"I'd like to buy a metaphor"

Earlier this week, Sister Mary Adrian and I sat in the monastery dining room twisting bits of wire into shape for a project on which we are working. She is artistic and nimble with her hands. I am not. As I inexpertly twisted wire into comically misshapen pieces, she raised her eyebrows, then raised them some more. Another Sister walked by, silently assessed my efforts, and thankfully passed on without comment. I was silent too, painfully aware of my limitations and wishing I could get back into my comfort zone of word and image. I wanted badly to borrow a game show phrase and say, “I’d like to buy a metaphor.”

I am more at home with metaphors than metal, with concepts than concrete, with precepts than practicalities. The abstract world is the natural sea in which I swim and my hands are not nimble or skilled. I can shape metaphors much more readily than metal. But monastic life calls me to bring my whole self to community and to the monastic way of seeking God.

This search for God and the quest for holiness ironically involves becoming more and more human. In monastic life, this is experienced especially through the essential virtue of humility as we allow our Sisters to see the less-developed sides of ourselves, trusting them to witness with love our sometimes-painful growth, and accepting their help when it is needed. There is a kind of healing that occurs as we give ourselves openhandedly - frailty and all - to God and to our community. Conversely, a prideful stance blocks vulnerability, and the healing will not come.

This paradoxical way of searching for God by becoming more human is also experienced through obedience, the willingness to give ourselves fully and in faith to the responsibilities entrusted to us, even if it is not in the “sea” in which we are most comfortable. Faithfulness to the many practical tasks that I am assigned is helping me become a more balanced, whole – and hopefully holy – individual.

I’ll probably always prefer metaphors to metal, and I’ll likely never become adept at bending bits of wire. But by giving myself to the task, I become the one being formed - bent and shaped by the hand of God, with the help and loving witness of my monastic community.

Postscript: As Sr. Mary Adrian patiently and good-naturedly repaired my mistakes, we worked out a system. I made the first, simple bend, then she followed with the more complex twist. Ah, humility...

Here's a photo of Sr. Mary Adrian working skillfully at her potter's wheel.

Grounded

Yesterday, I walked up to our small Lourdes grotto to show Sr. Therese a ground hog burrow I had discovered the day before. (The ground hog is pictured at left, but difficult to see against the earth). As we watched one of the family members peer at us from within his earthen home, I realized this was a good image for earth day, this day of gratitude to God for the gifts of such a beautiful home, its bountiful fruits, and the many other created beings who share this earth with us.

You might say that every day in a monastery is earth day, or better yet, “heaven and earth day” as we daily bring fruits of the earth to the Eucharist to be consecrated for our spiritual sustenance. Also, the Rule of St. Benedict, with its sensible, often earthy, guidance, keeps us grounded in the daily, practical realities of living and working on earth, even as we seek our spiritual home in God. Here at the monastery, nothing happens on an earthly plane that does not have an underlying spiritual dimension. Eternal truths underlie our day-to-day incarnate lives.

As the seasons of earth unfold, the liturgical cycle grounds and roots us in transcendent events from the earthly life of Christ. The cycle also connects us with the saints, those holy men and women who lived exemplary spiritual lives in the midst of the challenges and joys of existence on our earthen home.

Our liturgy is filled with recurring expressions of gratitude for the countless gifts God has given us, including this beautiful earth. Every day is a good day for the canticle of Daniel –




Let the earth bless the Lord...
Mountains and hills, bless the Lord...
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord...
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord...
All birds of the air, bless the Lord...
All beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord...
Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord...
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.

A portable classroom

Last week, Sr. Mary and I took a drive up to Huntsville, about an hour north of Cullman, to visit with Sr. Treva. After some greetings and tea, we sat around her kitchen table and had class.

I am a “Scholastic,” or “temporary professed.” That means that I am in the early years of monastic life, have made my first - or temporary - Monastic Profession, but have not yet made final vows. Sr. Mary is my Scholastic Director. She oversees my monastic formation and teaches me in a variety of ways – both formally and informally. My classes are taught by various Sisters, and sometimes that means a road trip for class with a Sister who is out on mission.

St. Benedict describes the monastery as a “school of the Lord’s service.” Some of my monastic formation is academic and formal, and occasionally involves a journey. But the vast majority of my “schooling” consists of the day in and day out living of the life amongst my monastic community and listening carefully for God’s voice through prayer, scripture, and the wisdom and teaching of my monastic elders. Through fidelity to the daily rounds of liturgy, private prayer, and community life, one’s heart gradually becomes formed, or 'educated,' in the monastic way of seeking God.

