Shine

Sr. Tonette handed me the note just before dinner last night. It looked serious, like an official memo – 12 point font, Times New Roman, 8 and a half by 11, bullet points beginning about halfway down the page. But this was no ordinary business memo.

“Dear Sisters Therese, Elisabeth, and Michelle,” it began. I had to smile as I started to read, wondering what on earth we were about to get ourselves into now. In the past months we Sisters have found ourselves in all kinds of strange situations and unlikely tasks as we have engaged in this once in a lifetime (I hope!) mountain-moving project and have come to the rescue in all manner of situations that have gone awry in the process.

This current project was, as Sr. Tonette put it, “a good convent cleaning” of some stainless steel and galvanized kitchen equipment that will soon be transported from our current kitchen to our new one. The various pieces of equipment are all probably at least half a century old and our task was to make them look as if they had just been born out of the stainless steel cabbage patch. After all, they are going to a brand spanking new kitchen and we want them to be their best shiny selves when placed against shiny new walls.

So after supper last night, joined by Sr. Regina and armed with scouring pads, soft cloths, and basins of water, we got to work. We turned tables upside down. We took apart drawer casings. We dismantled shelves.  We lay on our backs and peered upward at the undersides of cabinets and stood on stepstools to gaze down from on high.

At one point, I looked up from the galvanized table leg that I was scrubbing to a polished shine. I saw the other four Sisters arrayed throughout the kitchen, silently intent on their tasks and poised in unique, nearly-impossible stances, like a tableau of elite gymnasts.

But a more apt image would be that we looked like a family, each doing her part in the work of keeping our home clean and bright, and each pitching in in her own unique way to the common work of the household, sometimes stretching to heroic bounds.

On the eve of the Feast of the Holy Family, I looked at my dear Sisters like the family that they are to me, arrayed like a tableau of beloved  kinfolk, each struggling through the strange situations and unlikely tasks of life, and each helping the others in their struggle  But each was also arrayed like the stainless steel tables and shelves, giving herself to the purifying action of the Holy Spirit and the purification that comes through life in monastic community as together we seek to be a holy family, shining for the glory of God.

Pa rum pum pum pum

The lyrics of “The Little Drummer Boy” caught my attention in a new way this year and have served as a kind of drumbeat in the background of my Advent activities and my preparations for Christmas, almost as a kind of lectio undergirding my monastic labora. In preparing the sacristy, rehearsing music, polishing brass and silver, ironing chapel linens, and so on it’s as if I’ve been playing my drum for Him.

On this Christmas Eve day, I spent much of the morning working in the sacristy and chapel, each task a tap on my drum as I worked with Sr. Magdalena, Sr. Michelle, Sr. Sara Aiden, Sr. Therese, Sr. Lynn Marie, and others.

Later in the day, a problem with the walk-in freezer drew me to labor for an hour or so with Sisters Tonette and Mary Adrian in the freezing cold, each of us dressed as if we were ready to head for the North Pole. That effort, too, was a tap on my drum, trying to play my best for Him. And then over supper, some good-natured humor left those at my table nearly crying with laughter. That, too, a beat on my drum.

Like the drummer boy, I feel the gifts I bring are poor and inadequate. And I don't always play well.  Sometimes I even forget to play when I am supposed to be playing.  Nevertheless, I offer all that I do as a gift, seeking to ‘play my best for Him’ as I tap out a rhythm of work and prayer, of prayer and praise, of praise and thanksgiving, 'so to honor Him.'

And now, as these last, silent hours of Christmas Eve tick by, the air is still, the monastery quiet, the corridors dim. It is the calm before the joy of the Mass of Midnight.  The pa rum pum pum pum of praise has fallen into the silence of anticipation and awe as we quietly, humbly, patiently wait, a newborn King to see.  Pa rum pum pum pum. 

A paler shade of joy

As I neared Cullman County last night following a visit with family in the Carolinas, I turned off Hwy 231 onto a narrow country road that serves as my shortcut to Hwy 278. After a few rises and falls, the road crested and hugged a ridgeline the rest of the way into Holly Pond, just east of Cullman.

