Staring into the face of a new year and glancing back at the most recent one to pass away always makes me a little nostalgic, and today I turn to some years ago, when I was regularly involved in the life of a little monastery (no longer in existence) here in North Carolina.

The monks there were part of a larger monastery, St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, MA. Their abbot was none other than Thomas Keating (“Abbot Tom,” they called him behind his back), famous for his works written and spoken about Centering Prayer.

As I think about those guys, there are six who stand out. Sadly, I knew only a couple of last names, so for anyone who recalls them when they were alive and present here, this won’t be any kind of “official” memorial.

Brothers Jim Gorman and John Crocker, both deceased, were my main teachers. Both took very different approaches to spirituality. Jim had what I call a “free-wheeling” style, probably much more like Thomas Merton in his last years before going to Asia (and dying there). For instance, Jim taught journaling workshops along the lines of Ira Progoff; but Jim said he did not journal (“Nahhhh, no journaling for me, but I can still teach others how to do it!”). This was Jim: “Everything is holy, so don’t work so hard at trying to become what you already are!” and “It’s all prayer!” Jim made me believe I, too, might just be a mystic (I’m not so sure about that these days, nor do I worry about it – thank you, Jim).

John was more traditional. As I’ve written before, John would sit on his meditation cushion during the long, silent time after thee 3:30 AM office, staring lovingly at the Tabernacle where the consecrated host lived (as a Roman Catholic, John believed that Jesus was bodily present there, and his faith caused him to love that presence like nothing I have before or since experienced in anyone else in quite the same way). John always spoke slowly and deliberately, as though for a fraction of a second he was choosing which word to say next. John slowed me down. It still aggravates anyone on the road driving behind me.

Br. Dave taught me to love flowers and to wish I had the patience to bake. I’m a work in progress. Br. Al taught me (or tried) to see the difference between craft and art. I still don’t agree with him, but I always think of him when that debate pops up in my head! Br. Tom was the intellectual of the group (although anyone spending time with them found out that they all read, and read deeply). I watched him debate with a woman one afternoon for two hours about Woody Allen’s work; Allen was, up to that day, one of my favorite artists and comedians, but Tom took him down in one sentence, making the woman, a Ph.D. student, really angry. What fun!

The last of the group that I met was Br. Meinrad, who had started out at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky and moved to St. Joseph’s at some point (not easy to do, as Trappist monks, among others, make a vow of stability, which means they stay where they are, but the 1970’s were different even for the ancient monastic orders). My favorite Meinrad story, other than Jim’s yelling to him and John one afternoon, “Honeys, I’m home!” as he came in from the grocery store, was this one: visiting the monastery one Sunday afternoon, I met a man in the library. Usually, I didn’t want to disturb the silence of other guests, but this guy clearly wanted to talk. We started speaking of life in general, then got more specific: I was a ministerial student at Duke Divinity School. He was – gasp! – a guest of the US government at a nearby federal prison! It was a diverse conversation, to say the least.

He and Meinrad left an hour or so later. When Meinrad returned, I asked him about how a Trappist monk, who had chosen the contemplative life rather than the active, had ended up with a convicted felon for an afternoon. His humble reply: “They asked for volunteers.”

Remembering these guys and the way they still touch my life, I pray that I am strange enough, holy enough, and smart enough, to be for someone else what they were for me. They were great models, not just for all those years ago, but for this present, newly-born year.