4. Here In The Cellar (3)

This old print shop is where I live out my days of self-imposed  retirement.  By that I mean I just stopped working, unlike most monks.    I gave up my calling, but not my vocation, so I'm still on the payroll of rice and beans just like the other guys.  Abbot Agnes says he thinks I am going through a depression of old age.  But I’m not depressed, just sad sometimes.

The building creaking and groaning above me began life in the 1800's as a Catskills resort for the middle-middle class and when later gifted to our order it became a small monastery without all the bother of a working farm (we have only 14 acres, much of it vertical, sitting on the mountain side.)   Some time before I got here, when the endowments ran out and we needed an income,  I’m told that we ran a school. It wasn’t exactly a “Minor Seminary,” but rather served as a port in the storm for head strong teenage boys. We took only few at a time, but even the small income supplemented what little money was coming in.   Alas, after a few years the state education department closed us down, saying our building was unsafe.  However, we’ve all survived here and we could have been helping some troubled teenagers for the past 40 years.

So, let's get to it.  We'll begin with the next post.  These aren't chapters in the classic sense.  They are posts,  and therefore much less formal than you might expect.
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