Brother John a.k.a Greg Johnson

The closure of the abbey was hard on all the brothers. But none felt the loss as deeply or more profoundly than Brother John. Brother John had been cloistered at St. Gabriel’s for the last 47 years and had been silent for the last 45. 

The Trappist monastery was an unusually quiet place for the then 19 year old Greg Johnson. Greg had been an outgoing and talkative boy. He was a talented athlete, popular with the girls in his high school, and enjoyed everything with youthful vigor and exuberance. Hiding just underneath the surface however, was a boy filled with conflict and sadness. The overwhelming noise of the world drove him mad. People were always talking, laughing, shouting, or singing. There were car horns, loud stereos, and televisions constantly filling the air. It was all too much. He wished he could stop and be still and that the world would stop with him. But he was also afraid of what he might hear if only he were able to listen to himself. 

And then, just after his 19th birthday, he found himself standing inside the entrance to St. Gabriel’s. And there he heard it. Or, to be precise, that is where he heard nothing. The monastery was clean and peaceful. The brothers were nearly silent. And, to his astonishment, he too was silent. His fear that he would not like who he was if he were to listen to himself was just that, a fear. His mind reflected the calm quiet of the abbey and he too felt calm and quiet. 

Unfortunately for Brother John, he was now Greg Johnson once more. They were sorry, The Men From the Vatican. Really, truly, sorry. But, the Catholic Church could no longer afford to support its many monastic enclaves. As this collective produced neither beer nor tourist income and had neither a desirable relic nor an ancient provenance, it had to be closed.

But not to worry, The Men From the Vatican had said. We will take care of you, they had said. You won’t be left out in the cold, they had said. And with that there was a collective sigh of relief as the brothers all assumed they would be reassigned to new orders to continue their monastic lives. This feeling of relief was soon crushed, however, as the brothers found they were being returned to the secular world. The brothers wept. The brothers gnashed their teeth. The brothers wrung their hands. All except for Brother John, henceforth known as Greg Johnson. He remained, as always, silent. But only on the outside. Inside his voice began to once again hum. He began to feel and hear the noise, the constant din, of modern life creeping into himself. But he was determined to project the silence he wished on the inside on his outside in hopes that the old calm would once again take him after this whole kerfuffle had subsided.

Two months later Greg Johnson remained silent as he rode the elevator to the 8th floor of his new office building. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to get used to wearing pants and a button down shirt. His secular attire was not as comfortable or as useful as his monastic robe and sandals once had been. This was his first day of work outside the abbey. He had found the job hunt difficult as he still had not broken his vow of silence. The meager payout given to him by The Men From the Vatican had started to wear thin after only a month despite Greg’s simple diet and lifestyle. Life outside the abbey cost more than Greg had realized. And so, with a little more help from The Men From The Vatican, Greg was offered a job.

The owner of Cyril and Associates, a devout Catholic, was more than happy to offer assistance to a displaced monk at the request of The Men From the Vatican. “You’ll love it!” they had said to Greg. “The office is quiet. The work, independent and repetitive. You’ll have your own space and need not interact with anyone else to accomplish your tasks. You’ll feel right at home. We guarantee it!” 

The noise was overwhelming once the doors of the elevator opened. Though everyone had their own “space”, the office itself was open with no walls or even low cubicles. The click clack of keyboards, the shuffle of feet, the low, incessant, and discordant sounds of music bleeding from dozens of headphones. Greg could not imagine how anyone could think this place a quiet one. 

Mr. Cyril himself met Greg at the elevator and showed him to his “desk” which was nothing more than one of a dozen computer workstations on a long table. Already 6 others were busying themselves at the table. “You’ll sit here Greg,” Mr. Cyril said. “And you’ll type on this computer. We are a data entry company. Millions of pages of old hard copy records pass through our hands each month. We digitize the old hard copies by hand entering the data and then we move the old paper records to the burn box. Got it? Good.” Mr. Cyril then turned and left, having taken Greg’s silence for understanding. Greg, unfortunately, had not understood. 

The first few weeks were exhausting. Greg did not know the first thing about computers or data entry. He didn’t understand the rules of office etiquette. With effort, however, Greg was able to eventually figure out how to type and became quite adept at it. 

His silence stung some who felt his silence was rude but quickly people stopped calling him “Gregster” and “Gregerino”. They stopped asking about how his night was or if he had seen the ball game. Soon Greg found that the silence that once surrounded him in the abbey and that he reflected inside himself was now being reflected back by his new environment at Cyril and Associates. 

Greg put everything that was not work to the side. He worked without tiring or breaking. His lunches were quick and simple. Within a few months Greg was the star of the office. His silent manner was interpreted differently by all who encountered him. His boss found it respectful. His tablemates found it courteous. At the water cooler he was fabled to be a fabulous listener and problem solver. One secretary even credited him with saving her marriage. And all the while Greg heard nothing, saw nothing, and felt nothing save for the quiet that he possessed inside himself.