The Benedictine monks and David Bowie's departure; the contradiction of things

I wanted to have a retreat and had heard there was a monastery in Chilworth, not too far from where I live. I googled them and on one of those website contact forms and asked if I could come and stay for a retreat the week-end of January 9^th – 10^th. I had a swift response from the 'Guest Master'. I was told me to arrive at the monastery at 10.30 and to leave after breakfast on the Monday.

I biked along a the long ribbon development that is Chilworth, and while the semi detached houses marched on, I took a right and climbed through a wood. The monastery was quite far up, surrounded by trees. A deserted place near suburbia. Later that night the wind wailed through those trees, and the rain slashed down. We could have been in Scotland.

I arrived with my brakes squeaking. An old monk, smoking his pipe at the door, cheerfully told me that it could do with some oil. As he took me though the monastery it immediately felt a little like a school during the holidays: empty institutional space. The monk told me to wait in a small and bare sitting room. The Guest Master, Father Thomas from South India, was soon with me. He showed me my bedroom (spacious, and clean, with a wash basin), and the large pleasantly airy church. I did not realise how much of the church I would see.

In my bedroom there was a letter for me and it was spelt out that guests were expected to attend the prayer offices. The next one was Sextus at 12.30 p.m. and I was there. Father Thomas had told me where to sit. He also gave me different books and explained the order of the liturgy. He did this for every service. A small act of practical kindness. There is no welcome or any small talk whatsoever in these services. The monks (never more than ten) file in and take their places in the choir area, out of view. Most of the different offices (Lauds, Terce, Sextus, Nonce, Vespers, Compline, and Vigils) were taken up with the chanting of the psalms. A monk would read two or three lines, then the rest of them ,and any guests (we were three) would chant the next two or three lines. We usually read three or four Psalms. There were also readings from both the Old and New Testaments.

After Sext Father Thomas signalled to us guests and we followed him out of the church, down a corridor and into the refractory with long wooden tables and benches. Again I had been assigned a place, my name on a napkin ring: orderly attention to detail. There was a long sung grace in Latin. There was no talking. We took our places and a monk went to a lectern in the corner and started reading Isaiah. I didn't move till I saw the others taking out their napkins. And so we ate an excellent three course lunch waited on by a monk listening first to Isaiah, and then an audio book on Edward II. The meal ended with another long grace and then Father Thomas led us back to the church for None, another service.

And so my week-end was spent in this deserted place often in the church chanting the psalms. The writer to the Hebrews says, 'God rewards those who diligently seek Him'. The monks certainly set an example of diligence. They were serious people engaged in a serious task. There was absolute commitment. What the world made of it was of no consequence whatsoever.

At the monastery I had no wi fi and hardly any mobile reception. That was for the best. On Monday morning. there was Vigils at 5.50 am. and Lauds at 7.00. I then biked back home, weaving my way through puddles and commuter traffic. At about nine there was a text from my brother: David Bowie was dead.

David Bowie and the Benedictine monks. A clash of two worlds. In me. Benedictine prayer in the early morning; now memories of Bowie washing in with some sorrow. For he sang for my teenage years. His asexual but beautiful face on our study and bedroom walls shone into our boarding school world of grey suits and ties. His poetry in those random phrases inviting us into edgy dreams away from the essay plan. An idol of sorts. My brother said I loved him; another friend said I was besotted, another I was obsessed with him. He wrote about me 'screaming out the songs of Ziggy Stardust in the (school) corridors'. Maybe. But at a concert at Wembley, the crowd shouting, almost menacingly, 'Bowie, Bowie' I sensed not all was well. I then became a Christian and gave all my albums away. The reason was simple :Bowie did not help the journey to God. But even after forty years love lingered for the beauty of some of those songs, especially 'Life on Mars'. With different words it became a lullaby for my children and so became my dance with my daughter at her wedding.

Benedictine monks and Bowie. A stark contrast. . And so as the tributes poured in and we wondered again at Bowie's creative genius, that stark contrast showed that the choice to give him a wide berth was the right one.

Bowie was all show for the world, right to the very end. As we've been told many times, even his death was a work of art. With the Benedictine monks there is no show. They all wear a simple black habit. In the church, their stage, they are not seen. Their chants are offered to God. With Bowie it was always changes, there had to be something new. That's been another refrain of the commentators. The Benedictine monks do not change to face any strain. They are chanting psalms written about three thousand years ago. And for over 1,500 years they have followed the same rules. It's those rules that make them who they are. As soon as I stepped into the monastery I knew I was in a place that was ordered. As Father Thomas told me about my stay, there was a quiet authority in his explanation. Bowie and rules didn't belong together. Breaking rules; that was the point of Bowie. That's why he refused the knighthood. That's why people talked about him changing Britain. On Sunday afternoon we guests met the monks for coffee. They were warm, vibrant, and you immediately sensed their quick wit and intelligence. This underlined for me the sacrifice they had made. Their lives with the vows of poverty and chastity were lives of self-denial. As with rules, Bowie and self-denial do not go together, especially when you think of his early years and those dark days with cocaine. For a season he was a hedonist. That was what the bisexuality was about. Some of his music and poetry, with all its originality and beauty, revelled in that hedonism. There is a final and very sad contrast. The monks worship God; sometimes it would seem Bowie was wanting to get in touch with the spirit world ruled by the original rebel. So the obituary in the Economist wrote of him sitting for days on end on a diet of 'red peppers, cocaine and milk' behind black curtains surrounded by black candles and painted pentagrams.

The Benedictine monks and Bowie though have have some things in common. They both took their calling very seriously. And that meant hard work. In fact Bowie outstrips these monks and many others when it comes to work. He wrote 600 songs. I can't think of any duds. They all had a special edge. And a lot of acting. I didn't like the 'Blackstar' video. It felt occult like, creepy. I preferred 'Lazarus'. But that's not the point. The point is that these songs and the others on the album were all recorded while Bowie was dying. That's his commitment to hard work.

And there's something else. There is a sad longing in many Bowie songs: the girl with the mousy hair watching the film that was a saddening bore, the five years stuck on our eyes, wild is the wind..and hundreds of other phrases that yearn for more out of life.

And also with the monks.

Over the coffee I talked with a Father who had become a monk in 1957. He said he had regrets. No, not about taking the vows he quickly reassured me. His regret was the he had not experienced more of God's glory. There is so much glory he told me. After all those years the yearning for more was still there. 

Back in 2003 Bowie said he was 'almost' an atheist. But his last songs don't bristle with barren atheism: Look up, I'm in heaven; something happened the day he died...but nobody would ever say it was Christian. The public will never know whether Bowie ever even began to sense the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And there's the final contradiction. We all know exactly what the monks believe. But for Bowie the showman, it is opaque. As with most things, we'll have to wait for that great day. 

Till then I'll continue to give Bowie a wide berth; but I hope to go for another retreat with the Benedictine monks.