Brother Weeps was giving a series of talks one summer on what makes for a happy, healthy, and holy monk and monastic community. One afternoon speaking about the role of silence and the necessity of humor, he told the following story:
Once there was a gullible, talkative young monk. He was not the sharpest cheddar in the fridge. Whenever the brothers were not required to observe silence, his mouth was like a motor running nonstop. He complained about the food, harped on the assignments of daily work, asked trivial questions, told bad jokes, repeated the same stories, and chattered on and on about himself or nothing in particular. The word-windy young monk was trying the patience of the other brothers. Finally, the abbot felt it was becoming not only a problem for the loquacious young monk, but destructive for the entire community.
During lunch and dinner it was the community’s practice for a designated monk to read aloud from a book while the rest of the brothers ate in silence and listened to the reading. One night toward the end of dinner, the table bell was rung closing the period of silence. The brothers were allowed to talk among themselves for a few minutes before going together to wash the pots and pans and dishes. At the sound of the bell the young monk immediately started his predictable prattle.
Before his babble could become brook-like, the abbot emphatically said, “Brother! Please! Hold your tongue.”
The startled young monk’s face turned bright red. Feeling the hot flush of embarrassment, he immediately placed his right thumb beneath his tongue and two fingers on top of it and pinched tightly. In a rush, he cleared his plate from the table with his free hand, slid the chair in with his hip, bowed silently excusing himself, and left the refectory.
Feeling the glare and suppressed laughter of the other monks, the abbot spoke without looking up from his bowl of fruit: “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it will do.”
♣ INTERESTED IN SPIRITUAL DIRECTION ONLINE? I am offering spiritual direction online. If you, or someone you know, are interested in beginning or returning to spiritual direction CLICK HERE where you will find both practical information and explanations of spiritual direction. I’d be honored to hear and hold your ongoing story.