Morning commute

This morning, with the Feast of Benedict just behind us and the Feast of the Annunciation soon to come, I realized I couldn’t quite settle into today, Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent. Echoes of Benedict and anticipation of the Annunciation kept filling my heart and thoughts.

But then, on my 'morning commute' to Lauds, I paused in the tunnel through our renovation zone and listened to the silence of the early morning. The work crew had not yet arrived to fill the air with transformation. The building was soundless. Tools were still. Everything was filled with possibility, with the promise of a word soon to be spoken. In the silence, I finally anchored my feet in today, a day which I will seek to listen with the ear of Benedict and respond with the fiat of Mary.

The liturgical cycle doesn’t stop on a dime as it moves from day to day, clicking from page to page as if it were slideshow presentation. Rather the graces of the liturgical cycle settle deeply into our hearts, holding us and carrying us from grace to grace and from word to word. Echoes and anticipation are among these graces, helping anchor us in the moment as they call us to live more deeply the days and seasons of life in God.

Today’s Entrance Antiphon for Mass contains the phrase, “constantly seek His face.” May our search for God be daily and constant, and may our morning commute, and every journey, be a voyage from grace to grace as we live fully each day that God gives us.

Color

Today is the Solemnity of the Passing of our Holy Father St. Benedict…and I am thinking about paint colors. China White and Mountain Mist, to be specific. You might wonder what in the world St. Benedict and paint colors have to do with each other. But indeed, they are related. You see, St. Benedict, during his years leading his monastic community, wrote a rule of life for monks. He wrote with such wisdom and practicality that his Rule has been a source of insight and life for generations of monastic communities.

Here in our monastery, we read from the Rule nightly during Compline. We study it in classes. Phrases from the Rule routinely grace our conversation. A copy sits on the bookshelf beside my desk. Another copy is up in my room next to my Bible. The wisdom of the Rule permeates our lives and guides everything we do here at our monastery, including the most practical and mundane of day-to-day activities. So when it was time to pick paint colors for our under-renovation Ottilia Hall, it was natural that wisdom from the Rule guided the process, as it has the entire renovation effort.

Simplicity, stewardship, the seeking of counsel from others, and concern for the individual are among the many aspects of the Rule that have been brought to bear on renovation decisions, including the simple task of choosing paint colors. Our monastic administrators oversaw a single, simple paint choice for the ‘big picture’ and the common areas, but for the individual rooms to which we’ve been assigned we were each able to choose from among four color options.

I am very happy with the simplicity of the China White that I chose, but sometimes I think about the Mountain Mist that will be in some of the other rooms. It is a nice, muted blue and it makes me think about St. Benedict and the mountain mists that he would have experienced in his monastery on Monte Cassino, and in the cave of Subiaco. I think about him overseeing the construction of the earliest monastery buildings at Monte Cassino. I think about his concern for his community and for the individual monks with whom he lived. I think about him as a leader of monks, as a lover of God, as a seeker of wisdom, as a lover of scripture. I think about the monks through the centuries who have planned and built and occupied the sacred spaces that we call monasteries, places in which we come to spend a lifetime seeking God.

I think St. Benedict would like the way in which our monastic leaders and our community have gone about the renovation project, including handling such practical, mundane tasks as choosing paint colors. I think he would like the consultation, the simplicity, the good stewardship, and the care for individuals. I think he would like the simplicity of the china white walls of the room to which I’ve been assigned, the room that will embrace and hold my personal prayer, my study, my lectio divina, my search for God.

Today, as Benedictines everywhere commemorate Benedict’s passing - from the yellow prairies of the Great Plains to the white-capped Alps of Bavaria to the blue mountain mists of Tanzania to the green hills of Ireland - we celebrate the countless ways in which his Rule has colored our lives with grace and beauty and wisdom, including the simplest of our everyday tasks.


Postscript: If you would like to see a few pictures of the Sisters taking a tour through the color options, click here for our weekly construction update and scroll to pages 39-42. Please continue your prayers for our renovation project and capital campaign!

Laughing in the river of time

Earlier today, just before Noon Prayer, Sr. Margaret Mary and I broke into broad smiles as soon as we saw each other, both of us wordlessly remembering a funny event from a couple of days ago over which we had laughed and laughed, a good natured, lingering laugh that neither of us could shake for quite a while. And we laughed again today, just remembering.

