A Saturday Just Reading, Thinking and Walking

First, I just finished "Monastery at Night" this evening after several tries.  I wanted a warmer look to the monastery building from the earlier nights... the cool night colors and the warm glow from the windows worked out, but the building seemed cold and unfriendly - not how I wanted to portray the place.

So this evening after Supper, I took the tripod, cable release and flash unit out and set up in the driveway (an act of faith in itself, knowing a taxi was about to arrive), I set the camera at f/8 ISO 200 and locked the shutter open.  For the next 133 seconds, I ran all over the place firing the flash at full power with a full CTO gel (to warm the light) 8 times at all facades of the building.  A bit of post processing and...

I hope you like it...

Anyway, back to the blog...

I started the day reading, out on the cloister porch.  It was a bit breezy, so I could only stay out a bit.  I'm reading "A View From the Monastery" a sort of overview of the different types of men that populate a monastery in the US (not Holy Cross).  It's some nice light reading and suits the porch well.  The other book I'm working through is "Living the Truth" (I hope I have the title right) which is a study on Benedictine humility.

After lunch (always a wonderful feast in the refractory)...

I took a walk down to the river.  This was my first time down there this visit since the rain we had all week has made the hill a mess.  Wtih hiking boots and only taking the small camera, I got down there.  The Hudson was raging and at least a foot or two above normal level (from my past visit).  The relatively clear water was gone, replaced by brown foamy churn.  The little slate bench I used to sit by and read was not a pleasant place so I turned around and headed back up the hill.

Finally in the evening the ladies from St. Mark's in Brooklyn shared their feast with us and again invited us to their hymn sing down in the crypt chapel.  This place seems to "tune" voices as all the sound is reinforced and builds up - you can hear each other clearly.  I always love this hymn sing when I'm here and was glad my weekend overlapped with these wonderful people again.

The ladies from St. Marks exude love... there's no other way to put it.  I never have been in a place where I was so obviously different from everyone else yet felt so loved and completely accepted.  There were folks from at least 2 of the three parishes as well as one brother from the community.  By the time it ended there were prayers, love and hugs echoing all around the place.