{"id":2985,"date":"2008-08-18T19:04:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-18T19:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/silence-is-golden-experiencing-into-great-silence.html"},"modified":"2008-08-18T19:04:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-18T19:04:00","slug":"silence-is-golden-experiencing-into-great-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/silence-is-golden-experiencing-into-great-silence.html","title":{"rendered":"“Silence” is golden: experiencing “Into Great Silence”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236000208219759762\"<\/a>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m finishing off the last of a pint of Haagen-Dazs (Bailey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Irish Cream, if you must know) and as I lick the spoon I heave a deep sigh and think: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those monks can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those monks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are the men who live, pray, work, eat and sleep at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. After much too long a wait, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve finally just completed watching the DVD of the remarkable documentary about their life, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Into Great Silence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a> The men who have vowed their lives to that silence at Grand Chartreuse live in spare wooden cells, with a wood-burning stove and a desk and a kneeler and not much else. They gather twice a day, at morning and evening, to chant the Divine Office. Otherwise, they remain in their cells, isolated, in complete silence, devoting every ounce of energy and attention to one simple task: prayer. <\/p>\n

Ice cream isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t part of the deal. And it leads me to believe I’d be a terrible monk. <\/p>\n

The film is a beautiful, challenging, eye-opening experience. For two and a half hours, you hear almost no talking. There are a few brief snatches of conversation or prayer, in French. The rest is comprised of images of the men going about their lives, and sounds that leap off the screen. The sawing of wood, the slicing of fabric, the chopping of celery, the scrape and shuffle of sandaled feet along ancient slate floors. And bells. Periodically, a monk grabs a great long rope and rings the bell that gathers the men for prayer. The camera dwells on the simple, homely images of the monastic life \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a glass of water, a bowl of fruit, a washed dish dripping water \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and finds in them a kind of unexpected, almost painterly poetry. The movie also follows the men through mundane routines that run the gamut from planting vegetables to cleaning floors. (And getting haircuts: the men regularly file into a large room where electric razors dangle from long chords, and a bearded old monk patiently and methodically shaves each head.) <\/p>\n

Again: I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember seeing ice cream. Anywhere. <\/p>\n

The order that was filmed, the Carthusians, is arguably the most severe and austere Catholic monastic order in the world. They really do give up everything. The story goes that the director of the movie, Philip Groning wrote to the Carthusians in 1984 to ask permission to film the monastery for a documentary. Sixteen years later, they wrote back to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n

The result is a truly unique movie-watching adventure. There is a loose structure \u00e2\u20ac\u201c following the four seasons of the year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but no narration, no score, no plot. To watch the movie is to experience, for a brief moment, what these men experience over the course of a lifetime. It isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t about doing; it is about being. And it takes a while to adjust your expectations and settle in to absorb the monk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solitary and cloistered world. <\/p>\n

But the rewards are worth it. These are men literally living the gospel mandate to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153give up everything\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to follow Christ. Their choice challenges those of us who made a different choice: what can you give up? What can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you give up? How much noise do you let into your life? And what would happen if you just shut it all off? <\/p>\n

It sounds dull and joyless. It isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. And when I asked my wife what her favorite part was, she replied: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Playing in the snow!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Near the end of the movie, on a gorgeous winter morning, the monks take a rare excursion into the outer world, hiking to the top of a neighboring alp. And from a distance we see these men in their white winter robes gliding down a long hill on make-shift skis. They laugh. They tumble. They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to get up to the top and do it again. <\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delightful — a reminder that these sober, prayerful men do know how to laugh. <\/p>\n

And it proved to me something else: if they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get to experience ice cream, at least they get ice.<\/p>\n

Curious? You can catch the movie’s trailer below: <\/p>\n

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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m finishing off the last of a pint of Haagen-Dazs (Bailey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Irish Cream, if you must know) and as I lick the spoon I heave a deep sigh and think: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those monks can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those monks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are the men who live, pray, work, eat and sleep at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"yoast_head":"\n"Silence" is golden: experiencing "Into Great Silence" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/silence-is-golden-experiencing-into-great-silence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Silence" is golden: experiencing "Into Great Silence" - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}