Trying New Things

Because God makes all things new (Revelation 21:5), it stands to reason that we should find room for the new in our lives as well. Here are a few of the things I did for the first time in 2019:

• Gave a talk on journaling at a conference (the Novice and Director Institute)

• Became director of the Atchison oblate group

• Read the noon prayer and introduced guests in the dining room

• Helped hang the Christmas wreath over the choir stall railing in the choir chapel (without hyperventilating)

• Made pumpkin gingersnap cookies (which weren’t good enough to make the cut for next year)

• Proclaimed the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah at the Christmas Eve mass (“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light….”)

I don’t presume to know why God chooses to make all things new. However, doing new things is a good practice for humans because it helps keep our brain healthy as we age, allows us to develop courage, forces beneficial change, teaches us humility, and opens our heart to gratitude.

May we all cooperate with God’s work in making things new in the coming year!

Perseverance in the Work of Christmas

The Rule of St. Benedict states that candidates are to be admitted to the novitiate only if they promise perseverance in their stability, and the counsel of patience is found throughout the Rule. However, it is not only monastics who understand the power of perseverance.

Consider the achievements of French chemist and bacteriologist Louis Pasteur, who has saved countless lives through his discoveries that most infectious diseases are caused by germs and that weakened forms of a germ or microbe can be used as a vaccine to immunize against more virulent forms of the microbe. Pasteur freely shared the key to his success when he said, “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

As we stand on the cusp of a new year, let us make a commitment to practice perseverance, especially in our efforts to do the work of Christmas, as identified by Howard Thurman: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, and to make music in the heart.

The Messiah We Need

As we grow in age and wisdom, we can be grateful for the times we did not get what we prayed for: the job that would have consumed us, the relationship that would have scarred us, the fame that would have swelled our pride. Similarly, at Christmas, we can be grateful that God did not send humanity the type of messiah we had longed for—a military warrior who would destroy our enemies and bestow power, glory, and wealth on the downtrodden.

God did not send us the messiah we wanted but the one we needed: a man anointed to teach us that the height of being human requires humility, whole-hearted love of God, reverence for all life, gratitude, and forgiveness of ourselves and others as we walk our earthly path together.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of this very human messiah. After Christmas, our challenge is to remember and honor God’s words that echo through the ages: “This is my beloved son. Listen to him.”

How We Confer Blessing on Others

In the gospels, Elizabeth is mainly identified as the improbable mother of John the Baptist. Apart from the miraculous conception of her famous son, however, she has much to teach us about how to be true to who we are in a world that often bullies people with limitations or differences.

Elizabeth was childless, and in her culture, that condition was believed to be a punishment from God. Thus, in the midst of her own grief about her inability to conceive, Elizabeth had to deal with the humiliation of being judged and shunned by her community. As Diana Guédry Gaillardetz notes, “In a culture that condemned her and saw her life as meaningless, Elizabeth could have recoiled into silence or lashed out in bitterness. Instead, she remained faithful…[and] chose to spend her days drawing near to God, focusing on what she could do with her life.”

People who are bullied often are desperate to overcome what makes them different. If only they knew that God’s life flows when we are true to our essence, even when that has been shaped by virginity (Mary of Nazareth), infertility and old age (Sarah/Hannah/Elizabeth), short stature (Zaccheus), and so on. It is by being who we are that we are able to confer blessings on others. And because it is in God that we live and move and have our being, who we are is just fine.

Seeking Silence

Last Sunday we received 6 inches of snow, and when Sr. Barbara Smith returned from a sledding excursion, she marveled, “It’s so quiet out there!” This quietude wasn’t in her imagination; fresh snow absorbs sound, because the trapped air between snowflakes weakens sound waves.

Unless we live in a snow globe, we can’t rely on fresh snowfalls to quiet our world. However, we all have access to volume control buttons that allow us to mute or turn off our televisions, stereos, and computers. Most of us have access to a bedroom or study where we can close the door to outside distractions. Even the smallest town has a park, cemetery, church, or library where we can find blessed silence and solitude.

One of the joys of Advent and Christmas is beautiful music, but we must make space for the silence out of which music is born. Similarly, if we truly wish to listen and incline the ear of our hearts, we must place ourselves in the silence out of which God’s quiet voice will issue.

Creating a Contemplative Advent

Advent is intended to be a meditative season. However, many of us end up rushing through the weeks before Christmas to accomplish all the items on our to-do list and end up feeling more frazzled than centered.

Instead of feeling guilty about not creating more time for prayer during Advent, we can instead take the approach of doing our tasks in a contemplative spirit. For example, I have learned from experience that when I attempt to multitask while baking cookies, something will get burned or I’ll forget whether I added salt or baking soda to the dough. On Saturday, I decided to follow the advice of Sr. Imogene Baker: “Be where you are and do what you are doing.” Baking ended up being a surprisingly meditative and calming experience as I focused on each step in turn. As a bonus, the cookies turned out great.

We can put ourselves in a contemplative state of mind by focusing on our breath as we inhale and exhale, playing some meditative music, or silently reciting a repetitive prayer as we work. Mainly, however, we can remember that how we live out Advent is our choice: in a frenzy of activity or with a prayerful, calm spirit.

