I waited around this afternoon before heading out to tour the Hudson Valley because I wanted to check out "The Monk's Cell", the gift shop the monks run to help raise money for the monastery. This place is a wonderful two rooms filled with cool religious books, prayer beads, wall hangings, incense, and the like. I could have gone nuts... there was so much good stuff there - I wondered if they had a payment plan.In the end I purchased "The Episcopal Handbook" (which promises to explain all those weird little things we do differently from all the others), a book by Eugene Peterson, and a book of Psalms for a Pilgrim People which is a modern setting of the psalms that might be useful in J2A. I also picked up some trial packs of incense to try at a couple of our meetings.
After that I again went outside the grounds to see what kind of trouble I could get into (this time Stewart's Ice Cream... sorry couldn't resist). I wondered over to Hyde Park and went to walk around the grounds of the FDR historic site. There I found a gift shop too... but this one was mostly all kitsch - tshirts, fluffy stuffed dogs of the same breed as FDR's, and all sorts of cheap whatnot. Yes there were a couple of decent history books and a wide variety of FDR biographies, but most of it seemed junk.
To be fair, I did see some "Holy Cross Monastery" ice scrapers, and coffee mugs, but I wonder if the monks would do better if they offered cuddly monk dolls and tshirts that read "Ascetics do it... rarely" or something like that.
I will be heading back tomorrow (Kristen, don't pay the bills yet)...
George, if I had known about your professional interest in fragrance, I would have asked Bede (the monk that makes the incense) to show you the workshop where they make the stuff. He studied Chemistry as an undergrad at Cornell, and has some interesting things to say about how the recipe for Holy Cross Incense has evolved....
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