In his book Monastic
Practices, Charles Cummings, OCSO, notes, “There is a monastic way of doing
things, a monastic way of living, that may seem strange at first because the
reasons underlying it are not immediately evident.”
Such as the way that Benedictine sisters eat bananas in the monastery.
After I was at Mount St. Scholastica a few weeks, I noticed
that many of my new dining companions have a curious method for eating a banana;
they place it lengthwise on a plate, pull back one strip of the peel, cut the fruit into bite-sized sections, and proceed to eat each bite with a fork. I asked why
they eat bananas this way and was informed that they were taught the practice
when they were in formation, because to eat a banana in the manner of a monkey was
considered uncouth.
Notwithstanding appearances, eating a banana monastically offers
the benefits of slowing down and being mindful about this food before us, thus
encouraging us to savor it. And so, although the reasons for eating a banana in
the monastic manner are not immediately evident, it turns out there’s nothing
strange about them at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment