Bede's Blog

A Short, Sweet Summary

2011-06-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

OHC's 298th Chapter - The assembled monks and a few Holy Cross Companions
West Park, Saturday, June 11, 2011 - picture by Br. Randy Greve (who ran into place, top right)

Chapter is over! It was quite an amazing week. We worked really hard. We prayed hard, as well. We even played some. And we emerged from all of this as a remarkably united, energized, and amazingly well-functioning group of men - brothers.

We agreed to the founding of Holy Cross School in Grahamstown (South Africa). This will be a school under the Order's aegis which will provide high-quality primary education for poor rural children.

This is an outcome of years of work, trying to find a solution to the dreadful educational conditions in the area around our monastery. Schools are seriously sub-standard or completely absent. Over the years we have started a scholarship program, an after-school tutoring program, recreational programs and other things. The outcome has been the realization that the kids are so deprived so early that the only solution is to have a school that will get them early and will have first-class instruction right from the beginning.

We will be operating grades K-3 (actually South Africa calls Kindergarten "Reception", so it will be R-3). We have good advice that if we get them started this far, they will be able to adjust to the excellent schools that can be found in town, and we can see that they are able to continue in those schools through our Scholarship Program. We will support them for as long as they want to remain in school - through college, if that is their goal. Our scholarship program has just had its first students graduate from local universities, so we have a track record there.

The Order has committed to pay for the construction of the school building, and work will begin soon, so that we can have a Grade R and a Grade 1 beginning in January, when the school year starts. We will then add one grade a year until we are operating all 4 years. Classes will be small. Instruction will be first-rate. Equipment will be state of the art. The school is going to be small, because of the small size of the classes, so what we can accomplish will be limited. But we are going to do what we can. We have also committed ourselves to a major capital funds drive which will raise money to finance and endow the school.

The monastery in Grahamstown is named (in the local language) Maria u Mama we Themba, which means Mary, mother of hope. This is one of the ways in which we are determined to offer hope to the poor people who live in the area around us. And without this school, the local kids have very little in the way of hope.

The Order also committed itself to a major building renovation at the monastery here in West Park. This involves installing a new roof on the monastery building (which has needed doing since the day the building was finished in 1967). This will make possible the remodeling of several rooms to provide Assisted Living space for some older brothers, as I described last week. We are finalizing the plans at the present time. We hope we can begin on this project within a few months.

The conversations that led up to these decisions were full of energy and of hope. Passing the actual resolutions took less than an hour. We were extraordinarily united. It was an amazing week!

We also took an afternoon off for a cruise on the Hudson River. It was really fun. You get a totally different perspective when you're down on the river itself.

Monday is a rest day for me. Tuesday is for packing. Wednesday I leave for Kerhonkson, at the foot of the Catskills. When next you hear from me I will be into my Sabbatical.

I deeply appreciate the many good wishes and promises of prayer that so many people have sent. I hope before long to be letting you in on what life is like for a monk on the loose.

In Between

2011-06-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

Andrew preached this morning on this being an "in between" Sunday - in between Ascension and Pentecost - and of the difficulty of getting in touch with the identity of this day. As it happens, that was something that was good to hear for me, because I'm in a very in between time myself.

I'm still in charge, but nearly everything has been passed on, so there's nothing to be in charge of, except to be the one who indicates when the silence at the end of readings is over. And it's been about 40 years since I have haven't been in charge of something.

It's disorienting, and I have become easily distracted, so I'm now finding at regular intervals that I've made the wrong decision or given the wrong signal for something to happen. It's embarrassing, but the community corrects me gently, and we go on our way. And it won't last long: about 10 days now.

I remember that I reacted in much the same way in 1982 when my time as Novice Master ended and I went to be Prior of our house in South Carolina, only I had fewer years on me then, and somewhat more grace with which to handle the confusions of the time. But as I told people at that time, some of these things are simply not under my control. My body and my mind are making this change at their own pace, and I have a limited amount to say about that.

And there is comfort in knowing that the change is happening, even if I'm not causing it. I'm making the adjustment that needs to be made, and it's happening surely and steadily. It's nice to know that it doesn't all depend on my skillful or unskillful decisions. My mind has its own sense of timing, and I have to trust that sense.

In the midst of all of this there was a small wonder dropped into our midst. In the middle of the week we came out from lunch one day and someone said that there was a fawn on the lawn over by the monastery building, so a small bunch of us headed in that direction.

Just by the monastery building the grass was quite high. Our groundsman had fallen behind in his mowing because of the difficulty of getting a heavy mower into parts of our grounds which had become water logged in the recent rains. So we passed beyond the stone wall just outside the door to our Church and went through thigh-high grass and there, just in the middle of the lawn, was a very small, perfectly circular nest, and lying in it was a tiny deer, looking at us with huge eyes, and lying perfectly still - so still that it was hard to tell if it was actually breathing.

It was really beautiful, and quite awesome, and there she was, all by herself. And where was the mother? Well, as ordinary urban Americans, most of us had no idea where she was. But one of the brothers went off to find out from the source of all knowledge these days; the InterNet. And he discovered that when a doe has given birth she makes a little nest for her offspring and then goes away for an extended period. This apparently is the safest way for the newborn to survive. The mother is feeding so she can produce milk to feed it, and she is not drawing attention to the fawn while it is helpless. It is nearly scentless because she has licked it thoroughly clean before she leaves, so it is usually quite safe, since the nest is usually not visible in the high grass where does prefer to leave their fawns. Who would have guessed?

The newborn, of course, doesn't like this kind of treatment, so the doe usually has to put her foot down - literally - on the infant and roll it up in a ball and force it to stay down, and then she goes off. But the fawn has some sense of what's good for it, because it stayed quite still and unmoving while we were there.

We were careful to stay fairly far away and to be there for only a short time. Rafael, whose room looks out on that patch of lawn, said that he saw the fawn get up to stretch in the middle of the afternoon, and then it laid back down, and from most of our windows it was quite invisible. By the next morning it was gone, so both it and the mother are no doubt wandering about in the woods by now, and the next time we see them, the baby will be much larger.

I like the idea that the mother thought that a really good, safe place to put her newborn would be some tall grass about 15 feet away from one of our buildings. The local wildlife is generally pretty tame, because they know they face no danger from us or our guests. But this is evidence of just how safe they feel. Either that, or there is a shortage of tall grass this year, and that certainly doesn't appear to be the case.

While we're speaking of the wildlife, one of our guests saw a bear yesterday afternoon, ambling placidly across the lawn. You never know.

I certainly appreciate the good wishes from so many of you for my sabbatical and the expressions of appreciation for the blog. It does feel at this point like I will be continuing it, but I want to wait until I actually get into my new situation and have some time to feel what that's like before I make a decision. I'll also need to see what my rhythm is and when the best time to write would be because, as I've said, I'll be away from my house on Sunday mornings and not able to do it then. But I won't be dropping the blog suddenly in any case, and will give some notice about any changes.

That being said, I don't know when my next post will actually be. Next Sunday we'll be in the midst of our Chapter - which is the annual business and planning meeting of the Order, so I won't be free to do my usual writing. I'll try to get a note in to let you know what the situation is. I move a week from Wednesday, so my life will be unsettled for a couple of weeks now, but I'll be back with news of what's up when I'm able to do it.

Plans and More Plans

2011-05-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

The community is making plans: plans for the future, and especially for the next year. All sorts of things are afoot.

This is, of course, a result of the sort of transition we are making. Scott is being installed as the new Prior on the 12th of June, and I will be gone on the 15th so, as I have explained in the past few postings, we are doing a transition process in the days leading up to the new Prior's installation instead of afterwards.

So plans, as I say, are being made. Important space is being given to thinking about the integrity of the community's life. There has been a very large increase in the number of people using the Guesthouse in the past couple of years, and especially in this last year. We've been experiencing these increases for some time now, and periodically we need to stop and make sure that the tail isn't wagging the dog.

Of course, we earn our living by running the Guesthouse, and it's important that it thrive. It's also important that we take a look periodically and make sure that we have the time and the silence necessary for our lives as monks, for prayer, for lectio, for reflection. Scott has asked the community to plan more retreat time into the schedule of the next year, and this is a really good beginning. More than anything, we need to have these reflections on a regular basis, just to make sure that we're still in balance.

And to move to the other side of the balance, James, who will be the new Guesthouse Director, has asked for more of the community to be directly involved in the hospitality side of the ministry - welcoming guests, helping them find their place and get settled, orienting them and seeing that they are comfortable and know how to negotiate this mildly complex set of buildings. We hope this will increase the hospitality of our welcome.

We're also considering a new initiative in ministry. We are investigating the possibility of running an intern program for college students that would be based on ministry in the local area and spiritual formation for the interns.

This would be a direct outflow of the living of our monastic life; sharing with young people what it's like to live a life of prayer, and leading them into the practices necessary to sustain such a life. We think this would be a gift to the church, and a very rewarding ministry for us. Enough college age men and women come here now for us to know that this is an attractive place for young adults. Having a ministry directly focused on them is an obvious next step.

This will mean some construction, of course, and some fund-raising. If you've seen our newsletter, the Mundi Medicina, you'll know that we have a space that could fairly easily be made into a suite of 4 bedrooms with a bathroom and a common room, so that the interns could have their own space, which would greatly assist in their community building.

So the next year will be for planning, for fund raising and for various practical considerations. If things go as we hope, we think we could be ready to launch this ministry a year from this fall.

We also considering how we can better provide for the elderly members of our community. Since the earliest days in West Park, we have regularly had to place elderly brothers who are in need of care in nursing homes in the area. This is far from optimal and we don't like it any more than any family does, but it is sometimes necessary. But we think that the time that our brothers spend in such care might be lessened, or in some cases even eliminated by some remodeling of our space, so that we could provide a monastic version of Assisted Living.

We have been very lucky over the years that such a large proportion of our community has had vigorous health into old age, and that we have had to make relatively little use of nursing homes. But this is something that we can't continue to count on, especially as modern medicine is prolonging life so markedly. So Scott has been consulting with our architect about the renovation of some space in our monastery building, and we will talk with the wider community about this at Chapter, and see how we all feel about it after we have talked it over.

So we are moving forward. I've expressed to the community how excited I am about what the transition is revealing, and how much I am going to miss being part of the process. But I know that a period of time away will be good for me and most helpful for the developing of this next era in the community's life. I'll just have to look forward to my return and to seeing how things have worked out, and where I fit into the life that is yet to be revealed.

PS - as part of the transition, this blog will be renamed "Bede's Blog." It will continue to be featured on our web site's "Community Meditations" page. Come visit me there!

Advent in May

2011-05-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is truly a fascinating experience. The path we have chosen for the new Prior to take over is slowly but surely exercising its power. I have less and less to do - at least of those things associated with being in charge. I've arranged everything that needs arranging. I've made all the lists that are needed. Slowly but surely the brothers who need to ask something are beginning to ask Scott and not me. I still sit in the big chair. But I'm more and more a symbol and not anything functional.

This means the process is working, of course. Once you announce that a transition is taking place, there's no way to stop it from beginning. A certain amount of the change just takes place because of its own energy. And a symbol is not an empty thing. A good deal of the power of any office is symbolic. It's just different - quite different.

This afternoon we have a meeting for the community to begin considering issues for the living of the next year. I expect there will be a good deal of energy for this meeting, and that after it the process will be even further advanced. Then we will be in retreat for three days this week. This is simply our usual quarterly retreat, but it comes as at particularly significant moment in the community's life and it will have its own significant energy.

In the meantime, what do I do? Well, there's plenty of stuff that still needs to be done. There are filing cabinets that could be cleaned out. But they could have been cleaned out long ago. There is long-delayed correspondence that can be done. Ditto. There are small things that I always wished I had the time for. Is that it? Well, I may do one or another of those things, but I don't think they are it, if by "it" I mean what this time is really for.

I think my principal occupation now is to wait. The energy has gone elsewhere, for myself as well as most of the community, and this is the way it should be. Now I wait. That's my job. I have my own personal Advent this year, only it's in the Spring.

A time to wait. A time to feel what waiting is like.

I don't want to live in the future or the past. I want to live now. I treasure many, many things about these years of being the community's leader, and I know that the (immediate) future is going to be really good. But neither of those is where I am now. And so I wait. Waiting has its own discipline and its own feelings.

I might not have described the process this way as recently as yesterday. But when I started to think about what I was going to write this week, I realized that I couldn't think of anything. I usually write about what's going on now. Well, I've said what I have to say about ceasing to the the Prior, and I've given a beginning description about what I'll be doing after this. I couldn't think of a thing that needed to be said. And so I thought I'd explore that and see what was there, and that's when I knew that I'd entered into this waiting time.

