The photographers

I answered the Retreat Center phone yesterday and a voice said: “Come to the Sunken Garden, and bring the camera!” A little family of wood ducks was wandering by, and that called for a photograph.

Several of our Sisters enjoy photography, but three of us - Sister Regina, Sister Therese, and myself - are currently the ones most likely to seen with camera in hand as we go about our daily rounds of work and prayer. We take photographs for our website, newsletter, bulletin board, archives - and of course, as a way to experience and enjoy God's beautiful creation. Two cameras float between the three of us and we are constantly passing them back and forth, swapping out USB cables, trading jump drives – and making quick phone calls when a unique shot presents itself, such as a family of wood ducks wandering by.

Although we share equipment and subject matter, each of us peers through the lens with a slightly different perspective. Sister Regina enjoys taking nature photographs. She is a gardener of roses, vegetables, and saplings; a birder who can identify at a glance just about every winged creature under heaven; and is so at home amongst the blossoms, blooms, and birdhouses on our grounds that you can almost say that she doesn’t take pictures, she grows them . Many of the landscape shots on our website were seen first through her lens.

Sister Therese, an artist, combines a love of beauty with a keen eye for composition and lighting. She says that photography deepens her personal reflections on visual awareness, focus, and perspective. It also helps her discover areas of the monastery grounds that rarely get visited, and allows her to see routine spots in a new light. She shares her photos regularly on our Facebook friends page, and also on Monastery Moments, the Community photo gallery on our website.

For my part, I enjoy the way a camera helps me focus and “see.” I also appreciate the way in which photographs can help tell a story, which is how I try to use them in this weblog. In fact, many of the posts on this weblog started out as a photo, and conversely, some photographs were taken in order to illustrate a post.

I hesitate to put myself in the category of ‘artisan,’ but the appellation certainly belongs to Sisters Regina and Therese. Chapter 57 of Benedict’s Rule applies: “If there are artisans in the monastery, they are to practice their craft with all humility…” The chapter closes with the Benedictine motto: “…that in all things God may be glorified.” I know that all three of us, and the other Sister photographers in our midst, have that as our ultimate aim as we focus our cameras on the wonderful works of God.

Postscript: That's Sister Therese photographing a rose yesterday morning, and Sister Regina taking a picture at the goldfish pond this afternoon. The photo of the camera on the rock was taken yesterday. I had set it there while working in the vegetable patch, and Sister Therese came along and took the photo.

You say tomato, I say tomahto

We’ve got two sets of tomato plants going strong out in the back yard. One set is planted the old-fashioned way - in the ground. Another set is planted upside down in what look to me like flowering missiles stranded in mid-air. Sr. Bernadette planted the first set out in our little vegetable patch, and Sr. Eileen followed with a small fleet of airborne seedlings dangling from the frame of an old well.

One of the interesting things about living in community is the wonderful variety when it comes to the non-essentials – such as recreational gardening methods – and the unity when it comes to the essentials. It’s kind of like a cheerful blend of accents and inflections - tomatoes and tomahtoes - that merge into a single voice as we gather for liturgical prayer, meals, communal recreation, and other essential aspects of vowed life in monastic community.

St. Benedict recognized the variety of temperaments in a monastery, going so far as to exhort the Prioress to “accommodate and adapt” herself to this diversity as she engages in the care of souls and leadership of the community. Yet the assortment of personalities and preferences by no means creates a “do your own thing” environment. The Rule calls us not only to obedience, but also to constant awareness of and preference for the needs of others, and that sometimes means moderating our accent, transcending our natural temperament, or curbing our preferences in service to the monastic community, to the Church, and to God.

The community envisioned by Benedict is one in which Sr. Bernadette can plant her ‘tomatoes’ right-side-up while Sr. Eileen plants her ‘tomahtoes’ up-side-down. Yet it is also a community in which each of us is often called to turn ourselves upside down in service to one another. I can’t tell you the countless times I’ve seen both Sr. Bernadette and Sr. Eileen do exactly that.

