant to listen to the passages being read for our spiritual edification. And, the ones read at dinnertime, extracts from a book by St. Sophrony, I did enjoy. But at tea they were in French which I don’t speak and so I learned nothing. And I would have liked a chat, to get to know people better and share experiences. Surely that is the whole point of communal living… right…?
Maybe I should try an institution with the Rule of Silence next?
My favourite time of each day was the High Tea which took place every day at 4:30pm in the Old Refectory. Few people attended and those that did were mostly the guests, not the monastics. And it isn’t sex-segregated like the main meals, so I got a chance to chat with all the other visitors, male and female. I enjoyed it immensely; it helped me process but I also felt very human then, not merely a cog in a faith machine.
What struck me most of all about the communal life, was how much it reminded me of somewhere I lived two and a half decades ago, a place with no religion at all.
After finishing my A-levels and before starting university, I took a year out and as part of it I spent several months on a kibbutz (a socialist commune) out in the Israeli desert. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life and I loved the kibbutz model of living. In the monastery I almost felt like I had returned to the kibbutz and the reason was the model of communal living. Everyone is equal and shares a common purpose. They go off and work but come together for meals and celebrations. However, the kibbutz was entirely secular, there isn’t even a synagogue there. So, instead of the Liturgy, there were films shown in the cultural centre or other meetings. And, every day the free coffee show — the moadon — was open where you could get a drink and you knew that someone would be there and you could chat or play backgammon. And, thinking how much I enjoyed that — and the High Tea in the monastery — made me realise that I may not be so averse to communal living at all. Indeed, my ideal state would be to have my own place but also to have events and institutions like a free coffee shop where I could go for company and intellectual stimulation.
At present, where I live there is nothing like that. The pub used to fulfil that function and, to a lesser extent, the church, but both institutions are not what they were, plus I don’t always want the alcohol of the former and the timings of the latter. In my current life, perhaps the closest I have to this is the sauna where I go several times weekly and either relax or read or chat to some of the regulars. Interestingly, much of my creative inspiration comes to me there which suggests that such a lifestyle might be extremely good for you mentally as well as physically. So, if the monastery taught me one thing and one thing only, it is that I am not the absolute hermit that I always thought I was.
#3: For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.[4]
The final lesson that keeps coming to me when meditating upon my time in the monastery is one rather fashionable at the moment but pertinent, nonetheless. And it is all about us being different.
Some time ago a friend of mine whom I have worked with for many years, came to me and spoke of a research project that she’d been doing around ADHD.[5] Now, my previous understanding of the condition had been around some of the kids that I’d taught in the Young Offenders’ Institute who had struggled to concentrate and keep still. However, she explained that ADHD went far beyond that and that there are countless people who are affected by it yet still manage to function — and often thrive — in modern society. She believed that she was ADHD as she struggles to focus on one task, prefers a chaotic lifestyle, struggles with routine and order and yet is bursting with ideas and creativity.
And she had approached me because she suspected I might be the same.
I have since researched the topic a lot more and I believe that she is right. However, ADHD, like all instances of neurodiversity, is on a spectrum. To some extent we are all a little ADHD. I am not an extreme case. I have another friend who is further along the spectrum and is diagnosed and takes medication to manage it. Medication that does make a difference and helps her to function far more efficiently. Yet ADHD is not the only instance of neurodiversity. Some years ago, I supported several individuals with severe autism. Unlike the ADHD people, they need routine and focus on details brilliantly, but the formless chaos that I prefer is a struggle.
Neurodiversity is not new; it has existed since the beginning of time but exploring it and defining it is. And there is still a lot of prejudice and misconception. One friend, when I spoke to him about my suspected ADHD replied, quite innocently and compassionately that research has shown that a poor diet can be the cause and if I changed my diet it might help to cure it.
But the key is, like homosexuality or other traits previously seen to be harmful or negative (and, indeed, downright sinful!) neurodiversity is not something to be “cured” but instead to be understood and recognised so we can use our character traits to their best advantage. Take for example the environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg. She is autistic and describes her autism as her “superpower”, something she would not wish to be cured of. And I agree with her. Her single-minded focus on changing perceptions on the environment, her capacity for detail and persistence would, I believe, be impossible for someone not blessed with the gift of autism. God knows best and, as it says in Romans, we are all given diverse gifts.
