Friday, August 19, 2011

Porters All


I love my Kindle.

When these little digital libraries first came on the market, I will admit that I was more than skeptical—in fact, I kept saying, “I wouldn’t want a Kindle ‘cause I love books too much!” I love holding books, writing in my books, displaying my books, giving books as gifts. Obviously I must like storing books since in my $100 a month storage locker in Cincinnati there are 85 boxes of books awaiting my return to the United States and properly being displayed and loved again with me in residence.

But then my former student Audra showed me her Kindle in the summer of 2009, and for every point I made, she kept saying, “You will love it—especially if you love books!!” So that Christmas my sister gave me a Kindle.

For those of you who might not yet have purchased one of these Kindles, or the other kind of e-book devices, do you know what you get to do??? Well, besides holding hundreds of e-books in the Kindle itself, one gets to download samples of books for free! For free!!!!! It’s like spending time in a book store looking through books you may just want to buy…however, I have downloaded hundreds more book samples than I could ever have devoured in afternoons in a Barnes & Noble! I mean, I gotta tell you, one way I kill time in airports (because of the usually-free WiFi) is that I look through the Kindle store and download dozens and dozens of samples of books I might enjoy.

If I open the Kindle right now, I have 438 samples of books…it’s like a kid in a candy store!!! (Again, for the un-washed, un-Kindled, a sample is about a 40-page excerpt of the beginning of a book, designed to tempt you to buy the entire e-book for around $8-10.) I have about 80 novels (yes, Anne Siviglia, I occasionally read fiction!!) and 200 samples of history books, and then the books on movie history, television history, theater history, food history, art history (yes, I am a history nut) and memoirs and humor books and books on current events. I also have a file on religious history and books on spirituality. Why not download almost any kind of book that might shed some light on…pause for a serious phrase…the human condition…

One of the more unusual samples I downloaded this summer was a book about St. Benedict, considered by many to be the founder of Western monasticism. In the year 530, Benedict composed a rulebook, “The Rule of Benedict,” by which his monks would live an ordered, holy, and monastic life.

When I downloaded the sample, I had no idea what the book would be about, but I discovered that the “rules,” the chapters were oddly interesting. Now, let’s face it, anything historical is always interesting to me. Put sports and history together—thank you to Gary Klein for helping me with this—and all of a sudden I am a sports junkie.

Anyway, back to Benedict. I think I originally downloaded the book because I have joked occasionally that working at KA in Jordan has, well, at times, felt “like a monastery on a gulag.” I mean that in an endearing way! Anyhoo, I thought the book by Benedict and all of his rules might be interesting to compare a real monastic life to my life in a dormitory in the desert 30 minutes outside of an urban area.

Huh. The entire 66th chapter of Benedict’s Rule is devoted to explicating in detail the duties of the monastery’s porter, that is, the gatekeeper or doorman. It seemed remarkable to me that one of the renowned spiritual documents of the Western world has an entire chapter devoted to how to answer the door.

Remarkable, yes, but as it has ruminated in my brain, also understandable.

Among all the brothers in the monastery, the porter alone straddles two worlds. With one foot, he is firmly located within the monastic enclosure: the world to which he has vowed his body and soul. The monastery is a regulated, all-male world—a world of black tunics, scapulas and hoods—a world of silence, simplicity, poverty, chastity and habitual prayer.

However, the porter, alone among his brother monks, also has a foot in the world without: the world as it flows by the monastery’s door, bearing with it its flotsam and jetsam of noise, bustle, color, chaos, confusion, disorder and temptation.

It is the porter’s main duty to exercise the Christian art of hospitality. At the sound of a footfall, or horse hoof, or knock—no matter what time of day or night—the Porter scurries to the door, flings it open and cries out: “Deo Gratias! Thank God you have come!”

For the Benedictine, the art of hospitality is a theological necessity. Genuine hospitality is the warm and practical evidence of God’s love.

For the Benedictine, the art of hospitality is something else as well: it exposes to all manner of persons and experiences. It is a way of living that renders us available to the world.

In the Benedictine world, the job of Porter is assigned to one person. That person alone in the monastery straddles two worlds.

Besides, the “kick” of learning some medieval job description, does this Chapter 66 mean anything more than a little trivial information???

Yesterday the administration at KA welcomed the new faculty for the 2011-12 school year—we have a week of orientation with them before the returning faculty join us on campus for a second week of orientation. Yes, for any school this is more orientation than you have in a decade! Be that as it may...yesterday in his opening address to our new faculty, our (I’ll say it again) wonderful headmaster John Austin read from the 2011 book by King Abdullah II from the part of what he gained from being at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Of all the many things he gleaned, he found that his tenure there helped him cultivate “wisdom and patience,” and understand and undergo an “egalitarian experience.” When Abdullah assumed the throne in 1999, he knew he wanted to create a school in Jordan that would do a similar thing. His Majesty has said often, and indeed wrote in that recent book, that he hopes the students from KA will “create a new tribe in Jordan, a talented meritocracy of lived lives of service and leadership.”

How exciting to work at a place that has that credo embedded in its founding. As John read from some passages of the King’s book, I thought of the lone Porter in the Benedictine monastery, and his importance of straddling two distinct worlds. His Majesty wants our students to straddle two worlds as well, the West and the Arab world, bringing the best of both to create a “new tribe.” If you know anything about the Arab world, tribal stuff is of primo importance. He wants a new tribe that is able to transcend the boundaries of old.

Straddling two worlds is hard—that rule of Benedict provides some insight about how porters go beyond the comfort zone, how they see two worlds and intermingle between and among. Think of how we all straddle various worlds. We all have a foot firmly planted in the “real” world: where might makes right, where wealth rules, where skin color and accent and bank account and education and nationality and ability, define us. Some people don’t like stepping inside another world, retreating from what could be a transforming experience. The borderlands are hard. Just the other day, I crossed over borders. I crossed over national borders. I also crossed over the border from summer into a consuming school world.

I thought about how excited I get every year for the beginning of classes—I am probably as giddy as the Benedictine porters as they fling open the door and announce: “Deo Gratias! Thank God you have come!”

As I listened to the hopes of King Abdullah II for this school, a school entering Year #5, it is clear to me he urges us all to straddle different worlds, cross borders and see what wisdom and patience can be gleaned from the experiences. I have no idea if His Majesty has Benedict’s rule on his Kindle, but I would imagine he would urge us to go beyond the single porter of Benedict’s day, and encourage and inspire that we are porters all.

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