Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax

The sign over entrance of the sapphire pavilion said that we were entering “God’s Court”. The monk stationed there by his abbot as bailiff did not seem at ease at his job. I nearly collided with him twice in the plaza next to the chapel and the Vespers stage as he led some supplicant towards the abbey bookstore or the food stands. He looked as if he wanted to be anywhere except under the shade of the visitors’ center canopy.

He was just sitting down when a docent handed him the slip of paper on which I had written our address for the abbey mailing list. “Where are you putting these?” she asked. He snatched it and slipping it in a fold of his robe. “In my pocket,” he replied.

Lynn took a chair and I crouched on the ground next to her. We spent a few minutes questioning the monk about his life at the monastery. I talked and Lynn listened. He seemed a little ill at ease having a woman sitting two feet in front of his face. When he uttered his brief returns, he directed them to me.

“Why did you become a monk?” “I wanted to live closer to God.”

“How long have you been a monk?” “Since 1974.”

What do you do for recreation?” “We talk and sometimes watch videos.”

“What was the last video you saw?” He tugged at the visor of his official green “St. Andrew’s Abbey” baseball cap before he remembered. “Monsters, Inc.”

His simple answers reflected the insipid perspective of his interviewer who was trying to break the ice. The lanky monk took more interest when I described us as Quakers and asked him some things about monastic decision-making and the history of the Black Benedictines. The idea of requiring unanimity impressed him. “We almost never get that!” he laughed.

“It takes years to arrive at it,” I admitted.

Even though I identified Lynn as the more knowledgeable in matters pertaining to the Friends, he directed most of his comments and questions towards me. If I mentioned her, he threw a quick-footed glance in her direction and then spoke to me. He reminded me of an entry in the diary of Thomas Merton, who recounted nervously chewing a cookie as he saw his first woman in six years at a convent. Lynn was like an Asian walking down the street of a southern town, a wonder not to be stared at because of courtesy, but to be made a fleeting study of when it felt like he could get away with it.

The conversation ended cordially. Lynn and I both shook his hand. “Goodbye, Brother,” I said. He smiled and for a moment I believe I tasted the wafer-thin wryness of communion.

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