Peeling Back Scabs of Cynicism

In his book Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim, Fr. Ed Hays talks about asking God to “…peel back the scabs of cynicism from my eyes so I might see your holiness ablaze at the tip of every branch and alive in every autumn leaf.”

To be cynical is to be distrustful of human nature and motives. Because we witness so much greed and corruption in the world, it is easy to succumb to cynicism. However, Advent calls us to reject cynicism as we anticipate our annual celebration of the birth of God made flesh.

God affirmed the human capability for goodness by choosing to dwell among us in human form. Yes, many people who have made gods of wealth, power, and fame behave despicably. Yet many more people reflect God’s goodness in their basic decency, love of family and friends, care for others and the earth, and instinct for kindness. Let us seek them out and together celebrate God’s love.

This Advent, don’t let the cataract of cynicism prevent you from seeing the holiness that is ablaze throughout the universe!

Encountering Delight

Keeping a gratitude journal is a common spiritual practice, but how many people keep a journal of delights? The poet Ross Gay decided to undertake a yearlong experiment in learning to notice by writing about a particular delight he encountered each day. This experiment resulted in the publication of The Book of Delights.

Delight, which comes from the Latin word delectare, “to allure,” shines light on the things that lead us to gratitude. Unfortunately, in our fast-paced world, allurement has dimmed because we seem to have lost the ability to slow down and take time to see dust motes dancing in sunbeams, the remarkable color of homemade plum jelly, or the texture of tree bark standing in relief against a gray winter sky.

Psalm 149:4 tells us that God delights in his people, which means that God takes the time to see and know the beauty and goodness within us.

This Advent, will we allow ourselves to be allured by silence, prayer, and anticipation so we can delight in the presence of Christ in our world and welcome Emmanuel with grateful hearts?

The Call to a Numinous Reality

Both John the Baptist and his cousin, Jesus, preached about the need for repentance. However, whereas John was motivated by the desire to help us escape God’s imagined wrath and vengeance, Jesus wanted to help us reestablish a relationship with a loving God who waits for us when we drift away.

John and Jesus had a different understanding of God. Jesus had numinous vision—that is, he was filled with a sense of the presence of divinity. It wasn’t so much that Jesus brought the kingdom of God to us; Christ (and thus the kingdom of God) had existed for all time. What Jesus did was open our eyes to God who was already present among us. Our response to that presence is awe, profound gratitude, and the desire to serve those in need of healing. In this way, we become participants in the revelation and unfolding of God’s kingdom.

As persons who live in community, we attempt to help each other maintain this numinous vision. When Emily Bauer entered the novitiate on December 7, Sr. Esther Fangman offered the following thoughts:

One might say that we as a Benedictine community try to live an embodiment of the divinity already present among us. We try to become a place where the mysterious presence of the divinity can be found by how we live. We do fall short—yet this is what we want to be. And Emily, we are asking you to live here in this numinous reality with us. Be influenced, be changed, be vulnerable, and we will work each day to do the same so that God may be found. 

Yes, we are called to repent—not because we are sinners in the hands of an angry God but because our preoccupation with our own desires keeps us from seeing God who is always with us and responding to the love that God forever offers us.

The Beginning and End of Every Path We Take

For the past six months, the Mount has been blessed with the companionship and assistance of live-in volunteers Marty and Tami Rymarz. Marty and Tami’s story illustrates what happens when we listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Their study of the Rule of St. Benedict as oblates of St. Benedict Monastery in Oxford, Michigan, led them to discern that their lifestyle (which included demanding jobs and upkeep of a large house that left them little time to devote to their faith and family) didn’t match their values. Therefore, in May 2018 Marty took early retirement from his job as an engineer at GM and they bought an RV and trailer, sold their house, and gave away most of their possessions. They spent a year traveling and then were drawn to share in the prayer, community, and work of the Mount.

Yesterday we blessed Marty as he departed for a short-term consulting job in St. Charles, Mo. I was struck by the first line of the blessing: “Gracious God, you are the beginning and end of every path we take.” We often are aware of God’s presence as we begin a new path, but sometimes we feel alone when we come to the end of our current path and experience the sadness of completing a chapter of our life. It is comforting to think that God is present at those times of transition as well and is patient with us as we prepare for the new life that always awaits those who are in relationship with the One in whom we live and move and have our being.

Whether we are at the beginning, middle, or end of our current path, gratitude for blessings received and for the companionship of our loving God will always be our sure guide.

An Advent Fast

In our society, the weeks before Christmas seem to be associated more with feasting than with fasting. However, if we consider Advent to be a time to make space for a fuller expression of God in our lives, then fasting is an important tool we shouldn’t overlook. Consider these words by Mary C. Earle in her book The Desert Mothers:

When we fast (whether that be from food or noise or busyness or buying too much), our fast is not only for our own health and deepening love: it is offered for the life of the world. When we fast from mean-spirited conversation and from the need to always be in control and think ourselves to be right, we are allowing open space in which God’s healing silence can bring forth something new, if we give it time and care.

