Yellow pine

I was a little tired today, which means my mind was a little more prone to wander, including during Mass, so after hearing the Gospel reading from Matthew about the wooden beam and the splinter, my mind wandered off through a forest of trees, wondering from which sort of wood my wooden blinders were most likely to have been hewn. By the time the gold-plated chalices were being placed on the altar I had settled on yellow pine.

Yellow pine is familiar, ubiquitous even, to someone who grew up in the southland. Golden-hued planks of old-growth yellow pine framed the ancestral architecture of my childhood. I walked miles on pine floors, and more miles through piney woods, and attended family events at places with names like Pine Grove. Today, golden-hued planks hewn more than a hundred years ago form the floors of our main monastery building, Ottilia Hall. Thus, I concluded that the wooden beam in my eye must be yellow pine.

After Mass, a little chagrined over my wandering mind, I realized there is actually a kind of logic to a beam of yellow pine. Sometimes it is that which is most familiar that can form the greatest hindrance to our vision. We become accustomed to seeing things in a certain way, with certain blinders on that are so familiar we don’t even notice them. Like the wooden beam of the Gospel, we do not perceive it. Nor can we perceive beyond it with true vision.

As a child, pine wood was ubiquitous. It wasn’t anything particularly special. But today, reclaimed pine lumber is prized in the home industry. Similarly, perhaps in removing the beam from my eye I can not only see more clearly, but also can find something precious in the old plank itself. Perhaps that which blocked my vision can cast a new golden hue when I offer my blinders to God to be reclaimed and restored.



Postscript: The picture above was taken several years ago, just after the renovation of Ottilia Hall. We were so gratified to see these beautiful floors shine once again after having been covered with tile and carpet for many years.

Lighter than air

I spent the past several days attending a conference where I sat at a table listening, thinking, talking, and praying. The table held my papers, my elbows, and occasionally my gaze. It also held the holy conversation - heavy with the weightless fragrance of hope - that flowed across and around the table, and that flowed amongst other tables in a room filled with monastic women gathered to listen, think, talk, and pray.

Today, back at work at my desk, an employee came to tell me she needed help. She had been assigned to move tables, but they were too heavy for her alone. I got up to help her.

We moved tables, one by one, the two of us. They were too heavy for one alone. Working together they seemed lighter than air.

Lifting and moving the tables, I knew that the work of sitting at yesterday’s table was meaningless without the work of these tables. I can think and talk and pray about monastic life for days on end, but unless I rise from my chair for the work of community, the talk is lifeless. And moving tables without the holy intention that lifts them beyond themselves is mere motion.

The manual labor of moving tables and the spiritual labor of being at table each breathe life into the other. Each makes of the other a sign. And each makes the other seem lighter than air, heavy with the weightless fragrance of possibility.

Home, like the evening

A still summer evening. Effortless air. Light so relaxed it has no need to be lit. The earth quiet and unselfconscious in the pale twilight that lingers around the straight, still pines. The promise of dawn resting beside the hearth of nightfall.

Stepping into this evening is like stepping into home. It absorbs my restlessness. It welcomes my wandering thoughts. It lets me sit still, or slowly pace the porch, or shed a beautiful, shining tear that reflects the beautiful, shining cloud above the treeline to the north. The evening welcomes me, a stranger, to its hearth.

This evening has something to teach me. I think it is about how to be home, like the evening. About being a still, effortless, unselfconscious home that can absorb the restlessness of others, welcome their wandering thoughts, let them sit still, or pace the porch, or shed a beautiful, shining tear.

In the stillness of evening, the earth is actually spinning in space. But the evening holds the gift of gravity with a graciousness that seems effortless, that seems lighter than light, that glows with the infinite radiance of a single tear.

A monastery is kind of like that. In a whirling, swirling world that feels the tilting of its axis as if it were a listing ship, a monastery is like the stillness of evening. Holding the gift of gravity and light. Unselfconscious and quiet. Absorbing restlessness. Offering a hearth to wanderers. Treasuring the infinite radiance of a single tear. Resting in the promise of dawn.

It is home, like the evening.