The Lilies of the Field

This last weekend, I didn't know what to do with myself.

For the first time in my life, I visited a monastery, and a convent at that. St. John the Forerunner Orthodox monastery in Goldendale, WA, to be exact. I didn't know what to expect as we drove across I-84 in the waning sunlight and my friends and I chatted about life. It was also my first road trip with my Orthie friends, and that was wonderful and exciting in its own right.

I remember the moment Meika pulled the car into the parking lot because the choir on the CD we were playing sang about estranging ourselves to the world and focusing our hearts on our Lord. I thought those were fitting lyrics to arrive at a monastery.

Anyhow, we piled out of the car and immediately met one of the nuns that lives there. I forget her name. What struck me instantly, however, was her manner. She wasn't much older than I was, I surmised, and she was fully bedecked in an all-black habit, with only her face and hands exposed, and she wore glasses. But she wore something far more interesting than these things. She wore many things actually.

She wore the grace, mercy, and humility of our Lord in her face, her mannerisms, her kind and delicate voice. I found myself fascinated with her as she showed everyone their sleeping quarters for the night and told us about dinner being ready. But not ever having been in a situation like that, I kept quiet and simply observed, partly in fear of crossing some sort of line of etiquette (unnecessary fear, I would later learn), and partly out of simple fascination and the desire to not miss one iota of what was before me.

At dinner, I saw more nuns, and most of them, again, weren't too much older than I. And they all seemed to go about their lives and duties in a similar manner as the first one. I caught myself a few times trying to get a good look at each of their faces and wondered about each of their lives, though I admit that my focus should have been elsewhere.

But I also discovered something else inside me. I discovered that my general fear and guarded feelings ever present in my heart and mind that seem to spring up whenever I'm around a woman...any and every woman, to varying degrees...were ebbing away. Somehow, I felt safe there. I felt like I was being cared for. I could feel the purity, humility, self-sacfrice and devotion of those around me, and I could feel it healing and purifying me, too. What a strange and glorious thing!

I couldn't quite put my finger on what I was experiencing in that moment, but since then, I think I've come to understand a little of what was going on. First, I'll let you know that in an Orthodox monastery, there are no mirrors that one may look upon his or her own appearance. None in the sleeping quarters, none in the bathrooms, none on any walls or pillars. Second, the culture of the monastery was one of determined focus and prayer. These women have commited their lives to our Lord and are doing it unceasingly despite, I assume, ragged struggles to get them to do otherwise. But they're giving up their lives and illusionary freedoms for His sake, for their own sake, for the sake of their sisters in that place, and for the sake of the Church and the world for which they are continuously interceding. And they're finding true freedom.

And wonder of wonders, I found that I was beginning to tune my heart and focus to our Father far more readily (but not without struggle, myself) as well.

I am a man who giggles at irony and tries to find it everywhere. And spiritual ironies tend to fill me with awe and wonder, as our Lord proves that His ways and His wisdom tend to seem ridiculous and befuddling to those who are knowledgeable and wise in their own eyes (among whom I can be numbered). His wisdom also seems to make the wisdom of the wise-by-our-standards seem awfully incomplete, prideful, and inane. He can sure frustrate (albeit lovingly) us in all our pomp. Anyhow, in like manner, I've been dumbstruck so often in my short Orthodox experience at some of the hymns that are sung at each feast and how ironic and beautiful everything is rendered when we examine the gravity and purposeful nature of even the finer nuts and bolts of the things our Lord has done to interact with us and draw us close to Him. Anyhow, I found an irony there at the monastery, with those nuns, that is worth sharing.

The women I saw there do not adorn their bodies with anything glorious. They possess nothing that is designed to get anyone's attention, but instead are dressed in all black, loose-fitting clothing that works, practically. Rather, they adorn their hearts and souls in love and prayer, in grace and devotion to our Father. And from what I observed, our Father has, in turn, made these women beautiful to behold, at least in my eyes. Possibly the most beautiful women I've ever seen. But it's not because they apply anything physical to themselves. It's inward, and therefore it can't help but end up eventually, naturally, organically, spiritually outward.

They care enough about the hearts of one another and those visiting to guard what they wear, where they look, and what they say. They take care of us, they help us to focus on our Lord, by minimizing their outward appearances, so they won't be distracting. Because we need our Lord and we need so desperately to fix our eyes on him in a world in which there is a competition for every square inch of where one may look, to divert one's attention to whatever may be put there. And when these women speak, their words are so wise, so convicting, but also among the most encouraging and empowering I have ever heard.

They do not adorn themselves outwardly, but inwardly. They adorn our Lord. And He adorns them, as well. But the beauty He gives cannot be replicated by any chemical compound, any stitch of clothing, or any educated speech. He takes care of them so well. Not unlike the lilies of the field.

They also relinquish that "sacred cow" of freedom of individuality so present in our society (and within me) and live in community. But what they get in return is a freedom from anxiety over appearance, and hearts that are more supported by one another and closer to the Lord before whom all the ferocious lions of the anxieties and cares of this world are transformed into submissive, quiet kittens.

Who's living in freedom now?

Maybe I should be more willing to cast such things aside that I may be closer to and realize how much I'm taken care of by the one who loves and cares beyond compare. Might be worth it.