Albany, NY Timesunion.com 11/14/04
http://tinyurl.com/473rt For Four Decades, the Monks of New Skete Have Carved Their Own Path
By FELIX CARROLL, Staff writer
First published: Sunday, November 14, 2004
The sun drops from sight, and a big bell inside the tower clangs three
times -- loudly, deeply, solemnly -- enough to make the trees tremble atop
this mountain where nine monks live in search of God.
Then a series of smaller bells peal in a pitter-patter rhythm used for
centuries by bell-ringing monks, from the deserts of Egypt to the
wilderness of Russia.
The clattering ceases after a moment and fades into black silence.
A lone figure dressed in a full-length habit steps out from the bell tower.
It's Brother Stavros -- short, goateed, with piercing dark eyes, and a
brain pan sizzling with the wisdom and deeds of scores of saints and
martyrs who came before him. If Trivial Pursuit had a "History of Saints"
edition, Brother Stavros would run the table.
He, along with a group of fellow monks, first climbed up to this mountain
perch outside of Cambridge, in Washington County, nearly 40 years ago. They
soon dug out a small portion of the shale hillside and erected from scratch
this Eastern Orthodox Christian monastery they call New Skete, named after
an Egyptian monastery formed in the fourth century that proved a successful
experiment in simplicity and spiritual dedication.
In climbing this mountain, the monks of New Skete adhered -- literally, as
their calloused hands can attest -- to the unwritten Christian rule that
while faith may move mountains, better bring a shovel. They are practical
monks. They are proudly of their times, seeking at once to honor Old World
monastic traditions while breaking many monastic stereotypes.
No hair shirts here. Birkenstocks and cords are the clothes of choice
outside of church services. The monks prefer logging on to the Internet to
flogging themselves. And the image of Medieval monks behind thick walls
praying in seclusion for the salvation of mankind? Not here. While the
monks certainly pray for the world's salvation, they keep their doors open
to all.
"We're not living in some sort of spiritual biosphere here," says Brother
Stavros.
For instance, they have joined a clergy association with other religious
institutions in Cambridge. They raise alms for their community. And
hundreds of visitors flock to the monastery annually. Many are spiritual
seekers who leave refreshed, as the log book in the guest house can attest.
Others come expecting some kind of weird curiosity. Those visitors leave
sorely disappointed.
Setting priorities
These monks are normal. They bathe. They eat. They sleep. They work --
albeit adhering to a seemingly monastic penchant for idiosyncratic labor
pursuits (for them, it's dog training and smoking meats and cheeses. Other
monks across the globe are famous for their beer, wine and
furniturep-making). Brother John, for one, gets up in the morning and hops
on a stationary bike first thing. They argue on occasion. They watch
baseball. Some of their clothing even contains the Nike swoosh.
Ultimately, what makes the monks different is their priorities, which, in
large part, are not the world's priorities. Any desire for success,
independence and control is left at the bottom of the mountain in place of
the Christian call to live a saintly life.
On a recent visit, the day after the presidential election, several of the
monks were uncharacteristically exhausted, having stayed up into the early
morning hours watching the returns. They were disappointed by the outcome.
Jesus is their light of the world, but the president sets foreign policy.
And these monks are no fans of the war in Iraq. For that matter, they are
no fans of how Christianity is sometimes used for political cachet.
"We see the news and read the newspapers," says Brother Elias, who at 67 is
the eldest monk at New Skete. "We see the destruction, the wars, the
hatred, the posturing of people who claim that God is on their side. Anyone
with half a brain knows God doesn't play favorites."
Interior life
The monks are all college grads, and most call themselves participants in
the counterculture of the 1960s. In founding New Skete, they sought to
instigate an upheaval of their own. At a time when the nation's youth were
exploring the bounds of free love and radical politics, the monks sought
something neither free nor political. They sought radical love of Jesus
Christ -- hard won and eternal. They left the Franciscan Order, later
finding their true affinity to the rites of Orthodoxy. A future with the
Franciscans would have meant an itinerant life. Rather, the monks wanted
what they call an "interior life," something more contemplative.
Their lives are structured around the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience
and the promise to remain with the community in New Skete until death. No
straying. No long weekends at the beach. No skipping evening prayers to
catch a movie in town.
Following the monastic impulse of centuries, the monks of New Skete seek to
prove nothing less than that Christianity is possible.
"I look at the world today, and I see Christianity cheapened," says Brother
Dave, who counts Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi among his heroes. He
quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran minister who stood up to the
tyranny of Nazi Germany and paid with his life. Bonhoeffer coined the term
cheap grace, which described faith without actions and, more specifically,
Christianity without a changed heart.
Vespers
With the bells still resonating, Brother Stavros climbs a set of steps to
the wooden temple, hand-built partly from old barn planks. It's 5 p.m. Time
for evening prayers, called vespers, which mark the beginning of a new
liturgical day.
Brother Stavros joins the other eight monks and four nuns from a group of
11 who are also part of their New Skete community. They all line up in two
rows in the central portion of the temple, and the singing begins. In
church services at New Skete, everything is sung, and without musical
accompaniment.
Within the dimly lit temple a drone begins, a deep baritone that rises in
volume like some heavy, dark orb from the horizon, getting bigger. Candles
are lit. Incense burns. The sopranos quietly peek through like the break of
day, with delicate small footprints, anointing and shedding light on the
landscape. The two voices then break into four parts and gradually merge in
melody and form, rising to the rafters, large and loud and as complex and
triumphant as life itself.
