We stopped at the Efrata Cloister after we visited the owls. I'll try to track down more information on this and type it in later. Tonight the winds and damp weather have done in my joints and I'm off to sit with the heating pad and some rooibos tea!
A little history on the Efrata Cloister:
The Efrata Cloister was begun in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel, a man with roots in the German pietistic movement. A charismatic leader, Beissel formed the community around a celibate lifestyle and established both a monastery and convent which promoted a strict and simplistic religious lifestyle. Members devoted most of the day to prayer and Bible study. At night they slept on narrow wooden benches with wood blocks for pillows in two 3 hour shifts and a two hour vigil in between waiting for Christ's return. In addition to the celibate members there included a married order which basically supported the community with farming and industrial work such as carpentry, paper making, and milling their own clothes.
The community is most well-known for its music, mostly hymns composed in 4 voice parts. Beissel wrote many of them devising his own system of composition to do so.
Beissel died in 1768 and the community slowly drifted away from its monastic ideology until the last celibate member died in 1813. The last surviving member of the community at large died in 2008 at the age of 98! The German Seventh Day Baptist denomination absorbed the remaining members of the cloister in 1814 and in 1941 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took over 28 acres of land and the remaining buildings to establish the property as an historic site.
I hope you feel better soon. There is a vintage challenge somewhere that if I weren't feeling almost as bad as you I would look up so you wouldn't have to because this one definitely belongs in it!
@pistache@grammyn Thanks for the suggestion! I tagged it, but looking at the dates and rules, this may not qualify. Yes it was processed within the time frame, but I took it on March 31st.
Thank you CC, Babs, Connie, Dinah, Nicole, Clare, Lou Ann, Henri, Rob, Joyce, Wendy, Katy, Marnie and Kathy!. Thanks for the views, comments and favs and all the well-wishes. I go through this two times a year- in late fall, early winter when the temps go back and forth and in late winter, early spring when they do it again. Most days I just push through it, but every now and then the joints just do me in! I'm feeling better now and the hopefully within the month the weather will be more steady. Thanks again to one and all!
@gardenfolk @onewing @littleconnie @dsp2 @nicolecampbell @pistache @louannwarren @henrir @robz @thistle @wendyfrost @grammyn @golftragic @randystreat
Thank you CC, Babs, Connie, Dinah, Nicole, Clare, Lou Ann, Henri, Rob, Joyce, Wendy, Katy, Marnie and Kathy!. Thanks for the views, comments and favs and all the well-wishes. I go through this two times a year- in late fall, early winter when the temps go back and forth and in late winter, early spring when they do it again. Most days I just push through it, but every now and then the joints just do me in! I'm feeling better now and the hopefully within the month the weather will be more steady. Thanks again to one and all!