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!

As one eats, one is restored physically, but as one eats prayerfully, in silence, one is restored also spiritually. And from this perspective, the entire monastery is in a way a refectory – A place where one goes to be restored. If, however, we take Thomas Moore’s words seriously, we can (I’m sure) learn to ‘refect’ anywhere and almost any time: ‘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.’