If, as I’ve heard it said, God dwells in the space between two people, then fasting from criticism and gossip creates that space between me and my sister where God can dwell. Mary of Nazareth most certainly practiced fasting from the desire to be in control and from doubt and fear, for her “yes” to the angel Gabriel created the space for the Spirit to dwell in her womb between her own being and that of her son, Jesus.

What newness will God bring forth in your life this Advent if you give fasting the time and care required to create open space within you?

An Advent Call to Spaciousness

People who are feeling discontented or vaguely depressed are often counseled to do some volunteer work. Helping others seems to lift us above our own limited perspective and makes us more aware of our own blessings.

Advent performs this function for Christians. During Advent we are called to make space for God in our hearts, which entails clearing away our preoccupations and often petty concerns. Advent points away from us to God, and what a relief it is to focus on something other than our worries, judgments, and pursuit of self-gratification! When we stay focused on God rather than ourselves, we are better able to see the many blessings that have been ours all along.

Mahri Leonard-Fleckman notes that in Isaiah 11:2, “fear of the Lord” connotes deep reverence, awe, and respect “and is the king’s ultimate ‘delight,’ a word that translates literally as ‘wideness’ or ‘spaciousness.’” Advent invites awe of Christ, who became flesh out of love for us. That awe leads to a spaciousness in our understanding of our purpose, our giftedness, and the way we are called to interact with others.

As you clear a space for God this Advent—whether that entails doing a service project, giving alms, making a retreat, or lighting candles in prayer—may you experience the reverence that leads to delight, gratitude, and a spaciousness of spirit.

Meeting God Where We Are

As Advent approaches, let’s consider this observation by Sr. Melannie Svoboda: “Advent tells us Jesus is coming, yes, but paradoxically, it also says Jesus is already in our midst! We just need to know how to look for him.”

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the message we learned in childhood that Christ only comes to us when we are engaged activities universally acknowledged as holy, such as being baptized or receiving Holy Communion. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, offers a different viewpoint in his poem In the Kitchen, about the visitation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary. As McDonnell pictures it, when the angel appears and Mary is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, she is not at her prayers but is in the process of wiping up some water she had just spilled.

God, who has full understanding of our messy human lives, doesn’t wait for a few pristine moments to come to us; God meets us where we are, in the midst of our daily activities. Therefore, if you don’t think you have a prayer of getting any housework done in the weeks leading up to Christmas, perhaps it’s time to reconsider. When you look with the eyes of Advent, you might, like Mary, encounter God while doing the laundry or loading the dishwasher!

Grounding Ourselves with Music

Monday night, after a long week filled with activity, I just wanted to sit and listen to something beautiful. Fortunately, the Benedictine College Chamber Singers and Kansas University Bales Chorale were performing a program of sacred music at the Abbey church in Atchison. Given the current ugly political climate in the U.S., it was soul stirring to be reminded that humans can create such beauty just with the sound of their voices and heartening to realize that many students choose to spend their time doing just that. Those of us who attended the concert became a community through our common experience of quieting ourselves and listening to this remarkable music.

Many people are concerned about how to navigate family gatherings in the coming holiday season because of fervent and differing political views. Music reminds us that there is something we can enjoy together, whether we invite the musicians among us to give us a song, groove to some old favorites while cooking, or ease tensions by playing light and calming background music during a holiday meal. Music takes the focus off our separate selves and bonds us with the others who are listening with us.

Furthermore, meditative music can help us stay centered during the Advent season, when much of the world around us is already engaged in a frantic schedule of Christmas celebrations. Gentle songs such as “My Soul in Stillness Waits,” Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella,” “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming,” and “Maranatha” can resound in us throughout the day like a mantra. I’ll pardon your humming if you pardon mine.

If you’re feeling like you don’t have a prayer of getting through the coming holiday season, take time to ground yourself with music. After all, those who sing pray twice!

God's Handwriting

Last week in the prison, I led a discussion focused on Christ the King, in anticipation of the approaching solemnity. As we contemplated the nature of God’s kingdom, I asked the following question: “Jesus said, ‘Behold, the kingdom of God is among you’ (Lk 17:21). How do we know God’s kingdom is among us?” I expected to hear responses such as the presence of justice or peace but was surprised by the very first response of one of the inmates: “Beauty.”

Many of us fail to appreciate God’s presence in the beauty of nature, art, music, and our loved ones because we are surrounded by such beauty all the time. Prisoners, on the other hand, live in a bleak, sterile environment and are separated from their families, which gives them a keen appreciation of any bits of beauty that come their way, such as a few flowers that bloom in the spring, the appearance of a stray cat, and unexpected acts of kindness. The handful of inmates who earn the opportunity to participate in an art class create remarkable drawings, which is not at all surprising, because the hunger for beauty that represents God’s spirit welling in us and among us cannot be contained.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.” And as the inmates reminded me, the message of God’s handwriting is that the kingdom of God is among us.

Pneumatophores of God's Spirit

I learned a new word this week in my class on the desert mothers: pneumatophore. Plants that dwell in waterlogged or tightly compacted soil and thus are oxygen deprived develop pneumatophores, that is, specialized “breathing roots” that rise above the water or soil so the plant can literally breathe.

