Monks hit it big in e-commerce

Order some toner or ink cartridges from some Cistercian monks. It's environmental, and you're supporting, well, monks.

I've visited several monasteries over the last ten or twelve years. I love sung prayer offices, and monasteries are inexpensive and make a great retreat. (No internet access, of course -- and why would you want it, on retreat?) Like many visitors, I've entertained a daydream about taking up such a life of prayer.

At the same time, I never stop being aware that the friendly monks would love to see abortion outlawed. They would certainly be taken aback, to put it mildly, if they knew I was a pornographer.

But in the fellowship of prayer, politics and even lifestyle don't matter. As David Chadwick wrote in "Thank You and OK!", meditation is the great leveller, putting aside social rank, interior motives, and even what religion you are. Thus the Dalai Lama, for example, can bring together people from different, even warring, religions.