A Reflection on the Monk as Rock Star (On the Occasion of our Fifth Dog Seminar)

By Brother David

When a trainer friend of ours, Marc Goldberg, suggested that we could hold a successful dog seminar, well, we didn’t believe him. OK, we laughed at the idea because we didn’t believe him. “Who would come?” we exclaimed. Then he laughed, “You don’t know? In the world of dogs, you guys are rock stars!”

Ummm… rock stars?

Anyway, we had the seminar. And it was a success, with the gracious help of Ida and Karen and Scott and Josh and Michael and Scott and Lisa as well as all the volunteers who helped make our guests feel welcome and kept the train of the seminar running smoothly on the rails. Brother Christopher’s talks on the human–canine relationship and the spirituality of working with dogs, Brother Marc’s session on New Skete’s history, Brother Luke’s presentation on his experience of dogs here at New Skete and what his dogs taught him, as well as my sessions on puppy socialization and the rationale for purebred dogs were all well received. Each of the seminars—and there have been five—have been pretty much filled to capacity, with very little promotion.

     It has not been unusual to have several trainers as well as a few breeders in the seminars. (Sometimes that can be a bit intimidating for me.) We’ve even had one person, Judith, who has attended the seminar once each year we’ve done them and who says that she gets something new each time. But regardless of profession or inclination, all of us in the seminar are dog lovers and want to improve our relationships with our dogs. We are grateful for all the people who have come to these events and are even more grateful for the friendships and relationships that have grown out of the seminars. We are grateful that the message and knowledge that we are able to offer are useful and inspiring, and we are also grateful when the attendees share in our worship.

This year we were able to hold both iterations of the seminar in our new training facility. The conference room is a great size for the approximately 45 people (plus presenter and occasional dog) in attendance. It is also air conditioned—a real plus, given the heat and humidity here in July. And, no, it didn’t help when people from Texas said, “Compared to Texas this is nothing!” It’s still hot and muggy, and the air conditioning is welcome.

On Friday and Saturday night we also had dinner with those who chose that option. It gave us a chance to get up close and personal with some of the attendees—although I’ve been told that it was to give the attendees a chance to get up close and personal with us. Whatever.

And with all this, I keep coming back to that statement, “You guys are rock stars.”

Glitz and glamour. Trashed hotel rooms and smashed guitars. Ray-Bans and Ferraris. Hangovers and overdoses. Roadies and groupies. Fame. Infamy. Rock stars. I am not a rock star, but thanks for the compliment—I think.

But the fact that this statement has stayed with me so strongly told me that this was a word to be pondered. A hard saying that might have come from a desert elder in the fourth or fifth century. So I pondered. I also started listening to a lot of rock and alternative music again: Bruce Springsteen, John Mayer, Snow Patrol, LOTS of Pink Floyd, The Who, Kansas, Metallica, Radiohead, Steeleye Span, Rob Thomas, Matchbox 20, Chemical Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Astral Projection, The Alan Parsons Project, Soul Coughing, Warren Zevon, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton… a lot of rock and alternative music. Don’t get me wrong: I like rock and alternative music; I’ve always liked rock and alternative music. What I mean is that I started listening to rock music the same way that I listen to Schumann, Bach, Beethoven, Hovhaness, Busoni, or Ligeti. I started listening to technique and virtuosity. I started listening for unique tonalities and counterpoint. I started listening for the surprises—those moments that catch you all unawares.

One day I heard something in Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” that I’d never noticed before. “Dust in the Wind” is an amazing, albeit short, meditation on Ecclesiastes. After a short string interlude, the lyrics resume with “Now, don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky…” and the “now” is not sung but spoken. Spoken. It catches you, stops you in your tracks: it’s a moment of genius.

Another surprise is a 96-second instrumental piece, “The Great Collapse,” by Shadows Fall. It feels like a haiku in musical form: a simple, beautiful statement with virtually no elaboration.

But performance requires performers. Singers like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith who has an astonishing range and perfect pitch, guitarists like David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, and drummers like Van Halen’s Alex Van Halen and Rush’s Neil Peart all work hard: they practice, study, observe other musicians, and learn from them.  They are consummate musicians on a par with pianists like Mitsuko Uchida and Evgeny Kissin.

And I started thinking: we’ve been working in some capacity with dogs from our beginnings in 1966 (the Rolling Stones were founded in 1962—isn’t that a scary thought!). We read and study about training, behavior, breeding, and genetics, among other things. We observe our dogs and the dogs entrusted to us to understand them better and to be more effective. We’ve learned a lot and still learn a lot from other trainers and dog professionals. We practice training: how to move with a dog, how to motivate a dog. We have developed expertise and technique. And there are many breeders, trainers, and other dog professionals who do the same. In fact, I’d suggest that to be a successful trainer or breeder, it’s pretty much required that one practice and study, observe and learn.

“You guys are rock stars.”

           

I remember my first encounters with Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Three Dog Night. I remember hearing the Doors for the first time. Each time I listened, I heard something new, something “first time,” something unique to this performer or that group. And I was inspired. My life was made better. Each of these musicians brought me—us—a gift. The thing about this kind of gift is that it’s not something that can be manufactured. Rather, the gift is the gift of the self: an outpouring of what is seen and experienced by this person. The gift is honed and polished and, like a gem stone, may be placed in an ornate setting, but it is not about the setting, the show: without good music, shows are perhaps entertaining but not memorable, not life changing. It’s always about the gift and the sharing of the gift and the reception of the gift.

Perhaps our gift is that we stop and point to the normally unremarked and unremarkable; perhaps it’s that we speak about dogs and training from a perspective of spirituality: God is never far from what we are saying. Perhaps—but not necessarily, because the gift that is offered is not always the gift that is received. Now, I don’t find this, in and of itself, to be remarkable; there are a lot of holy men and women who train and work with dogs and, given that we are monks who work with dogs, you’d expect that God wouldn’t be far from anything that we are doing. But we’ve been doing this for a long time—almost as long as the Rolling Stones have been in existence—and, for some reason, our vision has spoken to many people over the years, so much so that we have inspired some people to become trainers themselves. Perhaps whatever the gift is that we present, that gift is broad enough, multifaceted enough, that many people can draw many things from it—things that we’d never consider contained within what we are able to offer.

And we are famous. I have autographed copies of our books at the BWI airport in Washington and Midway airport in Chicago while waiting for connecting flights when in casual conversation the subject of employment comes up:

“And what do you do?”

“Oh, I’m a monk.”

“Oh, how interesting. Where?”

“A little monastery in upstate New York called New Skete.”

“What? Really? I can’t wait to tell my wife/husband/kids/friends that I actually met one of the Monks of New Skete! Would you sign my book? I love In the Spirit of Happiness/How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend/The Art of Raising a Puppy!”

“You have a copy of our book with you? Wow.”

We are famous enough to have detractors: there are people who don’t like what we do or the amount of influence we have had over the years. There are people who don’t like the Beatles or Shadows Fall or Kurt Cobain, either.

Of course, it still never fails to astonish me when someone at a seminar thanks me for an insight occasioned by some comment that I make on puppy socialization or predatory motor sequences, or for the insight into our mindset occasioned by Brother Marc’s presentation on our history. Even more, I’m still always caught up short by those chance encounters wherein people tell me about how, because of us, they could keep their dog or how their life was changed by our witness and work.  I murmur a sincere “thank you” both to the person and to God, who took all our work and thought and training and brought it to this moment of inspiration and aid for those people. Then I smile, slip on my (metaphorical) Ray-Bans, get in my (imaginary) Ferrari, and head down to the kennel to feed the dogs.

We are rock stars.