Which brings me back to the monastery. Throughout my stay there, neurodiversity kept coming to the fore.
It began in the New Refectory. The moment that I entered there, I felt happy and content. Why? Because of the wonderful frescoes of saints that cover the walls. Sitting in there and eating, I had something to occupy my eyes and brain. Whilst I ate, I would settle on the different saints, read their name and gaze into their eyes and wonder about their lives, the scrolls they each held giving clues.
So entrancing did I find this, that one way in which I am carrying the monastery with me is as follows: I was later told, after taking some photographs of the wonderful frescoes in the refectory, that photography wasn’t really allowed. Wanting a reminder of them, I purchased a small book in the bookshop entitled ‘Timeless Wisdom’ which contained an image of each saint and their message. The book contained an introduction all about how Sr. Gabriella chose and painted the images, but after that I began wondering about the saints that they depicted. Some were familiar: Anthony and Benedict, plus, of course, Sophrony and Silouan, but countless more were not. So, I decided to choose one every evening and began to look them up. I’m on the women at the moment and there are some real characters — St. Isidora of Tabenna who existed on scraps in the kitchen and was derided by all, or St. Mary of Egypt who lived a dissolute life and went on an anti-pilgrimage to Jerusalem where she slept through half the city before a magical force prevented her from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which prompted her conversion — and by this method I am learning much about the Early Church that I did not previously know.
I enjoyed that refectory, and it is teaching me because it suited my ADHD. It is why I love Orthodox churches with their clutter and decoration but so dislike the whitewashed empty spaces of the Protestants although they may be more beneficial to others whose brains cannot cope with the constant barrage of imagery and information.
On the converse side though, talking to the monks and the other visitors, there was other stuff that I did not connect with so well. The routine and early starts. Even though I worked for years in a job with early starts, my body never adjusted to them. And when I heard the tales of the monks or the reasons why Elizabeth converted to Orthodoxy — those insistences on Authority and certainty, then I struggled. These are people who see the world in a far more binary way than I do. There is a right and a wrong, a True Church and many false ones. But try as I might, I cannot think that way. And, I believe, that is due to how my brain works. I am countless shades of grey, not a chessboard. However, for the autistic people I have known, I believe the routine of the monastery and the certainty of the Orthodox faith might be priceless.
What does this mean? It means that the quote in Romans is accurate. We all have different gifts and God wishes us to worship Him in different ways. Five daily prayers at specific times might suit one yet be an oppression to another. And that is okay, because our brains do not function the same. My ADHD is perhaps why pilgrimage appeals to me so much. There is structure and meditation time but there is also a constantly changing landscape and choice of folk to converse with which keep my brain active.
And that is fine.
Conclusion: The Figure in the Forest
I have probably learnt much more from the monastery, but I am going to close this essay here. After all, three major lessons are apt for a Christian institution.
I enjoyed my days at the Monastery of St. John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights and I plan to return. But that will not be all. I am already looking at a suitable Catholic house to stay in and I still dream of spending some days on Mt. Athos. More than all of that though, my glimpse into another world, a world so like and yet unlike my own, has given me something that I can carry through into this life too. That appreciation for communal time, the impact our neurodiversity has on our daily lives and the choices that we make and how to truly be thankful for our daily bread.
And a greater appreciation for that Christ that the Greek lady at high tea describe. The elusive figure who hides in the forest and beckons us onwards to the place where our souls belong.
Written 11/12/2023–14/01/2024, Smallthorne, UK
Copyright © 2024, Matthew E. Pointon
[1] As an aside, the evening after I left the monastery, I stayed in London and my tenth-floor hotel room overlooked the building — Senate House — that inspired the pyramidical ministries of Orwell’s dystopian capital.
[2] Acts 4:32
[3] I use the more northern terminology. Dinner is the meal at 1pm and Tea is the evening meal. Down south Lunch and Dinner is more common.
[4] Romans 12:4–5
[5] Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder