Rest As a Kind of Prayer

It’s getting to be cabin fever time after a long stretch of cold, windy, snowy weather. When every particle of our body longs for spring, it takes discipline to honor the lessons and gifts of winter. As Christine Valters Paintner says in her poem How to Pray:

Remind your body how it says yes
to blossom, fruit, release, and rest,
each its own kind of prayer.

Spring, summer, and autumn are active seasons of planting, growing, and harvesting. Winter, on the other hand, calls us to contemplation, rest, and quietude. It invites us to the prayer of incubation — that fallowness required for seeds and dreams to germinate and grow.

Most of us feel something is amiss if we are not busy. We judge the quality of our life by how much we accomplish. We feel guilty if we take naps, daydream, or read a novel. The only time we slow down is when illness forces us to do so. And yet, given a fair chance, our body, mind and spirit say “yes” to fewer hours of daylight, to rest, to silence.

In the busyness of spring, which is right around the corner, we likely will long for a little bit of time to ourselves. Why not savor it now, when winter offers it to us with snowy breath, whistling winds, and the promise of long, dark nights?

Falling More In Love

As we get older, it’s easy to settle into fixed ideas of who God is, how the world works, and how our loved ones should relate to us. With our many years of life experience, we know what to expect, right?

Benedictines are called to a different perspective. As Christine Valters Paintner says, “St. Benedict described conversion as a practice of lifelong transformation. We are never done falling more in love with God, with the world, and with one another. As long as we are alive, there is always more love to pour out.”

What if today God were to surprise you with an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong desire, or you suddenly become aware of Jesus’ compassionate presence as you deeply grieve the death of a friend? Wouldn’t that give you new reasons to fall more in love with God?

What if today you read a story of a herd of elephants that traveled 12 hours to reach the home of a former caretaker who had died, in order to pay their respects? Wouldn’t that lead you to fall more in love with the marvels of our world?

What if today a friend accompanied you to a doctor’s appointment so you wouldn’t be alone when you received important test results? Wouldn’t that lead you to fall more in love with him or her?

Today our world is greatly in need of people who are willing pour out love to those who are wounded, scapegoated, or disregarded. May our practice of conversion lead us to be in their number because we have learned that the well of love available to us is inexhaustible.

Love Made New

Moses once said to the Israelites, “I place before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

In choosing to do the things that foster life for ourselves and others, such as sharing our abundant resources with the poor and living in a spirit of gratitude, forgiveness, and mercy, we are listening to and embracing God.

Consider Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. The father in the story (who is a stand-in for God) could have been bitter when his younger son (representing each of us) took his precious inheritance and squandered it in dissolute living. Yet every day, the father chose to keep watch for his son so he could embrace him if he returned.

Every day, God makes the choice to love us, even when we act selfishly out of greed, pride, and fear. Every day, God forgives us and offers us mercy. And God calls us to do the same (“Love one another as I have loved you”).

Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.” Every day, we are refreshed by the Bread of Life who chooses over and over again to love us. Every day, out of gratitude and obedience, may we extend that same love and mercy to others.

Nothing Can Stump God

In Advent, Jesus is compared to “a shoot that will come up from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1). Generally when we come across a tree stump, it appears gray, inert, and lifeless. However, after a tree is cut down, some species can resprout from the roots or from the stump itself. If the sprout produces enough leaves, it can eventually grow into a full tree. According to the American Climbers website, many trees have this ability to resprout as a way to regenerate after forest fires.

This image of a stump sending forth a shoot is a reminder that we should never doubt God’s ability to generate new life in us and for us. The Psalms include many passages in which the author pleads for God to act now. We are impatient with God’s timing, but the period of waiting has an important function as new life is nurtured in the darkness. The stump that appears to be dead is harboring new life.

When we are “stumped” by losses, grief, or disappointment, it’s difficult to believe that new growth can occur within us. However, as the poet Jessica Powers observed:

“Yet who am I to minimize the worth

of what a stump is likely to bring forth?”

Advent: Yesterday, Today, and Forever

It might seem as though the season of Advent is unchanging year after year. After all, we erect the same Advent wreath; recite the same prayers about longing for God’s presence; sing the same songs inviting Emmanuel to come; and struggle to protect a small space of silence in the midst of relentless pre-Christmas preparations and holiday gatherings.

