Reading Ecclesiastes on the biggest shopping day of the year

Today, on “Black Friday,” the biggest shopping day of the year, our scripture reading at Vespers happened to come from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. This being my week to read, I was the one to get up and speak the familiar lines: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…a time to plant and a time to uproot…a time to seek and a time to lose…a time to keep and a time to cast away…”

I savored the words, reading with a kind of languid, unhurried voice, wanting to linger on each glowing phrase even as I hastened straight away to the next verse and the next and the next, one of which read, “God “has put the timeless into [our] hearts…”

In the midst of what has become, in our day, a season of shopping, celebrating, rushing, and being very, very busy about many, many things, these verses remind us of balance, perspective, and of God’s ordered time and timelessness. They invite us to root the otherwise ephemeral and fleeting activities of the season in the timelessness of the Eternal even as we hasten straight away to what is next and next and next... They call us to linger with each passing moment, and savor the eternity that glows within.



I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by. Ecclesiastes 3:14-15

Of tools and tethers

We’ve been busy these past few weeks adjusting to the various sights, sounds, and disruptions of living in a construction zone. Despite our high spirits and excitement over the launching of the renovation project, all adjustments carry at least a little bit of stress, and recently the time grew ripe for us to relax together and have a party. And so we did.

Four Sisters got together to plan, shop, and decorate, and then they invited the rest of us to the Rafter Room for Banana Splits, ice cream sundaes, root beer floats, and every kind of ice cream topping you can imagine. Sister Lynn Marie brought her guitar for some high-spirited musical entertainment, and I fired up the LCD projector for a slide show. The décor featured helium-filled balloons, anchored in place by the construction tools to which they were tied.

The tools were a clever thematic element. But perhaps they were more than that. Perhaps they illustrated metaphorically the degree to which work helps keep us anchored when we are tempted to let ourselves float away in thought, in distraction, in unending leisure, in unbounded pursuit of personal gratification... Work keeps us present. It keeps us engaged with the places and the people around us. It keeps us anchored in this beautiful, challenging, joy-filled, and poignant world.

And of course it’s not just mechanical tools that keep us anchored. St.Benedict, in his Rule for monks, devotes an entire chapter to The Tools for Good Works in which he describes the spiritual tools that keep us anchored in loving service to those around us, tools such as “relieve the lot of the poor…go to help the troubled…do not injure anyone…speak the truth with heart and tongue…”

The traditional Benedictine motto, Ora et Labora, or Pray and Work, evokes well this balance to which we are called – a balance that calls us to pause from our labors, and then rise to take up our tools again. A balance that keeps our ‘thought bubbles’ from rising infinitely in self-absorbed reverie…that keeps our tools from becoming idols...that keeps our prayer from becoming only a “me and God” affair disconnected from the needs of our neighbor... A balance that intertwins prayer and work in such a way that our work becomes a prayer, a prayer that is tethered both to God and the needs of the world, bringing heaven to earth, and lifting earth toward heaven.


Postscript: Prayer, always a constant in the monastic "toolbox," is keeping us well-anchored through the challenges of construction.

Contemplative construction

This morning, after a very quiet weekend, the throttles were humming again in the heavy equipment that surrounds (and inhabits!) the monastery. The engines revved up right after Lauds. It was as if our concluding verse – “Thanks be to God” – was followed immediately by “Gentlemen, start your engines.”

From the sounds and sights outside my office window, I sometimes wonder if I’m living in a monastery or at some sort of ‘monster truck’ mega-fest. But despite the noise, it’s not hard to know that this is unmistakably a monastery. The monastic atmosphere remains despite the motorized symphony of booms and beeps. It’s present in our good-humored acceptance of the inconveniences of construction. It’s present as we greet arriving workmen as we exit Lauds. It’s present in the Psalm verses Sr. Therese placed along the ‘tunnel,’ and in the scanned archival photos that also line the corridor reminding us of the Sisters who worked and prayed before us – and who lived through their own construction projects. Fidelity to the basic elements of our monastic life keeps us anchored through the disruptions, and keeps us steeped not in noise, but in the contemplative spirit to which we are called.

Yes, the idea of contemplation in a construction zone may seem a bit odd. But I’ve now experienced four weeks of living in the midst of it and can attest to the possibility. It’s kind of like any form of prayer, which at its core is simply being attentive to, and remaining in communion with, our dear Lord. And this can happen anywhere, anytime, even in the midst of noise and disruption.

This spirit of prayer helps us see the deep silence and hidden beauty at the heart of construction – the skill of the craftsmen, the beauty of light, the artful lines and contours of the design, the desire for God that animated all Sisters who have dwelt here, and that still animates those here now…

Indeed, there’s a lot going on. But so is our regular monastic life of prayer and work. We go right on with our life of mutual obedience under a Rule and a Prioress – just as centuries of monastics have done through millennia of construction projects – always seeking to build the kingdom of God.



Postscript: Much of the activity is taking place just outside the Retreat Center office, giving me a front row seat for much of the action and noise. There are quieter spots! The retreat center residential areas are a good refuge, as is Annunciata Hall. Work ceases during our liturgical prayer, and all is quiet on the weekend!