What does that have to do with the desert mothers? When worldly cares and concerns threaten to choke the breath of God out of us, wisdom figures rise above all that crushes the spirit, enabling them to take in God’s love and breathe it into the rest of us until we, too, can rise up to become pneumatophores for others.

The desert mothers and other wisdom figures use humility, simplicity, silence, solitude, and prayer to rise above the greed, pride, ambition, and selfishness that cuts us off from the breath of God. When we are feeling breathless because our false self is sucking God’s spirit out of us, let us turn to the wise women and men who can enspirit us, whether they lived in the deserts of Egypt in the fourth century or are in our very midst today. With their help, we too can rise above all that leaves us gasping for inspiration and become pneumatophores of God’s indwelling spirit.

God of the Future

We are approaching the end of the church year, which will culminate with the Feast of Christ the King on Sunday, and our Scripture readings at mass are relaying grim stories of persecution and torture, visions of beasts and devastation of the earth, and stern warnings to be ready when the master returns. What are we called to do in the face of these dire admonitions and predictions?

Today’s gospel reading (Lk 19: 11-28) gives us clear instructions: “A man called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’” In other words, use the skills and resources entrusted to you and be faithful to the work you have been asked to do. Period.

But that seems so simple. And boring, honestly. Yet what is apt to yield the most fruit: tending to the needs of others and of the earth through our work as educators, health care providers, counselors, gardeners, administrators, housekeepers, cooks, technicians, and so on, or using our imagination to reap anxiety and dread about what the future will bring?

Do we really expect the God we meet in the future to be any different from the God we experience today—the shepherd who sustains us with mercy, love, and forgiveness? Civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy said, “I don’t know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future.” The more we come to know God through our everyday encounters within the body of Christ, the more we can live our way into a joyful future through the joyful, faithful acts we perform today.

Letting Creation Shape Our Vocation

Impressionist painter Claude Monet said, “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” For him, God’s call—God’s voice—was expressed through flowers, and because he listened, we hear the echoes of God’s voice as well through the beauty of his paintings.

Psalm 19 affirms that creation itself has a voice:

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

Day pours out the word to day,

and night to night imparts knowledge.

Not a word nor a discourse whose voice is not heard;

Through all the earth their voice resounds,

and to the ends of the world, their message.

Creation is declaring the grandeur of God. Do we listen to the invitation of stars and trees, stones and water, flowers and animals, to be in awe of God’s wonders and let this invitation shape our vocation? Do we honor the messengers of God’s praise by safeguarding the habitat of the natural world and not stilling its voice through exploitation and overconsumption?

As St. Francis of Assisi reminds us, we are all called to praise God by letting our own lives speak of God’s goodness in kinship with our Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth, and Sister Bodily Death. Let us take time to listen and attend to their message.

God's Hospitality

In the commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict that was read today at morning prayer, Sr. Aquinata Boeckman used the phrase “the hospitality of our God.” The psalms often remind us that everything we have is a gift from God, but I had never before considered that reality from the perspective of God offering us hospitality.

Persons who are skilled at offering hospitality welcome us into the warmth of their home, make an effort to consider our every need, provide delicious food and drink, and spend time visiting and recreating with us. God offers us all this and more. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “True hospitality is giving the best of yourself to your guests.” God not only spreads a table before us with the marvelous fruits of creation but offers us the best of Godself by welcoming us into that space where God dwells in loving relationship with Christ and the Spirit; as Jesus said, “Where I am you will be” (Jn 14:3).

Joan Chittister has noted, “Hospitality is simply love on the loose.” Because God’s love is always on the loose, it makes sense that God is constantly offering us hospitality. Perhaps that is another meaning of the phrase “The Lord of hosts”! At any rate, it is up to us to be thoughtful guests by offering gifts and thanks to our eternal host and emulating God’s remarkable hospitality by extending it to others.

Second-Guessing God

Psalm 100 says, “Know that the Lord is God.” That instruction seems simple enough. However, do we really let God be God, or do we second-guess God’s actions and intents? This attitude emerges when we wonder things like “Why did God make mosquitoes and ticks?” These creatures are part of a balance of life that we cannot comprehend because we can’t see beyond the inconvenience and disease they cause to humans.

I recently watched a documentary called The Biggest Little Farm, about a couple who bought some land that had been ruined through harmful farming practices and sought to bring it back to life. They were insistent that every creature had a role to play in a balanced and healthy ecosystem, a belief that was tested when coyotes killed hundreds of their chickens and gophers killed many ground crops and saplings. This couple might easily have wondered why God created coyotes and gophers. However, as it turns out, gophers perform a service by aerating the soil as they burrow; it is only when there are too many of them that problems develop. After the couple trained a dog to protect the chickens, the coyotes began hunting the gophers, and balance was reestablished.

Knowing that the Lord is God requires trust that there is a method in God’s seeming madness. We are asked to step back, see that we are just one piece in the bigger picture of the universe, and believe that in God’s design everything ultimately works for the good of all.

Using Our Voice

Why is it important to praise God every day? Is this something God desires?

