Literary Discussions

People who have never lived in a monastery cannot grasp the essence of it.... so for them everything is in terms of cookie-cutter external practicalities... Some people suggest that there would be more clerical vocations if marriage were allowed and yet denominations who ALLOW married clergy also suffer a decline in vocations. Unless one lives for a year or two in a monastery or convent and tastes the life and reads things like the Philokalia or Brachianinov's "The Arena" one has no conception of what the motivation for that life is and everything is understood as mere externals quid pro quo and economic practicalities. The best line I ever heard was in The Sound of Music where the old abbess says to the young novice something to the effect of "monastic vows are something you should be running TOWARDS and not something you do to run away from or avoid something in life." Another way to glimpse is to read the first 100 pages of The Brothers Karamazov which is an account of how a young man on the path to a military career slowly becomes drawn to spiritual life and becomes Staretz (Elder) Zosima who was based on the real life monastic Ambrosy that Dostoevsky met and used as a model for the fictional character.