While none lacked a sense of the importance of serving the community, they came from increasingly different perspectives on how long to tolerate the peril posed by a crumbling civility. Indeed, for some, a sense that the Islamic fundamentalist groups around them would see to their deaths invoked a question as to whether it was even a worthy goal to serve such a community.
However, the monks were united in their spirituality, in their shared call to prayer and in their commitment to the simplest of lifestyles. The film does a remarkable job of demonstrating the solidarity that this creates between them even as they find themselves vehemently divided over the best course of action. The commitment to the extended community around them surely begins with the strength of community shown by the monks themselves. Even in the midst of the tumult of mounting violence, with the increasing regularity of the hostility visited upon the monks themselves, and in the face of their own internal...
An unwavering belief in the power of worship would be a key characteristic of this lifestyle.
And for Christian, this would translate to the belief in the power of good and piety as well. Certainly, he would live a life unflinchingly dedicated to those things and further dedicated to encouraging the same in his fellow brothers of the order. Even as they questioned his occasional invocation of authority as a violation of the community's orientation, these actions may have kept the community from unraveling from within. Sadly, this authority and solidarity may have also led to the shared and gruesome death of the members of the order. The monks, we may say, lived, prayed and died as a community.
Works Cited:
Beauvois, X. (2010). Of Gods and Men. Armada Films.
Scott, a.O. (2011). Between Heaven and Earth. New York Times.