It will not be long. And it will have its own disciplines and rewards.

PS - a few of us were having a discussion the other evening about what I should call this blog after I'm not the Prior any longer. Elizabeth said it should be called "The Prior Prior's Column." That really tickles my sense of the use of words, and I do love it. But I'm not sure I want to emphasize the fact that I used to have this position. Something more about what I will be next, I think, is more what I'm looking for. "Bede's Blog" is the first thing that struck me, but I'm not sure that's it, either. Hmmmmm. This will require some thought.

Transition Continues

2011-05-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

The transition of my stepping down as Prior involves a lot more people than me, of course, and we have begun that process.

Our practice in the past has been for the Superior to discuss the appointment of a new Prior with the Order's Council at Chapter (the annual meeting of the Order in June each year). Then the appointment is announced, the new Prior is appointed, and the transition begins.

This year Robert decided to try a new pattern. He met with the Council a couple of weeks ago, at the time of Br James' life profession, because all the members of the Council were going to be here for that event. A number of appointments had to be decided on because all of the terms of the Order's officers expire every three years, and that occurs next month. The Council discussed the proposed appointments, and consented to them, and Robert made the appointments at that time. This means that we now have a month or so of "Lame Duck" status. Br Scott will be the next Prior, and he will be installed on June 12, but the transition has already begun.

This has proved helpful in a number of ways. For one thing, doing it the old way was going to make for a very abrupt change, because I have to leave immediately after Chapter. Our friend Elizabeth, in whose house I will be living this summer, is leaving for a period of residence with our community in South Africa at the end of that week, and I have to be there for a couple of days before she leaves so I can learn what needs to be known about the house, and the care of the cat, and the relationship with the neighbors and all of that sort of thing. This would mean that, in fact, there would hardly be any transition time, and that didn't seem satisfactory. So the new way was proposed and agreed on.

Right after his appointment was announced Scott and I agreed that I would be in charge of anything happening between now and June 12 and he would be in charge of anything happening after that. It has worked very smoothly from my point of view. It has made a natural way of turning things over and has contributed well to the sense that things are changing, but at a measured pace and as a natural part of our life, which of course it is.

Scott set to work very quickly to organize things for his term. He has announced a couple of appointments of house officers and started to meet with the Brothers who will be on his Council. People are shifting into new positions. Shifts in work responsibilities are happening. For instance, Br Mark will be doing the Incense work while I'm gone. I've been working with him about this since last fall, but he has now taken over completely and is doing the work on his own, with a bit of looking over the shoulder from me. Br James, who has been doing all of our weekly work lists for a long time, has now offloaded that onto Br Julian, who took some time to learn this particular craft and is now doing it himself. Brothers seem to be taking their time making shifts and adjustments, and the process has been fairly placid.

But it has come along in a major way. Yesterday when I had finished writing some notes to people who had sent gifts to us, I realized that I had finished just about every administrative task that needs to be done. A couple of minor things remain - putting out the next preaching rota and getting the calendar of community events arranged for the time between now and June 12 - and then I will be done with the administrative part of the job. I have not been looking at this much free time in many years. It feels really nice.

Not that I lack for things to do. There are always files to clean out, and in my case, they date back to when I returned to this house from South Carolina in 1990. Fortunately most of that stuff can just be pitched at this point. Not much sorting, just into the trash can they go. I need to make sure that I have books that I want to take along organized and in a box. But just doing that makes clear that I'm now making detailed plans for the future and not wrapping up, so there's another shift.

It's been a good process, and I think it will serve the community well as the turning of things over continues. I'm grateful for the way it's going.

A Big Transition

2011-05-08T08:00:00.001-07:00

There's a major transition coming up for me. In just a little more than a month my term as Prior will be completed, and I am stepping down and will be taking a period of sabbatical. I wanted to let my readers know that this change was coming rather than spring it at the last moment. So what I am going to do this morning is post a copy of an article that I wrote about it for our Newsletter, Mundi Medicina, which will be appearing very shortly.
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Sabbath, Sabbatical and Us – and Me

Few things are as deeply ingrained in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the keeping of a Sabbath – a regular day which is given to rest, to socializing (especially with family) and to worship. Reading of some parts of the Hebrew Scriptures can give the impression that there is really only one Commandment – you are to keep the Sabbath; and this means one simple thing. No work.

The provision of a regular day on which the routine is entirely different, when the focus is not on the usual business of life, is based on a deep intuition. We get into a routine, which becomes a habit, and then becomes a rut. It is necessary to interrupt the routine periodically and regularly so that we can think differently, so that we can pray differently, so that we can be different. Over a period of time, Sabbath keeping introduces us to deeper levels of experience. The Hebrew Scriptures present the Sabbath as the meeting place between God and human beings, and the keeping of the Sabbath as the sharing in the very being of God. It’s not a small thing.

We have a Sabbath here at Holy Cross: for us it’s Monday, since our Guesthouse ministry means that we work on weekends. We do our best to make a real Sabbath possible. The usual schedule is suspended and our business offices are closed. There’s no pressure to get things done, except, of course the pressure that comes from within. We hope that the space we create for ourselves on Mondays will relax us, refresh us – and more than anything, sanctify us. Above all, Mondays are about expanding our time, so that we have time for quiet, and for each other, and most of all for God.

Sabbaths gave rise to a different kind of rhythm, that of the Sabbatical. Now largely restricted to the academic community and to the clergy, sabbaticals offer – at least potentially – an expanded experience of Sabbath, one in which a person is able to relax, expand, see things differently and get the creative energies recreated.

And so we come to my plans. In June my term as Prior of Holy Cross Monastery will come to an end, and being 73 years old, it seemed the right time to draw this part of my monastic vocation to a close. These years of being at the helm of the monastery have been full of wonderful blessings, and I have a great sense of joy and thankfulness for this time. I will always be grateful for this opportunity, and for the marvelous, creative and most unusual community that we have here!

What now? The first thing is a sabbatical.

Sabbaticals have been traditional in Holy Cross, especially for people who have been in leadership positions for a long time. Our Superiors have, ever since I have known, taken a long time away after their terms expire. I’m going to step into this tradition and have an extended sabbatical over the next year.

The opening time is going to be a good long retreat. I will leave the monastery directly after Chapter in mid-June, and during the summer I’ll be house-sitting for our friend Elizabeth Broyles, at her place in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Elizabeth was for some time a Resident here at Holy Cross, and she is going to be at the monastery in South Africa for 3 months this summer, and while she’s gone, I’ll keep her house occupied and her cat tended. I’m intending for this part of my time to be largely one of solitude, though I’m not going to be rigid about it. I’ll have a bit of social life, and I’m planning to spend some time with the Community of the Holy Spirit in Brewster, just to have some community life. But mostly I’m going to have quiet, and space, and time to luxuriate in the Scriptures and some other reading, and lots of time for prayer and meditation. I’m also going to roam the Catskills and sit by mountain lakes and learn again what morning and noon and night feel like.

Then in the late Fall I will set out for Kansas City, stopping to visit with some friends and family along the way. When I arrive in “KC” I’ll be occupying a lower floor “apartment” in the home of my friends Mark and Clare Romain. They have a beautiful home in the far western suburbs of the city and from my hillside room I’ll have a view of deep woods and a stream, and have access to hiking trails right outside the door. I’ll build on the foundation that I hope to establish in the summer, and continue to give much time to prayer, to lectio and to study. I’m also going to set to work to recover some of my long-lost cooking skills, and I’ll do some craft work – I hope to work with beads, making rosaries, prayer ropes and such. And of course I plan to have good time with friends I haven’t been able to be with in many years. I’m hoping that it will be a deep time, and also a leisurely time. I will return to West Park in the late Spring of 2012. I hope for the prayers of many of you while I’m engaging in this adventure, and I know there are going to be lots of stories to tell both during and after this time.
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At the present, I do not know what the future of this blog will be. I'm not sure that the reminiscences of a solitary will have the same appeal as a blog about what it's like to live in a monastery. I think I'm just going to have to feel it for a while and see what I want to do about writing. I do know that I will not be able to do it on Sunday mornings, because on that day I'll be with the Sisters in Brewster most weeks. So we'll just have to see.

The years of offering a perspective on our life to all of you have been a real joy, and I've loved seeing the blog develop and grow. I also look forward to what happens next, and hope for your interest, and for your prayers.

Br Bede

And One More!

2011-05-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

Just as you were beginning to think that we had reached the end of the Big Community Events, along comes another celebration to cap off the two we have already had - the Clothing of Br Mark as a Novice and the First Profession of Vows by Br Julian. On Thursday of this week we had the Profession of Life Vows by our Br James.

And what an event it was! The crowd was really something, by the standards of the size of our Church, at least. There were people from all parts of James' life: his family, a number of them, his mother included, from England, where one of this brothers is now working, a nun who taught him in high school in Virginia, people who knew him when he belonged to a religious community in the Roman Catholic Church a good many years ago, people who knew him in his professional life as a Theater and TV Director, and of course those who have come to know him since he has been a member of our community, including the people involved in the ministry of Ecclesia, the Newburgh ministry to street people with which he is deeply involved.

And, of course, all of that was topped off by a good helping of people who were here because they care for the Holy Cross community - local clergy, members of several religious orders, both Episcopalian and Roman Catholic, our Associates, our friends. It was a fine old crowd, and they sang with unusual gusto, and they were so happy that you could almost have weighed the joy on a scale. And did they sing!

At Chapter, just about 2 hours before the service, Jim said to the community: "This is a wonderful day for me. I have wanted to do this for all of my 49 years." Not a one of us doubts that.

The service began with a question with whose nature you are now surely familiar: "James, through Baptism you are dead to sin and risen in the Lord. Are you resolved to pursue this consecration to its fulfillment in your life by undertaking Monastic Profession?" To which he answered simply: "I am."

Then all of us knelt while James prostrated himself before the altar and we sang the Veni Creator - the great hymn to the Holy Spirit - and then he read out his vow of Stability, Conversion of my life to the Monastic way of Life, and Obedience, and took the Vow which he had written out in his own hand ahead of time, laid in on the altar and signed it.

Br. James signs his Life Vow - Picture by Br. Julian
Br. Julian's photographic report of Br. James' Life Profession

He was then given the black cross which marks the Life Professed in our community and a copy of Benedict's Rule and the Rule of Fr Huntington, our Founder. I am always particularly moved by the words that are said when Benedict's Rule is delivered to the newly professed: "Receive the Rule of St Benedict. Many saints have been formed by it. Be faithful to the tradition now passed on to you." That's the point at which I see most clearly the line in which I stand, as it goes back more than a thousand years and stretches ahead of me into the far, far future.

Who knows what monks will be like a thousand years from now? But they will be bearing that rule and that tradition.

The rest was all happiness and celebration. And just before we gathered around the altar for the consecration of the Bread and Wine, we sang:

Here I am, Lord.
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.

I will go, Lord,
If you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

It is a perfect expression of what this life is really about: God calls, we answer - as best we can - and we hold the world and all its people in our hearts, and we also respond to them - as best we can. Monasticism is never going to be a majority movement in this society. But there are some people who belong here. I am one of them. And I doubt if there was a person in that crammed Church that morning who didn't know that Br James is also one of them.

So one more time in this Eastertide - Alleluia!

Alleluia!!!

2011-04-24T05:58:00.000-07:00

Easter Day once again. Joy and exhaustion - that's the feeling of Easter morning. It has been a consuming and powerful week, and a very busy one, what with about 50 guests in the house.

What I usually talk about on Easter morning is what hit me this year as we went through the days of Holy Week. This year, the thing from Maundy Thursday that stays with me is an impression of the Eucharist around the dinner table, and how different it feels. It has an immediacy and communality that is more apparent to me than it is in the way we normally celebrate the Eucharist in our Church. I was so aware that this was something that we were doing more than it was something that I was doing. The informality of it helps me to see things in a different way.

Then early in the morning - about 3 a.m. - after I was finished with my time at the Watch - I went outside to see the Paschal Moon as I always do. There it was, a gibbous moon this year, well past being full, riding low in the Southern sky. And it was deeply silent; so quiet that I couldn't ever remember having heard it so still. No wind, no traffic, no voices, no sound of waves on the water. It was as though the whole of the earth was holding its breath, anticipating. I could hear a single car across the river in Poughkeepsie, driving up some street, and then there was the sound of a siren as the police chased someone (the same car?). And then it was still again. All of creation seemed to be in suspension, waiting.