I’m not too often in a car, the kitchen table classes are not every day, and I have made a commitment to stability that limits my "portability." Instead, it is my heart – as both classroom and student – that is in motion as I grow in this way of life, with deepening roots and spreading vines. As St. Benedict puts it, “as we progress in this way of life and in faith, our hearts will swell with the inexpressible delight of love.”

The trip, the tea, the kitchen table – none are ends in themselves. It’s about an expanded heart rooted in Christ, “in whom we live and move and have our being.”

Postscript: Pictured at top is Sr. Veronica, a Sister out on mission with whom I had class a couple of months ago. In the photograph, she was touring Sr. Mary and me around some of her Hispanic ministry sites. By the way, our main classroom topic for the year is women monastics of the medieval era. I enjoy history, love monastic life, and appreciate learning about our foremothers and forefathers, so it's been an enjoyable year of study with woncerful teachers. You can meet my teachers at this link.

Beauty before breakfast

This - the season when flowers appear in the land - is the season in which we read the Song of Solomon during Lauds. I have “First Choir” this week, which means that it is my turn to do the scripture reading. I cannot imagine a better way to commence the morning than with Solomon’s beautiful Song. Its words leap gracefully across the page, like gazelles, or like young deer. My voice chases after them, wholly inadequate to the task, yet delighted nonetheless to savor such beautiful words so early in the morning.

I always approach proclaiming scripture in public with a strange mixture of joy and trembling - nothing could be more delightful to read, but who am I to read it? But this week, reading in Choir is nothing but pure delight. The sheer beauty of the Song overrides any sense of human inadequacy and so my soft-spoken, too-quiet voice happily tracks gazelles and deer through the blooming vineyards of a beautiful Song.

And all this before breakfast. What better way to welcome the morning?


Postscript: This is also the season of open windows in our chapel. Enjoy these photos taken from the chapel and sacristy this morning (looking toward the north, east, and south), and imagine the birdsong that joins our voices as we gather to chant the Psalms.

By the way, the Song of Solomon has long been a favorite of monastics. It is understood allegorically to be a song about the relationship between the soul and God. The Middle Ages saw a flowering of monastic commentary on the Song, of which St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs is probably the most famous.

Fireflies

Today my hands were filled with many types of work. At various times during the day my hands held a laptop, a chalice, a pitchfork, skeleton keys, dirty dishes, notes for a meeting, a draft brochure, a liturgical vestment catalog, a jump drive, and of course, my prayer books… All in a days work here at the monastery.

Most of us have a variety of roles within the community. My responsibilities range from hospitality to liturgical music to computers to sacristy to household chores. My full-time ministry is in our Retreat Center, which means that I work at home and thus am able to help with many other day-to-day needs within the monastery. My hands stay full and busy as I move hither and yon about the house tending to the varied responsibilities the community has asked of me. I put down keys and pick up a chalice. I put down the chalice and pick up a flute. I put down the flute and pull a jump drive out of my pocket. I put down the jump drive and pick up my prayer book. All in a days work and prayer…

Late today, my hands at last were quiet and empty. At the edge of evening I stood at the edge of the woods. The first fireflies of the season were lighting up the night. I watched them skip hither and yon amongst the trees in a delicate, ethereal dance - silent, unobtrusive, impossibly light-winged.

Whether we have one role or many, it is easy to become lead-footed and heavy-handed as we move about with full and busy hands. Tonight, fireflies at the edge of evening reminded me to move lightly and unobtrusively, to hold my work delicately, and perhaps even occasionally, to glow.

Say it again

On Easter Monday, a good number of us gathered at a nearby lake for our traditional Easter Monday outing, a day of rest and leisure after the long season of Lent and the intense liturgies of the Triduum. One of the games we enjoyed at the lake was a fairly silly one characterized by playful stunts and humorous assignments. One Sister drew a game card that instructed her to say everything twice say everything twice for the duration of the game the duration of the game. She gamely did so did so.

As she repeated herself again and again, I thought: What a great assignment for Easter, this season of abounding abundance and overflowing life and profusion upon profusion of blossoms and blooms and joyous repetitions of all kinds. The air is filled with repetition: an armada of cherry blossoms sailing with the wind, bird song following bird song, and ‘alleluias’ that float freely - and repeatedly - from our open chapel windows.

During these liturgies of the Octave of Easter we encounter alleluias and more alleluias with every hymn and every antiphon and every turn of the page. Every liturgy concludes with a ‘double alleluia.' Singing our way through all these alleluia’s is like running through a meadow abloom with joy and tripping over exuberance with every step.

This - the season of ‘double alleluias’ - is the perfect season to say it again say it again. And like a field of flowers in bloom, our 'saying it again' is never redundant. It is resplendent with praise. So let us say it again:

Christ is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia, Alleluia!