Our understanding of life in the early Middle Ages is dominated by Christian churches and monasteries. It is their records and libraries which have survived the centuries, to tell us how the clerics, monks, and nuns who lived and worked within their walls experienced the world around them. We thus see the lay inhabitants of that wider world mostly when they are interacting with the clergy. However, a few sources let us explore lay life in this period more broadly. Beyond the Monastery Walls exploits perhaps the richest of these: manuscript books containing formulas, or models, for documents that do not otherwise survive. Through these books, Warren C. Brown explores the concerns and behavior of lay men and women in this period on their own terms, and casts fresh light on a part of the medieval world that is usually hidden from view. In the process, he shows how early medievalists are winning fresh information from our sources by looking at them in new ways.

As the cultural and ideological foundations of imperial Russia were threatened by forces of modernity, an array of Orthodox churchmen, theologians, and lay thinkers turned to asceticism, hoping to ensure the coming Kingdom of God promised to the Russian nation.

Explores the lives of the early medieval laity beyond the interactions with churches and monasteries that dominate most of our sources.

Paul Wilkes believes that monastic spiritual wisdom can and should be accessible to all. Over the course of one year, he made monthly trips to the brothers at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist Monastery. During each visit he focused on a particular aspect of monastic life, and each month's visit comprises a chapter of this book. Each chapter opens with a description of Wilkes' physical visit to the monastery, which he uses to lead into difficult explorations of issues such as faith, prayer, community, and discernment. Each chapter closes as Wilkes searches for the proper ways to integrate what he has learned during his time at the Abbey into his life as a father, husband, teach, writer, and lay minister. He uses monastic wisdom to speak to the journey of faith itself, letting readers discover their own path "beyond the walls."

With earnest resolve and the vague hope of a deeper spiritual life, Paul Wilkes began his monthly visits to a Trappist monastery. His plan was to spend time each month with the monks and take back into his hectic world of family and profession what he had garnered from the cloistered life. But Wilkes naively misjudged how difficult it would be to achieve his seemingly simple good intentions. Monasticism turned out to be far more complx and demanding that he had imagined, calling upon him to look deeply into himself and requiring a bravery he was not sure, at first, that he possessed. A year later, he had not only discovered the simple path of monastic spirituality, but had journeyed to the depths of his soul and realized that the influences on his daily life were truly immense. With the ever-increasing call for access to authentic spiritual traditions,Beyond The Wallsbreaks new ground. This is a book that points a way for "new monks" to live a rich, challenging life filled with grace and faith.

There is a part of each of us that is a monk or a mystic. We yearn for perfect peace yet live our lives far removed from traditional monasteriesyet most of us would not want to give up our personal and spiritual freedom to join monastic life. We seek wholeness but realize that wholeness is not possible without sacredness. Sacred life takes root in solitude, in the time we take to develop a relationship with our inner lifein the kind of setting a monastery would offer. This book speaks to the monk or mystic within us. It affirms our place in the sacred silence of solitude and inner reflection, showing how even everyday life is filled with opportunities to live fully in the worldas if it were a holy monastery. Here we learn to live within the limits as well as the spirit of everyday life, how to appreciate our most human self as the path to explore the divine. Here we encounter a world that is clearly available to us, a world filled with nothing less than the gift of sacred silence within the monastery without walls.

Discover the Ancient Practices for Tranquility and Spiritual Growth.

For twenty-seven years, renowned and beloved monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) belonged to Our Lady of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery established in 1848 amid the hills and valleys near Bardstown, Kentucky. In Thomas Merton's Gethsemani, dramatic black-and-white photographs by Harry L. Hinkle and artful text by Merton scholar Monica Weis converge in a unique experience for lovers of Merton. Hinkle was allowed unprecedented access to many areas inside the monastery and on its grounds that are generally restricted. His photographs invite the reader to experience the various knobs, lakes, woods, and hermitages Merton sought out for times of solitude and contemplation and for reading and writing. These unique images, each accompanied by a passage from Merton's writings, evoke personal reflection and a deeper understanding of how and why Merton came to recognize himself as a part of his Kentucky landscape. Woven throughout the book, Weis's text explores Merton's fascination with nature not only at Gethsemani, but during his early childhood, throughout his spiritual conversion to Roman Catholicism, and while a member of the Trappist community. She examines how Merton's lifelong interaction with nature subtly revealed and informed his profound spiritual experiences and his writing about contemplation. Thomas Merton's Gethsemani replicates Merton's path on his solitary hikes in the woods and conveys the wonder of the landscapes that inspired him.