Monk on a Mission: Abbot Dan Nobles on Contemplative Prayer (Part 1)

This week, we continue both our Monastic Wisdom for the Marketplace series and our occasional series of interviews with Christians about their work. Our guest is Dan Nobles, OSB, Abbot of Christ Mission Anglican Benedictines and hiker-photographer of America’s trails as Wandering Monk. (See our previous interviews with Caleb Iler of Journeymen Plumbing and Dan Bovey, bivocational pastor and landscaper.)

Here in Part 1, Abbot Dan shares about how he unexpectedly became a monk, the healing journey of contemplative prayer, and returning to our “center of gravity” in the middle of the work day.

Chris Easley: Would you mind introducing yourself?

Dan Nobles: Sure. I'm Abbot Dan Nobles. I'm the Abbot of the Christ Mission Anglican Benedictines, which is a dispersed order of Benedictines, Brothers and Sisters from not only the Anglican tradition, but from wide, varied traditions of the historic church.

CE: You just used the word “dispersed”; what does it mean that you lead a dispersed order?

DN: It's a grand experiment. We live in various communities across the United States and literally around the world.

?We have Oblates in Hungary. We have Brothers in Africa. We have Brothers in England, in Europe, in Germany.

?We have Brothers and Sisters. We have a Prioress for Sisters. Right now, I'm with the Brothers, but I'm getting ready to establish a Prior for the Brothers. And then we would also have a Prior for Oblates.

?Oblates are those who may not desire to take full vows, may not desire to embrace the entire little Rule of St. Benedict, but there's some aspect of Benedictine spirituality that they want to draw closer to God through. So they'll come in for a season or for a lifetime, and they will walk with us and we walk with them in that aspect of their specific Benedictine spirituality.

CE: So it sounds like there's a lot of different ways that people participate. Obviously, you're the Abbot, so you have leadership responsibility for the whole community. Then you have some other leaders like the Prioress and hopefully a Prior at some point who have pastoral leadership for the Brothers and Sisters?

?DN: Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's their sort of extension of my pastoral arm to care for the Sisters, to pastorally care for the Brothers, and in the same way with the Oblates. So they have someone who cares for their needs.

It's not a hierarchical situation, but it's a form of pastoral care. Then I serve as the spiritual leader for the community.

CE: With the opportunity for Oblates, it sounds like it's not all or nothing. It's not like you have to commit to a lifetime under the Rule of St. Benedict or do nothing. There's an option to test the waters, so to speak.

DN: Exactly. When I first became the Abbot, we did not have an Oblation. It was vocational, so you either took vows or you didn't.

But we had so many people who see the benefit of contemplative prayer, contemplative life, and they may want to explore an aspect of that. So we established, like many physical monasteries, having Oblates. I began my own Benedictine journey as an Oblate.

So, we have many physical monasteries that would have such an arm. And it's rich for us because we have people who come in and want to share an aspect of life with us. It helps us to really hone in on that particular area of our journey.

And for those of us who are vocational, we're trying to embrace the entirety of the Rule of St. Benedict.

CE: When I was reading about Christ Mission, I saw that you served in the Army for many years. So thank you for your service.

DN: Thank you. It was an honor.

I was blessed.

CE: I'm curious how you made the transition from a military life to a monastic life.

DN: God has his ways to work with us, yes! It goes way back to my running from my call of ministry throughout my teen years and then throughout my military career.

But as I came to the end of my military career, the call to ministry became louder and louder. Now, in calling, I look at the Greek word kaleō as “call.” That word gives you an idea that that calling is that we surrender and we empty ourselves of our desires and our plans.

And we receive and we accept the desires and the plans of the one who's called us. So as I left the military, that was sort of my heart. I really wanted to just empty myself of myself and serve.

Of course, I'm older as I'm doing that. So when I'm in seminary, I'm in with a lot of young people. As I was doing that, I needed to have community around my age. That may sound strange, but I was looking for someone a little longer in the tooth. I loved my classmates, but I needed somebody that I could talk with.

So in Gaston County, North Carolina, there was Belmont Abbey.

And I started going to Belmont Abbey for retreats. And the Brothers there just took me in and embraced me. And so I would continue on.

