A sparkle in my eye

Today I had a few hours away from the Retreat Center office and Sr. Lynn Marie had an unexpected day off from her ministry and so we took an impromptu trip to a lovely park one county over from ours. We packed a picnic lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, apple slices, and leftover cupcakes that had been decorated with pink icing and pastel sprinkles.

In any ordinary light in any ordinary room the baking sprinkles would have just looked like baking sprinkles - festive and cute, but that’s about it. But in the noonday sun the translucent shapes gleamed, glittered, sparkled, shined - as if a constellation of gemstones had just fallen onto my cupcake out of the clear blue sky. But they were not gemstones. They were just ordinary sprinkles from an ordinary grocery shelf scattered across an ordinary cupcake.

My delight in seeing these ordinary sprinkles suddenly shine like pastel stars was a reminder of the importance of slowing down, of drawing silent, of pausing to let light see the light of day, letting it play and splay across the ordinary stuff of the ordinary days of my ordinary life, refracting into the most obscure of corners to reveal the constellation and distillation of light within. It was a reminder to look at the world with a sparkle in my eye, because even on those days when life does not feel like much of a cakewalk, somehow there is still light distilled in the darkness.


Postscript: There are times and seasons when we have to dig deep and go beyond our usual daily strive. The ability to slow down and draw silent and rest in God's presence can help us find the pearl within an ocean tide of striving and strife, and perhaps help us realize that sometimes the surging ocean is itself the pearl.

Stargazing

I imagine that the stars in the starry sky must have shared a smile when they first caught sight of the tomato vine that has sprouted through the construction gravel and broken cement between our old and new monastery kitchens.

I can imagine them watching together as the vine first emerged - arising like a hero from the concrete netherworld, or like a memory from the earth. And I'm pretty sure they would have smiled.

Perhaps the vine is a distant memory of our earliest Sisters who once collected kitchen scraps near that spot, saving the leftovers – surely some tomatoes among them – to feed to the hogs down at the old pig barn.

Or perhaps it is a near memory of the tomatoes Sr. Bernadette is growing this very year just a stones' throw away on the other side of the back drive.

Or perhaps it is a memory of what is yet to be, the fertile promise and abundant hope that lie gestating beneath the rocks that will be plied away later this year when the old kitchen is demolished and the good ground, and all that lies within it, is restored to the nightshade gaze of the starry sky.

Or perhaps the flourishing vine is simply a reminder to keep watch with the stars, and to smile at the grace that is always ready to burst forth even from the rockiest earth.

Here in the monastery we keep watch with each other day in and day out for a lifetime. We can grow so accustomed the sights and sounds and routines around us that even our Sisters can sometimes begin to seem to us like rocky ground. We forget to be surprised, astonished, amazed at the beauty that is also there, the vine that is always ready to burst forth and flourish amidst the routines of daily life.

Our newly-sprouting tomato vine, emerging like a hero from the earth, invites us to keep watch, to be astonished, to smile, and to remember – to remember both that which has been, that which is, and that which still lies gestating beneath the nightshade gaze of the starry, starry sky.

Postscript: Pope Francis spoke beautiful and knowing words about community life when he spoke last week to a community of Poor Clare nuns on the Feast of St. Francis. As quoted in the Vatican Information Service e-news the Pope said: "The second thing I wanted to say to you, briefly, relates to community life. Forgive and support each other, because community life is not easy. Make sure that the monastery is not a purgatory, but rather a family. Look for solutions with love; do not harm anyone among you to solve a problem. Cherish community life, because when the community is like a family, the Holy Spirit is among the community. I beg for you the joy that is born of true contemplation and of a beautiful community life."

Whether we dwell in a monastery or within a family home or in a small apartment by ourselves - or even in a stable in Bethlehem - may our gaze be one of true contemplation. And may joy be born.

Papa Francesco and the homely hum

Our Retreat Center housekeeping routines got a little off track this week. Consequently I spent part of last evening cleaning guest rooms. I dusted with the thoroughness of a Benedictine – up and down, back and forth, with the grain, over and under, not missing an inch of exposed surface on desk after desk and dresser after dresser and chair after chair...oh, and the lamps and mirrors and picture frames and so forth as I tried to make things just right for our next set of guests.