Good Friday. As I've said in my Easter posts before, I am always greatly moved by seeing people come forward for the Veneration of the Cross. All of those folks, some of whom I have known for many years and some of whom I was seeing for the first time. They come forward and approach the Cross that two of the brothers are holding. Some kneel, and some stand. Many kiss the cross, and some reach out and touch it, some press their heads to it, some just look. I never fail to feel very close to so many of them as they stand or kneel there in that very personal, very revealing way.

And this year, something additional happened. As the Blessed Sacrament was brought in from the Altar of Repose, and as the people got down on their knees, I could feel the power of faith. And it wasn't just the faith of a bunch of individuals. It was the faith of the congregation, of the group. The faith that reaches out, that longs for God, was so apparent to me that it was almost physical and I know that I took a step backwards because I was so "taken aback". It was another moment in which God's presence and our intimacy met. And it was the surprise gift of Holy Week this year.

The Easter Vigil was the crown of it all, of course. I could enumerate the parts of the service, but many of you will know them well enough. For me the deep joy was the evidence that the diversity for which we have worked so hard it taking another step forward. We were 70 or 80 people. We were beginning to be a sample of all the people of this area. We were old and young - from one who was about 8, I would guess, to one who is well into her 90's and who stood through everything and sang everything. We were men and women - and about equal numbers of each! We were straight and gay. We were black and white. We were (mostly) Americans, but we were also West Indians and Hispanics of several different countries, and Asians, and a Belgian and 2 Hungarians and a lady from Nigeria who had the most extraordinarily beautiful dresses. We were people who have known each other for years, and people who were total strangers.

And we were filled with joy as we shouted: "He is risen indeed, alleluia!" and rang our bells.

At breakfast afterwards, one of the college students who was here said to me that someone had said to her that people find it hard to leave their own Churches and come here for Easter, but that after they do they never want to be anywhere else, and that now she understood why. And one man, an Associate of ours, brought his sister because he knew she would see and respond, and she said to me, "Now I understand." What a wonderful promise for the future.

We really celebrated. And we haven't even had Easter Dinner yet! Or the Cantata that Kairos, our Artists in Residence, will sing this afternoon.

But first, a nap.

It's Holy Week

2011-04-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Holy Week always comes as a surprise to me.

You might think that's kind of odd. In fact, I think it's kind of odd. We do really pay attention to Lent around here: our routine during these weeks is different in small but meaningful ways, and my impression is that most of us do pay attention to "tightening up" in some area of our lives, both corporately and individually. And since we observe the entire season, and the readings at the Offices are attuned to the season, you'd think that it would have the effect of leading a person right into the climax of the season wouldn't you?

Not me.

I'm never ready. I always wonder how it got here so fast and why I don't feel better prepared. I always think there must be something I could do differently next year, so I'll be really ready for Holy Week.

Never works.

But, on the other hand, Palm Sunday always does the job. I arrive all unprepared and the opening prayer asking God to "assist us in the contemplation of those mighty acts...." always pops me right in. And then we read the Palm Gospel and get a piece of Palm (and this year a stalk of Pussy Willow, too). And we have a really fine procession from the Guesthouse to the Church, singing a lively "Hosannah, Hosannah, Hosannah. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" and we ring hand bells, and bang drums and clap clappers, and even skip a little, sometimes, and that does it.

Now the service is over, and I'm in Holy Week once again. My Palm and my stalk of Pussy Willow rest behind the Triptych of Christ and two angels that hangs in my cell, and I closed the doors of the Triptych to match the solemnity of the season, so now I see the angels on the back side, guarding what's hidden within. That will keep me reminded. (As though one needed reminding around here!) (But a little visual symbol never hurts.) Yes, it really is Holy Week.

I guess whatever works is what works.

And this week we had another of our big moments. On Wednesday at Vespers, Mark, our Postulant, became a Novice, and is now Brother Mark.

The Clothing ceremony, which makes a man a Novice, is the most dramatic of the services of passage in the community. That's because he's been sitting with us in choir for six months, dressed in civvies, while the rest of us are all in white. Now, at the beginning of Vespers he's asked if he really wants to do this (see last week's post). Then his habit is brought out, all neatly folded, and blessed by the Superior and given to him. While we sing a hymn he goes to the Sacristy and changes into it, and towards the end of the hymn he comes back in with the Novice Master, and he's all resplendent in white, and with his hood pulled up. Very dramatic, this change to the monastic state. And it serves as a reminder to me of the day that I did the same thing, and of the years that have passed since then.

Brothers Mark and Robert rejoicing in the occasion after Vespers

I think of all the men who have put on our habit in the 127 years since our community was founded - and of the ones whose lives were changed and who spent the rest of their lives in Holy Cross - and of the ones whose lives were changed, but who left. We often hear from men, now long forgotten in the community, who still remember vividly the time they spent with us, and the effect it had on them, and this is now sometimes 40, 60, even 70 years ago. And it all began with putting on a white habit.

It's common to say that something is "only a symbol", but symbols are powerful, and often never forgotten. This symbol of how a life changes when you give it to God is one of our deepest ones, and after nearly 50 years in our habit, a little something "comes over me" still every time I put it on.

May that be true for Br Mark as well, and may he live long and prosper with us.

Br. Bernard's pictorial notes:
- You'll find a set of pictures of Br. Mark's clothing on Br. Julian's Flickr gallery "Cloister Walk".
- You'll also find a set of pictures of Br. Julian's First Annual Profession of the Benedictine Vow.

A High Point

2011-04-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

Just to begin by picking up a couple of threads from recent weeks:

This week we finally got a day or two that were both mild and sunny. We've waited long enough since I reported the first daffodil, but now that one is no longer standing there all by itself. There are some others, and some hyacinths looking very brave and dark blue. And tomorrow is supposed to be both sunny and warm - the first really warm day of the year, so after that Spring should really be established. We've waited a long time this year.

We've also continued the Lenten retreat and program ministry. Andrew has been in Montreal conducting a retreat for clergy on Celtic spirituality, Scott went to Albany to do an evening of speaking and conversation about the monastic life at St Paul's parish and yesterday Adam was in Stamford, Connecticut at St John's Church, conducting a program on the crafting of a Rule of Life. It's been a long time since we did this much outside retreat and program ministry. It's still too early to tell if it's a change in things, but it's a hopeful sign in any case.

Now for the big news of the week - an event that is always a high point in the life of any monastic community: our Brother Charles (now Br Julian) made his first profession of vows on Wednesday.

Br. Julian sings at his First Profession mass
accompanied by his Mom in the background

It's a simple service, actually (if a Solemn Mass can ever be referred to as "simple"). It was conducted by Br Adam and Br Andrew, the two brothers who have been Novice Master while Charles has been in the novitiate, and by Br Robert, our Superior, who received the vow on behalf of the community and preached a very fine sermon.

After the sermon Charles came forward, along with Andrew, who presented him to the Superior for Profession and certified that he had been trained according to our tradition.

Robert then asked the usual question: "Are you doing this of your own free will?" (not the exact words, but that's what it means). This is really important when you are doing something that involves promising your life to someone or someones. Although the days are thankfully past, by and large, when people are forced into marriages or into a monastery against their will, it's still a very good thing for people to hear you say - and for you to hear yourself say - that you are doing this because you want to. The marriage promises have this as one of their functions, and no marriage can be performed if the people being married don't agree that they are undertaking this relationship freely. And the same is true for people making monastic profession.

Then Charles knelt and read his commitment to our vow of Obedience, Stability and 'Conversion of my ways to the monastic way of life' for one year. He signed the paper on which he had earlier written out the Vow by hand and then he went to the altar and laid it there. Then the large full robe called the Cowl, which in the Benedictine life is a symbol of Profession, was brought and put on him. This is always something of an awkward moment, because the Cowl is so big and so cumbersome and there's no way to get it on someone in a dignified manner. It involves a lot of pushing and shoving and pulling and straightening, but it gets done, and when he's finally clothed, he's the newest Benedictine in the world! He then gives the Peace to the members of his community and then we proceed to Communion.

And from that moment on, he is going to be known as Br Julian. Well, in theory. It takes a while to get used to someone changing their name and there have been a good many slips, when someone will refer to "Cha..., uh, Julian", or just forget altogether and call him Charles. I remember how long it took people to refer to me as Bede, or for me to think of myself as Bede. Now, of course, it seems like it's really me. (It was the kids who really made the change easily. I was deeply involved in youth work at the time I changed my name, and the kids loved 'Bede' because it was short and sharp, so it made a good nickname for them, and also because it went so well with 'Bad'. So 'Bad Bede' it was for a number of years, and an occasional person, now well into middle age, will still come up with that from time to time.

Our Church was filled with people, friends, Associates, and some just plain guests. Julian's mother was able to come from Florida. I was especially moved by the number of people from other Religious Orders who had come. Sr Hildegard, a dear friend from the Redemptoristine nuns up the road was here, all splendid in her deep red habit, and Br John, whom we are just getting to know, came. He's a Marist Brother from their place just to the north of us. Sister Eleanor Francis, the Superior of the Community of St John Baptist in Mendham, New Jersey was here, and it's always a significant thing to have one of their sisters, because that community was involved with Holy Cross in our very earliest days in New York City in the 1880's and mentored us very lovingly for many years. Suzanne Guthrie was here from Brewster and represented the Holy Spirit Sisters, who are dear friends. Sr Susan John, a friend for a long, long time who is a solitary sister who lives in the Catskills came and also our really good friend Br Vincent from St Joseph's Monastery in Natchez, Mississippi. Vincent began coming to the Flute Master's classes some years ago, and quickly worked his way into our affections. He's a splendid organist, and he played for the profession. (He's also quite a tailor, and when he's here he can always be convinced to do repair and altering work - quite a gift to us).

So all of the monks, nuns, family, friends and well-wishers made quite a crowd in our refectory for one of our chef Edward's splendid feasts. All in all it was a grand day, and now Holy Cross has one more professed monk.

But stay tuned. There's more to come later in the month!

It's Happened!

2011-04-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. Yesterday the first two daffodils bloomed. This morning the first hyacinth was nodding serenely by the front door, and over by the monastery the grape hyacinths are waving in the breeze. We have hundreds of daffodils planted around the property, and with just a little more warmth and sun we'll have our annual Great Spring Display. And then, God and the deer willing, will come the tulip-daffodil crosses and the tulips. So it is actually going to happen again. Spring is coming.

The first daffodil as captured at dusk this Saturday 02 April by Br. Charles, n/OHC

Because I'm feeling so much into it now, I try to remind myself of the old adage: "April is the cruelest month." You can't really count on anything around here until May. I was living in England once at this time of the year and remember thinking about that poem that says: "Oh, to be in England, now that April's there", and wondering: "What on earth could he have been thinking about?" There are still going to be a number of weather set-backs. But my attitude to it is now changed for the season. I never realize how deep the winter consciousness goes in my bones until the first day like this in the Spring. And then I know, once again.

There's actually lots to be celebrating. One thing that's been on my mind is the Guesthouse season. This has been an extraordinary time. February is always the month in the year that has the highest occupancy rate (go figure). But this year it started in January and hasn't quit. Week after week we have been full or close to full not only on the weekends but during the week as well. Of course the pressure of that tells after a while. But it's also very gratifying. With retreat centers closing all around us, it's quite amazing to be on a upswing here.

And there are other interesting signs. A quite remarkable percentage of the weekday guests have been men. There have been weeks when every guest in the house except one or two was male. This is quite a change. Like most church institutions we can usually count on groups having one man to every two women. But come to think of it, when I look back, the percentage of men coming to the Guesthouse has been slowly increasing for some time. And now there seems to have been some sort of breakthrough. To be the sort of spiritual place that men find attractive and relevant is very encouraging.

The other thing is that the average age of the guests is going down noticeably. Few weeks pass now without a number of young people coming, and this is also a change that has been coming for a while. College and seminay groups have have been part of our life since I was the Director of the Guesthouse some years ago. But again, some kind of threshold seems to have been crossed. Towards the beginning of March there was one week when there was a quite unusual number of younger people here, and when we asked around we discovered that it was Spring Break, and the kids were here for part of that time, along with a significant number of faculty from several different schools. Quite a number of them were male. Who would have thought? Not the kind of Spring Break that I remember!

So there's life all around, and I'm feeling very grateful for all of it. Just the kind of sign that we need at the end of a long, hard winter.

Where Has Everyone Gone?

2011-03-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

Monastic customs and our life-style are a mystery to a lot of people. We get asked some very predictable questions. For instance, at one Sunday dinner some time ago the woman sitting next to me turned to me and said: "Tell me, do They ever let you go into town?"

