Today, Tuesday the 21st (when this post was started), happens to be the day that all idiorymthic sketes on the Holy Mountain change Abbots/Administrators, serving one-year terms. I’m sure it is in some sense an honor, an expression of respect, but in practice I think it’s a lot of work. The morning begins with Liturgy in the Kyriakon followed by a wonderful fish “lunch” at 8am. After the meal, what looked to me like the heads of the huts, but I’m guessing, went to a room to meet and choose(?)/install the new abbot.
On the Julian Calendar, it is also a feast of St. John the Theologian, and thus a feast of this hut, as well as a name’s day for the other monk who resides here. Accordingly, we didn’t go to the Liturgy in the Kyriakon (but we did make it to lunch!), having instead Liturgy in our hut. (The feast of St. John in September is the larger and more celebrated one, but the hut keeps this one too.)
We returned from lunch to our hut by 9, and almost immediately visitors from the other huts started arriving—like yesterday for a monk's name day, but in larger numbers, for longer periods of time, and given more substantive hospitality.
I spoke with only a few of the visiting monks, mostly just observing the day’s proceedings. The pattern was always the same. A monk would arrive, go straight to the chapel for veneration, and sing a hymn to St. John, then return to the deck where they were served water, a shot of something, a glass of a homemade lemon medicinal drink (I have a glass of this most every afternoon; apparently secret ingredients; all I can get out of them is ‘all natural’), coffee (expresso, nest cafe, or Greek), sweets (of course), and spanakopita.
Conversation followed with lots of humor and teasing—that seems to transcend language barriers. I was introduced to one monk as “Starets so-n-so; he’s a very bright star, indeed.” (Turns out he’s no starets at all, but he thinks highly of himself so he often gets teased for it.) In days like this, the Skete has the feel of a rural village where everyone knows everyone, and enjoys stopping by for a visit, getting caught up, meeting a new face in the village, having a good laugh, and simply relaxing.
Of course, at Holy Dormition Monastery, we too are hospitable to those who ‘happen by’ on our feast day—several hundred of them. In spite of the magnitude of the event at HDM, it has the same feel to it; it grows out of the same monastic spirit of hospitality to those who make a pilgrimage. And, of course, what happens on a patronal feast is just a magnified version of what happens almost every day in our monastery, at this Skete, and monastic communities the world over.
Reflecting on this ‘village hospitality’ has reminded me of a young Romanian couple who visited our monastery many years ago, bringing with them the wife’s mother who was visiting them from Romania. The couple told me that after the mother had been with them for four days they could see that she was becoming increasingly agitated. Finally, she burst out, “What’s wrong? Doesn’t anyone like you?” They were perplexed and asked her what she meant. She simply replied defiantly, “You don’t have any friends; no one likes you.”
Eventually, clarity came when she said, “I’ve been here four days, and no one has come to visit you, and you go to visit no one. Your door is always shut. How are people to know that your home so they can come by?”
To the mother, it was unimaginable that four days could go by without visitors. The only reasonable explanation is that her children had no friends, that no one who liked them. And this, of course, is heartbreaking to a mother who loves her children and wants them to experience the joy (and sorrow) of shared life, of community.
I reread Fr. Roman’s Exploring the Inner Universe on this trip and one of the many things that struck me this time through is the contrast he makes between village and urban life. In a village, the community is separated in distance by their farms but know each well, drop in on one another, share the trials and triumphs of life. But urban settings, in large apartment complexes, where we live so close together, we don’t even know our neighbors, we don’t visit with one another, we don’t share a common life.
I’m convinced that one reason visiting a monastery is so desirable for so many (and why we incessantly say, ‘I need to visit more often’), is that it is a place where we can just drop in, receive hospitality, have a simple conversation, share our burdens and worries, ask a question, offer a prayer, light a candle, sit in silence.
Thank God for Monasteries that provide this simple and humble hospitality, sustaining the weary with a cup of cold water and a kind word; for letting us experience a little taste of life in a village.
