Settling In

The trip west was mostly without incident.  I spent a week at the House of the Redeemer in New York City, seeing old friends once again.  Then on Monday, June 17, a United flight at noon from JFK to San Francisco.  It was delayed an hour, apparently because of a paperwork mixup.  That made us an hour late at SFO and so I missed the connecting flight to Santa Barbara, but that was not much of a problem as there is one every hour or two through the late afternoon and evening.  I was on the next flight, and Nick Radelmiller was at the airport to meet me.  We had a lovely dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant in downtown Santa Barbara, and then up to the monastery.

I was warmly greeted by all the brethren and their welcome made all the work involved in the move worthwhile.  Nick, Tom Schultz and Will Brown have held the fort for four plus years and have done a good job of it.  The place looks good, the ministry is solid, and the worship life is real.  More about all of that in subsequent posts.

The next five days or so were devoted to putting my room together.  I carted my professional library west with me, and it needed a place to go.  So much research about bookcases.  I settled on the cheap of the cheap, white particle board numbers from Target that cost $32.99 each for a 6-foot, 5 shelf case.  I knew from experience that you could add another shelf cut into the proper length at Home Depot, and so I set to work.  I'm not the strongest or most agile laborer in the western world, but one by one they got done, and the books placed, each collection in its own section: Anglo-Saxon, Classical and Late Antiquity, monasticism, Bible, spirituality, literature, French and Spanish, music and art, church history.  They all more or less fit on the shelves (some of them are double).  It actually looks great!  Then fitting the art and objects of a lifetime around a new room.  I love the room.  It has four windows, facing west and north, a door with a window to the deck outside, its own bathroom. It is in fact quite lovely and I feel quite at home in it already.

The other acclimating experience in a new monastery is, of course, the schedule.  It is more relaxed, more spacious, than West Park.  7:30 Lauds, 8:00 breakfast, 8:45 OHC community chapter, then the morning is open for work or whatever.  Noon is the Eucharist, 12:30 dinner, then the afternoon is open.  5:00 Vespers, 6:00 supper, 8:00 Compline.  There is a lot more open time for lectio and quiet, which I am enjoying a lot.

I have charge of breakfast dishes, and have been given some maintenance tasks to do.  I have been in and around Santa Barbara enough now to notice what is different from years ago.

It is beginning to feel like home.