At 6:20 AM, I laid in bed listening to the overflowing silence. It was loud and clear. The bed was the width of a surfboard and just as comfortable to lie on. It was a row of pine boards with a three-inch foam pad on top. My tailbone was parked on the planks. The edges of the thin sheet covering me were frayed. There were yellow stains near the center. They reminded me of James Joyce. He provided the insight that, when you wet the bed, it at first feels warm and then turns cold. In that room it would ice-up. I was not responsible for the stains. The room smelled like a carpet deodorizer—without a carpet.
There was no mirror in the room. To look at yourself was vanity. You might notice self-importance and pride … or emptiness and hollow eyes.
I felt my heart beating as I lay there silent and still. I listened to it. I felt it pound. It rocked my entire body as if I was on a freight train riding over the rhythmic glitches of an old track in a repeated endless swayback. Like riding gentle waves on my surfboard. What were the beats saying? Some day they would stop. I would stop. I was at the right place. Monasteries are about stopping.
I caught a sliver of light out of the corner of my left eye. Turning my head, I noticed a two-inch wide, eight-foot long, horizontal bar of gold slowly appear and intensify on the wall of my room. The left end of the bar looked to be physically supported by the wooden cross on the wall.
Wondrously, another bar slowly appeared one inch below the present one. A third appeared. A fourth. A fifth.
Speaking in silence, the bars illuminated the landscape of my room, bringing clarity to the intentional emptiness.
It was not a religious vision. There was no mystery. The rising sun was shyly creeping up from behind the winter hills and entering my room through the half-open plantation blinds.
In less than five minutes, my entire wall was covered by bars of light.
It was a spiritual experience because I paid attention to it.
Spirituality is rooted in being awake. Listening. Observing.
I had fifteen minutes to make a landing at Lauds in the monastery chapel at 6:45 AM. Lauds is the second of the eight “offices” that make up the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the church that consecrated the day to God. Matins, which I had missed, is at 3:15 AM. The remaining seven were spread throughout the day with Compline to call it a day before those in the monastery retired at 7:30 PM. In summer, the day starts in the dark of the night and ends in the light of day. The idea was to “flow” with the timetable of the day—and night. An intense preoccupation with structure here. It was a repetitive daily schedule that was a nonstop journey. The days did not finish with a period or even a semicolon. There seemed to be no beginnings or endings. Sleep was a comma, a pause.
I quickly dressed, stopping in at the industrial, bleach-smelling communal bathroom. The water faucet marked hot was cold; the one marked cold was hot—sort of. There were Zen elements to this place—challenges to consciousness and expectations. If your mind is yearning for something, you are living in the realm of the intellect and belief. I surrendered to the icy water. I paid attention to my shivering body. It reminded me I existed.
I made my way through the empty, silent, bunker-inspired corridors to the recently renovated chapel. The pictures in the hall recounted its former state. Its interior had been converted from a plastered, ornamental gothic structure to a cavern of bleak monastic minimalism. What to say about it? The only conclusion: less is more. That was the idea. The brick walls were exposed and painted white. The stained glass windows of angels and saints were replaced with simple geometric forms in hazy pastels. The dark, medieval-looking, carved wood choir stalls for the monks were replaced by sleek, squared-off constructions in natural oak that brought to mind check-in counters at airports.