"Dostoevski once said that beauty can save the world," says Brother Stavros
after the service. "We believe that. That's why we sing. That's why we
think it's worth the extra effort."
Supper comes next. The nuns retreat to their house three miles away down
the steep dirt road, a road that requires some very audible downshifting in
order to navigate.
The monks, back in the monastery, have since discarded their long, black
habits. They decided in the early years in Cambridge they would try to look
less, well, monkish in public.
"I remember we went into the drug store or the hardware store and we had
our habits on we heard cracks like 'First they come in long hair and now
they come in dresses,' says Brother Stavros. "There were a lot of hippies
around, and communes.
"In European monasteries they wear their habits all the time, no big deal.
But in America you look sort of freaky," he says.
Family life
The monks say that in many ways they share the same burdens regular
families do.
This is how Brother Dave puts it: "I live with very good people. I live
with very smart people. I live with incredibly delightful people. And there
are times when I'd much rather live on the moon. But there's always the
coming back to the basic realization that, 'Man, I care about you.'
They also have to make a living like everybody else. Farming, which they
first took up in the early days for survival, proved a bust. They
eventually began breeding German Shepherds and train all breeds. They have
written several dog books that have made the monks world-renowned. Their
German Shepherd pups are in such high demand that they no longer accept new
names for a waiting list.
The monks eat together on wooden tables lined up to form a large rectangle.
They cook and clean together. Canine training and canine gynecological
matters tend to hijack the dinner conversations.
After dinner, the monks retreat into their living room for an hour of
private discussion and recreation. Some play cribbage. Some catch up on the
news of the day. Then, following kennel chores, they retire to their
individual rooms, which they call cells, for private reading, prayer,
writing and sleep.
Morning chores
The next morning, the monastery is dazzling in the morning light, with its
buildings painted barn red against a mountainous backdrop. Gold leaf domes
top one temple, which the monks have since outgrown, now that several dozen
people from the region attend Sunday services at New Skete -- including a
group of married couples living nearby known as the Companions of New
Skete. A newer, larger temple has since been built.
The monastery suddenly is awake with monks doing house chores and dog
duties. Brother Stavros steps out and grabs the handlebars of a bicycle
leaning against the three-tiered bell tower. He kicks off from the dirt,
glides down the hill and coasts up to a kennel used for breeding.
Inside, dog waste awaits him, and a dog named Jasmine who's happy to see
him. He pats her, quickly cleans up her kennel and clicks on a classical
music station to keep her company. Then he's out the door again, walking
the bike back up to the bell tower. He glances at his watch. It's just
before 7:15 a.m., minutes before morning prayers, called matins, begin. He
sounds the bells as he did the night before, pulling nylon ropes and
pushing on foot pedals.
In the temple, the singing gets under way. While some monks may not be
happy about the election, they raise their voices in unison asking for
God's blessing upon the President -- as well as upon the sick, travelers,
prisoners and all living things.
After breakfast, the monks disperse to tend to their many chores, whether
it be dog training, yard work, food shopping, baking with the nuns, or
smoking cheeses and meats, which, along with the nuns' famous cheesecake,
are sold at a small shop on the premises and through a mailorder catalog.
An office upstairs at the monastery serves as command center for the
catalog business. Pointing out its computers and cubicles, Brother Dave
says, "Welcome to Dilbertville," referring to the cartoon "Dilbert," which
lampoons American office culture.
The money the monks raise is used to run the monastery.
The monks break at noon for lunch, retire to their rooms until 1:30 p.m.
for personal prayer and meditation. Then it's back to work from 1:30 to
3:30 p.m. Then the monks take some personal time before vespers begin at 5 p.m.
Into the woods
Brother Stavros likes to hike along the trails that wind around the
monastery's 300-plus acres.
He jams his hands into his coat pockets and plunges into the woods,
pointing out a beautiful herring-bone-shaped rock forged through 500
million years of tectonic grinding.
He can relate. A monk's life takes shape slowly, too -- sometimes
excruciatingly so -- but through similarly spectacular forces.
The youngest monk is Brother Christopher. He's 50. The monks don't actively
recruit new members, and no one's beating down their door to join. Some
day, the monastery may well die off, Brother Stavros acknowledges. While he
sometimes wonders about that, obsessing about it would be a form of
failure, he says, because it's not the monks' role to "guarantee the
security of a dynasty."
"It's the fact that our lives are insecure -- all of our lives -- and we
have to embrace that," he says. "We are vulnerable, broken people, and
that's where God loves us, in the brokenness. That's a deep mystery. It's a
paradox. And it scares people. But it's part of the journey."
He turns back up the hill. It's getting dark again. Time to ring some
bells. Time to sing.
Felix Carroll can be reached at 454-5089 or by e-mail at
fcarroll@timesunion.com.
IF YOU GO
The New Skete Farms gift shop is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to
noon and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The following
monastery services are open to visitors:
* Saturday: Matins at 8 a.m. and vespers at 5 p.m.
* Sunday: Matins at 9 a.m., followed by Divine Liturgy at 10 a.m.
* Tuesday through Friday: Matins at 7:15 a.m. and vespers at 5 p.m.
For information, go to
http://www.newsketemonks.com. http://www.timesunion.com/AspStorie...LIFE&BCCode=&newsdate=11/14/2004