Erroneous monk.

---

If you haven’t spent too much time around a monastery, you’d be surprised by just how much noise a bunch of monks can make rolling out of bed in the morning. It’s hardly past sunrise when I first hear them outside my window, bickering away in Arabic, laughing hoarsely, and going to great lengths to ensure that the rigors of monastic life are shared by every last pilgrim in earshot. There’s a funny bit of horse-play between them - the sort of playful rough-housing I’ve grown accustomed to in the Arab world - and it’s not hard to imagine an exchange between them going something like this:

MONK #1: Brother Boutros, you wouldn’t know Corinthians if it came up and slapped its balls on your neck.

MONK #2: Corinthians? I got your Corinthians swingin’!

It’s safe to say that vows of silence in these parts are a thing of the past. But then, Mar Musa is a monastery with a very modern twist. They’ve got a splashy website and Internet access in the library and - if you’re standing on the right hilltop - a weak cell phone signal beaming from nearby Nebek. Brother Paolo, the Italian monk who’s helped to resurrect Mar Musa in the past two decades, was a child of the free-loving ‘60s. When I arrive he’s just left for New Zealand, via Dubai - a real jet-setter of a monk, if ever there was one.

The pilgrims I meet here are an incongruous mix: some young, some old, some from as far afield as South America, some just ten minutes from their homes in Nebek. A young Syrian stewardess tells me that she flees her family twice a week to wander the hills behind the monastery. About the Christian mission she’s unconvinced - “I’m trying to find my own path,” she explains - but about the stark desert views she has no such reservations.

Another Syrian, David - a cheerful kid who was the first to welcome me when I arrived - volunteers as much time as he can afford when he visits from Damascus. He was just thirteen when he first came to Mar Musa with his family three years ago. Taken by the place’s open, inquisitive approach to Christianity, he began returning every few months. His parents - cut from a more traditional cloth - were hardly so convinced. Upset by the monastery’s progressive take on the faith, they rushed back to Damascus before the day was through - cutting short what was meant to be a three-day stay.

It’s not hard to see why some might be put off by Mar Musa’s schtick. The monastery’s mission is to encourage an interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims, but the result isn’t likely to sit well with the conservative keepers of either faith. Spend a bit of time around the place - in its remarkable chapel, for example - and you can see where the line between the two religions begins to blur. Built in the 11th century, its walls splashed with colorful frescoes of the saints, the chapel pulls elements of Islamic tradition into its Christian fold. The floors are covered in prayer rugs, while the Bible - in a very Islamic touch - is opened on a short wooden stand, like a Koran. When the monks enter to perform their prayers - their habits like the crisp white dish-dashes of the Arabian peninsula - they prostrate themselves on the ground, touching their heads to the floor.

There’s also a loose, communal spirit that belies the solemn rigors of the monastic tradition. In the afternoon we sit on the terrace, the laundry listlessly flapping on the clotheslines and a fierce desert sun blanching the horizon. The monks - dressed in blue jeans and athletic pants, their faces covered in scraggily stubble - are sitting around the table, peeling potatoes and slicing tomatoes for the stew. Some of the recent arrivals are folding sheets and linens, stacking them in neat piles; others are scrubbing pots and pans in the kitchen. Two Danish girls - perhaps still recovering from the 343 steps up the mountainside - are sitting with their feet propped on the guardrail, trying to send text messages from their uncooperative cell phones.

One of the brothers gets up to make a fresh pot of Turkish coffee. Mary - a soft, eloquent Englishwoman - is telling me about a Ford Motor Company executive who took a year’s sabbatical to live in the caves around Mar Musa. For six days each week he was hunkered down in the mountainside, only visiting the monastery each Sunday to do his laundry and share in the Sunday lunch. But when he returned to his London life after the retreat, he had - not surprisingly - a hard time readjusting. His company had replaced him while he was gone; the daily clamor of the city quickly unsettled whatever spiritual calm he’d found in the desert. “He’s having a very tough time of things,” Mary concedes, a look of concern on her face. “We haven’t heard from him in awhile.”

For most who come to visit Mar Musa, though, the results are hardly so dramatic. There’s a sleepy, spiritual calm to the place, and most of us spend long afternoons in the library, or wandering off through the parched hills that roll toward the desert. In the evening we watch the shadows grow and the colors of the hills soften. A few of the brothers lazily swat at flies, a Biblical plague of which have amassed on the table-top and buried themselves in the bowls of sugar.

Afterward we convene for mass in the chapel. There are candles flickering and a few stomachs grumbling from the back of the room. One of the monks begins a prayer - a low, belly-rumble of a drone, the sort of sound familiar to cancer wards or advanced screenings of Robin Williams flicks. The others follow suit, and soon a few of the faithful try to join in, though I suspect their Arabic is almost exactly as good as their Aramaic. There’s a pause; you can hear Brother Elias - portly and flushed, cradling his stomach between his legs - laboring for breath. Then they start up again. Then they stop. After a long, weighty silence they begin once more, and I’m starting to get the sense that the monastic order of Mar Musa is more likely to burst into song at any moment than the cast of Miss Saigon.

There’s an hour-long meditation and then a series of readings from scripture, and by the time things wind down I’m beginning to think back to the marathon masses of my Orthodox childhood with great nostalgia. Brother Elias leads an informal Q&A about a certain passage from I Corinthians, his casual talk peppered with colloquial bits like “khalas” and “yella” and even, improbably, “bye-bye.” There’s a satisfying warmth to the way we’re gathered around him, lobbing questions and debating the story’s relevance to contemporary life. It’s religion tailored to the needs of a modern crowd - even if we’re tucked into a mountainside and all but thrust into the deserts of Arabia.

The candlelight flickers over the frescoes. I’m overtaken by foot cramps and a profound fear that a burst of flatulence might snuff out the nearest candles. One of the monks is sniffling and shifting and scratching his head, generally carrying on in a way that makes me suspect they just don’t make monks like they used to. Then the wine and wafers get passed around the room - DIY communion: another 21st-century flourish - and we stretch our aching legs on our way to the door. Brother Elias huffs and wheezes and gathers the prayer books from the floor, a look on his rosy face so serendipitous you’d think he’d been hitting the sauce since Moses fled the Promised Land.

Back in Damascus I’m saying my last round of goodbyes - to the guys at the falafel shop and the café, to the kindly old barber who pulled his lip back when I offered him a pastry on the day we met, showing off his pink, toothless gums. I’ve also decided to pick up some souvenirs to send back home, having been gripped by some feverish need, in this dirt-cheap land, to make up for all the money I haven’t spent. There’s a revealing exchange inside the hobby shop, where I’ve come to pick up a hand-made backgammon set. After six months in the Arab world, having dodged countless rug shops and bazaars, I’ve developed the savvy bargaining skills of an autistic nine-year-old. The shopkeeper names his price, and though I come at him with six different tactics from six different angles, he refuses to budge. I try to bring the price down on some cheaper models. Then I bluff for the door. The man’s a shark. He’s started me off at S£1,000 and I - through a breathtaking display of guile and verbal acumen - have forked over S£1,000. On my way out the door he’s all smiles, and he wishes me safe travels on my passage from Syria, along with the undoubtedly earnest hopes that I come back real soon.

---