Sunday wasn’t really bloody in the literal sense, but there is some bad blood here between the community and one of its members and a little of it came out during mass of all places. As I referred to earlier in my blog, there are some politics here, as there are in any closed community. And the person around whom the situation revolved was finally called out in front of the entire community (including some villagers). The series of events happened as follows:
The monk got up and left the church, as was normal for him, right before the exchange of Peace and returned right before it was his turn to go up and take communion (there are no EMHCs here unless there are a ton of people on a big feast day). A much higher ranking monk (there isn’t really a ranking system for monks as we think of ranks, but this dude is pretty high up in this community) stood up, stopped mass, and calmly told the monk to sit down and that essentially he was no longer a true part of the community. Talk about scaring the living begeesees out of me right before I went up for communion. Misplaced fear, but there was definitely a feeling of uneasiness throughout the chapel for the rest of mass. And afterwards before the priest gave the final blessing, the hancho stood up and explained his actions along with his reasons for taking them.
Not that it is Colin or my place to say so, but the right thing was done. After mass, all of the monks had a little more bounce in their step. And while it is somewhat sad to see something like that happen there is a general sentiment of liberation around the monastery now, like a dark cloud has been lifted. As a friend put it, "it’s like cleaning out an infected wound…hurts like the dickens, but is better for the body in the long run." We shall see. It’s not like I borrowed the nixed monk’s guitar or anything and it is currently sitting in my room. I can’t go give it back to him and say, “here you go happy travels,” but at the same time I am not looking forward to him coming and asking me for it and me giving it to him and saying “thanks, here you go, happy travels.” I guess all that I can do is sit here and fill the resonating halls with my rockstar quality guitar playing!
Oh yeah, Happy Halloween!
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