Thanking Our Teachers from 2018

As 2018 closes, it feels appropriate to honor it by reflecting on our experiences during the year, for they were our teachers, and teachers always deserve thanks (even—or especially—the hard ones!). Consider taking some time on in the next few days to make a list of all that especially had an impact on you in 2018—people or places you encountered, situations or challenges you experienced, projects you worked on, insights you had. Are you surprised at anything that occurred in 2018? What did you learn about yourself or about God, and how will that change the way you approach the new year?

One thoughtful approach to the new year is to start a journal or consider new ways of journaling if you already engage in this spiritual practice. Keeping a journal doesn’t have to be daunting … jotting a few images or thoughts is just as useful as writing several pages every day! I answer several questions in my journal each night as a form of examen:

• How did I encounter Christ today?

• What was I most grateful for?

• What was I least grateful for?

• What did I learn by listening?

• What habit patterns did I notice?

• What delighted me?

I’ve known other people who write a haiku at the end of the day about whatever comes to mind. Any approach you take will be a guide to reflecting on your spiritual path, especially at the end of the year.

May the Holy Spirit guide your reflections and your path in the coming year!

God's Life in Miniature

We have many creche sets at the Mount—panoramic, traditional, folksy, minimalist—but the one that particularly caught my eye this year is a miniature set that graces the window sill on the landing of the north staircase between the first and second floor of the monastery.

The incarnation has profound meaning for us—much more than we can comprehend. Think about how it must have been for Mary, who conceived and gave birth to this child who, she was told, would be called Son of the Most High and would rule over the house of Jacob forever. How was she to raise such a child? Well, first things first: swaddle him, feed him, and change his diaper.

In doing the little things, the things that are in front of us today and need to be done, we not only observe the incarnation but participate in it. In this way, the meaning we cannot comprehend with our minds works its way into our hearts and our bones as we tend to the body of Christ in the people we encounter each day.

Yes, God’s coming in the person of Jesus is awe inspiring. But the littlest creche sets remind us that God comes to us in smallness too, helping us grow in awareness of God with us through the humblest moments of our lives.  

O Emmanuel

I wrote this poem for December 23, the day we pray the final O Antiphon: "O Enmmanuel, our King, hope of the nations and Savior of all peoples: come to deliver us, Lord, do not delay; come, Lord, come to save us." It seems like an appropriate poem for Christmas Eve as well. Blessings!

         O Emmanuel

          O Emmanuel

          Living icon of God among us

          Mewling infant,

               feeding at the breast

          Learning early

               the rootlessness of a refugee

                      and the rootedness

                  of trust in Yahweh

  

                   

                    Exhibiting teenage impatience

                      with parents who honestly

                              just don’t get

                        who you really are

     

                    Earning your daily bread

                         as a laborer

                      and feeding at night

                            on your love

                                of the word

                    Showing us the image

                    of a God who breathes,

                       learns, teaches,

                          smiles, heals,

                    suffers

                    And whose love

                       death cannot contain

                    O Emmanuel

                        teach us how to write

                            our own icon of God

                        using the stuff of our lives

                    and our deepest imaginings    

                    Remind us in all our unfoldings

                       You are here

                            You are with us

                                We are one

Delighting in the Winter Solstice

Today is the winter solstice, when in North America we experience the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Ironically, on this day that is often associated with darkness and gloom, Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Fr. Edward Hays includes this prayer: “May I be awake to life as a gift from you that is intended to be enjoyed and experienced with delight.”

Cultivating delight is a spiritual practice. Even during Advent and the Christmas season, typically a time of good cheer, we can be more Scrooge-like than joyful. Christmas lights? Too garish! The smell of a pine tree? Too overbearing! Holiday music? Too repetitive! The taste of Christmas cookies? Too much cinnamon! All these things are intended to be enjoyed and experienced with delight, yet we are immune to their charm because our preoccupation with our own preferences leads us to sleepwalk through life.

Fr. Ed includes a clue in his prayer about how to cultivate delight: being awake, even on the longest night of the year. Delight surrounds us when we pause and open our eyes to look deeply at the world around us. Today’s O Antiphon is an appropriate prayer to remind us to look for (de)light on this solstice day:

O Radiant Dawn,

splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:

come and shine on those who dwell

in darkness and in the shadow of death.

God's Timing

God’s timing is often inscrutable. When God surprises us with a twist in our life’s journey, instead of responding with an enthusiastic “Yes!” we often instead murmur “How can this be possible?” or “Why now?”

