Posts by admin
The Rest of My Life: An Interview about Vocation
Q: Take us back to the beginning: when did you first start to have a sense of a monastic vocation, and what was it that was drawing you? I first started going to an Episcopal church in college. I was very eager to learn more and go deeper, so I met with the priest there…
Read MoreSwimming in Meaning, Rooted in God: A conversation about vocation with Br. Keith Nelson Q: Take us back to the beginning. When did your monastic vocation begin? I had no formal religious upbringing before the age of nine, when my family moved from a little suburb in southern New Jersey to a suburb of Birmingham,…
Read MoreWhy Monks Matter
Br. James Koester & Br. Jim Woodrum trace the essential outlines of the monastic life and suggest how these principles can help the rest of us – beyond the Monastery – to live lives of love, purpose, and meaning.
Read MoreCalled to Wholeness of Living: A Conversation about Vocation with Br. Jonathan Maury
When did you first have a sense of your vocation? When I was a young chorister in my parish, I became fascinated by the church’s history and very caught up in its worship. Although only half aware of it at the time, I do remember being very drawn to images of monastics as depicted in…
Read MoreThe Best Fit: A Conversation About Vocation with Br. David Vryhof
A Conversation about Vocation When did you first have a sense of your vocation? My parents and family are devoted Christians. I was raised in the Christian Reformed Church, a predominantly Dutch, Calvinist denomination. My sister and brother and I attended Christian schools, and our family was very active in the church. From my early…
Read MoreLove, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control – A Conversation About Vocation with Br. James Koester
When did you first begin to have a sense of your vocation? Even as a little kid, I somehow or other knew that I wanted to be a priest. I used to have a very dark blue wool dressing gown, which I would wear backwards as I wandered around the house pretending to be Mr.…
Read MoreDesire, Belonging, and Finding the One: A conversation about vocation with Br. Curtis Almquist
Q: When did you first have a sense of your vocation? I was twelve and I had a dream—a dream about monks. After all these years, I can still picture what I saw in my mind’s eye. I have no recollection, at that point, of ever having met a monk, nor having been to…
Read More“Taken at the Flood” A conversation about vocation with Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Q: How old were you when you first started to have a sense of your vocation? When I was about fifteen, somebody I knew mentioned that they wanted to be a monk, and I remember how – though I didn’t even go to church at that time – something about that struck me very deeply.…
Read MoreInquiry Form
You’ve learned a great deal about us on this site. Are you curious to know more? If so, we hope you’ll tell us a little bit about yourself. We’re curious too; we’d love to know who you are! Take a moment to answer these 12 questions. And please don’t stress about your answers. It’s not…
Read MoreWhere God Happens by Rowan Williams
The place “where God happens,” according to Rowan Williams’s striking new reading of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, is between each other. It’s a truth that we of the twenty-first century most urgently need to learn in order to heal the experience of alienation that has become endemic to our age, and these odd and…
Read More