I don’t believe God desires anything from us except that we become loving people. Nonetheless, offering praise is important because of how it changes us. As singer Patti Page notes, “Your voice dries up if you don’t use it.” If we stop praising God, we forget that God is the source of all our blessings. We start to take the wonders of creation and divine providence for granted. We begin to believe that we must  depend on ourselves to attain what we desire, so we either become proud and arrogant or overworked and overburdened.

Offering praise and being thankful are closely linked. Chief Tecumseh wisely observed, “When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”

Lift your voice in praise and thanks today. Don’t let your voice dry up!

Practicing Zeal with Gentleness

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul says, “Do not grow slack in zeal.” St. Benedict also counsels us to foster good zeal with fervent love (Rule of St. Benedict, 72:3). So how do we go about fostering good zeal, and what is it exactly we are to be zealous about?

Psalm 112 gives us a clue, for it begins, “Blessed the one who fears [is in awe of] the Lord.” When we begin to grasp the awesome nature of God, whose creativity and capacity for love and mercy is beyond our comprehension, we are energized and want to share this good news with others. Being in relationship with God becomes a priority in our life, and as Fr. Meinrad Miller pointed out at mass today, when we prioritize God, we will in turn adopt God’s priorities. According to Psalm 112, those priorities are to be gracious, merciful, and just and give lavishly to the poor.

St. Benedict defines good zeal as the following:

• Being the first to show respect to the other

• Supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior

• Earnestly competing in obedience to one another (i.e., service)

• Placing the needs of others ahead of one’s own desires

• Loving God, whom we hold in awe; loving our directors/guides with humility; loving our companions without seeking anything in return

• Preferring nothing whatever to Christ

We may not immediately equate good zeal with mercy, justice, generosity, respect, patience, service, reverence, love, and devotion. They seem like such gentle qualities. Yet consider these words from Chapter 78 of the Tao te Ching: 

Nothing in the world

Is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
Nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;
The gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
But few can put it into practice.

May we not grow slack in zeal—or in gentleness.

Judgment as a Conduit of Grace

Judgmentalism is a tough nut to crack. I can remind myself daily that, as St. Benedict says, we are to welcome others as Christ; I can affirm that God’s image is present in all people; I can humbly acknowledge that judgment is God’s job, not mine. Then, minutes later, I may find myself criticizing, say, certain government officials for greedy, oppressive, and exploitative acts—thereby engaging in unloving behavior myself even as I condemn it in others. As Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg observe in The Promise of a New Day, “Criticism is second nature to us, and it does an injustice to both giver and receiver.”

In segment 1 of the first season of the podcast “Another Name for Everything,” Fr. Richard Rohr addresses the human tendency to judge in a unique way. Basically, he suggests that being judgmental is itself a conduit of grace, for “I get to see every day how I am not loving, that I need to plug into the greater source. I myself am not capable of being nonjudgmental, so I must rely on mercy, choose grace, and surrender to love. You don’t do that unless you see nonpresence [of Christ] in yourself.”

Try as we might not to judge others, we will fail. We are human and thus imperfect. Rather than berating ourselves for our failures, we can choose to be vigilant, training ourselves to recognize when we slip into judgment and using it as an occasion to recall God’s mercy for ourselves and others, to seek to respond to the people we would judge with grace, and to surrender to God’s inexplicable love for all humanity despite our imperfections.

As with so much of life, it comes down to the humility of knowing and accepting that God is God and I am not. Scripture often reminds us of this, as when Paul says to the Romans, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are God’s judgments, and how unsearchable God’s ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?” (Rom 11:32-34). Are we willing to trust God’s ways, even when they don’t make any sense to us, or will we have the hubris to substitute our judgment for that of God? We can make that choice, of course, but in doing so we do an injustice to ourselves, for we thereby cut ourselves off from participating in God’s rich and fecund life of mercy, love, and grace.

From Tragedy to New Life

Although all the saints have much to teach us, I am most in awe of those like St. Alphonsus Rodriguez (1533-1617), who became a Jesuit lay brother after the death of his wife in childbirth, followed by the death of his two children. As Robert Ellsberg remarks, “He had responded to tragedy by opening his heart to God.”

Most of us respond to tragedy by getting angry at God, asking, “Why did you let this happen?” We don’t seem to be able to grasp that suffering is not just part of the human condition, it is also part of what it means to be God. The freedom that God chose to give all creation, so that we aren’t just God’s subjects but are part of God’s life as co-creators, means that God suffers too in the face of destruction and pain. As St. Alphonsus intuited, we can seek healing and consolation from God precisely because God suffers too—but, as we know through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God is also able to transmute suffering into new life. Different life, to be sure, different from what we have known and loved, but still filled with goodness and promise.

Let us be grateful to St. Alphonsus and all the saints who have shown us that we can trust God to make all things new despite the tragedies we experience during our life on earth.

Sanctifying Time

In reference to praying the liturgy of the hours, Benedictine scholar Adalbert de Vogue has noted that “…at the heart of the monastic vocation…is to sanctify time by letting ourselves be recalled, indeed disturbed, at short and regular intervals by the service of the divine praise.”

