The Rule of St. Benedict (With a Special Appearance by Godzilla or Something Like It)

by Jonathan Harrison, borrowed from his blog Dried Humor.

As many of you don’t know, I have monkish tendencies.  I would love to move to the middle of nowhere, wear the same clothes every day, and be around a bunch of dudes who don’t talk.  Except for the no “knowing of a female in the carnal sense” thing (and that’s pretty much the long and short of it) living in a monastery sounds pretty awesome to me, so every now and then I travel up to the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, which is a Cistercian monastery located near Bardstown, Kentucky. The monastery, mostly famously known as the home of Christian mystic/writer Thomas Merton, has been around since 1850s, and, besides having the Dali Lama over for pizza a few times in the 1990s, not much else has been going on for 150+ years except your standard monk stuff that monks tend to do (i.e. praying, fasting, praying, sleeping, praying, milking cows, praying, eating, dying, and praying)*.

They have a bookstore as well, which will probably be the last remaining bookstore on the planet once the technological revolution reduces all the other bookstores to rubble in Godzilla like fashion.**

Difficulty of reading a blog post with a gif in it aside, I bought The Rule of St. Benedict at the Abbey’s bookstore, and it has officially become the first “book” (it’s about 98 pages) I’ve read since April 5th.  The book gives the basic rules of living in a monastery.  In fact, if you’re planning on opening your own monastery, I highly suggest that you pick it up (and don’t tell the Catholic church because they don’t tend to smile upon such things).  I found my copy for $2.50, so you have no excuse in regards to cost.

It was a nice read, but I don’t think I can share anything with you that wouldn’t expect to find in the book, so I’m going to leave it at that.

*I don’t know this for sure, but I’m making an educated guess.

** I’m as sad about this as you are, and I don’t no what the future holds for sure, but I wanted a reason to post this GIF.