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Welcome to the spiritual life. I'm Father Jim Martin. On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience

God in their prayer and in their daily lives. And I'm joined by my indefatigable producer,

Maggie Ventore and Maggie, good to be with you. Good to be with you, Jim. And I hope I can keep up

with the vocabulary that you're bringing and assigning to me.

All true adjectives.

And this time we are speaking with Father Isaac Slater, O-C-S-O, Order of the Sistercians of the strict observance, i.e. a trappist.

Yeah, so Father Isaac Slater is a Canadian-born writer and poet who for more than two decades has lived as a trappist monk at the Abbey of Genesee in upstate New York.

There he serves in various roles from baking the monastery's monk's bread, assisting in plumbing, tending the garden, and now helping in the infirmary, as well as serving as novice director.

So the beginning of a monk's time to the end of a monk's time.

In 2007, America Magazine awarded Father Isaac the Foley Poetry Prize for his work lost and found.

Father Isaac has edited and contributed to several poetic works, and just recently he published a book entitled, Do Not Judge Anyone, Desert Wisdom for a Polarized World, which grounds

much of the conversation on this podcast today.

Yeah, and I'm so excited for listeners to hear this.

I'm such a big fan of the Trappist.

Thomas Mert was instrumental in my own vocation.

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