Monastic space is not about distance or topography, neither personal space nor outer space.
I will drive up to New Camaldoli, the monastery and hermitage to which I am connected, next week. It will take me a few hours to arrive there, though I am already starting to settle into monastic space.
New Camaldoli is a uniquely beautiful place on a hill overlooking California’s Pacific coast. Sunrise and sunset, myriad stars at night, fog and rain, mountains and ocean. Its physical beauty can be breathtakingly overwhelming. Monastic space, though, is more than striking physical beauty.
People walk the winding driveway, two miles down to Highway 1 and two miles back up the hill. People sit and read or write, or listen to the silence. It is an excellent place to be still. Time slows down to its essential pace. Doors and windows swing open to us.
New Camaldoli is monastic space because it is a portal to new worlds. Beyond the reach of telephone calls and the Internet, we find worlds waiting to be explored within ourselves.
Monastic space is not the wooded hills, the ocean, or the vast expanse of sky. It is not the space between words or sentences, opening into silence. Monastic space is the room we give ourselves to appreciate the Sacred life all around.
We lay aside the demands, distractions, and expectations we construct in everyday life. We recognize the Sacred space within us and surrounding us. There is space for us to breathe, to remember, to reflect.
Monastic space is not crowded, not filled with boxes piled on top of other boxes. Monastic space gives us room to dance the dance of life.
Where do you find monastic space to dance?
How will you open doors and windows to new worlds today?
[Image by jar []]
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