Being on God's Side

The work of a Christian the day before and the day after an election is exactly the same: to attend to the needs of the poor, seek justice for the oppressed, provide a home for refugees, comfort the sorrowing, seek an end to war, and advocate freedom for captives.

In every election, people pray to God that their side will win, when what we should be most concerned about is whether we are on God’s side. Scripture is clear that God’s side is with the poor. Over and over we are reminded that whatever you do, don’t wreck the lives of the poor, because God loves them very much and will remember how you treat them. To be on God’s side, we must always support the poor and work on their behalf, even (or especially) when persons with political power have other agendas.

One benefit of getting older is that I have come to realize that God works with whatever decisions we make, individually or collectively, to teach us the way and lead us to goodness. Sometimes the lessons are painful, but the work of the Spirit cannot be contained. Last night a candidate won the electoral vote, while the other candidate won the popular vote. If we trust in God, we have to trust that, as Julian of Norwich proclaimed, all will be well.

Perhaps a good prayer at this time of national division and unrest is the Litany of Peace adapted by Barbara Bridge from the Prayer of St. Francis:

                        Faithful God, wherever there is darkness, may we bring your light:

                                    Make me an instrument of your peace

                        May we bring hope and gladness where despair and sadness are:

                                    Make me an instrument of your peace

                        May we seek to understand one another with a patient heart:

                                    Make me an instrument of your peace

                       Gracious God, whenever people hunger, may we fill their need:

                                    Make me an instrument of your peace

                       Set us free from all fear and anger; set us free to love:

                                    Make me an instrument of your peace

I will leave you with the image I am greeted with every morning and evening: various Sisters trailing down the hallway on the way to the Choir Chapel for morning and evening prayers. Let us pray for each other and for all the people of the United States.

All Real Living is Meetings

As I discovered at a Mount community meeting this past weekend, one of the many gifts that Benedictines have to offer the world is a model of peaceful and inclusive self-governance. Choosing leaders, addressing everyone’s needs, and articulating a vision for the future are not easy tasks, whether for a nation or for a religious community of 125+ women. Here is what we can learn from the approach used by the Mount:

• Begin in a spirit of gratitude. For each community meeting, a Sister is invited to present a “gratitude talk” after the opening prayer each day. At the November meeting, Srs. Bernelda Nanneman and Carolyn Rohde traced God’s marvelous workings in their lives through their families, ministries, and life in community. We were able to marvel with them at difficulties they overcame, struggles they experienced, joys they felt, weaknesses they regretted, lessons they learned, and blessings they received, and we were reminded that in the body of Christ, their story is our story.

• Allow each person to have a voice. Not everyone is comfortable standing before and speaking to an entire assembly, but opportunities for discussions in small groups were provided, and written input was solicited from everyone on various issues. In addition, we listened respectfully and patiently to every person who wished to speak to the entire assembly.

• Acknowledge everyone’s contributions. Everyone in the community was thanked for SOMETHING during the two-day meeting, whether it was for serving on committees, preparing presentations, working on the Night of Dreams event, assisting elderly sisters in Dooley Center, serving on various boards outside the community, participating in Atchison outreach activities, being liturgical ministers, fostering vocations, offering hospitality to visitors and oblates, praying for those in need, and living out our Benedictine charism to the best of our ability.

One aspect of community meetings that everyone can agree on is that we are grateful when they are over! However, now that I have two community meetings under my belt, I also find myself grateful that the Mount has the wisdom and tenacity to come together four times a year to address issues, make collective decisions, and discern how best to nurture ourselves and the world with our Benedictine values.

Getting One's Goat and Holding One's Tongue

Baseball fans had reason to rejoice when the 71-year old curse placed on the Chicago Cubs by William Sianis was finally broken on November 2, 2016, after the Cubs won Game 7 of the World Series to become champions for the first time since 1908.

As curses go, the one uttered by Sianis was relatively mild; upon being told that he would have to remove his pet goat, Murphy, from Wrigley Field because the goat’s odor was offending other fans, Sianis allegedly declared, "Them Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more." Compare that to some of the curses listed in Psalm 109: “And may he be clothed with cursing as with a robe; may it penetrate into his entrails like water and like oil into his bones; may it be for him like a garment which covers him, like a girdle which is always about him.”

I gather that William Sianis tried himself tried to undo his famous curse, and his son did as well, but once spoken, words take on a life of their own. Benedict knew this well, for as he said in the Rule, monks are to “restrain their tongue” and “be not noisy in their speech.” At this time of year, when we are weary of hearing politicians be “noisy in their speech,” it’s easy to point fingers at others, but most of us have experienced times when we wish we had restrained our tongues. Just yesterday in a meeting I made some blunt comments and now wish I had been gentler in my speech. Opportunities to learn to guard our tongues are always with us.

William Sianis later regretted that he allowed others to “get his goat,” so to speak. His story is a reminder to watch over our thoughts so that, as Fr. Edward Hays noted in A Pilgrim’s Almanac, the “piece of mind” we give others leads to “peace of mind” for all of us. 

