I had mentioned on my earlier post that the Brothers at the St. Meinrad Arch abbey...lived and died on the grounds.

There is a graveyard by a peaceful lake where the Brothers are buried. True to their vow of poverty, their graves are all identical...no pride or one upsmanship even to the grave. The only differentiating factor is on the other side of the gravestones... their name, birth and death dates.

From the picture of the Cathedral and the grave sites however, one would imagine a Brother to be a bit strange, perhaps even dark at times. I met and talked with a couple of Brothers while visiting and they are quite the contrary. Very friendly, outgoing and very open to striking up a conversation. Even "Hip" in some ways. It is just the life they have chosen that makes them seem different...so different from the mainstream.

This was a very interesting stop during my foray off the interstate.

ser·en·dip·i·ty (sěr'ən-dĭp'ĭ-tē)

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.

The day matched the image. Bitter cold and an approaching snowstorm. The texture of the old gravestones intrigued me. I bent low to get a closeup of the rough surface of the century old stone. The camera I used was an old SLR so I developed the image in my darkroom. As the image began to crystallize, there it was...the black cat! Serendipity. The cat was not intended but certainly added to the stereotypical graveyard shot.