A Secular Monk in America

A few days ago, I googled the phrase "secular monks in America" and found a post at the blog Not Native Fruit, which you can read here, from June 2005 which touches on what I'm after. I left a comment at the post to sort of mark my passing, but as with most things monk, it was a rather quiet passing. Maybe a few ripples, but I am not making waves these days, much less leaving a frothing wake.

For some years, rather inadvertently, I've been taking on aspects of a sort of secular monk. No, I don't chant, and I don't wear a robe, and believe you me, the celibacy is not intentional -- just sorta worked out that way. Been a while since I've enjoyed some worldly pleasures... but back to the upside of monkdom....

Regular readers of ABN know I'm not much for the "god" part. Hence the "secular" part. And not being a prayerful sort of monk but, as my google search suggested, an "American" sort of monk. Indeed, the phrase "secular monk" has been used in many places, so maybe it's not the oxymoron some might at first believe. The artist Marcel Duchamp was called a secular monk, and one biographer called the playwright Samuel Beckett a secular monk. The label has also been applied to wide swaths of reclusive readers, intellectual hermits and gentle ne're-do-wells, writers, poets, pacifists, philosophers and scientists.

I'm not eating rat meat and rice. I've not gotten rid of everything I own. I haven't moved into any sort of commune or monastery or retreat as such. It's just that I have retreated, some. But as I eat out less, I eat much more simply. My menu is spartan, but I think admirably so. It's all part of treading lightly. Rarely meat at home, not even sandwiches. For protein, tuna, beans and cottage cheese. Then again, there is rice.

As for clothes, every time I get something new, I get ride of a pile of old things, and the new things are always solids, no patterns, and usually black pants and shirts that are either, white, black, gray or (as with the Amish) a bold and beautiful medium blue some would call French blue and others would call cobalt.

(You can see the "American" aspect of my monkdom going on here: style along with some substance, and I do offer some substance. But then monks have always been into style, even if that style meant some sort of earthen colored robe and sandals, sans underwear. Btw, I like boxer briefs myself, snug on the leg, and I hear that's the style most popular with the ladies, too.)

As I say, it's been rather inadvertent, slowly (and not always consistently) shifting priorities, not the swinging of a pendulum but just some nudging in a direction I've been considering for decades. It's interesting to me that I can be rather reclusive and yet gregarious when out, about as friendly as ever, gracious and polite -- since these are signs of grace and humility for which monks I suppose are known.

Secular monks, I would say, strangely enough, do not have a higher calling than to society itself. They may commune with nature, but it is to bring nature back to the society at large. They may go off to read or think or walk long distances or not do the busy work others use to break the surface tension, but they do their own things to make contributions. Even their own lives, however alone at times, are things they would like to share with others, as a peace offering that is not part of the razzmatazz. I would like to think that we secular monks are individual centers of both calm and dynamism, woe and wonder, spirit and substance.