Beneath the feet of the monks, that which holds them and their houses of prayer, is this land. Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery on the coast of South Carolina, is where we’re on retreat. The land of my childhood. Beneath the years of their prayerful songs, as old as my dad, there is that which will outlast every song. The land calls out to be honored and discovered. There is so much here, more than the eye can behold. The heart knows what lies underneath.
The mountain top teaching of the young rabbi pushes us below the surface. Searching for the roots of their growth, he draws our attention to the most harmful things within us.* From all of the hatred, lust, and empty promises… rotten fruit is born. The old teachings, as calcified and scarred as they are, provide the soil for planting new seeds. My attachments, triggers, and temptations are just as deadly to my spirit as those bigger things. The teacher points to the undercurrents of the pain… a deep dive towards those dark thoughts. The matters of my heart.
A beautiful sorrow is here… sweet mourning of the earth, and all who are buried underneath. Former slave holders, descendants of slaves, quiet monks buried in a simple row, their younger brothers living in humble cells right outside, all of them along the banks of the Cooper River. We spent three days walking that land, ending each with a campfire on the bluff, like a scene from Where The Wild Things Are. Curious raccoons come close, and the barred owls haunt us with their call to go within. A liturgy of the land.
Sitting on this little patch of earth against a field of cotton, looking over every shade in the green gospel, I see my life unfold right along with it, woven within the same tapestry. Snaking limbs of the live oaks, bowing before us like elders at the altar. Swaying spanish moss in the January wind, dancing from limbs like graceful ghosts. The veil is as thin as they are. A turkey feather found as we walked the rows of barren corn. Another gift, and sign that we were not called to sit inside. Walking the labyrinth at dusk, a barn cat weaving herself around us as we made our way, we find ourselves held in the center. Taught and fed by the land. Our eucharist. Father Guerric, the Mepkin guest-master, said smiling as I was leaving, “You all spent a lot of time in the woods.”
I told him with the same smile, “They called to us.” Inner work in the outer world. Underneath it all.
*Matthew 5:21-37, The Message
–Jim Marsh, Jr.
