I had a bit of a revelation the other day – I would make a terrible monk. Not that I have been thinking about joining a monastery, more because I have been thinking about future plans which include (seriously); Boston College, Providence College, Minnesota, Newark and (not too seriously); BVC Ireland. Well really, this came about when I discovered Ireland – I thought ‘that would be so cool to do!’ and what if I could. And then it hit me – I’m a gyrovague.
Now for those who don’t know what a gyrovague is, let me throw down some rule at you. From the first chapter of the rule of St. Benedict:
The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.
These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province,
staying as guests in different monasteries
for three or four days at a time.
Always on the move, with no stability,
they indulge their own wills
and succumb to the allurements of gluttony,
and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites.
To put this in a bit of context, a Sarabite is described as being a “detestable kind.” I guess I’m not learning the vow of stability. In my defense, I’m not a monk so none of this really applies to me. It was a fun discovery though and lightened my stressful disposition during this time of interviewing and applying.
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