This kind of inquiry always leaves me a bit at sea as to where to begin. Usually I look for some way to explore the considerable amount of unexpressed agenda that lies behind the question. In this case, I decided to address the nature of the mysterious "Them" who seem to lurk behind the scene and issue or enforce mysterious decrees about our life. "Who are 'They'? I asked."

Not too surprisingly we didn't get too far, but far enough to know that the existence of "Them" was not to be questioned, but their exact identify was a bit fuzzy. The questioner also got to know that as far as I knew "They" didn't live here - only Us. And, you may be relieved to know, I also revealed that yes, we did go into town from time to time.

Ideas about monasteries and the people who live in them can indeed be very curious, and sometimes just plain outrageous, and all of us encounter this now and then because of the amount of contact we have with the Guests who come here. Our freedom to come and go is one of the most frequent issues raised.

I'll just say that, for those of you who don't know Holy Cross, being restricted to our 25 acres plot of ground is not part of the deal here. Of course you have to want to be part of this community, and that includes being here for the offices and meals and for your work, but going out is part of the deal, too.

In fact, it's been a big part of the Holy Cross identity, at least historically. Holy Cross was known for many and many a year for giving retreats and parish missions all over the United States and in Canada as well. It was one of the things that was most characteristic of Holy Cross monks - we furnished programs for parishes. There is even an old tale of the years when seminarians from General Seminary were hired to perform the Holy Week liturgies at the Monastery because so many of the brothers were on the road preaching during Holy Week.

Times have changed that part of our life. The yearning for a deeper living of our monastic vocation has meant a greater desire of the community to be at home for our life of prayer. In addition, society has changed, and so has the Church, and the demand for parish retreats and missions is much less than it once was. Some requests do still come, but nowhere as many as used to, and with the Guesthouse operating at its present level, that's not a bad thing for us. There is plenty to do at home.

But this week rather looked like Holy Cross in the old days. The guests wanted to know where everyone was. That's what we who were still at home wanted to know, too.

Br Robert, the Order's Superior, was in Toronto, making his annual visitation to the Priory there. Br Adam was in Manhattan, conducting a Quiet Day at the Church of the Transfiguration (also known as "The Little Church Around the Corner") and he also preached there twice this morning. On Wednesday he will be giving a program on Lectio for the congregation at St Ignatius of Antioch Church in Manhattan. Then he goes to Richmond, Virginia to lead a Benedictine Experience program for the Friends of St Benedict. Br Scott was leading a Quiet Day at the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. Br Bernard was gone for most of each day as he led a Guesthouse Retreat that had been scheduled to work on the building of a house for Habitat For Humanity, and ended up to be work on a City Farm in Kingston.

Holy Cross volunteers working at Kingston's South Pine Street City Farm - March 23, 2010
From left to right, Leone, Br. Bernard, Lori (Ken is behind the camera).
Thanks to Ken and Leone for the pictures of the day.

Br Charles is at Emory House, the monastery of The Society of St John the Evangelist north of Boston, making the retreat that precedes the occasion of his First Vows, which will be in a couple of weeks. And Mark, our Postulant, is on the 10-day leave that marks the end of his Postulancy, and he will then also be doing a short retreat before he receives the Habit of our community and officially becomes a novice monk.

That's half the community! And when you add to that the various occasions of meetings in the local area, necessary shopping, doctor's appointments and other things that often come along, we have sometimes been struggling to keep the Sung Office going. On one occasion this week, there were only 4 of us in Choir for the noon office. I judiciously rearranged the seating. All you really need is one strong voice on each side of choir and it can be managed, and the two brothers who remained are good singers, even if they're not (yet) leaders. And it did fine. It may not have been exquisite, but it was perfectly acceptable. We even got through all of the elaborate Offices for the Feast of the Annunciation quite beautifully, I thought.

It also helps us to long for the latter days of Lent, when the whole community will be at home again, and the choir will be full.

This life, as is true of all kinds of life, has its ebbs and flows. We pray the Office with a full choir and with a nearly empty one. Sometimes the Church is packed full of people, and sometimes it's just us (and the Holy Spirit!) Sometimes there are lots of people to do the dishes and sometimes not. As much as the rhythm of prayer in the Church and in our Cells, the rhythm of brothers arriving and leaving is part of this life. .

St Benedict bids us pray at the end of each day for the brothers who are away, and from that we learn that this rhythm has been part of the Benedictine life from the very beginning in the Sixth Century. And we still end the Office of Compline each day with the Officiant saying: "May the Divine help remain with us always." To which the Choir responds: "And with those who are absent from us." And then we file out of choir and into the Great Silence, carrying with us in our hearts our brothers who are away.

One community, wherever we are. One Office, however it may sound. All of it wrapped up in God's presence and offered for God's glory.

Fixing Up

2011-03-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

I don't write often about things like decorating and the care of our buildings and our rooms, but this is supposed to be a blog about what it's like to live in a monastery, so some attention is appropriate to how we keep things fixed up and in order.

Maybe you'd be interested in our rooms (or in monastic parlance, cells). They are all the same, since this building was built in the 60's. They are each 10'x14'. A cell indeed, you might say.

On one wall is a unit that has a desk, some shelves and our bed, which is a foam mattress on a wooden board, and it folds up into the wall when not in use. This is a good thing, because the rooms don't have much room when the bed is down. On an adjacent wall there is another unit with a sink and medicine cabinet, some shelves of various sizes and a small closet. The floor is a cork tile. There are two narrow windows, one of which opens, and this is the source of most of our complaints about the building, since getting any ventilation in the summertime is very difficult. Especially on the top floor, right under the black roof, it can be pretty awful in hot weather.

So there it is. We have what we need and not much else. Appropriate, you might say.

We all have the freedom to put some decoration in the rooms as we please - a carpet, a chair, some things for the walls. It isn't possible to get too elaborate - the size of the space takes care of that. And the nature of our life tends to exercise a continuing pressure as well. I'm always interested to watch new men arrive and struggle to see how much they can get to fit into a 10 x 14 space, and then see, as the years go on, how often the things they've put in the rooms are gradually cleared out. Something about the monastic life makes simplicity seem the best way, and we don't have to have much in the way of rules about it. If we're living our life well, that seems to take care of itself.

My room has needed some fixing up for quite a while. For a time in the late 70's we didn't use the monastery building because we couldn't afford to heat it, and a certain amount of damage was done to walls and ceilings, and my walls showed some of the damage as did the hot water radiator that stretches across one wall. The bed had also gotten damaged somewhere along the line and needed to be fixed. And things were looking shabby. As far as I can figure, the room was last painted about 30 years ago, so I'll just draw a decorous curtain over the subject of how it looked. So some plastering had to be done, and some carpentry and the radiator needed to be cleaned and sanded.

And then painting. Oh my! Do you know how long it's been since I chose paint colors? Jaimie, our building manager, appeared one day with the folder of chips illustrating 500 different colors I could choose from. You all know how this goes. But I pulled a surprise on him - I took about 30 seconds to choose the color. I knew what I wanted - a light gray with just a little hint of green in it, and I knew it the minute I saw it. Jamie was astounded. "Don't you want to think about this?" he kept asking. I could just see him worrying that I was going to change my mind halfway through the paint job, and I'll bet he's seen plenty of that in his years as a contractor. When I insisted, he went on his way, but all of his workers knew the story within a few minutes. The Man Who Chooses Paint Colors Fast - that's me!

And the work happened fast. One man plastered while another worked on the radiator cover. The painting started and was nearly done by late afternoon. The one cinder block wall got washed - I decided not to have it painted, because I like the look of the blocks and the subtle color differences in them. By noon the next day the whole job was done. And yes, the paint did dry darker than it first looked, and it proved to be exactly the color I wanted. Big sighs of relief from the work crew.

Meanwhile I sorted through the stuff that I had carried out of the room. Books which I hadn't read and wasn't going to - off to the library. Knickknacks that have lost their charm to be discarded. Clean the rug. What's going back on the wall?

The result? It's great. All that freshness and the greater degree of simplicity make my space feel more welcoming and more comfortable. My spirits are a little lighter - we really are influenced by our surroundings. Every once in a while I stop and admire that color I chose so quickly, and grin. Nice color. Nice cell.

As I've indicated, we don't do this very often, and that befits our life. But it certainly is nice when we can do it. It feels good to be in there, and it feels good to pray in there.

Spring cleaning is a good thing!

A Happy Heart - An Aching Heart

2011-03-13T07:47:00.000-07:00

My heart is happy today, because it looks as though our Br Ron is recovering well. It will take him a long time for his recovery. Indeed it takes anyone a long time to recover from pneumonia, and someone with Emphysema has more hurdles to clear on their way to healing. But he's breathing on his own now, and he's on his feet for short periods and talking about getting out of the hospital and back home, which hopefully will be in the next few days. So there is much to be thankful for, and I feel a lot of happiness.

I'm also feeling a lot of aching right now, because I've just come from looking at the collection of pictures in the New York Times of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. The destruction is one thing when it's unimaginable. When you've seen the pictures it's no longer unimaginable, because it's right there in front of you.

It would be nice to think that it's my spiritual nature sensing the oneness of all humanity that causes me to feel this way. And though I won't rule out the reality that some of that is true, it's also true that a lot of it is just memory. Once you've lived through something like that, it never leaves you.

In the 1980's I was living at our Priory in South Carolina, in the village of Pineville in the Low Country between Charleston and Columbia. and it was towards the end of that time that Hurricane Hugo devastated so much of that part of the South, particularly South Carolina. So many of the newspaper pictures I've just been seeing are not like a horrible scene in a faraway place. They look like something I knew - and know - all too well.

I wasn't in Pineville when the hurricane hit, so I didn't go through the worst of it. I was, in fact, deep in the Rockies in Northern New Mexico on a fishing trip with my friend Mark, and we didn't even know there was a Hurricane until we came back down to where there were some newspapers. I got home 2 days later, my flight having been diverted from Charleston to Columbia, where the airport was still functioning. And then we drove 2 hours through a devastated land - forests flattened, towns terribly damaged, people wandering about in deep shock.

Everyone at the Priory was fine, physically, and we had shelter, at least. The Priory was composed of a large central house and a collection of hermitages in which the monks and the guests lived. The main house still stood, but the roof had peeled off in the storm, which the community had experienced because they took refuge in the house, several of them under large pieces of furniture. Several of the hermitages were damaged. A tree limb had come through one wall of my hermitage. There was, of course, no electricity. But the phone lines were underground, so the phone worked sporadically. In one of those ironic happenstances at times like this, for several days we could call out but no one could call in, or people could call in and we couldn't call out, and we never knew which was going to be which.

It was September, so the weather was ok, and there was no major suffering from heat or cold. But we usually used water from our own well, and the pump didn't work. Then very quickly one of our Associates from Florida came with a small generator which would run the pump, so after a few days we had water. We could cook because the stove used propane gas, and the tank was still connected. We were without electricity for several weeks, so we went to bed early and got up early.

We cleaned up. We piled up trash. We burned debris. To this day I think the worst part of the whole experience was not any deprivation but just the living in the middle of all that destruction. The Priory Church was a modern building and it had a lot of glass, some of which was broken out. It had one glass wall that looked out on what had been a grove of pine trees, but now was piles and piles of debris. It changed our worship, in a big way. Both we and our neighbors found that periodically we simply had to stop our cleaning up. We could do just so much, and then we couldn't do any more. And there was nothing around us for miles and miles and miles but more destruction. It was terrible to live in.

I drove to the house of a friend in Alabama who had electricity so that I could get some word out to our friends and Associates, and I remember that drive vividly. It seemed that no matter how far I drove I couldn't escape the destruction. It was everywhere. The world had turned into a nightmare.

I also remember the day the electricity came back. The first we knew of it was when Br Tom Schultz pointed at the ceiling fan in the living room of the main house because it was turning. It took a moment to realize what that meant. In the midst of the chaos, a fan was blowing.

Well, we had a place to live and we had each other, so we were in much, much better shape than many were. There were houses in our county that had survived didn't have electricity a year after the storm. We were fortunate in so many ways. That doesn't lessen the trauma.

I'm not saying that I understand the magnitude of what has happened to the people of Sendai in Japan. I'm just saying that this is what comes up for me in looking at the pictures of what has happened there.

How do I pray?

Well, I pray with my emptiness and my aching heart, or I don't pray at all, that's for sure. When I think the phrase "the people of Japan" or hear it in our Church during the Prayers of the People, that ache opens again. It's what I have right now.

And with it I have my old friend the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Word of God, have mercy." Over and over. And I have the beads that I wear on my right arm, always close to hand (literally!). And just writing this has opened me up more to the prayer that I have to have - that I have to be. I have no doubt whatever of my call to pray now. And I'm glad beyond words that I've had my years of experience at negotiating hard times in prayer, so that I don't have to use a lot of energy figuring out "how can I possibly pray in this situation?" I have my tools. I just have to use them.

