Monastic Sign Language on the Autobahn

On the autobahn: Bruno the mendicant, the monk with no monastery to call home, is teaching me monastic sign language. Conrad and Bertha are asleep, soothed by the rumble of 130 km/hour (ours is one of the slower minivans on the autobahn), and I can see Bruno in the rear-view mirror, from his perch in the middle seat, demonstrating in gleeful parody the silent solemn discipline of the Benedictines. When Bruno sees that I'm not taking my eyes off the road long enough to learn the gestures, he laughs and leans forward and tells me, he says, the truth of the matter: that monastic sign language shouldn't be called a language at all, for unlike the vigorous languages of the deaf, the monastic lexicon has no grammar, no prepositions, no logic words: no that, no whom, no because, no why. Lambert, sitting in the front passenger seat, finally objects to Bruno's sarcasm: Lambert says that monastic sign language dwells in the tenseless existential present, for all times are as one to the mind of God. Bruno says that Lambert is merely elevating the primitive to the philosophical; Lambert replies that a true monk seeks to approach the divine through limitation, not excess, whether of pleasure or of grammar. Bruno demands that Lambert list the nouns of the Benedictine sign language. Lambert thinks for a moment, and then with both word and gesture, says abbot, God, altar, church... and of course, he adds, all the many things that can be indicated by pointing. Bruno smiles quietly, as if sensing his impending triumph, and then asks Lambert if he would please tell us the verbs of this so-called language. Without hesitation, indeed with reverent pride, Lambert replies that in his abbey there are only four verbs: sit, stand up, kneel, and confess.

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