A Melismatic Life
‘I believe we all, men and women, have much to gain by
reflecting on religious community life as a spirit that can be fostered within
our ordinary, secular lives.’ So writes author Thomas Moore in Meditations: On
The Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life. It’s a book that I read during my stay in a
Lutheran Benedictine monastery in eastern Germany. It’s not a book to devour
from cover to cover. It’s a book to meditate and reflect on. Much like the
monastic life.
The monastic life ebbs and flows according to the canonical
hours, as the church bells call the brothers to prayer – Lauds, sext, vespers
and compline. There is no hurry. The prayers are said and chanted peacefully
and slowly and in harmony. Sitting in the pew, listening to the brothers sing
the lauds early in the morning, is soothing. One leaves the church centred and
hinged.
Sometimes the brothers land on a note and sing it in
florid fashion, a syllable of text for 50 notes of chant. They call it ‘melisma.’
Thomas Moore points out: ‘Living a melismatic life in imitation of plain-chant,
we stop on an experience, a place, a person, or a memory and rhapsodise in
imagination!’
I believe that travelling allows us to do this. Staying
at a monastery while travelling certainly does! There is no hurry anywhere; all
there is really to do is to wait for the church bells to chime. When I arrived
at the monastery, Brother Klaus mentioned that I would be sleeping in a part of
the monastery that is a ‘bit newer.’ It was built in 1745. A Christian church
has gathered in the town to pray the liturgy since 802AD. So I guess 1745 is
pretty new. But Brother Klaus’ comment was much more than a history lesson. It
symbolised the monastic life.
Outside the monastery life goes on. It progresses and
travels along at an autobahn speed. But step inside the gates of a monastery
and one might as well be back in the middle-ages. Or in 802AD. And you can bet
your firstborn that if you go back in ten or 20 years’ time, life in the
monastery will be exactly like it has always been. You see, monks and nuns march
to the beat of a different drummer, to borrow Henry David Thoreau’s words.
Their daily life is a living reminder that there are some things that are
permanent, that don’t change, that don’t need to improve or progress to be
somehow more acceptable, that don’t go out of fashion.
Only those who are self-assured and well balanced can march
to the beat of a different drummer. The monastery is not a place to ‘drop out,’
if life outside is too tough. The monastic life requires discipline and
character. It requires an ability to see life differently and to slow down in
melismatic fashion and to stop in awe and wonder at God’s good creation. It also
requires hard work and dedication. As the brothers live daily according to
Benedictine’s rule, Ora et labora (pray and work), monastic life is not all
beer and skittles. Well, beer maybe since often the monks brew their own, but
certainly not skittles (at least I didn’t see any, whatever they are!).
One of the many things that appeal to me in a monastery
is the silence. Often it is held from compline to lauds and often meal times
are also spent in silence. Monks don’t eat in a dining room, but in a
refectory, much like at seminary when I was a seminarian. Hence, monks (and
seminarians) don’t dine, but they ‘refect.’ The word refectory comes from the Latin
word refectorium, which means a place one goes to be restored. What an apt
name!
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