The bible is full of stories of people like us who doubted the timing of God’s requests and actions. We heard one such story at mass today: Zechariah, who received a message from no less a being than the Angel Gabriel that his wife Elizabeth would conceive and bear a son, was skeptical that such miracle could be wrought. Zechariah had relinquished hope for a son long ago, and he had written a new script for himself and his wife in which they died childless. His mind was so clouded by his own assumptions that he couldn’t fathom the good news when it was proclaimed to him. If God really wanted him to have a son, why didn’t it happen at the usual time, when his wife was in her late teens or early twenties?

It is not surprising that Zechariah was struck mute until the time his son was born—he needed to stop being preoccupied with and expressing his own thoughts so he would have the quiet time necessary to listen and assent to God’s plans and dreams.

As Fr. Duane Roy noted at mass today, “Zechariah teaches us that we have to have hope and speak out our yes.” Even—or especially—when God’s timing leaves us scratching our heads!

A Breathtaking Advent

The last week before Christmas is always a flurry of decorating, baking, writing cards, and attending holiday events or gatherings. As always, God provides a way for us to take a breath and get centered, as described by the writer of Psalm 8:

When I see the heavens, 

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars 

which you arranged,

what are human beings 

that you keep them in mind,

mortal creatures 

that you care for them?

When we take a moment in this season of Advent to look outside as the sun is rising, we see the graciousness of first light highlighting the simple beauty of bare tree branches. When we look up at the night sky, we can catch a glimpse of the green fuzzy “Christmas comet” streaking across the heavens. Given the majesty of creation, it is a wonder why God keeps us in mind and cares for us—and yet, each year we are reminded of God’s great love in the coming of Emmanuel, God with us.

The rituals we have developed to celebrate the birth of Jesus are wonderful expressions of our creativity. Let’s also take time to honor the handiwork of God by looking at the marvels of creation in which we are immersed and offering our heartfelt awe and gratitude.

Celestial Guideposts

The other night a cresent moon shone with simplicity and clarity. It reminded me of a person who said he prays with the phases of the moon; when it is waning, he prays about what he needs to let go of, and when it’s waxing, he prays about what he needs to welcome. Jesus spoke about seeing signs in the sun, moon, and stars; here is a poem I wrote that contemplates that possibility.

Guideposts

¦ º ‚ ô ð ù ç Z ó ƒ » m

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars….

           —Luke 21:25

                                               Exploding into life

                                                         then constantly emitting light

                                        if you are a star

                                                          and reflecting light

                             if you are a moon

Consisting of the same elements as everything else in the heavens

but expressing them differently

                                                      and not once wishing

               it were otherwise

Providing navigation for humans

    concerned about finding their way

simply by being who you are,

where you are

                                                   Offering the gift of contemplation

                                                   for those who wonder

at your serenity

in the silent

vastness of space

Accepting death as a conduit

                                                           to the birth of new being

          via spontaneous combustion

                                                            or

                                                                fragmentation

                                                             from

                                                      repeated

                                                              concussion

                                             We who are confounded

                                                       need only look up

                                                  to find an eternal celestial guide

                                                       into fullness of being

—Jennifer Halling, OSB

The Advent Call to Poverty of Spirit

In his book The Violence of Love, St. Oscar Romero observes that “Mary appears in the Bible as the expression of poverty, of humility, of one who needs everything from God.” Perhaps because artists often depict Mary in queenly robes, it’s never really sunk in for me that Mary was part of the peasant class, which makes her “Yes” to God’s request even more remarkable. Marriage was really the only way for her to survive given her culture and her economic status, yet she put her impending marriage to Joseph at risk by agreeing to conceive and bear God’s son before she was wed. She was very aware that she needed everything from God, and because of her trust, everything came to her, including God’s very self, Emmanuel.

All of us, of course, need everything from God, but our material possessions mask that fact. It’s no wonder Jesus insisted that we give up our possessions to follow him, because poverty unveils our latent hunger for God and our need for each other, which leads us to the very God we crave. Mary needed a man who trusted God and was willing to step into the mystery of God’s ways with her. Without Joseph’s compassion, the birth of Jesus could not have been accomplished. Together, Mary and Joseph give us a model for cultivating the poverty of spirit that allows Christ to come to us and to our hungry world.

Partners With the Gospel

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul gives thanks for the members of this community “because of your partnership for the gospel.” More than being partners for the gospel, however, I believe we are called to be partners with the gospel.