The result of my prayer? I have no earthly idea, and I'm not terribly concerned with that. I am a person who aches for the people of Sendai (the city where the earthquake was strongest). That's the truth - part of the truth - about me. Part of that truth is my memories of the trauma of natural disaster. The reality is that I simply have to pray that and lay my prayers in the hands of God. We are all really one, and this is what I have to offer to those on the other side of the words with whom I am one. The "results" of my praying are not my business.

I know that doing it will work some grace in me. I have trust that God will do whatever should be done in those for whom I pray. I choose just to step into the reality of the oneness of all people.

Lord Jesus Christ, Word of God, have mercy.

Update

2011-03-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

The news of Br Ronald today is encouraging. The brothers who visited him report that he is lively and communicative (communicating with notes, of course, since he still is on the ventilator). He is breathing on his own about half the time, his blood work is good, and there is no heart involvement. He may be out of ICU by tomorrow. So we're very encouraged, and thank everyone for their prayers. We - and especially Ron - appreciate it greatly.

Emergency

2011-03-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

I'm late today and this will be abbreviated, because of an emergency.

I got up early this morning. I'm Refectorian this week and needed to make coffee for the guests and had to do it early if I was going to have time for prayer before Matins. I got the coffee done and then got into the shower and I had just finished when Br Rafael appeared at my door to say that Br Ronald was having trouble breathing and he had called the ambulance.

This is serious business. Ron has had Emphysema for many years and has been on oxygen for a long time now, as many of you will know. A couple of years ago he had several episodes of breathing problems, which turned out to be due to side effects of a medication he was taking at the time, and I got to know that inside of the Emergency Room of Kingston Hospital very well.

By the time I got to his room, he was breathing fairly well, but was weak and shaky. The EMS crew arrived quite shortly after that and got him on some concentrated oxygen and whisked him away to Kingston. Br Bernard went with him, and I stayed home in order to get breakfast served and to have some myself. I have blood sugar problems and I can't miss a meal.

I got to the hospital soon after breakfast to find that there was a diagnosis of double (bi-lateral) pneumonia, but with no heart involvement, which is a blessing. They had started intravenous antibiotics and were sedating him, because anxiety is very much a part of breathing problems, and it can complicate any recovery.

As Ron's consciousness faded he got quieter and his breathing slowed. Bernard went in search of his own breakfast. Then we talked some to the medical personnel, and they told us that Ron would be transferred to ICU later in the day, and would be kept sedated for several days, while the healing process has a chance to get well established. All was quiet. The new Emergency Room at the hospital seems to be a fine facility, and he was treated with exactly the right combination of friendliness and professionalism. I was impressed.

So I got home in time to get lunch served and then have a short nap. I leave before long for an event that several of us are attending at the home of a friend who lives in the mountains west of here.

That has been my day. We are very concerned, of course. We'll certainly appreciate prayers from any of you who would like to join in. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Is It Spring Yet?

2011-02-27T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's the time of year when it gets harder and harder to convince oneself of the virtues of a good old fashioned winter - especially when you wake up, as we did this morning, to another good old-fashioned blanket of snow all over everything.

Even I, who am an unabashed lover of winter and of snow, felt my heart sink a bit as I looked as the lovely soft white cover all over everything.

And yes, it was lovely, white and soft, but. . . . The piles of snow and ice that the plow has left are still nearly head-high in some places. And we usually have Snow Drops blooming a couple of weeks before this, and this year the bed in which they are planted has 8 inches of ice on top of it. And This Has Gone On Long Enough!!!

So much for the rant.

This is supposed to be a column about what it's like to live in a monastery. So I can begin by saying that what it's like is that we get tired of winter just like everyone else. Some of you may find that consoling, and some will find it irritating, but it's the truth.

Next, one of the things one does as a Benedictine Monk is to apply him (or her) self to noticing what is around, especially to signs of life and of hope. Sure, it's a gloomy experience to wake up and discover that there has been yet one more damn snow storm in the night. But what else is there? What signs are there?

Well, as we were standing in the sacristy waiting for Mass to begin this morning, the clouds parted and the sun came out. And everything was suddenly different. The gloom lifted. It was really beautiful. The minute the sun shone the snow began dropping off the limbs of the trees, and that was a nice little sign. By the time Mass was over the driveways had melted nicely. And if you opened a door and stepped out, the birds were singing.

A few years back a friend pointed out to me that the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, which is February 2, is the day that the birds start singing their spring songs, and it has become a wonderful spring ritual for me to go outside on that day and hear the new year begin in song. That feast must have been an old pagan festival that Christianity took over and replaced with its own feast, but that kind of observation reaches back into the early history of human beings, and that moves me greatly, Long before Jesus, or Abraham for that matter, people were noticing the date that has become February 2. Life returns.

And if we wait long enough the Snow Drops will bloom. They are incredible little flowers. They produce a tiny amount of heat and sooner of later they melt their way to the surface of the ice pack and come up right through it - I've seen them do it before. I watch for it every year.

And our Guesthouse is full of people who have come here for a variety of reasons, but at least some of them - perhaps a good many of them - are seeking God's presence, or at least discover themselves confronted with it once they get here.

There are a couple of parish groups here this weekend and a group of students from Swarthmore College, which is a sign of hope all in itself. The students have been in silence all weekend (well, except for Texting) They come every Spring - Episcopalians and all other kinds of Christians, a Buddhist or two, some seekers, some agnostics, some with no label at all. It is a great privilege to welcome them and let them see our life.

Last night after Compline I lingered in our Church, as I sometimes feel moved to do. And the Church was filled with a huge and gentle Presence. It was so strong that it just about slapped me across the face. And interestingly enough, I wasn't the only person who noticed, because there was an unusually large number of guests who lingered for quite a while after Compline. A number of them were the students. The silence and the Presence caught me and held me, and was obviously having some effect on a number of others. When the time came I took myself off to bed, leaving a small number of people still there.

To live in a monastery is just this - to look for God. And then to share what we find or what we have with others. In the case of Holy Cross it means spending our time and efforts operating a Guesthouse and sharing our meals with several thousand people a year. Other monks teach, or do social work or counseling or any of a number of other things.

But the life is just that - to seek God, and then to share what you have found. And today I share the gloom and the joy one finds in a lingering winter, and a Presence that found and held me last night.

And I share it chiefly so that you will reflect on your own search and what you have found. After all, it's unlikely that you would have read this far if you didn't have a search of your own.

Of Knowing God and Eating Lentils

2011-02-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went on a sort of pilgrimage. I went looking for a Thin Place.

Thin Places, as many of you will know, are spots that the old Celts used to identify as locations in which you can most easily sense the presence of God. Because God is more easily found in these places, they often serve as pilgrimage spots, sometimes for huge numbers of people, but the majority of them are local spots, known only to those who know the neighborhood. This part of the country is full of such places. The whole of the Catskill mountain range was holy ground for many of the Indians of the pre-European days, for instance.

I went to a long thin valley in the Litchfield Hills, which serve as the approximate boundary line between Connecticut and New York, to the home of Mary and Dan Gates. Mary is the person with whom I often conduct meditation retreats. They have an old house close to the stream which runs through their valley, and over the years they have remodeled it so that it now is full of windows that look up the valley and down to the banks of the stream. At the present snow fills the valley and ice covers the stream, but there are a few places where open water gurgles over rocks and lets us know that warmer days are ahead.

But that valley was not the Thin Place I was looking for. I was in search of the thin place that lives inside me.

I joined a group of about a dozen people who had come for an all-day meditation session. The group gathers more or less monthly. Some months there is a weekend retreat and in alternating months there is a Saturday gathering. Our schedule at Holy Cross, with the busiest days of the week being Saturday and Sunday, means that going away for a weekend isn't often realistic for me. But a one-day thing is easier to manage, and I try to get to these events when I can.

One of the interesting oddities of the search for God is that God is everywhere, but you have to go somewhere to find God. Since the days of the Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Christianity - and for centuries before - people have felt the need to make a journey to find the Holy, and to look for the knowledge of how to experience that Presence which is everywhere around us and in us.

In the case of our little group the vehicle is entirely simple. We sit, we walk. We sit, we walk. We sit, we walk. We do that all day long. At noon we have lunch and then a nap. Then we do it all over again. We begin at 9 and we finish at 5.

We also have a notable friend and excellent teacher in Doug Phillips, who used to conduct retreats at Holy Cross and who now concentrates some of his energies in the Litchfield Hills. He leads and interprets these retreats with great skill.

So what happened? Those of you who have embarked on adventures such as this could write the story just as easily as I can. The wind howled up and down the valley. The stream gurgled. The sun came out and warmed the room in which we were sitting, and then it disappeared. The pain in my back came and went. The itch on my right cheek came and went. My sense of concentration came and went - and came and went....... My conviction that this was a good thing to be doing came and went. Joy came and went. Love came and went. And the day by the stream came and went.

And two things happened that are staying with me. One was the experience of lunch. We had a lentil soup and a fresh lettuce salad. That's it. And it was delicious. I could hardly believe how wonderful the soup was, and believe me, I'm no fan of lentil soup. Ir was so good that at the end of the day I asked Mary if there was a recipe for it. She expressed some astonishment that I was asking. Apparently you boil lentils, and that's about it (I exaggerate, but only slightly). And plain lettuce, all by itself - who would have thought? The most obvious explanation is that something had opened in myself, something that made me aware in a way that I haven't been before that there is goodness and delight in even a lentil, and in the lowly lettuce.

picture by Netsu

The spiritual tradition of Christianity, and of most of the faiths of which I am aware, stresses that knowledge of God is not found principally in spiritual experiences, but in the ability to see clearly and in loving even the unlovable. Even lentils? Had I perhaps spent the day sitting in the presence of the One that I was seeking? And was that presence signaled to me by my delight in some very humble vegetables? My experience of the presence of God is that it always comes as a surprise. My mind flashes back to the Eucharist on the streets of Newburgh about which I wrote a few weeks ago.

The second thing is that on the way home I became aware that I was feeling light, as though a burden that i didn't know I was carrying around had been taken off my shoulders. That sense has remained with me into today, so maybe this pilgrimage will be one that provides my life with a bit of leaven which can be the basis for growth and change and deepening.

When I'm awake and aware, I sometimes realize that the simplest things can provide a way. There is always somewhere to go from here.

I think my pilgrimage may have been to the right place.

(And no, I am not unaware of the irony that I, who live in a place which thousands of people find to be the most significant Thin Place in their lives, have to go away in search of my Thin Place. Well, life is full of ironies.)

Another Farewell

2011-02-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last week, this Tuesday we celebrated the Funeral Mass of our Brother Cecil. He actually died about 3 weeks ago, but in recent years the funeral of one of our brothers has been somewhat separated from the actual time of death. Immediately after our brother has died the community has its own observances; we sing the Office of the Dead for one entire day and have a simple Requiem celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and we do our own reminiscing. The funeral is then set on a day that gives friends and family a chance to get themselves together and arrange transportation, and it has become increasingly important to be able to find a day when the Guesthouse isn't completely filled and we have room for those who are coming from a distance.

Cecil was 80 years old and, like so many brothers at the present time, he had come to the Order after a full life of work and family. He was from Texas and Arkansas, and loved that part of the country dearly. He had a Masters Degree in Library Science and worked as a college librarian both before and after he entered the Community, and had held other clerical jobs as well. He had married and had a family - a daughter and 3 sons of whom 2 are still living. Those who spent time with him here when he came to West Park knew very well how important his family was to him and how deeply he felt any alienation or brokenness between himself and them, and how hard he worked to overcome such wounds.

Cecil had most of his formation in the Order on the West Coast, in the days when the novitiate was located in Santa Barbara, and he came to West Park only later on. When he was here he served as Librarian, and also ran the Bookstore for a time. He also had a period of service in West Africa, when we were still in Ghana, and helped organize the Library for the Seminary in Cape Coast with which we had a good deal of association.

Then in his later 70's Cecil had a space of a number of years when his health began to diminish. Several years ago he recognized that the time had come when he was having increasing difficulties living in this location and that caring for him was proving to be steadily more difficult. After a period of discernment he moved, with his own agreement, to a nursing home. After some time he relocated to a facility that was about 10 minutes from the monastery, which made visiting with him much easier. Br Lary faithfully visited with him each week and others of us dropped in on him when we were in the neighborhood. He was also able to have occasional visits with us here, especially at the time of the great feasts. We came to know his daughter Sara especially well during her visits to him during those years, and also became acquainted with his sons.

