Tag Archives: monasticism

The Monastic Tradition: All a Big Mistake

Possibly in response to a orevious post, a reader (my friend Rob Alexander) has sent me this by email.

Thank you, Rob.

Monastery Life

A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

monks 01
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

monks 02The head monk, says, “We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.”
*****


He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery
where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn’t been opened for hundreds of years.

monks 03

Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

*****


So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing.

monks 04“We missed the R!  We missed the R! We missed the R!”


His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.

The young monk asks the old abbot, “What’s wrong, father?” With A choking voice, the old abbot replies,
“The word was…

monks 05

CELEBRATE!!!

Enhanced by Zemanta

You might also like:
Should Two Left-handed People Be Permitted to Marry?
Go Trans – Figure
New Scientist: Fish that change sex – and back again

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...