As a Benedictine, I was content. Monastics value manual labor. St. Benedict says, “when they live by the labor of their hands…then they are really monks.” It was satisfying work.

This morning I was back at it, moving room to room accompanied by the homely hum of the vacuum cleaner. As I worked, I started thinking about Papa Francesco. Much ink has been spilt on Pope Francis and many pixels have been pixed and parsed. But for me, it was the homely, humble hum of the vacuum that brought to mind our new Pope.

I think that Papa Francesco would also find satisfaction in setting things right for the next pilgrim who comes to our door. Although a Jesuit, and though bearing the name of Francis, I think he would like the words of Benedict:

All guests are to be received as Christ.

And then this:

Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received. (RB 53)

So it seems that it’s not really about manual labor after all, as satisfying and contemplative as that may be. It’s about setting things right in the household of God, preparing a place of solace and rest for all who come. And so desk by desk, dresser by dresser, room by room, I do my small part to help prepare a place of mercy.

The Sister(s) at the end of the tunnel

Last Thursday, four of us flew up north to attend a conference at Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, SD. Our three-legged flight itinerary from Huntsville to Sioux Falls required that we depart for the airport at 4:15 in the morning. We were set to arrive in Yankton via Sioux Falls by mid-afternoon. Other than the early departure, it all sounded good on paper.

But “sounds good on paper” is not exactly what happened. We encountered (in no particular order because I can't even remember the order) one plane sent back to the hanger for maintenance, two delayed departures, one missed connection, one broken pair of prescription eyeglasses, three failed eyeglass repair attempts, one missing flight crew, three missing seat assignments, one closed stretch of Interstate, one hold-your-breath search for an alternate route, one 28-gate sprint after a last-minute unannounced gate change, one 30-minute wait on the tarmac for some late-arriving passengers, one unscheduled eight-hour layover, eight concourses memorized like the back of our hands during one unscheduled eight-hour layover, one hunt for three suitcases missing from the luggage carousel, one missing cell phone left on the other side of security, one dash to find it, one repeat trip through security, one emergency intervention for someone we found in urgent need, and umpteen phone calls to Cullman and Yankton keeping them informed of our (lack of) progress.

We finally arrived in Sioux Falls at 11 something at night and eventually arrived in Yankton shortly after 1:00 in the morning, 21 hours after departing Cullman and about 22 hours after we had originally awakened from sleep.

At the Sioux Falls airport, as I floated down the escalator from the concourse to baggage claim, I recognized the Sister who was there to greet us by the Benedictine symbol that she wore. At that moment of immense fatigue, I could not imagine a more welcome sight. It was truly like seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I had never met her before, I made a bee-line and instinctively hugged her. She ushered her exhausted passengers through the airport, located our luggage, and drove us safely through the Dakotan midnight.

The Sister from Yankton was not the only light at the end of the tunnel on what felt like an epic day of unceasing mishaps and delays. The four of us travelers were lights for each other…keeping each other’s spirits up; finding humor in the midst of frustrating circumstances and flagging energy; expressing gratitude for the fact that we were safe, nourished, and cared for by those on either end of our journey; and seeking to care for one another in our various moments of need...

Although the circumstances were unique, we were really just doing for one another what we seek to do every day here at the monastery – seeking to let the Christ Light shine through us as a beacon to others.

Each morning at Lauds we sing the Benedictus, the Canticle of Zechariah from Luke 1. The canticle speaks of Christ as the “dawn from on high” who shines “on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Even when our darkness is merely one of fatigue and inconvenience, it is still a blessing to find the Light of Christ shining through others. May we each be for one another a light at the end of the tunnel.

A recipe for glory

Yesterday two recipes arrived in my email inbox. They had been sent to me by one of our Sisters who is not one of our usual "Sister chefs." I was so startled to receive the recipes from her that I wrote back humorously questioning what had happened. Knowing she had been on the road for part of the day, I asked “Did you crash into a cookbook?” Of course, part of my surprise was that I am not a good cook so I was startled to be on the receiving end of recipes – as if I would know what to do with them! She wrote back something along the lines of “One never knows...”