The idea that we can “sanctify time” is new to me. However, humans regularly refer to “killing time” or “wasting time,” so it stands to reason that time also can be honored and made holy. Time itself is actually a human construct, a tool, to help us live productively and communally. We know in the back of our minds that one day we will die—so how can we make holy our span of existence here on earth?

de Vogue suggests that we make time holy when we stop at regular times during the day to offer praise to God. Prayer is certainly a tool for sanctifying time, but very few people can pray 24/7. Perhaps a different way to look at the sanctification of time is to understand, as Paula D’Arcy says, “God comes to us disguised as our very lives.” All time, all of our life, is sanctified because of our union with God through Christ; as Kathy Coffey explains, “…the Holy One holds everything.” The key to understanding the sanctification of time, then, is to increase our awareness of the One who holds everything, including us. Regular prayer is a time-honored way of increasing that awareness. Even better is developing the mindset that God is infused in all things by actively echoing God’s eternal “Yes” to everything we encounter. Then it is not just time but all life that is sanctified.

Noticing the Gentle Whisper

Brenda Ueland, who wrote a book called If You Want to Write, offers this insight: “Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.”

I believe the same can be said of God.

For most of us, God does not come like a bolt, like a a voice from the clouds, like a pillar of fire. In general, God avoids drama and instead “comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time.” This characteristic is affirmed in 1 Kings 19:11-13, when God appeared to Elijah not in a powerful wind, an earthquake, or fire but in a gentle whisper. It takes a little solitude and idleness to notice that God is even there, but prayer—when we engage in it regularly and every day—primes the flow of God’s life in us.

Life is challenging enough without added drama from God. May we be attentive to God’s voice that comes to us slowly and quietly and all the time so God doesn’t have to resort to extraordinary means to get our attention!

Seeing With an Artist's Eyes

Sister Gertrude Nagel, who died on October 18, was one of the artisans of our monastery. Sr. Gertrude blessed us not only with the work of their hands but by reminding us to look at the world with an artist’s eyes. As we gathered after her vigil, we heard story after story of how she stood transfixed in the presence of beauty. She loved the feel of clay, the shape of flowers, the colors of creation. Jigsaw puzzles accumulated in her room because she was drawn to the colorful pictures on the box lids.

The trajectory of Sr. Gertrude’s life also reminds us that becoming who we are is a process. She enjoyed doing art projects with her students during the 35 years she taught primary grades, but it was not until she was in her late 50s that she took a class on the potter’s wheel and discovered she was an artist herself. Her creativity flourished as she shared her gifts with her wider Benedictine community in Oklahoma and then Kansas.

Sr. Gertrude showed us how to slow down to see and appreciate the intricate beauty of the world, as well as how to be open to the new things God calls us to throughout our lives. We remember her in grateful prayer.

Fasting from Busyness

Usually when we hear the word “asceticism,” we think of fasting—from food, from possessions, from noise. How often, though, do we think of it in terms of fasting from busyness?

Christine Valtners Paintner points out, “Asceticism does not ring well in modern ears . . . Yet…. There is a profound gift in the invitation to ask ourselves what the things that distract us from God are.” Busyness is certainly one of those things that distracts us from God.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’m generally in a rush to leave chapel after Sunday mass, because even on the Sabbath, I generally have a long list of things I hope to accomplish during the day. Meanwhile, as I’m rushing out the door, Sr. Janelle Maes or Sr. Susan Barber is playing a gorgeous recessional piece on the organ, most of which I miss after I walk out the door. I’ve decided engage in the discipline of slipping into a seat in the back of chapel and listening to the music until the last note. (Not all forms of discipline are great hardships!) It’s a small action but sets an intention about the way I hope to spend the day—leisurely, taking time to absorb the beautiful things offered to me by others or by nature.

Refraining from constant busyness may not entail rigorous asceticism, but it is a discipline, and it does offer us the profound gift of contemplation of the beauty of the world.

The Great Hall of Learning

Yesterday, during an interview for a vocation video, I was asked what I value about Benedictine spirituality. The first things that came to mind were hospitality—the continual opportunity to see and encounter Christ in guests and in community members—as well as cultivation of the awareness of God’s presence through prayer. As I thought about it further, I was somewhat surprised to realize how much I value the Benedictine quality of love of learning.

I have had a lifelong love affair with words, so it makes sense for me to follow a Rule that gives the best part of the day to reading. Although Benedictines take a vow of stability, our minds are free to encounter the wisdom of other times, cultures, and peoples through books, classes, workshops, speakers, and videos. Just in the past several months I have visited Egypt through a class on Desert Spirituality; the southern United States through a workshop on Flannery O’Connor; Honduras and Mexico through the stories of guest speakers who spoke about immigration; and the outer reaches of the universe through Richard Rohr’s book The Universal Christ.

Although I was sad to give up the bulk of my personal library when I joined the monastery, I have discovered that my access to the great hall of learning, the Body of Christ, is unlimited. God truly does make all things new, and the love of learning takes us to fresh and surprising places. As G.K. Chesterton said, “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.”