And then tonight, Sr. Therese and I shared a jovial conversation as we transitioned from Retreat Center dinner service to Vigil. And yesterday, a group of us laughed heartily over an experimental kitchen project.

Laughter, a smile, a jovial remark, a good-natured story, a cheery countenance – these are among the flowers that adorn the flow of time in the monastery.

Monastic time - the days, seasons, and years - tends to flow like an unhurried river through a broad coastal plain...quiet, subtle, unassuming...a river that wears its 'river-ness' with understated grace and unpretentious finesse. It doesn’t always look like much is happening, or that much is changing. But if you look closely at any flatwater river, you’ll see a tremendous amount of life and energy and even change as the river gives itself to the land, to the sky, and to its sea-ward course, drawing all the while on springs that well up from the earth below.

Likewise with our monastic call. We give ourselves to God, to one another, and to ministry as we unhurridly follow our Christ-ward course Time flows with an understated grace, with quiet subtlety, yet with energy and vitality, Living Water constantly welling up within us.

The vitality that expresses itself in the full bloom of a day in the monastery gets expressed in the most natural, unpretentious of ways, but in ways that are nonetheless full of the vigor of life. It happens in the liturgical cycle in which we move always deeper into the life of Christ. It happens in our times of personal prayer in which we draw near to the One whom we love with our whole hearts. It happens in the relationships and routines of community life and ministry. And it happens in the simplest of day-to-day encounters which enrich and enliven and bring the day into full bloom.

Sometimes it happens in tears. Sometimes in deep and serious conversation. And often it happens in the joy of laughter.

There is a balm in Chatawa

Scripture tells us of the balm of Gilead, a medicinal resin known for its ability to heal. Yet the soothing salve of which scripture speaks flows far beyond the ancient groves of Palestine. A spiritual balm, it courses through centuries and across oceans. It wells up through the Holy Spirit within, and is passed along through the ministering presence of others. It pours through prayer and spiritual song, comforting hearts with the healing touch of Jesus. And it surges from the words of Sacred Scripture.

This balm flows freely at St. Mary of the Pines Retreat and Renewal Center in Chatawa, Mississippi. While in Chatawa for my 30-day retreat, the healing balm of our dear Lord poured generously through the prayerful hospitality of the School Sisters of Notre Dame who live, pray, and minister in Chatawa. It coursed through the tranquil landscape and peaceful wooded paths of the Retreat Center. It streamed through the ministering presence of a wise and insightful retreat director. It flowed from the deep silence afforded by a simple, comfortable hermitage nestled alongside the woods. And it poured especially freely from page after page after page of Sacred Scripture.

I am told that the name 'Chatawa' means 'sparkling waters.' But to me, after these days of retreat, 'Chatawa' will always mean 'balm.'

From pixels to pines

To paraphrase the writer of Ecclesiastes, there is a time for pixels and a time for pines. It is now the time for pines.

Tomorrow morning, I will log off the computer, climb into a car with Sr. Mary, and she will drive me to the piney woods of southern Mississippi for 30 days of retreat. For one month, my computer screen will be a darkened shadow, and the only glow in my eyes will be that of the sun, the moon, and the hermit stars scattered like solitary pixels across a darkened screen of southern sky.

Periodically, every Sister makes a retreat of some sort. Annually we have our community retreat, a week of silence for all of us. We gather for liturgy and talks from a retreat director, but otherwise silence reigns in the monastery as we take a break from work and other non-liturgical routines. Some Sisters make an additional retreat at some point during the year, perhaps driving to another monastery or retreat center to spend a few days in sustained prayer.

And then there are special times of retreat made at major turning points in one’s life – perhaps at the time of a major change of ministry, or some other significant transition point. For me, this retreat comes near the end of my period of initial monastic formation. It is to be a time of sustained silence and solitude in order to enter more deeply into prayerful communion with our dear Lord as I contemplate the major step before me – perpetual monastic profession. As is our retreat tradition, I will meet daily with a retreat director with whom I can speak about the movement of the Holy Spirit within my heart.

So, dear readers, this blog will be silent for a few weeks as I ‘live the tradition’ of preparing for the next step of monastic commitment. If you wish a few words of Living the Tradition while I am away, I invite you to explore the archives at left, just clicking on a random entry or so every now and again. Whatever entry you happen to encounter, I’m sure whatever it references will still be current in some way as our Community continues to daily live our Benedictine charism with faithfulness and joy.

