A Monk Moment

It’s around 9 o’clock in the morning and our small group of Western Seminary students are on the Mount of Beatitudes, overlooking Lake Tiberius (the biblical Sea of Galilee).  The sun is shining and it promises to shine all day long.  It is a gorgeous day.  I’m hurrying to catch up with our group and guide, walking against the tide of a long line of Franciscan monks.  They are leaving as we are arriving.  We’ve been bumping into them all around the area.  They are an interesting looking group, and I truly wish I had opportunity to talk with them.  There are about 30 in their group.  They are all dressed alike in brown robes with a white rope tied around the waist, the tails of the rope falling down the right side of their bodies.  The rope has three knots tied along one of the tails.  These knots remind the monk of his vows: humility, chastity, and poverty.

Okay, first observation: Monks come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Second observation: Monks have needs too.

One of these needs is the need to pass gas.  One of these monks of God chose to pass said gas  just as I was passing by.  It was a prodigious release of pent up breakfast, or maybe it was from dinner the night before.  But it was a three-count fart – one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.  Go ahead, count it out and be amazed.  I was.

I stopped, turned toward the offending monk - who simply kept on walking.  (What else was he going to do, right?  Stop and accept kudos? No.)  I stood there with my hands open in front of me gesturing toward him - grinning, so you know.  Then I said, “Dude!”

The monk, a tall, dark-haired man about my age – maybe a little younger, 50 ish – turned his head to me, smiled a beatific smile – what other kind of smile could it be – and in a baritone, Italian accent (or maybe Spanish, not sure), said, “Alleluia.”

And that’s not the funny part, or at least not the funniest part.  The three monks walking behind the deflator were silently laughing, their shoulders shaking as if in concert.  It was great.  I laughed about it all day long.  I didn’t tell the group about it until later that night, just after prayers.  Someone said “Alleluia” in their prayer and made me think of it again.  We all got to share in the moment. We laughed long and hard.

Final observation: Laughter too, is a welcome release.