Winter At The Monastery

This is my first winter day in my Trappist monastery where I spend the summers.  There are places in the monastery that lack heat.  These are tough monks.  Toughness is foreign to my personality.  But I am sucking it up and learning to adapt.  The dining room is heated for our midday dinner.  Not so much for breakfast time or supper in the evening.  The cloister corridors are not heated.  My room is heated as is the shower area in the basement.  The chapel has some heat, and I bundle up under my choir alb.  My car is out in the cold, the very cold it turns out beginning today.  If my car survives, I think that I can make a go at some winter time here in the monastery.  Maybe I will even get tough, and be able to adapt to cooler rooms.  The prayer life is wonderful.  The silence is quite deep here.  We are baking cookies today, so God is good.  I will fatten up on a few rejects from the cooking process.  They are still very good cookies.  People in Boulder, Colorado, 3000 feet lower in altitude probably don't even know I am gone.  I have a low profile there now.  I am working on a Maureen homily story for Christmas mass, but most of the children will attend the Christmas Eve masses for families. I only have Christmas 8:00 AM at the parish.  God is in charge.  Time for dinner.  Gotta go. I am back.  Delicious tofu midday dinner.  No meat here.  We have a twelve foot fully decorated Christmas tree in our dining area.  At night when I go outside to look at the winter sky, I can see the Christmas tree lights through the dining area window.  We also have a Santa statue in the dining area.  The choir chants are not the same as the ones we do in the summer.  Advent/Christmas have special chants and words.  I am new to these chants, so it will take some getting used to.  We still have cows in the field because it has been warm all Fall up here, but that will change soon, very soon.  I feel sorry for my car, and sorry for me if my car gets cranky, and grumpy.  I will go out now and love on it and give it some attention.  You might do that for others around you so they do not get cranky and grumpy.  Show them a little love.