The Distance Between Heaven and Earth

At a retreat on Celtic Spirituality at Sophia Center, Sr. Therese Elias noted that for the ancient Celtic people, the unseen world was continuous with the physical world, and thus they believed that the spirits of the dead were still present with them. For the Celts, heaven and earth were only three feet apart, and in “thin places” the distance was even shorter.

I have an elderly uncle with dementia who is very much in touch with the thin places. Every time I visit him, he tells me that his brother Bernard (who died four years ago) has a job driving the tractor for his nephew on the farm, and though he’s not making much money, he’s as happy as can be. The poet William Wordsworth believed that it is with our imagination that we perceive eternity, and I’m delighted that in my uncle’s perception of eternity, his brother is happy, doing the work he loves, and still helping out family members.

Here at the Mount, our worship aid for the Feast of All Saints included this quote by Charles Péguy:

“We must save ourselves together. We must arrive all together in the heaven of our God. We must present ourselves together. We must not come to look for our God without each other. We must return all together to the house of our Father. We must also think a little about each other and work for each other. What might God say, if we arrive without each other?”

During this month of the remembrance of the dead, it comforts me to know that our deceased loved ones are still thinking about us and working for us. It’s as if they are steadying the top of the ladder as we ourselves make the climb from earth to heaven. When the climb seems long and we are missing them, we should take heart, for after all, they are only three feet away.

God's Forgetfulness

On this day when we celebrate Halloween, I’m grateful to my cousin Gwyndolyn for reminding me of a bit of wisdom from my favorite TV witch, Aunt Clara from Bewitched: “I know I’m a little vague at times, but on the other hand, when I forget something, I’m definite.”

Actually, these words could just as easily have been spoken by God. We’ve all experienced frustration with God’s vagueness when our path is not clear and we don’t feel like we’re receiving any divine guidance. However, as Sr. Mary Irene Nowell reminds us in her book on the psalms, Pleading, Cursing, Praying, when it comes to forgetting, God is quite definite: “What God remembers, exists; what God forgets, ceases to be.” No wonder the psalmist prays these words in Psalm 25:6-7:

Remember your compassion, O Lord, and your faithful love, for they endure forever. Do not remember the sins and rebellions of my youth. Please remember me according to the measure of your faithful love and your goodness, O Lord.

A good rule of thumb is to not forget that which God remembers and stop remembering what God has forgotten. As Aunt Clara knew, forgetting can sometimes be a definite virtue! 

Blessed Are They Who See Beautiful Things

This morning at dawn, as I was heading to mass, I heard my name called by Sr. Helen Mueting, who wanted to show me a spectacular view of a tree, crescent moon, and star that was visible through an upper window in the dining room hallway. I hadn’t noticed it myself and was grateful to Sr. Helen for pointing out such a beautiful scene. It was a wonderful way to start the day.

This experience reminded me of a quote from the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.” I don’t know if it makes God angry, but God is likely disappointed and sad for us, I imagine, when we don’t see and enjoy the beauty of creation in which we are immersed.

One of the great benefits of living in community is that others often draw my attention to beauty that I am too preoccupied to see. This call to be mindful of beauty helps me practice gratefulness and provides me with opportunities to pause and experience awe. I am grateful to those who are attuned to beauty, and echo the words of Camille Pissarro: "Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing."

The Slow Work of God

Before I moved to the Mount, a friend gave me an artistic rendering of the following quote by Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

     to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

     unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

     that it is made by passing through

     some stages of instability—

     and that it may take a very long time.

Only God could say what this new spirit

     gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

     that his hand is leading you,

     and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

     in suspense and incomplete.

I was able to ponder this quote again at a retreat with The Divine Milieu, one of Chardin’s books, that was offered recently by Sr. Susan Barber at Sophia Center. Upon examining the 13.8 billion–year history of the universe as we know it—from the Big Bang to the creation of elements to the initial formation of galaxies and stars and planets to the appearance of water and microbes and plants on earth to the development of invertebrates and vertebrates to the evolution of humans to the birth of Jesus to the thousands of years after his resurrection—it is clear that God works very slowly indeed, at least in our human reckoning.

Our impatience with this slow pace of change reminds me of a quote by the writer Elizabeth Bibesco: “He is invariably in a hurry — being in a hurry is one of the tributes he pays to life.” We who love life and its possibilities want to cram in as much as we can during out short life span and are impatient with delays, especially delays in overcoming humanity’s limited understanding, intolerant attitudes, and unjust practices. It is frustrating and uncomfortable to have to pass through the long stages of instability that are inherent to “the law of all progress.” However, as I get older, I take comfort in Chardin’s reminder that we and the universe itself aren’t designed to speed through life’s changes—somehow,  slowness is an integral part of God’s process in gradually forming a new spirit within us. As a postulant, I am at a place where I am especially called to trust that God’s hand is leading me and accept the anxiety of feeling myself in suspense and incomplete—but in reality, we are all called to that trust and acceptance until our last breath on earth, so I rejoice that I am in good company!