The small group of sisters who run the place are friendly and always ready for conversation. Nevertheless, L Istituto San Lodovico remains a monastery, steeped in centuries-old customs and expectations quite different from the forms of contemporary campus and civic life that we are used to in America, where the values of individualism are understood to give everyone the right to fill everybody else s space with one s own noise. And monasteries have always been places of quietness and shared space, where each person accepts responsibility for sustaining an atmosphere conducive to the community s defining work or liturgy of prayer and meditation, of reading and study and manual labor to the glory of God. The guideline is that private and individual noise ought not encroach on communal space. Hence the policy that our corridor of bedrooms must be kept quiet, and the sounds of recorded music should stay in the room.
Most students come to appreciate the convent as a respite from noise pollution.
But many of us have to go through a period of withdrawal from our addictive dependence on the pervasive background presence of noise, usually the popular music and radio chatter that we surround ourselves with as we move from the car to the mall to doing some homework to jogging. Our program s effort to reduce noise is intended to foster an atmosphere of conversation and listening.