LINKS: “Delights and Shadows” by Ted Kooser Home Page Ted Kooser’s Official Website “I’m In Charge of Celebrations”
PHOTOS: MARY VAN BALEN
He has a fish house on the lake behind the Abbey and goes out there, drinks tea and reads poetry. He welcomes visitors. Once he invited the Queen of England when she was in the States, but she sent her regrets, saying she was devastated that she could not come.
My heart beat faster, and as Byrd Baylor says in her book, Im in Charge of Celebrations, I knew tea in this monks fish house would be an experience worthy of anniversary remembrances.
The comment was part of general conversation at my daughters college graduation party. Friends gathered to mark the occasion, and while discussing unique aspects of studying at a university connected with community of Benedictine monks in rural Minnesota, a professor mentioned the fish house.
I plied the speaker with questions, hungry for more details. First, there was the matter of learning what a fish house looked like. I had visions of an old oriental carpet laid directly on the ice. What about the hole for fishing? Would that be there? Did he plumb the waters as well as verse? And how did he make tea on a frozen lake without melting something important, like the floor?
My questions were answered patiently, Minnesotan to clueless but curious creature from warmer climes. I hung on every word, both excited and resigned to a life that likely would not include enjoying the opportunity also regrettably missed by HRH Queen Elizabeth.
Six years later, while at the Collegeville Institute, I was riding into town with Br. Wilfred, the Institutes liaison to the Abbey. As we passed frozen lakes dotted with fish houses on either side of the road, I remembered the graduation party conversation.
I once heard that a monk here had a fish house where he went to have tea and read poetry. Is that true?
Oh, yes, Wilfred said with a smile. That would be Br. Paul. He once invited the Queen of England, you know.
My heart beat faster. Is he still living?
Wilfred laughed. Yes. Hes not that old really; he works at the library. Every winter when the ice is thick enough, he pulls the fish house onto the lake.
Wilfred, I said earnestly, could you finagle an invitation for me? Ever since I heard about tea in the fish house, I have wanted to go.
Wilfred chuckled again. Perhaps at my eagerness. Perhaps at my plea for finagling. The monks, true to Benedictine values, were hospitable and approachable, and any day after prayer I could have asked Br. Paul myself if I had known which one he was.
Oh, you will get a chance to go. Every year he invites the Institute scholars out for tea. Hell send an email.
I sat back in the seat and smiled. I was going to meet Br. Paul and share tea in his fish house!
Wilfred was right. An email soon appeared inviting scholars for tea. The invitation included a schedule of possible dates and times, a map, and encouragement to bring poetry to share. On February 13, carrying a camera and book of Ted Koosers poetry in my bright yellow Thai monks bag, I joined two others and we began our trek to the fish house.
Andu, an Ethiopian scholar, was uncertain about the prospect of walking on a frozen lake. Lois and I, usually up for any adventure, had no qualms. We drove as far as we could, parked the car and walked a short distance through snow-covered woods to the lakes edge.
In the distance we saw a small plywood hut raised slightly over the ice by what appeared to be long boards resting on six sets of wooden blocks spaced along the two longer sides. Paul appeared outside and walked toward us, smiling and waving as he came.
Over the past week, air temperatures had risen above freezing a few of times, and the ice was brittle where it had melted and refrozen over small pockets of air. Andus face registered horror as he took a couple of steps and heard crackling sounds as his feet broke through the thin top layer and sank a centimeter or two before coming to rest on solid ice. Paul reassured him and we laughed as we made our way to fish house.
The front had a door and small window that closed with glass and a shutter. I later learned that the two windows, one in front and one in back, were used to regulate the temperature in a rudimentary way: When the room was too hot, they were opened; when the inside became cold, they were closed.
Paul opened the door and warmth and smell of burning wood welcomed us. In the right back corner that was lined with metal printing plates sat the smallest wood burner I have ever seen. A few chairs, a bench, and a table draped with a red cloth and set with white teacups, silver ware, and bowls of nuts and cookies filled the remaining space.
The afternoon passed pleasantly. Paul, meticulous about brewing tea (The Queen would have approved.), filled the teapot with hot water from a kettle that sat on top of the little stove, swirled it around and once the pot was warmed, tossed the water out the back window. He then poured boiling water over loose tea, timed its steeping with a gold stopwatch, and filled our cups with steaming Earl Grey.
We ate nuts and cookies as conversation turned to St. Benedict and his Rule.
The monks promise of conversion of life moved me. Isnt that what we are all called to do? To be open to change, to growing and deepening in our experience and understanding of God and what that demands of us? The Benedictine does that in the context of the community to which he or she belongs.
When a Benedictine monk advises one to take the long view, he is speaking from experience. The Benedictine “Order” is ancient, predating any others and its members can view the slow evolution of Church doctrine and organization as well as political and environmental issues with patience borne of immersion in an institutional memory spanning fourteen hundred years. The Benedictines have a unique structure. Sometimes called the Order without order, each Abbey is autonomous and links with all others in a loosely connected federation, really not an order in the canonical sense.
We are pretty much left alone by bishops and the Vatican. They dont know what to do with us, Paul joked. It sounded like a good position to me.
We moved on to talk about Icelandic epic poetry and illustrations from the Edda that formed a border around the top of the walls just below the ceiling. Years ago, when he arrived at the Abbey, Br. Paul asked a literature professor for an Icelandic grammar and had taught himself the language to read Icelandic poetry.
Then we shared the poems we had brought. Lois brought one she had written about her deaf mother and growing up in a large Mennonite family. I read Ted Koosers poem, A Box of Pastels, reflecting on the wonder of holding Mary Cassatts pastels in his hand. His poetry reveals the sacredness of quotidian, and our afternoon in the fish house was surely a sacrament of the ordinary. Andu had not brought a poem. Instead, he stood and swayed gently, moving his hands as he sang an ancient Ethiopian hymn in its unique cadence and mode.
Paul pointed to a paper hung on the wall: a poem written by a friend who had visited the fish house years ago. We talked about the picture of Queen Elizabeth that gazed at us from her perch over the door and about other visitors who had shared tea in this room.
Time passed quickly. Evening Mass was fast approaching. Paul insisted on doing the clean-up. A wilderness backpacker, he would bundle up everything, tie it onto his orange plastic sled, and pull it back up to the Abbey. Lois, Andu, and I returned in high spirits and joined the others at Mass. This time, I had no trouble spotting the monk with the fish house. We exchanged smiles across the sanctuary as we had across the table at tea: both holy places… both places to celebrate the Sacred in our midst.
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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