A closer examination of this liturgical season reveals that Advent is indeed different every year because we are different every year. It’s likely that some of the people we journeyed with last Advent are no longer with us, and their absence has left a mark on us. It may be that we are dealing with Infirmities we didn’t have last year — a bum knee, a dimming of vision, a worrisome test result — that gives new meaning to the passage from Isaiah about the lame leaping like a deer and the eyes of the blind being opened. Perhaps the birth of a baby within our extended family in the past year has given new meaning to the humility and vulnerability of Christ who came into our world as an infant.

We will always need Advent, because the ways we are called to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ are different from year to year. Whether we are singing with joy and thanksgiving or trying to see light in a dark season of our lives, Advent calls us to be attentive, to trust in a loving God who wants to be present to us, to be patient as we await the fullness of God’s kingdom to become manifest.

Whatever Advent holds for you this year, may you find a blessing in it.

In Your Light We See Light

When we gather for Morning Prayer on these late November days at the Mount, the stained glass windows in our Choir Chapel are shrouded in darkness. As I watch in the silence between the chanting of psalms, the outline of an angel’s wing begins to  emerge … and then St. Benedict’s bald pate begins to glow as he stands beneath the stars and a crescent moon … and then the steps of humility begin their ascent as they pick up the morning light. By the end of prayer, all the familiar colors and images of the windows have been revealed. 

As Thanksgiving approaches, it occurs to me that our blessings are sometimes hidden in murkiness, much like the stained glass images before the coming of dawn. Anxiety, fear, and sadness can obscure the way God is working in our life. Many of the symbols in our Choir Chapel windows provide keys to unlock an awareness of our blessings. For example:

• New branches emerging from a tree stump remind us that God is always clearing the way for new growth in our life

• Hands that are releasing a shower of grapes remind us to be grateful for the food and drink on our table

• A chalice and host remind us that we are nourished and strengthened through the gift of the Eucharist

• A small red devil poking St. Benedict with its pitchfork as he kneels in prayer reminds us that trust in God helps us overcome the things that bedevil us

• An angel with its finger on its lips reminds us to tune out the noise that keeps us from hearing God’s voice

My prayer for you this Thanksgiving is that your blessings come into focus in the midst of any challenges you may be experiencing. Let us say to God with the writer of Psalm 36: “We feast on the riches of your house; you give us drink from the stream of your delight. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light” (Ps 36: 9-10).

That's Our Job

I got a haircut on November 5, and when I mentioned I was anxious about the outcome of the election, my hairdresser said, “Well, one thing’s for sure; half of the country is going to be unhappy.”

Unfortunately, I landed on the unhappy side of the divide.

I won’t go into the many reasons why I am heartsick. Suffice it to say, I fear what the results of the 2024 election will mean for those who are poor, sick, or elderly, as well as for immigrants and the environment — for all the vulnerable.

After the 2004 election, when the writer Toni Morrison was describing to a friend her depression and inability to work on a new novel, he interrupted, shouting: “No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work — not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!”

The same thing could be said of those who are disciples of Jesus: This is precisely the time when Christians must go to work to feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the ill, and visit prisoners — not when everything is fine, but in times of suffering. That’s our job!

Many people say that in difficult times, we must trust in God. Sr. Mary Lou Kownacki has an interesting take on that: “As for trusting in God, I think it’s the reverse. I believe God is trusting in us. God is trusting that in giving us the gift of life, we will bear good fruit. That we who claim to be on a spiritual path will accept our responsibility to co-create the kind of world that God envisioned. It’s up to us, each one of us, to be faithful to God’s trust and do everything in our power to bring in the day when ‘justice and mercy embrace.’ The purpose of prayer, Saint Teresa of Avila told her sisters, ‘is good works, good works, good works.’ And I believe her.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Adrienne Johnson Martin added, “It is the weight of the work that helps it bend.”

The Talmud advises, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” Nor are we obligated to work alone. The weight of our work, when combined with that of others who stand beside us, will help bend our world toward justice. And the community we build in doing that work will be a liberating force for all of us, on whichever side of the divide we find ourselves.