What does it mean to be in partnership with the gospel? It means letting the good news permeate our lives and then responding to it as we find ourselves this day. I am at present a 56-year-old female Benedictine writer living in a monastery in northeastern Kansas in the United States. How I respond to John the Baptist’s call to make ready the way of the Lord will be very different from the response of a 25-year-old subsistence farmer with a wife and two children who lives in Honduras and is desperate to escape his corrupt and violent country. Although our circumstances are very different, God needs us both to listen and act out of trust and compassion. Because we are all connected in the body of Christ, our attempts to live according to God’s word will nurture each other, regardless of how different our lives appear.

We are fortunate to be in partnership with a gospel that consoles, inspires, and challenges us. When we commit to this partnership, one thing is certain: life will never be boring. As Advent reminds us, it’s time to awaken from sleep and follow the example of St. Augustine, who heard the call to “take up and read.” When we do so, the gospel will point us in the right direction.

A Startling Advent

Barbara Crooker wrote a poem that begins “Sometimes, I am startled out of myself.” Generally we are such prisoners of our own thoughts and perspectives that to be startled out of ourselves is a real and marvelous awakening. Perhaps, then, during Advent—that time when we seek to become awake—we should allow ourselves to be startled with increasing frequency!

The doorway to startledom is wonder, which is always available to us because God’s wonders are endless. As the writer of psalm 40 proclaimed:

How many are the wonders and designs

that you have worked for us, O Lord my God;

you have no equal.

Should I wish to proclaim or speak of them,

they would be more than I can tell!

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats noted, “The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” Magical things, startling things, await us when we slow down enough to observe and explore the creativity of our natural world. Just learning about the marvels of trees, or insects, or galaxies, would take a lifetime and provide endless opportunities to be startled and thus awakened.

It seems appropriate that the word “startled” begins with “star,” for when something surprises us, we often are enlightened. Ironically, in the Northern hemisphere we experience longer periods of darkness during Advent as we approach the winter solstice. However, it is in darkness that the light of far-away stars is most visible to us. Thus, this Advent, may we pray: Come, O God whose light becomes manifest in the darkness—startle us into awakening to your wonders!

The Soul of Genius

Along with an array of incredible music, the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart passed on to us the following bit of wisdom: “Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” It makes me wonder: Who are geniuses in love, and what can we learn from them?

Jesus is the ultimate phenom when it comes to love, but other people have been exceptional lovers too: Mother Teresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela especially come to mind. What these geniuses in love all share is the willingness to risk. Mother Teresa risked expulsion from her order when she disobeyed orders from her superiors to teach and instead pursued her calling to serve the poor. Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela risked their lives in their efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. Jesus risked and lost his life as a result of his faithfulness to his call to relay God’s love to the world.

Sr. Megan McKenna has said, “There is no Eucharist without risk.” We cannot be part of the Body of Christ without taking the risks that love requires. Although our risk may not bear fruit in our own lifetime, the soul of genius—love—ultimately will not be denied, because the God of love is always with us. Let us continue in our efforts to become more fearless lovers so that one day, after we die, others may say, “When it comes to love, she (he) had the soul of a genius!”

A Clear Cut Need for Urgency

The Hebrew scriptures are filled with words of longing for the Messiah to arrive, as in Psalm 130: “More than sentries for dawn, I watch for the Lord.” But what about those of us who believe the anointed one has already arrived? Jesus came, discerned that his mission was to proclaim God’s love for us, died on the cross because of his faithfulness to this mission, was resurrected, and promised to be with us always, until the end of time. If Christ is with us always, why should we have a sense of urgency?

As it turns out, although Christ is always coming to us, many people are not attuned to or conscious of that presence in our world, and they are using their free will to destroy the very gift that sustains us, the earth. I am currently reading a book called The Overstory that describes how God uses trees to enable life (including human life) to exist, and yet humans are clear cutting forests at a rapid rate. Our use of carbon for fuel is warming the earth, throwing our ecosystems out of balance. We are using water and other resources at a rate that is unsustainable. Yes, Christ is present, but if we don’t respond in kind with love and accountability for all beings, including plants, animals, and water creatures, we will perish nonetheless. That is the urgency of our times.

We who recognize Christ in our midst must now move beyond watching to do what the prophet Micah suggested so long ago: act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. The future of earth and all its marvelous beings depends on it.