Monk in Residence

This past week I headed up to Pluscarden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery three hours north of St Andrews. My mission was to get a chunk of writing done that I had been working on for months - desperate times call for desperate measures!
The Benedictine's follow the Rule of St Benedict, a set of guidelines for monastic life formulated by Benedict of Nuria, a monk who lived around Rome in the 6th century. One of the rules is that the monks must forsake all personal possessions and live a life of poverty. Another is that they are to show hospitality to strangers - hence, the spartan guest room.
Every day I went to two times of prayer and Psalm singing (acapella in Latin), luckily they provided the English - my high school Latin is pretty rusty. I also ate lunch and dinner with the monks, which was a really fun experience. One day both meals were in absolute silence as it was a day of rest in preparation for Lent. The other four days were mostly silent, a monk read from the Rule, Scripture and an edifying work (a memoir from one of the bishops in attendance at Vatican II). Most of my day, however, was spent at the desk in my room, typing away. I wrote lots of words - about twice as many a day as I usually write at home - but I haven't started editing yet, so we will see how many count in the end.
The food was really good and the setting was beautiful, and I will probably go back when I am revising for submission. For now, it is back to family life with all of its wonderful distractions.