Cloistered or Questioning

Article in Stretton Focus, September 2016

On holiday in Portugal earlier this summer we visited two monasteries which are UNESCO listed heritage sites – Batalha and Alcobaca. Monastic life ceased in Portugal in the mid 19th century so although there has been a loss of furnishings and decoration the buildings, faithfully restored, are essentially as they were when the last monk left.
Quite a contrast with the UK where the depredations of King Henry VIII’s commissioners three hundred years earlier opened the way for ruination of rural monasteries and re-use of those attached to city cathedrals. The full grandeur of Fountains and Tintern has to be imagined, the soaring grace of the Portuguese monasteries is there for all to see.
What caught my imagination were the cloisters. Quiet spacious corridors, simple central gardens, a place where contemplation is easy, yet busy today with tourists just as they once were with monks going about their daily life: a contrast with England’s ruins beset by picnics and pigeons.
It got me thinking about those contemplations. In a thousand years or more of unhurried monastic life there were a lot of monks and nuns. They had space in their daily routine for silent contemplation. What they thought about was dictated by the rule of the monastic order. In Alcobaca a room off the cloister was the only place where monks could freely talk together, the parlour – now the shop.
We may have left mediaeval approaches to faith behind but the monks and nuns had something we should try to recapture. They had time to think about faith. We should consciously make space for it in our lives. Silence calms the soul. Meditation frees the mind. It is also reported to have anti-ageing benefits. We have greater freedom today, the monastic rule constrained their thinking but our thoughts can roam wider and deeper. The demands of modern life make meditation all the more valuable to learn and challenging to do.
How many of us open up the time and space for silent contemplation? In silence we can learn to focus on our personal beliefs. It is rewarding to take the time but we all seem too busy. We can strengthen our spiritual life and we need to do it, just as much as the monks and nuns did.

Roger Wilson

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