Kinfolk

Last night over a simple Labor Day supper, four of us got into a vigorous discussion about a perennial topic among Southerners: genealogy, or as we sometimes simply put it here in the south, our kinfolk. Most Southerners can describe their family tree better than they can describe the magnolia that branches just east of their porch swing. Sometimes they can even explain their friends' and neighbors' genealogy as well as their own. For instance, our conversation focused on the family of just one of the four of us, but the other three could probably have patched the story together since we each knew elements of it – all except for grandma and grandpa, that is. We hadn't heard their story before. But now we know about the trip from Germany to Pennsylvania to Alabama. And then after that story, Sr. Magdalena asked, “But what about your great-grandparents…” And so it went.

During the conversation, Sisters Mary Grace and Regina patiently parsed for me the distinction between 2nd cousins and once- and twice-removed cousins, a distinction I can never remember despite my grandmother’s endless explanations. As we talked – four Benedictines hailing from Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi – I thought about the monks of old: St. Anthony, St. Meinrad, St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and on and on. I do not feel once-removed from them, but rather feel connected as a sister. I have heard their stories and have told them. I know that I share in the same Benedictine charism and belong to the same Benedictine family.

Each monastery carefully preserves a formal listing of their deceased members. Most communities, probably all, remember their deceased on the anniversary of their deaths. Additionally, both informally and formally, we keep telling our monastic stories – both the stories of our own community and stories of the monks of old. We know our Benedictine heritage. We know from whence we came. We know that we are not "once-removed" from those who preceded us in this life. We are the sisters of those whose names we read aloud on the anniversary of their death, and the sisters of those who will someday stand in the chapel and read our names, and the sisters of the monks of old.

But our spiritual family goes beyond our monastic community and our Benedictine family. We are sons and daughters of God Most High, or as St. Paul puts it, “co-heirs with Christ.” We are not once-removed from each other, but are brothers and sisters in the household of God, called to care for all whom God has created as His own, each of them our kinfolk, each created, like us, in the image and likeness of God. May we not remove ourselves from the call to care for all God's children.


Postscript: One of the wonderful aspects of monastic life is that we get to know one another’s families, often quite well. As Sr. Janet Marie told my family on the day of my monastic profession, “You aren’t losing a daughter and sister, you are gaining 40-something daughters and sisters.” Our families visit us here at the monastery, staying in guest lodging. And each of us makes periodic home visits to stay in touch with our loved ones – or as we sometimes simply put it here in the South, our kinfolk.

The image at top is one of the structures that was on our property when it was purchased in 1902. It housed several Sisters during the construction of the building we now call Ottilia Hall. The second image is from our Book of the Dead. In addition to remembering each Sister on the anniversary of her death, we display this book in the chapel throughout the month of November.

Wonderland

If you can look past the beauty of the monastery grounds, ignore the antique woodwork in Ottilia Hall, turn down the volume on the chanting of Psalms, and take a really good look around, you will see that the monastery is a veritable wonderland of galvanized pipes.

They are seemingly everywhere, in creative uses that have nothing to do with plumbing. For the most part, they are tastefully hidden in utilitarian areas traversed mainly by Sisters and staff. But if guests look closely, they, too, will see a bit of piping popping up here and there.

There is the handrail that goes up the back kitchen steps…the T-shaped anchor of a clothesline…work tables crafted from sheets of stainless on frames of galvanized pipe…a modest fence that ushers pedestrians along a sidewalk instead of across a bed of wildflowers, and on and on… It is like a master craftsman’s gallery exhibit of pipes put together with elbow joints, y-joints, t-joints, and joints so unique that they may not even have a name.

Although it is a wonderland of ingenuity and steel – most if not all of it crafted by a maintenance man who worked for the community for decades – it is truly barely noticeable. It’s simply the handrail that you grab as you pull yourself up after sitting on the steps petting Kitty B. Or the clothesline pipe with the small bird nest just inside the open end and Sr. Eileen’s hanging basket dangling from the other. Or the quirky lines of the up, sideways, and down railing between Mary Hall and Joseph Hall. Or the galvanized legs that support tables upon which gazillions of vegetables have been peeled and sliced...

None of this piping is particularly noticeable. It is just there – reliable but unassuming, strong but humble. One set of table legs is so strong that it can support the weight of dozens of pots and pans with only three of its four legs actually touching the floor. It wears its miracle strength with such quiet dignity that it is not even noticeable that one leg stops about 2 inches shy of the others. The frame doesn’t even wobble.

This wonderland of galvanized steel is not so much about the creative adaptability of a thrifty craftsman (working for thrifty Sisters!). Rather, the wonder is the quiet strength that supports our day-to-day life with such humility, like an eternal understudy content to let the light fall on the beauty that surrounds it.

It’s kind of like the quiet strength that underlies monastic life. What others may notice is the external beauty of liturgical prayer and the joyful witness of ministry. Yet for each of us Sisters, our true ‘wonder world’ – that which quietly supports everything else that we do – consists of the humble hours of solitude that each of us spends in prayer, in devotion, in scripture study, and in spiritual reading. This time apart with God is unseen, unnoticed, but it is truly the ‘structural steel’ that undergirds our life and ministry.

The eye may be drawn to the beauty of the monastery and the ear to the sounds of chanted prayer. But if you can look past the beauty of the grounds, ignore the antique woodwork, turn down the volume, and take a really good look around, you will see that the monastery is a wondrous world of the simple, humble strength that comes from a lifetime of prayer and praise. We are understudies to God's strength, letting His light, power, and beauty shine forth in this hurting, fractured - yet wonderful - world.