QUEST: July 21

Kindness

Two weeks from today, I’m planning to join the brothers at the monastery for the various Sunday services and activities in which they participate every Sabbath.  They invite their guests to join them – even non-Catholics like me – and I am looking forward to the experience.

Each Sunday, the monastery is “closed for business” in a sense.  There’s no work detail, like they offer guests each of the other days of the week.  I’m pretty sure the on-site gift shop is also closed on Sundays.

And another business that’s closed on Sundays is the one I journeyed to today, walking 9.8 miles to their gravel parking lot, where they were kind enough to grant permission for Kathryn to park Quester and for me to stay.

I appreciate their kindness.  I’m grateful for a relatively safe place to spend the night after another wearying walk.

Not that I take it for granted, but I would expect a Benedictine monastery to offer kindness and hospitality.  After all, they follow the “Rule of Benedict,” which goes something like this: “Everyone who comes here should be welcomed as Christ.”

(The Rule of Michael is this: Be grateful for the hospitality you’re shown, and never act like you think you’re God.)

But the kindness and hospitality I’ve been shown by businesses along my route who’ve been extremely pleasant in welcoming our little Quester…?  That’s less to be expected, I guess.

Thanks for following my Quest.  If you’d like to respond, please post a comment here, or  send an email to michael@michaelhume.net.  Either way, I look forward to reading your views when I return to my screen in late August.

Michael, Sunday, July 21, 2024