By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Sometimes I worry that my ora and labora are out of whack. Although the two words sound somewhat orthopedic, I am not thinking about the aging bones in my sometimes aching back, but rather of the time-honored monastic tradition of finding balance in life.
One of the hallmarks of the monastic movement is its emphasis on blending ora et labora, which means prayer and work. Most of us do not live like monks, or take their vows, but that does not mean we cannot learn something from their unique lifestyle.
St. Benedict’s Rule, written in 516 A.D., has governed life in monasteries around the world for hundreds of years. Chapter 48 explains, “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading.”
Accordingly, the Rule encourages a wide variety of activities, such as: work, reading, rest, prayer, chant, silence, and living by the labor of hands. It also says all things are to be done with moderation. Those of us fortunate to live in Utah witnessed a real time example of the Rule, and of life-in-balance, at the now-closed Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity Trappist monastery in Huntsville.
The Utah Trappist monks made and sold many successful products from 1947 to 2017, the years when they lived and worked at their 1800-acre mountain valley farm and ranch. Yet, one by one, they cut them back or shut them down so that the monks’ business did not get in the way of the business of being a monk.
The best examples are the products for which the Utah monks are best known, bread and honey. For many years, the monks baked and marketed three delicious kinds of bread. They sold the bread onsite and in local stores, but due to heavy demand and workload (and an eventual shortage of monks), cut back production and eventually discontinued it altogether.
The monks’ honey business continued until just about ten years before the Abbey itself closed. Their “Trappist Creamed Honey,” a mix of Utah bee nectar and various fruit and nut flavorings, was wildly popular in stores and by mail-order online. Brother David Baumbach (I knew him as “Brother Lawrence”) was a young monk who joined the Abbey when I visited there as a boy. I watched his final profession of vows. He managed the successful honey operation for many years. (He now is at Abbey of the Genesee in New York.)
In late 2008, however, local news headlines told the sad story that the monks had decided to phase out the business. Brother David explained that financial success was not worth the cost. He told one reporter, “We were selling so much honey we couldn’t keep up with it, and I realized we were becoming a three-ring circus. I said, ‘Stop right there. We’re here to serve God, not the Almighty dollar.’” He said he wanted the pressure off the monastery and to “get our priorities right.”
Who does that? Not many of us would walk away from a thriving and lucrative business like the Utah monks did…at least twice. Yet, Brother David readily made the rather easy decision to ensure that labora was aligned with ora. He understood the words of his famous fellow monk, Kentucky Trappist Thomas Merton: “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.” (No Man is an Island, 1955).
Few of us are called to be monks, but we all would live better lives if we just tried to imitate some of their wise practices.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is writing a book about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah.