And it’s true, we never know. No matter how well we may know someone and know their usual habits of thought or patterns of behavior, we all have the capacity to surprise each other as we grow and change and develop new interests and skills and even new aspects of our personhood over the course of a lifetime.

Encountering unexpected aspects of others or watching them grow in new ways can serve to remind us that the other is a mystery that we cannot grasp. We cannot hold onto the ‘being-ness’ of someone else as if they are something static, forever confined to our image of who we think them to be, no matter how well we may know them.

We can also become confined to our own image of ourselves and refuse to grow beyond who we think ourselves to be. Yet each of us is a living, growing being who, in the words of St. Paul, is called to “grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ.” (Eph. 4:15)

Here in monastic community, even though we lead a common life, God still guides each one of us along our own unique path as we daily give ourselves to our monastic practices and to the common monastic endeavor. An “un-grasping” attitude – toward both ourselves and others – is vital in order to give God’s transforming grace full freedom to flower and flourish within the life of each Sister as she experiences conversion of heart, the fruit of a well-lived monastic commitment.

Experiencing the gradual transformation of my own heart and witnessing the work of God in others is one of the graces of monastic life. Even such a simple event as a recipe in my inbox can shine with the glory of God when I un-graspingly see in it the gracious gifts of those who are traveling with me on the road to eternal life. When I witness in the lives of my Sisters the mystery and reflected glory of the Lord, then I can exclaim with the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration – “It is good that we are here.”


From the Gospel reading for the Feast of the Transfiguration: "Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning." Luke 9:28-29

Prairie fire

Between the recent heat wave and lots of schoolwork I did not walk out to the arboretum for over a week. When I finally walked out there yesterday I was startled to see how much the prairie grasses had grown in just a week’s time and how they had blossomed out into glorious color. Grasses that had been ankle and knee high last week were now up to my waist, and some even to my shoulder. The colors were vibrant, rich, lush, spilling over with glory.

There is a small interpretive display at the entrance to the trail that references the role of fire in keeping a prairie healthy. Periodic fire – whether natural or through an occasional controlled burn – keeps predatory and invasive plants at bay and clears away the deciduous overgrowth that can crowd out the native grasses.

Reading about the role of fire in keeping the prairie so healthy and beautiful reminded me of times of retreat, of those periods of sustained silence in which God can clear out the interior overgrowth that prevents the flourishing of the good seed of God’s Word. in our hearts

Of course faithfulness in daily prayer accomplishes much the same. Psalm 101:8 reads, “Each morning I clear the wicked from the land, and rid the Lord’s city of all evildoers.” Whenever we come to that verse during the Liturgy of the Hours, I think of offering my heart – the Lord’s city – to the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, clearing out and ridding my heart of all that crowds out the love of God.

From now on when we chant that verse I will probably think of the prairie, of the colorful and beautiful grasses that cover this good land, and of the purifying power of prayer to clear away all that keeps my heart from spilling over with the glory of God.


Postscript: The photo above is from back home at Sacred Heart.  One thing I did not bring with me this summer was a camera.  I have been content to use photos either from my previous summer here or from home, but yesterday I was sure wishing for a camera to capture the many hues that covered the land.  Here's a link to a picture of one of the great variety of flowers in the Abbey Arboretum.

I'm headed back home in just a few days. Cannot wait to return home to my dear Sisters in Cullman!

Dance card

Each morning when I awaken it seems that all the minutes in the day are already claimed.

Even here at school, where my hours of reading and writing papers are less structured than they are back at the monastery, there is still a sense of fullness, as if all the hours are spoken for and I am stranded alone on the sidelines, unable to break in and ask an hour for a dance.

But I realize I've been thinking about time in the wrong way. It is not time whose dance card is full, with me as the quiet wallflower too bashful to break in and ask for a dance. It is my dance card that is full, with every dance already committed, every partner already penciled in, every hour accounted for.

Meanwhile, time stands still at the open window, waiting for me to stand still too, to leave my dance card on the dance floor and cease the ceaseless motion that keeps me far from the stillpoint of prayer.

The stillness of time beckons me into the fullness of time, to sit with all the time in the world as together we watch eternity spread its wings across the horizon.