The Courage of Receptivity

Jesuit priest Dean Brackley, who taught and ministered in El Salvador from 1990-2011, said this to students and other visitors who came to the country for brief immersion trips: “Have the courage to lose control…to feel useless…to listen…to receive.” This sound advice is useful not just for persons immersed in an unfamiliar culture but for all people who value humility as a tool for growing in wisdom and kindness. Usually we think of needing courage when we are about to take action in some way, but courage is also required to release our desire to control our circumstances and be receptive to what other people have to offer.

Last night I had my annual initial formation review meeting with the eight other members of my living group and two members of the Formation Team. Although Psalm 139 assures me that I dwell continually in God’s awareness (“you know when I sit and when I stand; you are familiar with all my ways”), I’m still not accustomed to being the center of attention and was quite ready for the session to conclude after the first of five areas of discussion! Nonetheless, my willingness to (1) give up control of the conversation, (2) listen to the observations of others regarding both my strengths/gifts and limitations/opportunities for further growth, and (3) receive the wisdom of others who have lived in a monastic community for a long time allowed me to be nurtured and encouraged in the practice of conversatio, that is, openness to change/conversion.

One wise aspect of monastic life—that great experiment in communal living that has been going on for 1500+ years—is to put structures in place (such as retreats and annual review meetings during the years of initial formation) that ensure we have opportunities to listen, receive, and practice conversatio. Although most of us tend to resist examining the ways we might need to change, mustering the courage to be receptive to such an examination leads to a holy experience, especially when you have the support of a group of loving, insightful, and wise companions.

Cultivating a Wider Heart

One aspect of entering a Benedictine monastery that is quite different from life outside the monastery is the practice of undergoing an annual review meeting with members of  one’s living group and formation team during the years of initial formation (until final profession). Most people aren’t likely to sit down with a family member, friend, or colleague once a year and ask them, “What do you see as my strengths and weaknesses? Do I need to make any changes that will make it easier for us to live or work together?”

I doubt that anyone in initial formation would say that these annual reviews are their favorite part of monastic life. The cultivation of humility—accepting that our talents are God given and entail responsibility and that our weaknesses and failings affect others and need to be addressed—is not easy. However, it does bear fruit. In this year’s review meetings with members of my living group I learned that I fidget a lot in chapel, something I was not aware of but likely reflects the racing of my mind when I should be focused on prayer. I was also cautioned against perfectionism, which reveals the lack of trust that leads me to want to rely on myself instead of God (and can be a trial for others as I try to get things just right!).

Ironically, although this annual examination during the years of initial formation feels very self-focused, the goal is to move outside the self. As Christine Valters Paintner notes in Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated and Explained, "As the desert monks moved through their daily lives, they cultivated an ability to let go of their self-consciousness about whether they were doing something correctly and their self-preoccupation about whether their spiritual practice was getting them somewhere. The motivations behind so many of our actions are to be loved, approved of, seen, or accepted. These are all valid needs. However, we get transfixed by them, and they become the primary reason we do anything at all. Those who advanced on the desert path moved slowly past these tiring and narrow concerns about the self, cultivating a wider heart. They were able to step outside of themselves and meet others where they are.”

To cultivate a wider heart and step outside of ourselves to meet others where they are should be the goal of all Christians. Although I can’t say I look forward to my annual review meetings, I am grateful for the monastic wisdom that provides this structured means of helping me work toward this goal.

A Robust Path to Peace

Most people probably would not use the word “robust” to describe their relationship with God. Consider, however, the following definition of robustness by David Whyte in his book Consolations:

To be robust is the be physically or imaginatively present in the very firm presence of something or someone else. Being robust means we acknow-ledge the living current in something other than ourselves…. Without robustness all relationships become defined by their fragility, wither and begin to die. To be robust is to attempt something beyond the perimeter of our own constituted identity: to get beyond our own thoughts or the edge of our own selfishness. Robustness and vulnerability belong together.

How else can we be present to God, who is firmly with us yet clothed in mystery, without using our imagination? When we try to define God, we place limits on who God is, which in turn limits the experience of God we are able to have. As Whyte goes on to say, “[Although] a robust response always entertains the possibility of humiliation, it is also a kind of faith; a sense that we will somehow survive the impact of a vigorous meeting, though not perhaps in the manner to which we are accustomed.” Certainly the Israelites fleeing from Egypt did not expect God to part the sea for them, and Jacob did not expect to spend the night wrestling with God, yet they survived the impact of these vigorous meetings, which led to a deepening of their relationship/covenant with God.

Tapping into the living current that is God in the world helps us die to the boredom, complacency, and dissatisfaction that we feel when we stay within the perimeter of our own constituted identity, thoughts, and desires. It leads to the good zeal that St. Benedict speaks of—the openness to surprise, the delight in discovering new things about God, the sense of excitement and love that spills out of us into the world when we answer the invitation to participate in the life and love of the Trinity.

Jesus could just as easily have said, “Robustness be with you; my robustness I leave with you.” It is certainly one of the paths to peace.

A Zeal for Reverence

In the prologue to his Rule, St. Benedict counsels us, “If we wish to reach eternal life…then—while there is still time, while we are in this body and have time to accomplish all these things by the light of life—we must run and do now what will profit us forever.”

