Paths of Obedience: Fairy Tales and the Monk's Way, by Br. David Steindl-Rast

The great Path, which even the monastic approach merely approximates, is all-embracing. Its design shines through every path.

Great fairy tales have that light touch. They treat a weighty message with so light a heart that we are forever delighted by the tension between playful form and ponderous content. A fairy tale at its best might well be a myth that has learned its own lesson so well that it is able to take itself lightly.

This is the reason why fairy tales speak a language understood by all. Smiles need no translation. This is the reason also why the language of fairy tales seems to me appropriate for speaking about obstacles, tests, and trials on the monastic path. Behind this choice of language stands my conviction that the Path that makes any path worth pursuing is one and the same for all of us. The monk has no monopoly on it. The monastic path is merely a methodical approach, designed to keep one on that great “Path with a heart.” Not all who try the monastic approach are thereby monks; what makes you a monk is that for you it works. The monastic path is not designed for all. But the great Path, which even the monastic approach merely approximates, is all-embracing. Its design shines through every path.

The two fairy tales I suggest we explore let the pattern of the great Path shine through. They tell of tests and trials, of the dura et aspera, as St. Benedict calls those “hardships and rough spots” on the way. And they tell of them in a manner that allows us to see the universal Path in the particular, and the monastic trials in the light of the great tests we all must undergo, regardless of the way we choose. The first of my two stories is Grimms’ “Snow White.” The other one is the tale of Amor and Psyche found in the Golden Ass, more correctly called Metamorphoses (Book 4:28 to 6:24) by Lucius Apuleius.

But before we try to see what these two stories can show us about obstacles on the path of the monk or any other, a word of caution: Let us never press their images, nor, for that matter, my own interpretations. In the spirit of the fairy tale, they want to be held lightly. Playfully, almost, those images raise questions, raise rather than answer them. Who are we to press them into answers? Before they are raised, questions tend to oppress us. But once truly raised, a question can arouse life. The images of myth and in their own way, great fairy tale images too, raise questions that are not meant to be answered, but lived.

Try, playfully, to look at the setup of the Seven Dwarfs through Snow White’s eyes. Does it look domestic or monastic? Seen through the eyes of a monk, at any rate, it certainly resembles a monastery rather than a household.

To begin with, the place “beyond seven mountains” and far from any other habitation suggests monastic seclusion. And the little ones who live together there do not form a family, but rather a brotherhood of some sort. They share a common table (St. Benedict’s much emphasized mensa commums) and a common dormitory (“if possible,” says St. Benedict, “all are to sleep in one room”). All receive the same: there are seven little settings on the table, each with its own little plate, spoon, knife, fork, and cup; and when they come home each lights his own little lamp. One is reminded of St. Benedict’s list of things necessary for the personal use of each monk: “cowl, tunic, stockings, boots, belt, knife, pen, needle, handkerchief, writing tablet.” Yet, again in good Benedictine style, the needed things are not issued with military uniformity, but “to each according to need”: the shorter the dwarf, the shorter his bed. And with a rather monastic sense of fairness, the one whose bed fits Snow White’s size takes turns sharing the beds of the other six, crowding each bedmate for only one hour until the night is out.

This brotherhood of seven – septenarius sacratus numerus of the Benedictine Rule – follows a strict schedule of work from morning to nightfall. “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the brethren ought to be occupied at definite times in manual labor.” (Walt Disney even adds a monastic detail which the Brothers Grimm have not made explicit: he has them chant as they process in order of seniority.) The order and cleanliness maintained by the Seven Dwarfs strengthens our sense of a monastic atmosphere, for “anyone who treats the monastery property in an untidy or careless way is to be taken to task.”

No single one of the traits we have pointed out might be convincing by itself. But together they add up to a syndrome that could hardly be so monastic by mere chance. In fact, the perspective in which the Seven Dwarfs are viewed can easily be recognized as that of peasants living near a monastery. It is an outsider’s view, in spite of its familiarity with details, not unsympathetic, but baffled as much as intrigued. We hear a suppressed chuckle in the voice that mentions precisely those traits which peasants would have found most unfamiliar in a monastery. Each one is sleeping in a separate bed! St. Benedict, too, makes quite a point of that, for it was by no means a general custom. Order and cleanliness are stressed again and again: But there is more than that, there is refinement. There is a tablecloth; and the bed linen is as white as snow. And small as the Seven Dwarfs are, the storyteller is looking up to them and refers to them even as die Herren, using the title by which, in my own childhood still, peasants would refer to the monks of a neighboring abbey.

That the dwarfs seen in this perspective “dig for gold” makes sense. Given time enough, monasteries tend to acquire wealth. But quite apart from that, peasants would see gold mainly in church; and not so much in their own village church as on a pilgrimage to some monastic shrine. The glass coffin, too, with its golden lettering recalls reliquaries and the monks’ calligraphy. Yet, the most lively details are remembered not from church, but from the monastic kitchen, where lay people from the neighborhood would be as likely as Snow White to find employment. Both cooking and laundering were done in the kitchen; so also mending and knitting while the stew was simmering. All those are listed as Snow White’s duties. But to me the most amusing and convincing little detail is the subtle hint at the monks’ insistence (shall we call it a hang-up?) that the meals be on time. St. Benedict seems almost a bit fussy regarding the evening meal. Twice he repeats that “all must be finished while day-light lasts,” and every Snow White that ever worked in a monastic kitchen soon learned that when the dwarfs came home at night “the meal had better be ready,” as the story puts it – or else.