Trying to Touch a Saint

It happened, of course, when I was with Bill Berry. Not the former drummer for R.E.M. but the other guy. There is something about this Bill Berry and I. When we are together it is like spontaneous combustion and stuff happens. He now resides in Virginia and I in Georgia and a great many people like it this way.

So we were at Gethsemane, a Trappist Monastery outside of Bardstown, Kentucky. It is a beautiful place in the hills, with a road lined with majestic trees, and a white wall surrounding the place where the monks live and work. Visitors are greeted by a monk or a volunteer and are told that they may visit certain parts of the monastery, the Chapel, a section of the dining hall, but the rest is off limits.

Gethsemane was also the home of Thomas Merton, before he died, a famous monk and author of many books including The Seven Story Mountain. He was an anti-war activist and a hero to many seekers of faith.

Bill and I found his grave, laid among all the monks who had died, marked with a small white cross that bore his name "Father Louis". Then we decided that we need to find his cottage. Because Merton was a world renown author, he lived in solitude in a small cottage somewhere inside the monastery.

So we climbed this wall, helping one another to the top and jumped over. Our timing could not have been worse as two monks decided to use the same moment to walk underneath where Bill and I had jumped.

While Trappist monks are known for taking vows of silence, we startled them out it, and they shrieked. Bill and I merely looked at one another. I think that I cursed.

Then they happily led us out of the monastery without saying anything more leaving us where we had entered.

At the gate, Bill looked at me and shrugged his shoulder. "Well, at least we tried."

So we drove to the other holy spot that Bardstown is known for, their Tavern where Daniel Boone visited and we drank a pitcher of beer. Or two.

And we toasted how close we had come to touching a saint.