John Muir offered a different perspective on our journey to the “Holy Land” when he said, “Hiking—I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains—not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, 'A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."

Here we have a dilemma. Do we “run on the path of the Lord’s commandments,” as St. Benedict advises, or saunter along the path to eternal life with reverence? If we saunter, will we lose our zeal, our burning desire, to know and serve God? If we run, will we miss God’s presence in whatever is before us?

Perhaps one response to this dilemma is to have good zeal about sauntering! If we burn with a desire to reverence God and God’s creation, then we will take the time to saunter along God’s beautiful paths and respond with our attention and gratitude. Good zeal and reverence are both vital characteristics of the good life. To live in balance, we need to make room for both running and sauntering on the road to eternal life.

In Christ There Is No Apophenia

I learned a new word this week: apophenia, meaning the perception of connections or meaning in unrelated or random phenomena. For example, some people would say that seeing the image of Christ in the form of Jesus on the top crust of a grilled cheese sandwich is an instance of apophenia.

In that particular instance, those people would be wrong, of course. As Paul says, “He (Christ) is before all things, and in him all things are held together” (1 Col 17). God is incarnate in the world through Christ, and thus there is no disconnect between Christ and anything that exists. Christ is sort of like our DNA; we generally aren’t consciously aware of it, but it is always present in our body nonetheless. Any perception of separation from Christ is false. When we awaken from this illusion of separation, we are like Jacob, who, when he awoke from his dream, proclaimed, “Truly the Lord is in this spot, although I did not know it!” (Gen 28:16).

When we do come to know that the Lord is in this spot—is in every spot—we become transformed people. Apophenia may exist when we see a horse’s head in a cloud formation or an archer in the stars of a distant galaxy, but it is not a word that applies to Christ, who is all in all.

Shaking the World Through Gentleness

October 2, 2019, is the 150^th birthday of Mohandas Gandhi, one of humanity’s great spiritual warriors, who showed us through his choices and actions how to live out Jesus’ teachings on non-violence and love. Gandhi said, “My life is my message,” a breathtaking statement that calls for our contemplation.

In reality, we all could say “My life is my message,” for what we believe is illustrated in the way we live our life. The question is, what message are we sending to others? People who believe in a merciful God forgive others. People who believe in God’s providence share their blessings with others. People who believe Christ is incarnate in the world treat everything in creation—water, earth, plants, animals, and people—with reverence.

One reason Gandhi is a great role model for us is his integrity. He believed in living simply, and at the end of his life, his only possessions were his spectacles, a bowl and plate, a spinning wheel, a few articles of clothing, leather sandals, a pocket watch, and a few scripture books. He believed in nonviolence and helped his people gain freedom through fasts, imprisonment, and peaceful marches and protests. His life truly was his message. May he inspire us to be true to our own call to simplicity, nonviolence, love, and service as followers of Jesus.

Keeping Our Humanity Alive

Last night I had the opportunity to listen to Sr. Norma Pimentel, MJ, the 2019 Fellin lecturer, as she told us stories about the Central American refugees she serves in the Rio Grande Valley. I was able to picture what it was like for her community to try to serve 2000 exhausted, hungry, unwashed people in a church hall without showers or beds. I imagined the pain experienced by a refugee whose hand was deformed after she used it to shield her daughter from a blow from a machete. I considered what it would be like to try to flee destitution in my homeland, only to face more shakedowns for money in exchange for even the possibility of being admitted to the United States.

At the end of Sr. Norma’s presentation, a student asked simply, “How can we help?” That is our response when we hear the stories of people who are suffering, whether firsthand or as relayed by someone else. That is why we must provide opportunities for people to encounter the stories of others who aren’t part of their day-to-day world. That is why we must remove the barriers of wealth and privilege that prevent us from seeing the poor and suffering among us, as the rich man in Jesus’ story failed to see Lazarus languishing outside the gates of his mansion.

How can we help?

• We can go to Catholic Charities and offer to help with resettlement of refugee families.

• We can strike up conversations with people of other cultures whom we encounter in the airport or in line at the grocery store.

• We can create art that helps us connect with the experience of the poor, such as the statue “Angels Unaware” by Timothy Schmaltz in St. Peter’s Square that depicts a group of migrants and refugees from different cultural and racial backgrounds and from diverse historic periods who are huddled together on a raft. Within this diverse crowd of people, angel wings emerge from the center, suggesting that the sacred is to be found in the stranger, in this case, in refugees and migrants.

•  We can read stories about people to gain an understanding of their life; as Thomas Page McBee has noted, “…readers [are]…used to searching for connections with strangers.... Reading is for the brave among us. It teaches us how to love people we don't know and will probably never meet.... We see that everyone is part of the human condition, even and especially us.”

Holocaust survivor Helen Fagin says, “…to surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.” The inhumane treatment of Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States shows that our humanity is slipping away from us. We must wake up, remove the barriers of comfort, self-preoccupation, and indifference we have erected, and search for connections with strangers through their stories so we can welcome them as Christ. They will return the favor to us by helping us see the Christ light within ourselves.