urbantrappistblogastery

In the Hebrew day, all the cool kids quoted Scripture. By cool, I mean smart, but those were more or less equivalent back then: intelligence was the path to priesthood, power. Aspiring rabbis (and everyone wanted to be a rabbi) progressed by passing tests of scriptural knowledge (i.e. knowing the whole thing by [...]

You can find, on Youtube, a video or two involving a hockey player, a sharp skate, and an appalling amount of blood spilled rapidly onto the ice. That man was dying; his remaining years were literally flowing out of him. Fast and smart medical sorts saved him, but the fact remains: a mortal [...]

I have this penchant for the high brow: modern paintings, strenuous books, Belgian beers.  I love these difficulties because I find treasure in the inaccessible.  Edmund Hillary, among many others of his sort, agreed. Anything with broad appeal tends to lack the potency and depth of the arduously crafted art which can only be [...]

In any new city, it’s a personal imperative to explore. Through internet browsing, daylight runs, and nighttime wanderings, I work to find the places. Internal loci as well: the monastic rhythm during my retreat at Gethsemani, artistic inspiration in a trip to NYC, or the full pursuit of a new passion while returning [...]

In The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton recalls a ballistic inquisition from his friend Robert Lax:
What do you want to be, anyway?
Merton fumbles and murmurs some humble triviality unworthy of being remembered or cited. Lax, in a retort as brief and violent as his name, challenges:
What you should say is that you want to [...]

The idea of growing older is to discover an identity. If not, then my first 2.5 decades have been misdirected. Yes, I’ve been alive that long if you consider life to start at conception. If you don’t, then this guy thinks you’re a sinner.

Anyway, this site isn’t doing overly well in that [...]