The funeral was a really fine occasion, and was one of the most intimate of these events that I can remember. All of his children were here, of course, and his sister, who is 8 years older than he, called that morning to express her sorrow at his passing and her gratitude to the community for his years with us.

Br David Bryan, our former Superior, came from Toronto to preach the homily, and it was exactly right for the occasion. It was gentle and also realistic. It was quite honest, and very graciously so. He spoke of the Cecil that we had actually known, and of the love of Christ that transforms us. It's hard to Imagine any sermon for Cecil that could have been better.

The attendance was not large, as one expects for the funeral of someone in their 80's, but it was a very personal occasion. I could identify every single person there, and knew why they had come. Besides Cecil's family, and our community, there were several of our local clergy, who had known him or who came to be a support to the community, and this included one priest who had been a regular visitor and counselor to Cecil after he entered the nursing home. There were 3 men from a 12-step group that Cecil belonged to, who had never lost touch with him and who occasionally had their meetings in the nursing home, which he greatly appreciated. There was a woman from the Church of the Messiah in Rhinebeck who is a Eucharistic Minister and who brought communion to him every week. One of our Associates from New Jersey who was a particular friend of his was able to come. And Sister Mary Klock of the Sisters of Mercy, and Fr Tony Cayless, who have both been Residents of our community also came, Tony from North Carolina and Mary from Philadelphia.

Cecil's children all came forward at the time of the Committal at the end of the Eucharist and each of them had a bit to say, just in testimony of their life with their father. Then Robert, our Superior, gave his ashes to them to carry back to Arkansas. Most of us are buried in the Columbarium here at West Park, but Cecil had a great desire to rest in his family's plot in Arkansas and we agreed that it would be good for that to happen. Cecil's plaque will join those of the few who are buried in other places, either where they ministered for many years or where their families are buried.

And so we bid farewell to one of Holy Cross' most colorful characters. And of course we don't bid farewell at all. His presence will linger with us in our choir, in the refectory and in our halls. This is a place of history, among other things, and those who have gone before are very much a part of the life of Holy Cross.

Before I sign off, I also wanted to make sure you noticed the link to the MyAuntMarty blog, written by a recent guest and old friend of Br Bernard. She is spending a year eating in a different place each day for a year and writing about each experience, with an eye to producing a book about her experiences.

We had a wonderful supper with Marty this week when those of us at the table with her shared her experiences of the journey so far and then also heard from another guest who happened to be sitting with us of his bicycle journey from Seattle to Washington DC about which he is also writing a book. It was one of the most fun and stimulating meals I've had in a long time. I think you'll enjoy her reflections on the meals here and her time with Edward, our chef. I certainly did.

The Snow and a Goodbye

2011-02-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

This week I did the same thing that millions of Americans did: I shoveled snow.

Though we didn't have the amount of snow and ice here that many people had to cope with, we were still socked in pretty securely, and no one went anywhere for a while. Mike, our Groundsman, does quite a good job of plowing us out, but there was more to do than one person could take care of in one day. So I got out my Knicks parka and a shovel and went to work.

My appearing in that parka always elicits some comments when I put it on. I guess people don't experience me as the typical sports fan. And I will have to say, in all honesty, that I am not a Knicks fan. In fact, I know so little about them that I even had to look them up on the Internet to be certain of what sport they play. Nor are electric blue and orange my colors.

I can get excited about most sports, but not in the ordinary way. For me, watching basketball or football is a communal event. I'm really happy to join friends in Kansas in rapt adsorption of the Jayhawks when they're playing a game, and I can get pretty wound up about going along with my friend John to a game at Yankee Stadium, and I have a great time when I do. But when I get home I go in other directions. It just never occurs to me to watch baseball or any other sport when I'm by myself. That's what I do when I'm with friends who are really turned on to the sport.

So I'm not making a statement when I wear my parka. But someone either left this behind and forgot to claim it, or gave it to us when he was done with it. Whatever the case, there it was, and I needed something warm, so I adopted it and wear it when there's work to be done in the cold.

There were a couple of specific things to be done. I shoveled out the door on the river side of the building where the UPS man makes deliveries, so that I could get incense packages to the shipping area. I also take care of replenishing the salt in the water softener for our 3 buildings, and the plow had dumped snow right in front of the door to that shed, so I shoveled that out as well. That was a larger job. And I fooled around a while longer, cleaning up places on the monastery porch and in the parking lot.

I love the snow. In the days before my feet failed me so that I can't take long walks any more, I would get out my boots and take a long hike in the hills to our west every time there was a big snow. I love the beauty and the silence of the hillsides in the snow. When Br Bernard gave thanks at the Prayers of the People at Mass a couple of days ago for "our diamond studded hillside", I knew exactly the view he had from the upstairs windows, since I rejoice in the sparkle of the snow in the early mornings, too. Snow always raises up my impulse to praise. So getting out and shoveling is not drudgery for me. It is work that I love doing, and I am glad that at nearly 73 I am still up to doing it.

I had fun. I even had my picture taken.

So that was a pleasant moment for this week. And with that bit of joy, there was also a somber time, too. A couple of days ago we got the news that our friend Robert had died. His death was a surprise - he got pneumonia and wasn't able to throw it off and succumbed fairly rapidly, as his brother called to tell us.

Robert was probably our longest-standing guest. As I remember it, he was already visiting regularly when I arrived here in 1964. And even if my memory is wrong, it was certainly shortly after that that he began visiting here, and he has been a regular guest ever since. If you are one of the people who comes here fairly frequently, you may never have heard Robert's name, but it wouldn't surprise me if you recognized him immediately when you saw him.

Robert was a fairly short man, bald, very quiet. He kept very much to himself. He lived in Southern Vermont, I believe in a group home, though I'm hazy on the details. He had some disabilities, and his face wore the look of those for whom life has not been an easy place to be. I think he found some peace here that he had trouble finding elsewhere. He certainly loved to come.

Robert didn't communicate much, and never until he had been around you for some time and was sure of you. He always left the Refectory immediately after he finished eating and in good weather he could mostly be found on a chair on the south lawn, smoking and looking at the river. In recent years he would have some conversation with me - almost always about the weather and about his travel plans. He would let me know exactly when he would be departing and exactly how he would be traveling, usually on the bus. Several years ago, when Sister Mary Klock was living here, she struck up a friendship with Robert and he would talk with her. But Mary could charm people, animals and even plants. She has that gift, and Robert was the beneficiary of it.

As I mentioned, Robert's brother Bill called us to let us know what had happened and talked for a while, reflecting on his brother. He said that the two of them had been best friends since childhood, (and in recent years it had been Bill who made all the arrangements for Robert's visits.) He was obviously quite moved by Robert's attachment to Holy Cross, and he thanked us greatly for receiving him openly and being attentive to him, and for the kindness he found here. It was especially the kindness that he valued, and he mentioned that several times.

Our ministry here is to be a praying community, and to let our prayer open our hearts to God and then let that overflow in whatever ways it moves. Very often what happens in the course of our ministry remains a mystery to us. We know that people love coming here, and that they do it with enough enthusiasm and in large enough numbers to keep the place going (actually, "to keep the place flourishing" would be more descriptive of what's happening at the present time).

But sometimes the curtain lifts in one way or another and we see what has been happening. To know that we have given welcome and peace for nearly 50 years to someone who needed them is a great gift to us, and one for which I am really grateful. As I thought about Robert after hearing Bill's reflections, I was kind of surprised to find myself getting teary at the thought that Robert will not be coming here again. Except, of course, we may find him with us in our prayers.

May Robert rest in peace and rise in glory.

(If you get to this Blog through the Monastery web site, you also probably know that our Brother Cecil died recently. His funeral will be on Tuesday, and I'll probably have some reflections on that later). Meanwhile you can join us in prayer for him and for his family.

A New Priest and a Dog

2011-01-30T07:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I didn't blog, did I? I really had intended to keep the blog going while I was in Kansas City, but it didn't work out that way. My time there was busier than I had counted on and the time for getting myself relaxed and centered for writing was quite limited, so I let it go. Now, with apologies for the absence, I'm back.

I had a great time, saw many friends and acquaintances, and had some really nice experiences, including the Asian galleries at the Nelson Atkins Museum (which has a world-famous Asian collection) and lunch at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and all sort of meals with old friends.

One of the highest points of the trip was an Ordination. My friend Michael Bell, whom I knew here in New York before he moved to the West Coast, and now to Kansas, was being ordained to the priesthood and had asked me to be one of the people who presented him for ordination and who vested him with his chasuble just after the ordination itself. I was really delighted to be asked, and moved my visit forward by a week to accommodate the occasion.

It was, in a word, wonderful. Bishop Wolfe has made ordinations in that Diocese into a sort of diocesan family reunion. Ordinations are now ordinarily at the Cathedral in Topeka and, to begin with, he expects all of the clergy of the Diocese to be present - and they respond in large numbers, so you begin with 60 or 70 priests and deacons, all gathered to welcome the newly ordained into their ranks.

At this service there were 6 people being ordained, 3 as priests and 3 as deacons, so with all of the people from the parishes that they represented, plus families, friends and well-wishers, Grace Cathedral, which is quite a large building, was jammed. And the congregation overflowed with that sort of laid-back friendliness and joy that Midwesterners specialize in for that sort of event. One of my friends said: "It felt like everyone was there because they wanted to be, not because they had to be - and that made such a difference." And it really did.

I had expected such a large ordination to be unwieldy and was half expecting that it would be more of a trial than a pleasure. But a pleasure it definitely was. The liturgy was beautifully organized and exactly suited the complexities of ordaining six people to two different Orders. The bishop's sermon was splendid - and he looks so much like a bishop when he's got up in his finery. The Cathedral choir is excellent, and they sang wonderfully. They also have two very fine organists, who saw to it that the organ pealed and thundered at all the appropriate places. Michael was radiant - he radiates especially well. Presenting him and vesting him was very moving.

The service did, in fact, take two hours, but I never once felt it was dragging, and was so happy to be there helping my friend get ordained.

I served the Diocese of Kansas for a number of years as a part-time consultant in the area of spiritual development, so I know it well, but even so, I wasn't prepared to see so many people I had known over the decades of my association with the Diocese. It was certainly a family reunion for me, and a very joyful one. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Nor should I fail to mention how nice the reception after the service was and how plenteous the food, nor the fact that there were plenty of gluten-free choices on offer. You don't find that often at church gatherings, I can assure you.

Then just a few days later I had another treat given me - 2 days with Baxter, who is a Golden Retriever who belongs to my friends Doug and Kirk in whose condo I was staying for a while. They were both going to be gone on business for a couple of days in the middle of that week, and they asked if I would dog-sit.

Joy! I love dogs, and I'm very fond of Baxter. Baxter is also fond of me, but then he's a Golden Retriever, and if you're a person, a Golden will love you to death. That's just what they are like.

So Tuesday came and Doug and Kirk departed. Baxter moped. He was sociable enough, but he was definitely moping. He's a rescue dog. Though we don't know the story in detail, it looks like his old owners dumped him in a wooded area north of the City. He was found by a lady who lives in the area and she advertised and inquired and did everything she could to find who he belonged to, and finally, when she couldn't locate an owner, she offered him on Craig's List. And so he came to Kansas City.

The day passed. Baxter consoled himself by lying on the bed in the master bedroom. And then the end of the afternoon arrived and it was time for Baxter's walk and then his supper. I went into the bedroom and said: "Baxter, come." No response. "Walk" I said. He looked balefully at me and didn't move. And he practically dared me to do anything about it. "Your walk" I said, "You love your walk". No movement. "Supper", I said, thinking I might bribe him - if a Retriever loves anything more than people, it's food. Nothing. He wouldn't budge.

So I walked over to the bed. He raised his head, not in a friendly manner. I took hold of his collar and tugged. He did something I have never seen a Golden do - he growled. I said: "You have to come!" He growled more. I tugged harder. He snarled and then he bared his teeth. My friend Mark, who is a Vet, says that he's convinced that dogs who are abandoned never get over the experience. So here I was, confronted with an angry rescue dog of uncertain temper.

What do you do with 57 pounds of dog when he's snarling at you and won't take his walk? I briefly considered bribing him with food, but then decided to leave that go for a final desperation move. I went and got his leash. When I appeared at the bedroom door, he growled again. But then I held up the leash and dangled it in front of his nose. His ears went up. He moved on the bed. "Ha" I thought. Gradually I coaxed him out of the bedroom. By the time we got to the front door he was pretty lively, and he let me put the leash on him. "Victory!" I thought.