It was nearing 8:00 PM, and winter darkness had long settled onto the hills and into the hollows of north Alabama. But looking from the ridgeline out toward the distant west, a pale streak of daylight hovered like an afterthought on the far horizon. It wasn’t the usual pink or orange of a proper sunset. It wasn’t even a glow. It was just a grey-white streak of pale, the barest reminder of the day that had been, and of the day that was to be.

This morning I awakened to steady rain and a colorless sky that bore no hint of the joy of Gaudete Sunday or the color of rose that would brighten our liturgy or the Mass readings that would exhort us to rejoice. I stared out the window at the blanched vista that seemed drained of life even as it drained the heavens of moisture.  The sky looked like a line from the old song "a whiter shade of pale."

The steady rain has continued all day and now into the evening. The sky is both dreary and weary. Our mood is subdued as we grieve the tragedy in Connecticut, as well as violence closer to home. A bucket is catching a percussive leak in the Retreat Center office.  Everything looks grey, grim, and damp.  But Sisters Therese and Michelle baked cookies this afternoon. Sr. Lynn Marie prepared a special treat for our tree-decorating party. The schola gathered to practice after dinner. And we gathered as a community tonight to decorate our dining room Christmas tree, sing for a bit, and yes, rejoice over the Daybreak that even now hovers on the horizon.

We are called to rejoice - sometimes against all evidence, and sometimes against all odds. Yet if we can climb the ridgeline and look to the horizon, we can find a hint of the sunlight that has been, and the Light that is to come.   And we can rejoice - even if it is a paler shade of joy.

Postscript:  For a previous post on Gaudete Sunday, including an explanation of Gaudete, please see the December 12, 2010 post in the archive above left ("We interrupt this color...") .

Instruction manual

Yesterday I picked up a old iron as I packed up an area of Annunciata Hall. Its heavy weight and fabric-coated cord suggested it was perhaps of 1960’s vintage. Next to the iron was the instruction manual which had accompanied the iron through the decades.

A consistent pattern I’ve noticed over these weeks of helping pack up and move various areas of the monastery is the presence of an instruction manual accompanying nearly any kind of device or appliance. It doesn’t matter the type of equipment or the age of the device. It could be a space heater, or a DVD player, or a microwave oven, or an iron, or even a sick call set from the early years of our community. If it is electric or must be assembled or has controls of some sort, an instruction or assembly manual is sure to be nearby.

If I had found just an occasional manual, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it because we keep them in low profile. But as I packed, their ubiquity became noticeable. It’s not that we aren’t able to figure out how to turn things on and off or how to operate a toaster oven. We don’t even necessarily use the manuals; many are still snug in their original plastic sleeves. But somehow, saving them just seems an appropriate way to be orderly and careful with the goods entrusted to our care, and to be considerate to those who may use them in the future.

I find something touching and tender in the presence of all these manuals, and after encountering them over and over I began to view them with a kind of reverence. I think their presence speaks to the way in which we’ve absorbed Benedict’s instruction to treat “all goods of the monastery as if they were sacred vessels of the altar.” I think it’s also a way to express care for one another, including those who will come after us who maybe, just maybe, will need to know how to replace the thing-a-ma-jig on the such-in-such. The manual will be at the ready to tell them how.

I think it is testament, too, to the ongoing quality of our life as a monastic community, with our current generation seamlessly integrated with those who came before us and those who are yet to come. We know that the various goods of the monastery came from the hard work and generosity of those who preceded us, and what we leave behind we want to bequeath in good condition.

All of this is witness to how we’ve absorbed the most ubiquitous and most important of all the instruction manuals here in the monastery – the Rule of St. Benedict. Daily we listen together to a reading from this ancient manual.  It teaches us that our reverence for God gets expressed in the daily interactions of life, including the reverent use of created goods, and reverence for one another. It is an instruction manual that for centuries upon centuries has never become obsolete.

 

Postscript: The photograph above was taken as we were moving out of Ottilia Hall prior to renovation.  The air conditioner was headed for our yard sale, but it went complete with its instruction manual! 

