 main index © Jeff Matthews 2002-2012 entry Feb. 2004 Everything is related to Naples Number 53 in this series. Link to all items here.
 As hard as it is to
believe, there really are places in Naples where you can
find peace and quiet. One is in the San Martino vineyard on the
green slopes of the Vomero hill below the museum. Another
one is in a monastery. Given the nature of the spiritual
quest I am on, perhaps that is closer to my heart. (Or
maybe it's just closer to my house.) I know that the Camaldoli monastery takes
visitors, and that has always tempted me. Indeed, whenever
I mention that I would like to spend some time there,
those who know and love me (not necessarily the same group
of people) usually look up and say, "What's a river in
South America with six letters beginning with L?" Yet, I
often dream of showing up there some morning with my
Absolutely Essential Soul Searching and Enlightenment
Survival Kit. I can't go into this thing unprepared:
About the cigars—I don't smoke them, but I'm not sure about the monks. My view of monks was forged in the crucible of Eugene Pallette's great portrayal of Friar Tuck (photo insert, above) in the 1938 Warner Bros. epic, The Adventures of Robin Hood. He was a pretty swashbuckling guy; he drank wine, ate mutton (whatever that is) and cudgeled lots of heads according to the medieval monastic dictum that it is better to cudgel first and ask questions later. (WHAM! "Are you saved, my son?") Thus, if they had had cigars in Friar Tuck's day, he would have smoked them. Now, some of you spiritual sluggards may think that monkdom is one monolithic flying wedge of undifferentiated belief. Nothing could be farther from the truth. (Well, the statement, "When acid is added to an aqueous solution, the pH rises (!)," is farther from the truth, but that is neither here nor there—though there may be other places we could look.) As a matter of fact, different monastic orders say truly catty things about one another. For example, Benedictines may tell you that Franciscans drink too much; Franciscans may tell you that Dominican choirs don't sound much better than Little Richard (or, Parvus Ricardus, as they put it); the Carthusians, of course, invented the color chartreuse, "But what have they done for us lately?” ask most other monastic orders. Trappists, of course, don't talk about other monks because Trappists have taken a vow of silence, which they break only once a year to complain about the incessant racket of sandals shuffling in the abbey corridor. And no one has anything good to say about a cappuccino whipped up by a Capuchin friar (though the Capuchin monkey, cebus capucinus, native to Central and South America, is said to brew a pretty tasty cup of Java, which is nowhere even near Central or South America). Also, no one bad-mouths the Jesuits,
because they are the Bad Dudes on the monastic
block—lean, mean, intellectual Soldiers of the Faith.
Attila the Nun may have whacked you across the knuckles
with a ruler for stumbling on, "How much is eight times
seven," but a Jesuit will drop-kick you off the
triforium for hesitating on, "Quick, what is the
exception to Aquinas' idea that all beings are composed
of potential and actual principles?" (Hint: Don't say
56.) (Note to myself: add a multi-purpose Jesuit Army
Knife to my survival kit; the Inquisition blade, alone,
makes a Swiss Army Knife look like Lichtenstein.) So, one morning, I show up at the door of my spiritual retreat and summon a nun with an enormous knocker. (Yes, a mutant sporting a misplaced modifier)... That is the point in my dream where I usually
awaken.
|