One of the dividends of the ministry is coming to know and enjoy different people - all ages and all human conditions. Often there are surprises.

One came for me on a fall afternoon in the 1960s when some members of my Lexington congregation and I visited a Trappist monastery to see what life is like as a monk. Coming out of the Reformed tradition which has no such orders, I never thought of life behind the walls as anything involving me personally. The silences. Rising at 2 a.m. to pray (after having gone to bed with the sun). A seeming disengagement from social suffering. Celibacy. For most of us, especially for non-Catholics, a strange world.

Which is why we went. To see how those disciples could attract and apply to anyone healthy and fascinated by life's stunning variety. But on the tou…