Summer 2010 SE - Part Five - A Different Abbey Road

Blue lines on the maps are the planned route. Red lines are deviations.

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” Henry David Thoreau

5. A different Abbey Road

I’m down to my last $20, but I’ve got a full tank. The Abbey of Gethsemane is a full 100 miles away, twice as far as I thought; but if not now, when?

As usual, Google Maps makes the driving directions more detailed than they need to be, causing confusion. Should I watch for a McMahan Ave and go 0.1 miles, or not? No, you just go down 388 from the park to Richmond, then west on 52/150 for 90 miles, through the rolling hills, across the beautiful creeks, past the wide farms and pastures, through the little town called Paint Lick.

There was a big Caterpillar backhoe that was nearly falling off its trailer, halfway up the loading ramp, just hanging on by a couple of tread links, very dangerous, blocking the road. The Kentuckians walked around and looked at it from every angle and talked to distant Kentuckians on the radio about the situation. They finally let us pass around it. If it fell off and crushed us, well, we should’a waited.

Lancaster, Danville, Perryville, Lebanon; the center of all these little cities look like nothing has changed since the 1950s, except the cars that drive through them are modern.

The Abbey itself, near New Hope, is quite bigger than I expected but not at all overdone. The church is appropriately plain for Cistercians, and there really is something quietly shocking and profound about the long narrow interior with no cross or religious iconography of any kind. Get your crosses at the gift shop where the monks don’t go. Outside the church is a small cemetery to which one has free access. Other places, including the path to Thomas Merton’s hermitage are marked with signs that read “monastic area, do not enter.” It is remarkably quiet. I imagine spending years – a lifetime – within the grounds of an order dedicated to silence and singing. It’s terrifying. I can barely sit still for an hour.

At the Abbey gift shop they have a bell from India that I want. It has a lot of decay. Just 50 bucks and yes, they’ll ship it. So I have to decide to make the trek again tomorrow when I have money, or not.