By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
I may be the biggest fan of Northern Utah’s Ogden Valley who never lived there. As a result, during a recent COVID-19 sheltering-at-home-and-catching-up-on-my-reading phase, I cracked open an Ogden Valley book, Stephen Trimble’s 2008 Bargaining for Eden–the Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America. It was a good decision.
I know Steve, and know his wife (and my fellow lawyer) Joanne Slotnik even better. Many years ago, our kids attended a preschool together. Steve and Joanne once gave us a lovely (and autographed) book of Steve’s stunning photos of Nevada, where my wife Vicki grew up. They are good, caring people.
In Bargaining for Eden, Steve tells the interesting story—from a candidly-environmentalist perspective—about the history of the Snowbasin ski resort near Huntsville. Steve also thoughtfully addresses his own personal dilemma about land development, framed as his concerns about Earl Holding’s actions on Mount Ogden contrasted with his excitement at building a small home on some acres he and Joanne own in Torrey, Wayne County, Southern Utah.
Not surprising, given Steve’s considerate nature, his book tries to build bridges and calls for “mutual trust, respect, empathy, and accountability” among the different viewpoints in the development/preservation environmental discussion.
What did surprise (and delight) me about the book was Steve’s account of his three day visit/retreat to Holy Trinity Abbey in the shadows of Mount Ogden, a trip I never knew he took. Thinking about Steve’s visit to the monastery helped me remember and contemplate the Utah monks’ own relationship with the natural world around them.
As you know from reading this blog, the monastery was my second childhood home and I am friends with the retired Utah monks even today. I follow their history as carefully as possible and from what I know, the Utah Trappist monks were married and devoted to their Ogden Valley land from the first day they arrived there in July 1947.
Kentucky monk/writer Thomas Merton has described that land as “a wild and lonely spot” which on one side is “a wilderness without roads or farms.” Noting that deer drink at “two plentiful springs,” Merton said the only sound there was “the howling of coyotes,” at least until the Trappists “set up their bell and began to ring it.” (Thomas Merton, “The Trappists Go to Utah,” Commonweal, August 29, 1947.) Steve wrote his own eloquent description of the Abbey some six decades later, but Merton’s words are quite accurate still.
Like they did with everyone, the monks welcomed Steve during his three day stay at the monastery. He found much common ground with them, including with Father Charles Cummings, who passed away just a few months ago (see: “I’m glad there’s such a thing as monks”).
Steve quotes admiringly from Father Charles’ book, Eco-Spirituality, which describes humans as caretakers of creation: “For a caretaker the issue is not mastery or control but harmony. A caretaker does not impose order from outside but from within, guarding the existing integrity of the whole independent system.” (Trimble, p. 193) The Cistercian Constitution says the monks and nuns “are to be concerned about conservation of the environment and to manage natural resources prudently.” (OCSO Statutes, 27A)
This is not to suggest that the Utah monks could be called radical environmentalists. They were, after all, farmers and ranchers. They worked their land and eradicated threats to their crops. They valued sustainability (see: Sustainable Brother Stanislaus), but they also changed what they originally found, and made an indelible imprint on their environment (see Unexpected Vespers). They loved their land so much they asked that it remain open space when they sold it a few years ago.
Steve’s friend Father Charles explains it all much better than me in his book Monastic Practices, “The relationship between the environment and those who live there in stability goes in both directions. The inhabitants influence the natural environment, and the natural environment has its subtle effects on the inhabitants. There is a symbiosis, that is, a mutually-beneficial, cooperative, interdependent relationship between the environment and those who dwell there.” (p. 185)
Steve agrees. At the end of his Bargaining For Eden book, he presents his own well-considered credo about “land, community, and honor.” He advocates for harmony and for “introspection rather than a knee-jerk reaction” to all such issues. Steve is married, he’s not a Catholic, and he’s not even a Christian, but he sure sounds like a Trappist monk to me.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press in August 2021.