Postscript: Sr. Bernadette is our Sub-Prioress, and also serves tirelessly as our Infirmarian. Sr. Eileen is a Family Practice physician and is often called upon to assist with Community medical questions and needs. It’s no exaggeration to say that the times are countless in which they’ve turned themselves upside down in order to help turn someone else right side up!

Taking care

The bluebird box near our little vegetable patch is currently occupied by some newly-hatched nestlings. The parents have been busy with constant flights between ground and box, their beaks filled with bits of this and that plucked out of the earth.

Their protective instincts are in high gear. As I approach the garden they quit the box and begin a series of reconnaissance missions between the apple tree to the northeast and the pecan tree to the southwest. Eventually they grow accustomed to my presence (about 10 or so yards away) and move to a row of barbed wire fencing. They start at the far end and move slowly post to post until they reach the box, and then resume their feeding rituals.

As this has gone on in the garden, a pair of mourning doves has built a nest on the windowsill of the 3rd floor Community Room in our main monastery building. This past Sunday evening, a single egg was laid. Since then, the parents have kept constant vigil to give protection and warmth to the small, white egg.

The protective care has been a blessing to watch, and so reminiscent of how St. Benedict exhorts us to care for one another. In his Rule, Benedict makes special provision for the care of both the elderly and the young (chap. 37). Later, he describes the “good zeal” with which monks should care for one another: we “should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses…” (chap. 72).

I routinely see my monastic Sisters lovingly care for one another with the good zeal described by Benedict, and it’s been an extra gift to observe at close range the protective care of birds for their young. It helps me appreciate anew the tender care I observe (and receive!) daily within the monastery, and it challenges me to practice the “good zeal” of St. Benedict with the same fervor and diligence of a mother bird keeping watch over her young.


Postscript: Those of us who live on 3rd floor have been able to follow the progress – nest building, to egg laying, to incubation – from just inside the window, trying to keep a quiet distance. Sr. Therese took the photo above from about the middle of the room. I'll try to remember to keep you posted on how things transpire...

Monastic almanac

5:45am – sunrise, mist over the pasture, brightening sky, dew-drenched grass moistening my ankles, a patch of dirt bearing the imprint of yesterday’s footfall, early lights in the retreat center



8:00am – Lauds, the ‘hinge’ that opens the day, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” And then Eucharist…the fruit of the earth, the work of human hands will become our spiritual food…



9:30am – 76 degrees, gravitational pull toward vegetable patch where Sr. Bernadette is staking tomato plants, scattered clouds, sunlight and shadow dodging one another, pasture grasses bowing to variable winds, baby turtle pauses along path near cemetery, committee meeting begins in monastery, I stop to help a Sister with a computer need, then give a tour to a guest…



11:45am – 86 degrees, lunch preparation is nearly complete, Sisters are gathered for Noon Prayer and Psalm 118, “Open my eyes to see clearly the wonders of your teaching…”




1:00pm – 88 degrees, roses under a partly sunny sky, deer tracks along the edge of the woods, robin’s egg on ground at base of tree (cannot locate nest), a single strawberry dangling from planter, cheerful conversation in retreat center, a rake awaits the raker’s return from lunch, a gardener’s overshirt hangs from an apple tree…



3:30pm – 90 degrees (well above average max temp), light breeze, squash seedlings soak up sunlight (about 5-6 weeks to harvest), unseen frogs leap into water as they sense my approach, daisies lean toward the sun, committee meeting is over and I watch Sisters disperse in varied directions, two of us shoo a lizard out the back door, I answer questions from the retreat group, a Sister returns from errands in town…


5:00pm – gravitational pull toward chapel for 1st Vespers of the Ascension, “O King of glory, Lord of hosts, who this day ascended in triumph above all the heavens, leave us not orphans, but send upon us the Spirit of truth promised by the Lord our God, Alleluia.”


