Washington National Cathedral

Dr. Greg Finch

It was time for my visit to the abbey.

Overlooking the city, surrounded by neighborhoods of neatly ordered row houses below and bordering a winding campus roadway shared with a renowned private school, the abbey holds sacred a few acres of land set apart for prayer, study, renewal, work, and hospitality. A small copse of trees sways on the scented hill—spring washed—everything clean and sparkling. And the monks of St. Anselm’s Abbey attend to the rhythms of work and prayer while Washington DC swirls below.

For those attuned to the cloister call, every bill paid, reservation made, prayer expressed, dish washed, silence observed, and relationship honored can be a life centering act of prayer.

Simon McGurk, prior of St. Anselm’s, extends mashed potato and meat loaf hospitality with his invitation for lunch in the refectory just down the hall from the airy chapel where we observed noon prayer. On this visit—to continue shaping of the upcoming April Listening, Hearing, and Living session—we talk about the practical challenges of living lives of balance in an imbalanced world.

Are we kidding ourselves to think that there might actually be a place of stillness at the heart of our “three kids and a mortgage” home? Where is balance when our days are wrapped around the needs of a sick child or parent and keeping a job? Is the cloister an archaic ideal in a market driven economy with workplaces filled with emails, faxes, deadlines, and cost saving efficiencies? Where are we to find stillness in a given day?

We also talk about perceptions of monastic life—about “those monks there up the hill, floating above the real world.” And we talk about the real realities of life on the cloister.

I listen as the prior and a novice discuss the phone gymnastics required to schedule an airline flight while honoring a limited budget. We look over visionary plans for hosting new guests and the realities of aging brick and mortar. We pick up our dishes and linens and scrape our plates. We muse over how this place can make a difference for at risk children. We talk about the financial considerations of the abbey and realities of the world in which we live. We talk about parking issues and lack of air conditioning and an abundance of computer malfunctions. We talk about how national policies will impact decisions for the aging monks and adaptations required of the building for proper care of the older brothers.

It all seems mundanely familiar.

Simon invites me on a walking tour of the compact abbey. Here the offices, there the kitchen, here the library, there the study center. We walk through the reception area, survey the basement gathering room with its giant mural referencing the abbey’s European roots, and head on out past the guest rooms—with a dismissive nod toward the “contemporary” living quarters designed by a world renowned architect.

Without fanfare we turn a corner—and encounter the heart of the abbey. Green, ordered, still, the abbey’s garden cloister blossoms before us, and new understanding begins to gently unfurl.

The buildings of the abbey wrap themselves around this still center. Liturgy and study, offices of the hours and prayer, rhythms of work and renewal, hospitality of a meal and a hushed garden—all bend toward centering stillness. The cloister is a visible reminder of a way of being in the world, a way that maintains its connection with all that is holy.

For those attuned to the cloister call—every reservation made, bill paid, prayer voiced, dish washed, silence observed, and relationship honored is anchored to an understanding that all life is sacred and that every action can serve as a life-centering prayer, returning us to the heart of all matters.

Rather than an ideal, Simon’s cloister life is every bit as engaged with the real world as mine. From his work as educator, sports teacher, and headmaster in England; to his role as a teacher of novices in Peru; and now his current practical responsibilities and mundane realities as prior of the abbey, Simon wades through the life we all do—all the while attending to the deeper call of the cloister. Simon stops for hospitality, attends to prayer, listens for the sacred, conducts his work life, and rests, informed by the experience of the sacred, in small moments throughout the day, all in a community larger than most families.

The abbey visit, conversations and planning with Simon, attention to my own life rule, and new discoveries on the way with others pursuing balance in life and reconciliation in the world—continue to bring fresh meaning to the cloister call. The cloister is as much a place of departure as it is a place of arrival. The cloister is a way of being in the world, whatever world that might be.

This experiment we call The Community of Reconciliation continues to call us to the holy and equip us for our work in the world. The Community is a cloister we carry with us. I invite you to join us at one of the Community’s many offerings and to meet Simon in person Saturday, April 24. He is a real monk, with a real life, in the real world, who follows the cloister call.

Peace on the journey,
Greg Finch
Director of the Community of Reconciliation