Benedictine monastery in Japan
MinnPost has a very interesting article up about how a Benedictine monastery in Japan was able to thrive after Japanizing the lifestyle of its monks:
To outsiders, this may seem obvious. In fact, it was obvious to insiders, too. But it’s one thing to suggest that a culture needs to change, and another matter altogether to actually change it. Nonetheless, last year — with great effort, and after much discussion — the monks at Trinity made the decision to shift the monastery’s culture — especially in the dining room (second in importance to the chapel — which had benefited from a Japanese liturgy for years. Japanese cuisine became a more regular facet of the Trinity dining experience; chopsticks began to appear at the common tables and, most significantly, conversations were translated from Japanese into English, and not — as had long been the practice — from English into Japanese.
Father Edward Vebelun, 41, a still boyish native of Ohio who was trained as a priest in a Japanese seminary, describes the transition as a revelation. “From there, the flood gates really opened for us.”
Read the rest of the article here.
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
- Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)