6:30pm – retreatants dine on lasagna and laughter, Sr. Therese walks outside with the camera, Sammy the cat lounges on the driveway, sky still blue with cumulus clouds, hours yet 'til dew point, Vigil of the Ascension on the horizon…



7:45pm – sunset, 81 degrees, quiet, barely a breeze, color of eastern sky approaches indigo, two Sisters converse in the distance, I pause at the cemetery and breath in honeysuckle-scented twilight and know that...

...the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord…(Ps. 33)

I spent time with some mourners today. And no, I did not attend a funeral or wake. Rather, I spent some on-line time with a procession of medieval mourners sculpted in alabaster and currently on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. There’s a link from the main Met description that allows the viewer to pan and rotate each of the individual figures. As I surveyed figure after figure I was awestruck both by the pathos of their postures and by their solemn beauty.

Each figure is exquisite, and each in his varied posture evokes sorrow and mourning in a particular and unique way. Yet the figures are even more compelling as an ensemble – a motley crew if there ever was one, but unified and clearly ‘one’ as they engage in a singular task.

It’s fitting that the ensemble is comprised mostly of monks because the beautiful renderings reminded me so much of monastic community – an ensemble of exquisite and unique individuals, varied in our postures and particularities, but unified and clearly ‘one’ as we engage in the singular task of seeking God alone, together.

Postscript: In the monastery cemetery, a portion of which is pictured above, the crosses are straight and even. Yet the Sisters buried there were each so unique. I'm one of the younger members and don't know most of those who lie there. But the stories endure of how each evoked and embodied the Spirit of God and her own humanness in her own unique, exquisite way.

Let the sea and what fills it resound

The happy voices of 8th graders resounded across the monastery lawns this afternoon. Here for their annual retreat, the students had conferences, Eucharist, lunch, another conference, and then were set free to embrace the afternoon. Footballs and joyful voices filled the air. Soccer balls traversed the ground. Teachers conversed on benches, overseeing the action. The notes of "chopsticks" emanated from the retreat center piano (not a commonly-played tune in the monastery!).

In the happy exuberance, a soccer ball ended up in the lake and floated away, irretrievable by the students. The floating ball seemed such a joyful image on this beautiful springtime day. With shrubs rejoicing in bloom, youthful voices resounding across the lawn, and birdsong sparkling in the air, it looked as if even the lake wanted to join in the fun and play ball.





Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

let the sea and what fills it resound;

let the plains be joyful and all that is in them...

recto and verso

Yesterday, I perused an art book that presented a series of oil paintings on folding wooden screens. Each side of the screens – recto and verso, or front and back – depicted a different view of the same scenario. For instance, one recto showed a crowd departing from a funeral, while the verso depicted the barren stillness of a snowy cemetery in winter. Both suggest loss and departure, yet the images are strikingly different, and each, on its own, is incomplete. Together, the two images painted a fuller portrait of human experience than that conveyed by a single perspective.

The images moved me deeply, as did the use of medium to convey the “both/and” quality of much of human experience. Good art points beyond itself, and in this case, the medium did as well.

As I sat with these images, the recto and verso quality of monastic life came readily to mind. It’s easy to connect it with the monastic virtue of balance, but it is far more than that. The balance for which we strive – solitude and community, silence and speech, work and prayer – is merely a practice in service to a larger whole. It is a technique, or medium, like the use of recto and verso, front and back, both/and, to portray a broader and complementary perspective.

Just as a single perspective cannot convey the fullness of human experience, a singular mode of religious practice cannot express or contain the whole of our desire for God, and of God’s desire for us. Silence and speech both suggest communion with God, yet – as with the painting – the two are strikingly different, and each, on its own, is incomplete. They are complementary aspects of a singular whole, and together they offer a fuller and deeper entry into communion.

Sitting with these paintings reminded me that the balance that we seek in monastic life is not simply about monastic practice, or ‘technique.’ The balance, the both/and, the recto and verso, are about entering into the fullness of God.

Postscript: For anyone unfamiliar with the terms, recto and verso are printing terms that refer to the front and back sides of a printed page or manuscript.