Folk song

On the Feast of St. John, early in the morning, I turned a monastery car eastward on Highway 278 and headed toward the Carolinas to visit with family for a while. The sun lay tucked behind a veil of grey sky, the road fell and swelled with the undulating earth, and the gentle landscape of northern Alabama slowly gave way to the piney woods of central Georgia, and eventually to the Spanish moss-draped oaks of low country Carolina. Along the way, towns and cities rolled by like verses to a folk song being sung by endless generations. I passed through towns in which family members are buried, towns in which I’ve blown out birthday candles and ridden bikes, towns in which I’ve worked and lived and earned a paycheck… each town marked by the variegated tonalities of life – not just my life, but the lives of millions of souls who have sighed and sung their way across the land and the years.

Once here in Carolina, a family member put on a CD of American folk songs, songs with tonalities that ranged from whimsical to sad to heartbroken to festive. There were stories of courting and dying…of soldiers off to war and wayfaring strangers…of valleys and flowers and shady groves and landscapes of longing and love and loss and labor… The collection of songs, with their homespun lyrics and memorable melodies, was so evocative of the range of human experience that it made me homesick – not for the Deep South of my childhood or for the well-worn refrains of familiar tunes. It made me homesick for the monastery.

For those of us called to the monastic life, this is the place in which – and the community with whom – we sing the lyrics of our life. When we enter monastic community – a wayfaring stranger, each of us – we don’t forget the valleys and shady groves of our past. They are part of what made each of us who we are. Nor do we cease to walk through new valleys and fresh groves. We each weave our story with those of our Sisters, creating a community in which the variegated tonalities of life – joy and sorrow, labor and loss – can be experienced and lived with mutual support and love.

The daily praying of the Psalms anchors our stories. The Psalms convey the timeless human tonalities of longing and love and loss and labor. They convey the depth of human sorrow and the heights of human gratitude and joy. As our days fall and swell with the undulations of time and the rhythms of the earth and sky, the Psalms of the ancient Hebrews – better than any folk song, more memorable than any familiar refrain – are the song that we continue to sing.

Soon I will turn the car westward, traveling from the mountains of North Carolina back to Highway 278 and the gentle hills of northern Alabama. My refrain will be that of the Responsorial Psalm for today, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: May God bless us in His mercy. It is a refrain that has anchored the songs of millions who have sighed and sung their way across the land and the years. It is the refrain at the heart of every song of longing and labor and loss and love.

In this new year, may God bless us in His mercy.


Postscript: When we travel, we do not cease praying the Liturgy of the Hours. We each take a prayer book (or books) with us - one of mine is depicted above - and continue the daily liturgical cycle of prayer.

"On the Feast of Stephen..."

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho' the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel.


Today, on the Feast of Stephen, is a good day to take a deep breath, and like Good King Wenceslas, take a look around. Here at the monastery, after yesterday’s great feast, I’ve taken a good look and have seen quiet skies, quiet corridors, quiet Sisters, quiet offices, quiet lawns… I’ve seen the shining lights of our several Christmas trees… I’ve seen the sacristy restored to its usual order after the intense and busy liturgies of these past days… I’ve seen Sr. Margaret Mary chopping veggies for tonight’s turkey soup, and Sr. Janet Marie preparing supper. I’ve seen Sr.’s Eleanor and Mary Ruth bundled against the cold on a trip over to Benedictine Manor, and Sr. Therese stepping out on a journey through the rain. I’ve seen Sr. Lynn Marie stooping to help me pick up scattered utensils when I dropped their container on the floor, and I’ve seen Sr. Regina stepping in to help me out when it was clear I needed a bit of assistance.

Today, and every day, is a good day to notice all that is around us, and to look to the example of Good King Wenceslas, who gazed not only upon the brightly shining moon and the crisp, even snow, but also upon the needs of the poor, stooping to help them in their need.

Therefore, Christian folk, be sure, wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.


Postscript: Here is a link to a great rendition of this traditional carol. Here at the monastery we sing this carol each year at Lauds on the Feast of St. Stephen.

Don we now...our aprons

If there is one non-liturgical item that is absolutely indispensible for a Christmas celebration at the monastery, it would have to be the lowly apron. This humble garment is like the tie that binds one activity to the next as we move through the celebration of Christmas Day here at the monastery – Christmas Breakfast, Lauds, Eucharist, Christmas dinner, Christmas party with egg nog and snacks, Vespers, supper… We don aprons, and then take them off, and then don them again, as we spend the day migrating like pilgrims between the chapel and the kitchen, between praying and eating, between worship and fellowship...finding every way we can to celebrate together the birth of our Lord.

Before each meal, the kitchen is filled with Sisters stirring, serving, slicing, and pouring…each wearing an apron that she has pulled from a simple tree rack where they hang like ornaments festooning an otherwise barren corner. With the meal ready to serve, the aprons are put away. After dinner, another set of Sisters, or perhaps some of the same ones, head to the rack, don an apron, and begin washing, scrubbing, drying, and storing…

Underlying the beauty of our various celebrations is humble service to one another. As an apron overlays and protects a garment, humility safeguards love. It is a tie that binds. In loving service to one another – whether careful preparation of the chapel for Mass, or the meal for the table, or the room for the guest, or the music for the liturgy, or the bed for the sick – we become a community that is able to celebrate not only with beauty and dignity, but with genuine faith and love. This requires donning, like an apron, the humility of Christ, serving one another with humble joy, festooning our life with gladness.

The innkeeper

We never hear about the innkeeper, the nameless one who on a dark, desert night, long, long ago said ‘no’ to two weary travelers - one with his face creased with the worry and dust of travel, the other clearly pregnant. Perhaps he was too tired, or too busy, to find an extra spot in a crowded room. Perhaps the needs of demanding guests filled his heart with urgency and worry. Perhaps the pantry shelves were nearly bare. Perhaps the burdens of the day were balanced so precariously on his shoulders that he felt he could not absorb the weight of two strangers from afar. Perhaps.

Since that long-ago night, decades and centuries have tumbled and spun, and tonight we find ourselves again on the brink of celebrating the nativity of the One who was born on that desert night so long ago, who was born outside the inn, who was born – outside. As we gather around heart and home with family and friends, may we remember that this spinning earth is still full of those who wander in search of shelter, food, safety…and the earth is still full of outsiders. When one wanders our way – perhaps a neighbor in need, or perhaps a stranger from afar – may we lay down our burdens and open welcoming arms knowing that our Lord Jesus often comes to us in the guise of the lowly, the poor, the outsider. On this night of nights, and on every night, may we be ready to absorb the weight of Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. May we be ready to welcome each of His - and our - brothers and sisters.


Postscript: An unintentional and unplanned Advent haitus for this blog is now over. I'll soon be back at it regularly - but first, let us celebrate! A most joyous and blessed Christmas to each of you... (You can check out our Community News webpage for photos our our celebration here at the monastery.)

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!