I will pray for readers of this blog while I am away, and I ask for your prayerful support during these coming weeks as I seek God in a retreat hermitage in the piney woods of southern Mississippi. Please also continue your prayers for our monastic community, our renovation project and our capital campaign. Sr. Therese will be posting regular updates of renovation progress on our Community News page along with other news of the Sisters, so don't forget to check that page occasionally as well. May God bless you!

Extraordinary

Tonight, after dinner was over and the dishes washed, we arrayed ourselves in a half-moon around the shining star of a video monitor. It was time for our usual Wednesday night discussion, and we were gathered to view a conference presentation on a DVD.

On this cold winter night, arrayed around a TV screen, we all looked so ordinary. And indeed we were. Some of us held walking sticks. Some held the high-tech controls to a flat screen and speakers. For some, it was getting toward their usual bed-time and I could tell they were a little sleepy. Others were wide awake. Some still had chores to tend to before they could eventually retire for the night. Some held special concerns in their hearts. One held a cup of coffee.

We looked so ordinary, like any family drawn together around a common purpose and in common concern for one another. Yet as ordinary as we looked sitting in our home on a cold winter evening, we were nothing but extraordinary – as extraordinary as any family, as extraordinary as any person.

During Lauds on these first days of Ordinary Time, we have been reading the Genesis creation stories, stories which remind us that we are created in the image of God and are enlivened by the very breath of God. Beneath the walking sticks, the coffee cups, the sleepy countenances, the eager listeners, the concerned hearts, and the technical expertise lie an array of individuals shimmering with the glow of God's countenance.

Whatever our setting, no matter the circumstances in which find ourselves arrayed, may we see beyond the ordinary appearance of those around us, and know of the extraordinary wonder of their creation in the image of God.

Discernment

After a tornado passed through our monastery property last April, we labored for days and weeks clearing tornado debris from the central areas of the monastery property. We found wooden planks, plywood, shingles, metal siding, gutters, and all kinds of household odds and ends that had been swept into the sky and tossed willy-nilly across the landscape.

Within a few weeks of the tornado, the grounds around the monastery were in good shape, but we deferred clearing the heavily wooded areas and the high grasses of our back pasture until wintertime brought better visibility in the woods and a decreased chance of snake encounters in the high grass.

Well, wintertime has come, and yesterday morning, after Mass, I put on boots and work gloves and headed out to the pasture. The debris – difficult to see within the thick hay even last spring – is now even harder to find since it has had some months to burrow deeper into the pasture.

It was painstaking work. I walked slowly through the high grass, back and forth in a methodical pattern, scanning the ground carefully with my eyes. I tapped the earth with a hoe as I walked, listening for the tell-tale sound of metal against wood or shingle. I paid attention to the texture of the land beneath my boots, alert to the shape of a buried plank or board beneath my thick soles. Back and forth I went throughout the morning until it was time to break for noon prayer and lunch. After lunch, I resumed my slow, careful walk through hay that in places was as tall as I am.

As the day went on, I got better at finding burrowed shingles, boards, sheets of decking, and other odds and ends. I learned certain patterns of swirled grass or lingering moisture that were likely to yield a small bit of plywood or a buried shingle or two. Through experience and close attention, I became attuned to fine distinctions. I learned to find what I was seeking. I learned to discern.

I took my time. I went slowly. But the keys were patient attention and steady focus. These led me to that which I sought. Despite the disheartening immensity of the field and the thickness of the hay which, though beautiful, obscured my vision, I paid attention, and was rewarded by seeing the occasional glint of the corner of a shingle, or feeling through the thick soles of my boots the right angles of a board hidden in the grass.

Likewise in our spiritual lives, our interior landscape can become cluttered. In order to discern the voice of God we need to rid ourselves of interior 'debris' so that we can listen for God in a clear and open space. This, too, can mean painstaking, patient, and prayerful labor as we open our hearts to the breath of the Holy Spirit, the call of Christ, and the mercy of God. It means yielding to God that which lies burrowed in our soul - perhaps some 'debris' of sin and pain, but perhaps hidden treasure, too. And as we hold in our hands all that we find and give it to God, we know that we are held in God's hand, ourselves a stray treasure lost in a pasture for whom the Good Shepherd has searched, and now found.