What is it like to be a monk? In 2015? Melissa Binder from Oregonlive.com profiled the Benedictine monks at Mount Angel Abbey in Mount Angel, Oregon, and gave a glimpse into a life modeled on much older era. An excerpt: 

Men pick new names when they become monks. Grassel has gone by Father Martin since 2000.

 

“You get freedom from the new name to change, to become a new person with new lifestyle and new habits, new values,” he says, his upper Midwest accent faint after more than two decades outside the region. “The old name is kind of like an anchor pulling me back.”