Liberty and Belonging

 By Br Brennan

Just over a year ago I was planning an early retirement with an eye to monastic life. While I can’t say that I had one of those great careers and was at the top of my game, I had come to know some really amazing people over my years in the last job. Among those, I always enjoyed truly close relationships marked by great mutual respect. However, I was also one of those artists with a day job, and as a dancer/instructor/choreographer I had come to notice in recent years a certain status of “esteemed eldership” of sorts (at least in my particular genre, that of East European ethnic dance), however awkward I felt about it. After numerous visits to New Skete over the years, I knew the transition to postulancy and novitiate would involve quite a shake-up in my sense of self. And I was correct.

First, I was not going to jump in and wow anyone with any diligence, knowledge, or finesse, as I might try to do in a new job. All I could do was pay attention, and learn what this new life and lifestyle were about, which required pretty much doing whatever I was asked to do. Of the several jobs a monk might do here—cooking/kitchen work, shopping, cleaning, maintenance, puppy kennel—I was assigned dog training, the one for which I felt (by far) the least qualified. While we had dogs in my family life years earlier, I was not the dog trainer, nor really a dog lover (although I liked dogs and did my share of caring for them). But dogs are our business here, and I knew that, so I had to go where I was needed. And I just learned, day by day, from Brother Christopher and a staff of very kind and talented trainers. I learned that dogs are a pretty special species, bred for millennia as companions for humans. I was really the one who needed to learn how to reciprocate properly the human component of the relationship.

One of the most amazing gifts of being here has been that of Liberty (no, not like the freedom from temptations and attachments we strive for in monastic practice). Liberty is a 5-year-old female German Shepherd in our breeding program, who shows up for her morning petting and ear-scratch right after the alarm, and promptly returns to her bed until I come back with my coffee. She was already very well trained by others, so I had to up my game to keep up!

The greatest gift to me, though, is this sense of belonging, which grows every day. I rise each morning to a life of communal prayer and work, within a community long devoted to an authentic monastic life of prayer and work responsive to the spiritual hunger of today. Early on, I was also blessed with the duties of sacristan. Each morning and evening, I arrive early to prepare the church for the service, which allows me some time alone for prayer. In those few minutes by myself, I have time to ponder, restfully, my new life here. My prayers of gratitude continue to be many. In the stillness, amid this year’s changes and the challenges of all these things new, I always find myself repeating the words of the psalm: “I love the beauty of your house, Lord. I love the place where your glory resides.”

Brother Brennan and Liberty in front of Transfiguration Temple