That's where I realized that, “Oh, I could be an Oblate here.” I could be a gift, an Oblate gift, and receive a gift of their fellowship. That got me into this journey.

Then after seminary, and after I was ordained into the Anglican Communion, I went on a convocation. I was talking to a fellow priest and said, “I need to escape for a little bit. I'm going to leave here and go and pray Terce.”

And he looked at me strangely. He says, “Terce?”

I said, “Yeah, that's an hour of prayer.”

He said, “Well, I know. But that's a Benedictine tradition.”

I said, “Yeah, I'm an Oblate.”

He said, “Why aren't you vowed?”

I said, “Well, I'm Anglican.”

And he said, “Well, we have Benedictine orders.”

I said, “Really? Well, I'm also married.”

And he said, “Well, with our vows, we can be married.”

I said, “Well, tell me more about this.” And it was Abbot Patrick Malone.

So, I went into the order. In those days, it was called Anglican Communion Benedictines. Abbot Patrick made me the Novice Master—the teacher of those who have just taken vows. So I started putting together structure there.

Through time, Abbot Patrick became ill and he retired. He died shortly after that.

And the community elected me to be the Abbot. I've done that ever since.

And so that's a thumbnail of my journey.

CE: That's really beautiful how you came into the tradition just out of that desire, and then you eventually realized it dovetailed with your own priestly and pastoral vocation.

DN: Yes. We talk about prayer warriors and the need for prayer warriors, and that is true. There's also something about contemplative prayer that is so healing. There's a rhythm of prayer.

If you're familiar with Lectio Divina: that rhythm of prayer of just hearing, of receiving, internalizing, responding, and then resting in the Word.

From my military background, and some of the wounds that I suffered, you know, emotional wounds—I found great healing through that process.

And between that, and how I'm also a YouTuber—“Wandering Monk” is my trail name.

(Every trail hiker gets a name. My name started out being “Monk” from my vocation. But the people that were with me, they said, “Yeah, but you don't stay put. You don't stay in a monastery. You're always wandering. You're a wandering monk.” And so that name stuck.)

But between the trail, which is another very soulful experience, and contemplative prayer, I found great healing.

And in that, I wanted to share with others: to give a place, a space for others, whether they desire to be vocational, or as we talked about earlier, being an Oblate. There's great benefit to contemplative prayer. The Book of Common Prayer is based on the same rhythms.

CE: The Daily Office that we have in the Book of Common Prayer is almost an amateur's version of the Benedictine hours in some ways.

DN: Yeah. Cranmer, he sort of took and consolidated some of the Offices in the morning, and some of the Offices around midday, and then the evening Offices. And so he came up with this rhythm.

It's a very Benedictine way of doing things, because you adapt to your circumstance. If you look at early parish life in England, we're very agricultural.

So as people began getting ready in the mornings to go to the fields, there was Morning Prayer. And as they took their noonday break to come home for lunch, there was Noon prayer. (Because everything was the parish; the parish church was really the center of life in that village.)

And then the same thing in the evening, they would come home for Evening Prayer and then Compline at the end of the day was with their family. So that rhythm of life is very much a Benedictine style rhythm.

CE: I love how you're describing it not just in terms of what clerical Christians or monks were doing, but also people who were doing common daily labor, that the rhythm of prayer interlaced their lives as well. For me, that's something that I find really rich about the Benedictine tradition.

I was wondering if you could speak to that as well. Let's say there's someone reading this who doesn't know anything about the Benedictine tradition. They're just a normal Christian with a day job.

How can this tradition inform or help them as they live their life?

DN: I think for one thing, it continues to call us back to our center of gravity. Because all of us in this dispersed order, we have day jobs. As someone new comes into the order—if you're looking at the Daily Office, what we call the Liturgy of the Hours, the rhythm of prayers—as they come in, they're not accustomed to stopping for seven prayers a day!

So what I encourage them to do is: if they do nothing more than take their phone and put at the times of the Offices, just a reminder. If they do nothing more than pause for the Invitatory, there is great benefit to just stopping and saying, “Oh God, come to my assistance. Oh God, make haste to help me.”

And then go on with life. But you're pausing to come back to that center of gravity for us all—that we need him to come to assist us. We need him to make haste to help us, and then we can move on.

?

Interview edited for clarity and length.

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