We had great fun on the walk. Baxter loves the snow. He puts his nose down and shovels the snow with it. Then he lies down and rolls around and covers himself with the snow. I took him to all his favorite places. I was forgiven.

When we came back to the condo he bounced. Supper-time. No hesitation here. I put the food in his bowl just like he expected and he wolfed it down. Enough food for a 57-pound dog and he got it down in less than a minute.

And then, having identified me as the person who was now supplying the walks and supper, he fell irretrievably in love. He followed me everywhere, and wouldn't let me get further away from him than about 18 inches. I was it, for the interim. He was total affection, in the way that only Goldens can be.

Rather to my surprise, he turned out to be a natural for meditation. I sat on a cushion on the floor in the living room and Baxter would wait until I got nicely settled and then come and lie down and put his head in my lap. And he never moved for the whole time. He was perfectly still and no distraction at all, and Baxter is normally a fairly restless dog. In fact he provided perfect warmth in that cold weather. "Oh yeah," Doug said when he returned. "He does that when I meditate, too."

This has given me something to reflect on about relationships - what it takes to get one going, and what happens afterward. I don't need to elaborate, I think. I'll just leave you with the picture of that formerly snarling beast, with his head in my lap while I prayed.

God bless Baxter.

An Alert

2011-01-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

Just a few words to let you know what's going on.

I'm leaving in a few hours to go to Kansas City for most of the rest of the month. This trip isn't for work. It's partly for celebration - an ordination and a couple of birthdays - plus seeing a lot of friends, and doing some planning for time that I'll be spending there later in the year.

It means that my blogging schedule will be irregular, though, because I'll either be in church or be occupied in some other way on Sunday mornings, which means that I won't get my regular posting in. I do plan to do some writing when something comes up that I feel like talking about, but it won't be the regular Sunday thing. So if you're interested, just check in every now and then.

I'll be back to the Monastery the last week of January, and things will settle down then.

Presents Are Where You Find Them

2011-01-02T07:02:00.000-08:00

I had an unexpected holiday present this year, one that brought great joy. I was up in the foothills of the Catskills one late afternoon this week with a friend of the community who was here for a couple of days. He had really wanted to see the Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Woodstock, especially their Meditation Hall, which is quite amazing. But they were in the midst of their annual New Years Retreat, and it was doubtful that we were going to be able to get in. However, when I thought about what we would do, I knew another place that I thought would fill the bill.

So we went into the hills above Woodstock to Cooper Lake, which is a hidden place, off the beaten path, and one of the loveliest places around. I've gotten used to the little gasps of pleasure that I get when I take people there. "Oh..." people usually say. "how beautiful". Peter was no exception. I heard an intake of breath wen he first caught sight of the lake through the trees. And as always I also marveled at what a wonderful sight it is.

There are a couple of ways up to the lake but the way I usually choose gives people a first glimpse of the Lake nestled in a bowl in the mountains. It's a medium sized body of water and the shore line is covered with trees and little inlets. It's not a recreational lake and there are only two houses on it, so it looks pretty pristine.

Across the lake are the Catskill Mountains, looking almost as though they had risen out of the Lake. They are typical Adirondack mountains, with weathered peaks and forested heights. There are lots of sites much like this in the Catskills, but there is something about the shape of Cooper Lake and the way the mountains frame the view of it that is especially lovely. The people I have taken there testify to that. In the summer there are often people there, just strolling along the road that circles the shore or in one of the coves painting or stretched out sleeping. I'm not the only one who appreciates the special beauty of Cooper Lake. But on this winter evening we had it all to ourselves.

When we first got out of the car there was an extraordinary sunset taking place across the lake. The clouds were very thin and whispy, and they had caught the light of the setting sun and were producing a purple/violet color that I can't recall ever having seen in a sunset. Sunrise and sunset at this time of the year often produces colors that we don't see at other times - rich pastels, usually in pinks and peach and sometimes shading almost to green. But I've never seen this deep violet before, and the thin cirrus clouds that were producing it made it look gauzy, almost like we were seeing it through a sheer curtain (which I guess we were, actually).

It lasted only a few moments and then it was gone. If we had paused down in Woodstock as we went through, even for the briefest time, we would have missed it. That heightened the marvel of it. How many sunsets have there been that I missed because I was looking the other way? How much beauty is perceived as an accident of time and place? Interestingly I didn't want to stop time, and I wasn't anxious to keep the sunset from fading. I was content to let time do its work and the fleeting nature of those minutes only heightened my appreciation of what we were seeing.

And it was so still. The Lake was frozen over, so there was no sound of water or waves, and there wasn't any wind. Aside from the sound of an occasional passing vehicle on the road across the lake there wasn't a sound. It was a deep, deep stillness, the kind that makes me think of the eons of time that the lake has been cradled there in those mountains, and of how those mountains have slowly weathered during those centuries and of how their pace is so different from ours.

But it wasn't, in fact, entirely silent. As we settled into the quiet of the lake shore we realized that the Cooper Lake was speaking - making sounds. There must have been some stresses in the ice. Maybe it was the cooling of the air as night came on that was causing some contractions. Because the sounds increased in frequency as we stood there and then walked around the shore, I tend to think that was probably it. But who knows - a little heat from springs on the bottom of the lake perhaps or other causes that I don't know anything about; whatever the cause, the Lake spoke.

"Grumph" it said. "Grinnnk". "Spueak". Grooooor". "Aaaaaaaam". Each little noise was just a second or so long, and the sounds were each in a different pitch. Then just about the time that darkness was becoming established there was a sharp "Crack" as somewhere out on the lake a sheet of ice fractured. And then the small noises continued as the lake reflected for us the coming of the night. Peter said that he had heard of this phenomenon, but had never heard it for himself. I had never known of it. For both of us it was an introduction to a new part of our world. No wonder that people of old spoke of the forces and presences that lived deep in bodies of water.

It wasn't at all loud. If the surroundings hadn't been so still we might have missed it altogether, even the sound of a significant breeze might have covered it. But everything conspired to let us eavesdrop on the Lake's "conversation" with the mountains. We're used to the voice of the Hudson river - the tinkling sound of thousands of ice pieces being broken up by the tides and scraping against each other is a constant companion in our winter months, and can sometimes, on still mornings, be heard even up at the monastery. This was different, more private, just a whisper or the slightest groan.

Peter is a musician and a composer, and he spoke about silences like this being times when he can just receive music as it comes to him, almost like dictation. I reflected on meditation and the way that deep silences make it possible for things to emerge and be recognized. We both realized that what had come to us was a revelation, one of those rare moments when the curtain is pulled aside and we see something we normally miss. Winter's gift.

Then, when it was becoming too dark to see much more we went down the hill to Woodstock and The Little Bear, which I usually refer to as The World's Best Chinese Restaurant. It has large plate glass windows that look out on the Beaverkill, which was also frozen over, and had the treat of that great view and their wonderful food.

A great evening. A real gift. A Christmas present. One of the thousands of nice things about living at the edge of those mountains.

Memories of a Beautiful Christmas

2010-12-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful time! On all sides, from the community and from our guests and from visitors and people who came for the Midnight Mass I hear what a beautiful time it was. And certainly that resonates with what I have been feeling.

To begin with there was a sharing at the heart of it. This year we decided to share our celebration with the Sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit from Bluestone Farm in Brewster, New York, which is about an hour east of here. They are good friends of ours and we see them from time to time when they visit here or we go there. And we have some deep bonds with them in Suzanne Guthrie and Bill Consiglio who are Resident Companions of that community. They live there and share their lives with the sisters. Bill and Suzanne are also old, old friends of ours and Associates of our Community. Through the past few years both communities have talked about doing more together, and this year we decided that the time had come to do something major together - such as Christmas.

Of course, it had to be here: the Guesthouse business demanded the full attention of the Holy Cross brothers, so it only made sense that the sisters would come here. In the end they had a smaller presence than we had hoped because half of their community had a really severe virus and were too sick to travel. But two sisters, Sr Carol Bernice and Sr Helena Marie, came along with Suzanne and Bill, and their presence was a joyful deepening of our celebration.

For one thing, Sr Helena Marie is a very talented organist and her music was a tremendous addition to the Eucharist on Christmas Eve. Before the Eucharist began she was joined by Suzanne on the flute and our Br Andrew on his Celtic Harp and our friend Reynaldo Martinez Cubero who added his beautiful voice. They provided a grand program of music while we all waited for the beginning of the mass.

Just having other Religious with us really changed our experience of this feast. We made every effort to really include the sisters as part of a joint community celebration, and just making that effort, I think, had an effect on us. Whatever it was, it was very positive. At every turn I hear the monks saying what a difference it made to have the sisters with us, and I also hear the sisters, along with Bill and Suzanne, saying: "Now next year we can...." So I hope we've started something. And I think it will be something good.

The service itself was jammed. For several years attendance at the Christmas Eve worship has been declining. I've put it down to the growing interest in the music programs we provide, a number of which occur in Advent. I thought that was satisfying people's desire to come here for some worship. But apparently I mistook what was going on because Friday night they came.... and they came.... and they came. And still they kept coming. Out came the extra folding chairs. By this time we know how to shoe horn people into every available corner, so nearly everyone actually got in. But not everyone got a program, and a few of the late comers were standing in the entrance to the Church.

It was a grand time. The singing was superb. The atmosphere was joyful. And there was one very powerful moment for me. I was preparing the altar for communion and the congregation was singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem". I was washing my hands when they hit the verse:

Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed Child,
where misery cries out to thee, Son of the mother mild;
where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
the dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.

Suddenly I wasn't in our church any longer. I was standing on the streets in the middle of the slums of Newburgh where we were on Sunday night two weeks ago helping to dedicate a shelter for homeless women. I could feel the cold and the only light I saw was the light of the street lamps and I felt the desolation of the neighborhood. For an instant I was there, not in the warm happy church where my body was. It lasted only an instant, but it changed the night for me. The night was bigger than where I was standing, and my reality expanded. And Christmas came once more.

One other thing that moved me greatly was that among the congregation on Christmas Eve were an Episcopal priest, a Methodist minister and two Reformed pastors. They were men and women who had worked all day and had provided worship for their congregations. They had to have been worn out, and they could easily have gone home and to bed. Instead late at night they had come to us so that they could join our worship and, in the words of two of them, "just be quiet and pray." If this is the atmosphere we have succeeded in providing, we have fulfilled many of the dreams we have had for this place.

Then the next morning it all came together for me. Every year we sing Matins late on Christmas morning, and not infrequently it is real work. The toll of a day of decorating, welcoming very large numbers of guests, being hospitable until about 2:00 am (we provide a reception after the Mass) and having too much sugar, combine to make prayer on Christmas morning something of a labor. Everyone is weary. Matins drags. Sometimes it even seems like quite a big drag.

This Christmas we were in the middle of the second Psalm when I realized: "Hey, wait a minute. This is beautiful." The tone was gentle and calm. The choir was together and the singing was light and exultant. Something was going on. A few minutes later we got to the Te Deum, which is an ancient hymn of praise. The music for it is moderately elaborate and something of a challenge for morning singing. Often enough I feel like I am wading through a swamp in hip boots when we sing it. This Christmas morning it soared.

Our offices are often really lovely. This exceeded all my expectations. It was what I have always wanted Christmas Matins to be like. The best part is that my heart was awake enough to take it all in.

What joy. After it was all over one of our friends told me that she had never seen me look so happy. It seems that there is a good spirit loose among us. May that spirit catch you as well during this season. And may we all spread it about. Then Christmas really can come once more.

The Quiet Time

2010-12-19T07:32:00.000-08:00

It's really quiet around here. Advent has taken hold of us and there is a kind of settledness (which my spell checker doesn't think is a legitimate word) about the house. The guests are few in number, because not many people would consider abandoning the demands of the season for a weekend in a monastery. So our customary crowded conditions have given way to a more spacious and leisurely feeling. Interestingly enough a large percentage of the people here at the moment are in their 20's and 30's, which is a sign of hope in itself.

This week we were in retreat for several days, which we always are in the 3rd week of Advent, and the vibes of that time still roll up and down the halls. This year the Advent Retreat reminded me yet again of what a powerful effect silence can have all by itself. There are all kinds of things you can do in a silent time, but even without the doing, silence accomplishes a lot, just by itself.

Even the outside world colludes in this settling. Much of the wildlife has either gone to sleep or gone south. Most of the commercial and recreational traffic on the river has ceased for the winter, leaving us with only the occasional tug boat pushing a barge along. Traffic noise is curiously muted the past few days. Stillness pervades the river valley.

