Monasteries and Monastic Orders: 2000 Years of Christian Art and Culture is a survey in photos, maps and explanatory essays of monasteries in Europe and the orders that built them. It is organized chronologically by order. Within every order's section there are 2 to 4 pages devoted to each monastery and its landscape. There is a section for women's orders. Not beguines, but that's hardly surprising.
The focus is entirely academic and artistic. Organizing the book chronologically allows the author to frame developments in architecture, decoration and communal living as they follow one from the other. The text is informative and rich in fact, of course, although not without humor and a real sense that the audience is someone who is interested in understanding and can read the imagery and design choices in the photographs. It is a thoroughly gorgeous book.
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| Opening this feels like walking into church |
This book is almost exactly the size of the coffee table. And the coffee table is not small.
There are always books that sell much better than anyone could have predicted. We're always surprised. Partly because, as said, no one predicted it. That was the case with this one. Everything about the experience of reading this book is appealing. The colors on the cover are muted and invite contemplation. The book weighs more than 8 pounds. So bringing it home on public transport was fun.
I used to go and visit it on random Sundays off. Because I knew how to Sunday afternoon in St. Louis.
Itinerary for a Winter Sunday in early 2014:
Brunch at Mokabe's unless you are feeling flush and have a new book in which case brunch at Cafe Madeline.
Walk in the park. Pick a park. There are a gagillion.
Bus and train downtown - leave the train at the convention center and stroll back to Central Library.
2pm concert at the Cathedral with a small crowd of 40. Let the carving and the storytelling of the cathedral and the music shift your focus and astonish your senses. Have faith for a moment or two. Breathe differently the reverential air and let it be in your body.
Walk outside.
Read the buildings. Read the sunshine. Read the air and the sidewalk and the sounds of the city.
Feel your footsteps as lines of rhythm adding to history. Go slow.
By the time you get to Bridge, the brightness will have mellowed and your sight will have moved back into this century. The darkness of the bar will soothe.
Order something dark and spicy. Ask to have it in a pretty glass.
Head through the door into the bookstore - rather the opposite of heading into the Wardrobe - it is all golden wood and sunshine and open space.
Put the beer down on the counter - you need two hands for this.
Head to the Architecture section and gently, oh so gently, slide the book off the shelf.
Cradle it as you walk back to the counter. Remember - this book is not lightweight.
Be silent as you stand over the open pages. Do not spill your beer. Do not gulp it. You are surrounded by the work of work. It is sacred and deserves care.
Walk the corridors and colonnades of centuries gone charming and culture made oppressive. Consider the quiet of a faithful life, the struggles and work and rites and lights. Remember the air of the cathedral you just left and push it forward four hundred years until your lungs hurt and you are not sure if it is the beer clouding your awareness or the book.
Stay there. Until your eyes see the dust moving in sunbeams trapped in photographs thousands of miles and several years away. Until you hear chants you cannot know and the shuffling or striding of feet under robes. Move through the centuries as you turn the pages. Move around the Continent and up and down naves and around chapels. Say prayers in a voice that is not your own.
Take a breath.
Close the book.
Put it back, and go read the world anew.
My Sundays look very different now. The counter in a sun-filled space is replaced with a coffee table at home. I am more likely to have a glass of water than a glass of beer and do not need to travel so far to scour the distractions of modern life from my eyes. But the book remains. And transports. Every time.
#40days40books list
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