Seeking soft, silent, serenity with Brother Placid

My favourite place to go in all the world is a monsastery.

As long as I can remember, I have loved going to places of retreat.

I take to these places like a duck to water. As soon as I get there, I slip effortlessly into a serenity I seldom feel at any other time or in any other place.

I've stayed at many different retreat centres over the years, but the one I go to now is a tiny Benedictine community. It rests on the shores of a lake, and the guesthouse is right on its edge.

In the monastery there is no conversation at mealtimes, a boon for someone like me who struggles with small talk. Instead, one of the monks or nuns reads aloud in a soothingly monotonous voice.

The brother who is responsible for the abundant sweetness of lavender and roses around the guesthouse is called, appropriately enough, Brother Placid.

My window looks out on the garden, and over the lake to the hills beyond, and I spend many hours at that window simply sitting, slowly breathing and becoming still. Becoming really still in a way that is only possible when I make an effort, and it is always an effort, to stop being busy.

The monastery is a good place to do this, because what the nuns and monks do all day seeps into the very bones of the place, into the buildings and the gardens, and affects anyone who stays.

What they do sounds pretty weird to most contemporary people. They pray.

Sure, they garden and run a printery; they make icons and incense for the faithful and offer hospitality to guests like me, but their main activity is prayer. Seven times a day.

Starting at 4.30 in the morning, and at regular intervals until 7.30 at night, they go into their beautiful big chapel and pray. They chant their way through the entire book of Psalms every month, they read from the Bible, and they pray for the world.

These days, meditation is coming back in a big way. All sorts of high achievers and others are discovering that time set aside for quiet breathing and letting go of busyness each day can do wonders for stress levels.

Meditation is indeed good for body and mind, and I don't wish to knock the people who promote it, or those who have found it useful. But, as modern Western men and women, we tend to have a utilitarian approach to meditation: it will improve our lifestyle, decrease our stress levels, make us more well-rounded people.

For these monks and nuns, it's a bit different. The main reason they are on this Earth, as they see it, is to pray. To worship and adore God, and hold before God the world in all its beauty, brokenness and need.

Maybe this is why I feel compelled to go there, and learn from their utterly counter-cultural activity. I need to be reminded that holding this world before God somehow mysteriously makes a difference, both in the overall scheme of things and in my heart.

Monastic communities remind me of the power of silence. I find it deeply reassuring to know that these people are there, with their constant intercessory presence, their song of silence.

They take on prayer and silence as their life's work, not simply as 15 minutes a day that they hope will make them less stressed. And because of this, there is a palpable sense of deep peace in this place.

To be there and to drink it in is to have my priorities rearranged, to be reminded of what is important in life.

I return to the city, and my bustling household, freshly aware of the spiritual dimension in life, the depths that speak to my depths.

Clare Boyd-Macrae

This is an edited version of "Monastery" reprinted from Three Gates to Paradise: Articles and Reflections by Clare Boyd-Macrae, published by Clouds of Magellan http://www.cloudsofmagellan.net, distributed by John Garratt Publishing.