Tending the Culture of Emptiness

“Early Christian monks went out to live in the desert in order to find emptiness. Modern life is becoming so full that we need our own ways of going to the desert to be relieved of our plenty. Our heads are crammed with information, our lives busy with activities, our cities stuffed with automobiles, our imaginations bloated on pictures and images, our relationships heavy with advice, our jobs burdened with endless new skills, our homes cluttered with gadgets and conveniences. We honor productivity to such an extent that the unproductive person or day seems a failure.

Monks are experts at doing nothing and tending the culture of that emptiness.”
—Thomas Moore, Meditations on the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life

I don’t remember when I first became enamored with monks and the monastic life. It must have been in college, because I had no personal or cultural reference point earlier than that. When I became interested in Thomas Merton and in Buddhism, I quickly sought out monks and monasteries to see for myself what that life was all about.

Perhaps what has fascinated me the most over the years about the monastics I’ve come to know is how wonderfully human they are. Like me or you in every other way. What makes them different is their deep intentional commitment to live out of that space of emptiness within, to honor silence and solitude as the ground of a healthy, spirit-filled life.

Thomas Moore is best known for his many books on caring for the soul, but this little volume, Meditations on the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life, is without question my favorite. In it, Moore reflects on the twelve years he himself lived as a monk, and the way in which his daily life is still shaped by that experience of “doing nothing.”

My prayer today, for you and for me, is that with grace, nothing will happen.