4 - My Novitiate: Understanding Craft

Summary

When they live by the labor of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks.

—Rule of Benedict, 48:8

If there are artisans in the monastery, they are to practice their craft with all humility, but only with the abbot's permission. If one becomes puffed up by his skillfulness in his craft, and feels that he is conferring something on the monastery, he is to be removed from practicing his craft and not allowed to resume it unless, after manifesting his humility, he is so ordered by the abbot.

—Rule of Benedict, 57:1–3

In the Kitchen with Brother Mark: The Craft of Baking

Baking bread is a practice. Inspired by brother Mark's hearty yet soft dark brown loaves dotted with raisins, and feeling confident in my baking skills, I decided to try making bread when I returned home after an early field research visit. My first loaf was a brick with a clump of raisins in the middle. “You just know when it's right,” brother Mark told me. I did not know, and it was not right.

Several months after my failed attempts at bread baking, I was back at Weston. Brother John, brother Michael, and I had recently been discussing the practical work of creating new music—how they decide to write a new song, how they create the lyrics and melodies, how they introduce new music to the community—and the topic prompted a wider discussion of craft. Brother John explained that he finds it helpful to think of music as a craft in the monastery and the brothers as craftspeople, not artists. Brother Michael agreed; even though he currently does a lot of the practical work associated with creating new music, he eschews the label “composer” because it singles him out for special attention as an artist.

When the brothers said I should think about music as craft, I thought I understood what they meant. I nodded along as they spoke. But the more I considered it later back in the guesthouse living room, the more I realized how tricky the word “craft” really is. It is a multitasker in the English language, to say the least. Craft is a noun and also a verb.