The vagaries of life and death have brought me to the Virginia countryside. The mountains here are quite different than those that normally loom outside my window but there is a unique beauty about these as well. What I tend to forget, living as I do in a wealth of evergreen, is the starkness of winter, the reminder of death that permeates those places that are shaped far more by the changes of season than my home in Colorado.

It is good to be subtly informed by creation. Too often we spend far too much energy trying to deny our finiteness. Here, encircled by barren branches, one cannot go far without confronting the fundamental truths of life.

On the banks of the Shenandoah River lives another source of confrontation. A few buildings amidst acres of farmland form the basis of Holy Cross Monastery. Here a dozen or so men have chosen to live a radically different lifestyle. It is a way of life that is shaped by the constant reminder of life's transitory nature. Several times each day, the monks gather to sing the Psalms that have been sung for thousands of years. They are songs of life. Songs of yearning and woe. Songs filled with deep sorrow and profound joy. Songs that describe our days and songs that never fail to remind the singer of the depth, richness and ultimate impermanence of existence.

This time, it is the stopping of work rather than the singing of hymns, that draws me in to join them. How easy it is to fill our waking hours with what we are so convinced is the stuff of life when, deep down, we know that it is precisely life that we are missing.

The ancient Hebrews knew the value of stopping to savor. There is even a divine decree that demands rest every seventh day. We do well to heed such ancient wisdom. The evidence that we do not is all around us. In recent years, even our schools and youth athletic programs have turned their backs on this aged truth and now attempt to fill every available sacred moment with busyness. To remain idle is the great sin of these concluding twentieth century years. Too late, most of us realize the foolishness of our frenetic choices.

I wonder how many others have discovered that quality time demands a significant quantity of time. We cannot expect to find those exquisite moments when life reveals its profundity and power without disciplining ourselves to daily times of devotion. For some of us such reverence may be found in a morning walk or an afternoon cup of tea. For others, twenty minutes of meditation or contemplative prayer may serve as the avenue of revelation. But all of our lives are terribly impoverished without some form of imitation of these sitting, singing monks.

Winter's daylight is brief and the warmth of the January sun fleeting in the Virginia countryside. A reminder not easily welcomed but certainly needed.