Thirteen miles down an unmarked dirt road quietly sits the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, along the Chama River in Northern New Mexico. The monastery is home to 15 monks, some livestock, and a guesthouse for people looking for a little quiet in this turbulent world.
“The silence here is deafening,” said Brother John Chrysostom. “No sirens. There’s no electrical buzz or anything. You have no cell phone connection here. The silence allows you the opportunity to hear that which you are to hear.”
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That is, the sound of bells, and the sound of voices chanting seven times a day.
“When you chant, that is prayer,” Chrysostom said. “And what any monk probably aspires to do is that he doesn’t want to just chant the Psalm, but one day he wants to be the Psalm. He wants it to be a part of who he is as a human being.”
This part of the world has always drawn people seeking. It drew artist Georgia O’Keeffe to settle just down the road, and in 1964 it drew Father Aelred Wall, a monk, to found a Benedictine monastery here. Famed architect and furnituremaker George Nakashima designed its church.
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When we visited, Chrysostom was our “guestmaster,” welcoming us among this order of Benedictine monks. “As guestmaster, I keep this rule: basically we were to treat guests as if they are Christ,” he said.
The brother happens to hold an undergraduate degree from MIT, an MBA, three more Master’s degrees, and a Ph.D. in political science. He was a professor, and also: “I was an investment banker for a while,” he said. “That’s not a very peaceful existence even in the best of times!”
But it was on a pilgrimage, the famous Camino de Santiago, that Chrysostom heard a voice calling him here. Anyone can visit, for a suggested donation and a willingness to participate in the silence.
Here the monks follow the Rule of St. Benedict – Ora et Labora, Latin for prayer and, well, work, which of course you’ll find on YouTube, posted by Brother David. Online, he calls himself The Desert Monk.
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And his work around the monastery is never done. “The gist of the message is, in everything that you do, the work is for God,” he said.
When Charles Osgood reported on the monastery in the 1990s, the monks had just begun working with a new invention called the Internet – a union of “inner space with cyberspace.”
Watch the 1996 “Sunday Morning” report: A New Mexico monastery meets the internet (Video)
Today, guests Mary and Joseph Roy, from Washington State, have found something here a five-star hotel cannot offer. “Sun on the red rocks and the River Chama flowing by,” Mary said. “It’s a good way to listen to God, to listen to nature.”
Asked what he takes away from his visit there, Joseph said, “For me, being more aware, listening to that of God in each person, as we talk, as I experience their story and their life.”
The monks ask guests to help with the running of the monastery, if they can, and Brother Chrysostom says their guests’ presence is fundamental to the monks’ calling: “We need the world as much as the world needs us,” he said. “Don’t think we’re escaping or moving away from the world because we don’t need the world. We need the world.”
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I asked, “Do you need the world because it helps you feel like you’re fulfilling what God wants you to do?”
“I guess it hearkens back to the desert fathers, the early monks who lived in the Egyptian desert,” Chrysostom said. “You had monks living these holy lives praying, and lives of asceticism, and forgoing eating. It was remarked once like, ‘Okay, you’re doing all this. But whose feet will you wash out here in the desert?’ So, you’re doing these things for someone as well, and with someone.”
But the monks ask no questions of those who wish to become their guests. “No, you just show up as you are,” Chrysostom said. “And you’re not required to do anything while you’re here. You’re just required to be. You can pray with us if you want, you can eat with us if you want. Or you can hike. We ask that maybe, if you’ve chosen to come here, that you spend some time with us getting to know the community and the place. But our schedule’s not your schedule!”
Maybe the quiet of places like Christ in the Dessert isn’t an end in and of itself. But by making space for a little silence, you hear your calling … a little louder.
As Chrysostom pointed out, “One thing you’ll notice that we are in a canyon. So, we’re at 6,600 feet above sea level right now. And so, these hills and the cliffs stretch another 1,000 up and everything. These are all false horizons. Basically, when you get up to the top of these hills, or what you think is the top, you’re just beginning to go up. It continues on. So, this is a false horizon. This is not the top; it’s just the beginning of something which is even higher.”
Perhaps a lesson for all of us on our own spiritual journeys.
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Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Chad Cardin.
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