The Mayflower

The great migration of Sisters back into Ottilia Hall is now complete. I was one of the last scheduled to go. When I finally made my move yesterday after nearly two years in Joseph Hall, I felt as if I were stepping onto Plymouth Rock after a long voyage at sea, or as if I were Christopher Columbus finally dropping anchor in a Caribbean bay. We have been on this voyage for what has felt like a very long time, and we have eagerly anticipated stepping back onto the shores of Ottilia.

Last night, having unpacked and settled in, I leaned deeply into my rocker and looked out the eastward-facing window into the darkening sky. It was good to be back and be at rest in the room assigned to me by our Prioress. But even though I feel as if I have dropped anchor and set foot on shore, this room is really more Mayflower than Plymouth Rock, more Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria than a Caribbean bay. This is a room, a chair, a space in which I will set sail in a continual journey with God and with this monastic community, keeping my sails hoisted and my compass set, voyaging ever-deeper into the heart of our Lord.

Like a hand at rest

On Saturday, the color of violet spread silently though the monastery as we readied ourselves for the season of Advent. It spread like a hand unfolding into rest.

In the sacristy, I made the usual preparations of exchanging green vestments for violet and readying the lectionaries of the new liturgical year. Sr. Kathleen arranged the Advent wreath and candles in the chapel, and Sr. Priscilla prepared them for the dining room. Sisters Therese and Lynn Marie removed last year’s Missalettes from the pews and replaced them with the new. Sr. Magdalena placed her Advent music and liturgy files at the ready.  Sr. Brigid posted the annual reminder about our Advent collection for Catholic Relief Services.  Hardly a word was exchanged. Everyone just settled into doing what they knew needed to be done.

Advent is one of my favorite seasons and I think this year it will be particularly so. In the midst of this unusual time of transition for our community, the pensive quiet of this beautiful season will be especially welcome. Familiar hymns, familiar patterns, the familiar turning of the liturgical calendar…I think all will help us settle deeply into this season, these days that unfold like a hand at rest – quiet and still in wordless waiting, yet ready to light the lamp and spread the table as we watch for the coming of the Lord.

The story of the week

A Sister asked whether I would be writing a blog post about some of the “challenges” (read: semi-calamities) that we had last week at the monastery. I demurred, saying I wouldn’t dare try to describe the indescribable. But here I go…

If you can imagine a cross between an “I Love Lucy” episode, a Jackson Pollock painting, and a Special Effects seminar all set against the backdrop of Noccalula Falls…well, then you can imagine last Wednesday and Thursday. But that’s about the best I can do because I don’t think I can really describe the smoke that billowed from a toilet bowl as water sprayed over the rim like a really bad chemistry prank gone awry. Nor can I accurately portray the water that arced into the air from an open wall pipe as Sr. Regina and a monastery staff member tried with all their might to stop the flow by plugging their fingers in the wall. Nor can I describe carpet so saturated that water began spewing from a puncture at the top of the giant garbage bag that was holding it. It poured steadily and confidently, as if it thought itself the Tivoli Fountain. And I could never find the words to describe the drama of trying to get that bag outside without spilling a drop.

A certain number of renovation malfunctions and oddities can be expected. But Wednesday was one for the record books. It was enough to make you wonder if it was a full moon…except that it was mid-day.

But that’s only a small part of what went on. The main story of this week is that our life breath kept flowing, borne aloft on the wind of the Holy Spirit. Our hearts kept surging, marking time in the rhythm of eternity. The skies were bright and clear. The earth kept spinning underneath our feet. We sat in monastic silence at prayers and enjoyed conversation over meals. We prayed. We worked. We rested from our labor. We trusted in God. We leaned on each other. Peace prevailed.

As we prayed Psalm 112 together late in the week, I thought of the events that had transpired. The various dramas brought some quick reactions, hard work, and plenty of frustration. But still, we trusted in our merciful God. No matter what happens, God’s mercy and love is the real story of the week.

They shall not fear an ill report; their hearts are steadfast, trusting the Lord. Ps 112:7