by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

In June I attended a seminar called "Writing and the Pastoral Life" with Eugene Peterson. It was held in Collegeville, Minnesota, home of St. John's University and Benedictine Abbey, and prompted me to reflect a great deal on following Jesus over the long haul.

I walk into the St. John’s Abbey Church for Evening Prayer, the building itself a monument to 1960’s modernist architecture and massive concrete. A few other people enter after me, all of us directed to seats in the “choir” section at the very front of the cavernous sanctuary. Soon everyone stands and about fifty monks file in as well, a parade of black-robed penguins that ends with them equally disbursed around the altar.

After we settle in and I have the right liturgy books arranged in front of me, I carefully examine the individual men. As one would imagine, most are aging. Bald heads and very white hair adorn the top of nearly every black robe. One is of African descent. One sports long hair and a beard that would have made Father Abraham proud. Another has grey mutton chop sideburns. One is no more than five feet, while his choirmate is six feet six.

In the silent space I make up stories. This monk is from Ethiopia, and he continually asks how in God’s name he ended up on the tundra of Minnesota. Had he taken a wrong turn? That one is from Kansas. He is from a family of five children. His three brothers rarely think about him as they work the farm, his sister visits regularly and loves him to death but worries that he is missing life.

My fictional narrative ends as Six Feet Six strides to the front of the chancel and lights the incense. We chant scripture. Let my prayers rise before you as incense, O Lord (Psalm 141). A huge and furious rush of cloud pours forth like the pillar the Israelites were told to follow. It lessens, it slows, it hangs in billows around the large crucifix over the altar, Let my prayers rise before you as incense, O Lord.

I wonder about their daily life, these fifty monks. I wonder what it feels like to know what most of your years will look like until you die. I wonder where they have their eyes checked, their hearing aids adjusted, their blood pressure measured.

The haze of the incense is almost gone, a faint cloud that now drifts directly above us yet the smell grows richer. We will leave indelibly marked by this bitter tang in the air. Let my prayers rise before you as incense, O Lord.

I sneak a glance at the monk sitting next to me. He doesn’t need the books. He knows the tunes, the words and the line breaks. The Benedictines have a slight pause at the beginning of each chant line, holding an extra breath and causing more than one visitor to blurt the first word out as a solo. The offender then sheepishly mouths the next few lines to make sure they get it right. I like it. It keeps us on our toes. These monks are in no hurry.

I wonder what it is like to keep the hours, morning, noon and night. To smell the incense and read the Gospel when fall leaves make the sound of scraping paper as you step on them. To pray the psalms when snow turns the bricked campus into a Currier & Ives scene.

To speak the Our Father as spring explodes in a burst of green. To chant the prayers when summer sun heats the huge brass bells outside into griddle-like temperatures. Day upon day, week after week, month by month, year to year until decades and then lifetimes expire. Let my prayers rise before you as incense, O Lord.

I confess my doubts. Surely this monastic life, so different from my own, is not the most effective way to live out the gospel. The world teems with real need and the Lord needs every able-bodied hand. Is this much more than weakly sanctified escapism?

But the prayers have risen up - fall, winter, spring, summer - three times a day since 1866 in this place. One hundred and forty-two years worth of prayers. During peace and war, in depressions and boom times, through industrial revolutions, space launchings and the technology explosion there has been one community on one hill in one abbey chapel that is praying. Always praying.

How do you measure the effectiveness of such a thing? With all that has gone wrong in the world over these years, perhaps this life of prayer has been utterly impotent. Or, and this is what truly intrigues me- what might the world be like now if this constant barrage of prayer had not been laid in God’s lap? Maybe without tall, short, thin and pudgy monks praying at St. John’s and in other places across many lifetimes, the world would have gone up in smoke long ago. Let my prayers rise before you as incense, O Lord.

Prayer ends, the penguin monks file out. Leaving, I dip my hand into the baptismal font and shove open the huge wooden doors to walk outside. The bells ring and I smell a whiff of incense rise off of even my shirt into the twilight.