And the colors are muted, too. Everything is gray or brown. Because we have had some unusually cold weather this month there is ice on the river and frost lies heavy on the lawns in the mornings. As we head off to Matins early each morning, the sky is colored with very pale tones of pink and peach, which we see only at this time of the year. At night the sky sparkles and the Moon and Jupiter sail across the heavens together.

Our newly refurbished Crypt is a mysterious cave in which to savor the quiet, made cozy and welcoming by the warmth of the radiant floor heating. These days it's very insistent in its call to come and share the silence, and to pray prayers that demand very few words. Nothing but quiet permitted here.

Of course the change will come, and not many days from now. The Guesthouse will be completely full for Christmas, and more and more reservations come in with each day for the days between Christmas and New Year. The tree is up, but not decorated yet. The decorating will happen on Christmas Eve.

And all I have to do is turn on the TV to encounter the difference between Advent in a Benedictine Monastery and The Holidays in America. The pictures of the throngs in the Malls and the mobs in the airports offer a sign of hope for a recovering economy, and the relentless barrage of Carols and Holiday songs provide the background for the season. I don't deny the joy of the bustle and the crowds. I even like it when I'm out in it. But I am very glad that we have an alternate way of expressing this season.

The Offices make our Church resound with the sounds of the Season - not the Christmas Carols - not yet - but the sound of Gregorian Chant which carries the plaintive cry of "Come". "Come." "O Emmanuel, come". The deep longing of the human heart for the Divine echoes through our church, our halls, our hearts. Advent longs for Christmas in a deep and insistent way - a way that requires some quiet to begin to perceive.

As I have said in this space before, one of our friends who was for a time priest in one of the local parishes used to say that one of her favorite moments of the year was coming to the monastery during the busiest shopping days of the year and seeing the sign on the bookstore which says "Closed For Retreat". It's our own quiet way of insisting on what's more important.

So, I send Holiday Greetings to each of you. I do hope your celebration is filled with joy. I hope happiness will blossom wherever you are. And I hope that the quiet depth which we experience so abundantly here will find its way to your hearts as well.

May the still small voice of the Christmas promise live within each of you.

Another Radiant Weekend

2010-12-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

Saturday this week provided another occasion quite out of the ordinary - and very different from last week's Monteverdi concerts. This weekend was a another special blessing. Several of us went to Newburgh in the late afternoon to help bless Ecclesia House, which will be a residence for formerly homeless women. It has been the dream of Ecclesia Ministries in Newburgh, presided over by our friend and Associate Steve Ruelke, who is a minister of the United Church of Christ (serving a Presbyterian congregation). Our Brother James has also worked with Ecclesia Ministries for a couple of years now, and has labored hard over the plans for the residence and in raising the money to get this project going, and in many, many other ways.

Ecclesia House is in a very run-down part of Newburgh, which is a very poor and suffering city. The house was formerly a shelter run by the Roman Catholic Church. After years of operating they ran into financial difficulties and after a lot of struggle finally had to close the place. When it finally closed, two women, both named Pat, continued to live in the building because they would not let their vision of the shelter die. They knew that some day there would be a shelter there again, and so they stayed there winter and summer, even when finally there was no electricity and no heat, waiting until their dream that the house would be a shelter again finally came true. After the years of their waiting one of them has died and the other is in the hospital now, just a few days away from death. But their dream has indeed come to fruition.

Now the money has been raised and the remodeling is nearing an end. 14 women will live there and have a place of privacy and dignity where they can get their lives together and move on towards a better future. The renovations are not quite complete, but the time for celebrating the project and blessing it had come and, since we at Holy Cross have had a part in getting this project going, and have helped with the fund raising, we certainly weren't going to miss the celebration.

We got there by driving through a very dismal part of the city, driving down block after block of empty lots, buildings in disrepair, abandoned buildings, buildings in which one light bulb burned on an upper floor and others that were completely dark. We parked in a lot, across from a car all of whose tires were flat, and walked up the block to where a small crowd was gathering in front of the building that will be the shelter.

It was dark and it was cold. For light we had the mercury vapor street lamps. For heat we had what the homeless have - nothing. By the time everyone had gathered there was a crowd that I estimated at 80 or 90. We were a very mixed group; volunteers, helpers, supporters, donors and the homeless. We were watched over by members of the local chapter of the Guardian Angels, who kept the street clear and safe for us.

The street altar
Originally uploaded by bdelcourt

Steve set up for the Eucharist. The altar was a sheet of wood laminate laid over two saw horses. He had a cinder block to stand on when he talked. There was a pottery chalice and paten. There was a flute to accompany the singing. And there were the people. There were a half-dozen Holy Cross monks in white habits and all sorts of jackets. A few people were in the dress of the Bruderhoff - a Protestant religious community that has houses in this part of the country. Most of the rest were ordinary people. Not many of them seemed to be privileged. Many seemed to know very well that life can be a hard business. But somehow the people who made up this little group had caught the vision, and shared the thirst for justice and compassion in this dark corner of the city.

Br. Bede checking out the bulletin
Originally uploaded by bdelcourt

We sang, and there was gladness in the group. Steve presided over the Eucharist with grace and humor. We all, members of I don't know how many different churches, shared communion together. The Holy Spirit was tangible. At the end of the service we all stretched out our hands towards Ecclesia House as we blessed the house and the ministry that will happen within those walls.

Last week I talked about what a revelation the performance of the Monteverdi Vespers was for me, and how it revealed a depth to the Psalms deeper than I had encountered in all my years of praying them. Last night, when Steve broke the bread on a dark, cold street corner in Newburgh, I saw a depth to the Eucharist that I had not seen before.

Then we went down the street to Calvary Presbyterian Church where we had a wonderful dinner that people had been working over all day - roast pork, fresh winter vegetables, home made apple sauce, and the sort of pie extravaganza that only churches seem able to put together. We ate, we sang, we met some new people, we laughed. We were the Body of Christ.

Last week's memories are of light and magnificent music and a celebration that revealed the depths of the Scripture to me. This week's memories are of joy in the darkness, of a small group of people who have somehow caught the vision and have worked and worked to make it come true, and of the Eucharist revealing the depth of the Spirit's presence in this sad neighborhood in a suffering city.

They were two different experiences. And they were the same experience. It was God, asking us - and me - to open our eyes and see.

A Radiant Weekend

2010-12-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

I'm late today. I've been conducting this weekend's Advent Retreat along with my friends Suzanne Guthrie and Sister Helena Marie of the Community of the Holy Spirit, and I was with the retreat group this morning, at the time I usually use for blogging.

We built the retreat around the principal event of the weekend, which was a performance of Claudio Monteverdi's Vespers of the Blessed Virgin performed by Kairos, the choral group that is Artist in Residence here at Holy Cross.

So for the retreat we talked about the Vespers and about Mary. Suzanne used a lot of beautiful slides of various art works and wove them together with a meditation on Mary. It was fun to watch a group of ordinary Episcopalians wrestle with themes of the place of Mary in the Church and in their lives. And I'll have to say that much of what they shared this morning was extremely moving. One of the participants said that what he saw this weekend was Mary bringing the Body of Christ into the world once again.

But what has filled me so full this weekend was the performance of the Vespers itself. It's one of the most popular of Monteverdi's works, but not often performed because the resources for it are not easy to assemble - a double choir who can sing very complicated Renaissance music and an orchestra that has not only the usual Violins, Violas, Cellos and an Organ, but also Sackbuts (the predecessor of the trombone), Cornettos (a curved wooden flute sort of thing which is wrapped in leather and sounds very much like a cornet) and a Theorbo (a lute that is about 5 feet long).

It was an amazing experience. Seldom have I had the experience of a piece of music revealing so much to me. Monteverdi's brother said of the Vespers that "it had been his intention to make the words the mistress of the harmony and not the servant", or in other words, the meaning of the words was to determine what the music was - apparently a new idea at the time.

And oh, did he ever succeed! The introductory talk before the concert taught us some things to look for: "in altis" (on high) is set to a rising melody and "et humilia" (humble things) is set in a slow, descending scale. Just knowing a couple of things like that was enough to get me noticing so many other ways in which Monteverdi used music to express meaning. One of the most distinctive sounds of the piece is the chorus singing a massive musical sound, often on just one note or a very simple melody, while the orchestra saws and toodles and toots away underneath, and that turns out to be one of the most effective ways of expressing pure praise that I have ever heard.

The piece is composed of very familiar texts - mostly the Psalms and Antiphons from the Office of the Blessed Virgin. I have been singing those Psalms and Antiphons for 50 years, the majority of them in our monastery Church, and I heard things expressed in this piece that I have never encountered before. I came away completely full and also with the conviction that I have a long way to go before I know how to completely use the Psalms in the praise of God. There's work to be done, even after all these years. Not a bad thing to realize.

The Vespers was performed twice, last night and this afternoon, and I was at both performances. Last night the thing that grabbed me most was a trio of male voices, two basses and a tenor, singing of the Seraphim crying out before the Altar in the Temple, of the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. The three melodies repeated and wove around each other in a sound that was both soft and very intense, and I felt like I was witnessing the Trinity being sung into being in this world.

This afternoon there were two moments. The first was a tenor duet, "Audi Coelum" (Hear, O heaven) which is sung between one man standing in front of the stage, and a second one who is hidden off to the side. The man in view sings: "Hear, O heaven, hear my words full of longing and pervaded by joy", and the second voice answers from out of nowhere: "Audio", "I hear". At that moment I realized that I was hearing the longing of the whole human race for God, and God's answer to that longing, which we all want so badly to hear.

Then at the very end of the piece the Magnificat is sung. And after everything else that has happened, I was expecting to hear a great blast of praise. That did come, but not until the final "Amen". Instead what came at the beginning of the piece was another tenor duet, again with high, piercing voices, quietly and intensely singing praise while in the background a soprano choir echoed that praise. And I knew I was hearing human beings and angels singing praise to God together.

I was transfixed. Both times. The second time I didn't have the energy to be as emotional as I was last night, and I also caught more of the detailed work of how the Vespers is put together and what it is expressing. But I was transfixed, nevertheless.

And one of the retreatants told me afterward that her favorite part of the whole thing was watching me at the concert. She said: "It's not often that you get to see an adult so completely filled with joy." And I was. I really was.

And so once again, here it is. Life in a monastery. It's pretty wonderful.

And it seems to keep getting better.

Signs of the Times

2010-11-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

Advent comes with the message of being awake, aware and alert to the signs of the times. As it happens, I've been thinking about some of those signs as they have revealed themselves to me, and to others in our community, in some recent conversations.

One was with a guest in who was here a few weeks ago. It was at the noon meal on a Sunday, and we fell into conversation because we were sitting next to each other at the table. She had never been here before, but our Guesthouse had been recommended to her by a friend, and she was curious to see what monasteries were like, so she had come for an overnight visit.

"I'm interested in your life" she said. "Tell me, what do you people find to do to keep your time productively occupied?" I think there was a bit of a pause at that point, because I was rather stunned. Having empty time which is not productively occupied is not one of my problems.

Then I had to search for something that might be meaningful to say. It seemed clear that talking about prayer wasn't going to do it for her, at least as a starter, so I finally said: "Well, we run a large retreat center." "Oh?" said. That part of our life seemed also to have escaped her.

This goes together with another incident, one that happened to one of our brothers some time ago. He was coming back from a church service in Poughkeepsie and picked up a hitchhiker who was looking for a ride across the Mid-Hudson Bridge. It's relevant to the story to mention that he was wearing his habit at the time. The ride began with some silence, and a few tries at conversation that didn't go anywhere. Then the man leaned over, fingered the sleeve of our brother's habit and said: "You work in a laundry or something?" The sight of a white monastic habit with a large black cross did not seem to convey anything (except perhaps a laundry).

Certainly the woman I was having lunch with is far from the only person that I have talked with to whom our life is a total mystery - and not an attractive one, at that. The view of a monk as a person who has nothing meaningful to do is hardly new. I've seen reference to judgments like that in writings from the 5th Century. I decided a long time ago not to be defensive in the face of encounters like these, but just to be as straightforward as I could and present our life as I see it. At one of those dinner table conversations I was once asked: "How do you justify a life like yours?", and I managed to say, with some grace, I hope: "I don't. I'm not interested in justifying this life. I just live it. And I find it very rewarding."

Encounters like these are not unknown to us, and they are getting more frequent I think. The monastic life is certainly often misunderstood. It also is more frequently quite foreign to the experience of people. Two of our brothers recently attended a meeting with some local business leaders, and it was clear from their comments that a certain number of them see the religious orders in this area principally as groups that pay no taxes and give nothing useful to the area in return. A few of them are pretty angry about it.

We can talk about the thousands of guests who come here each year, and how they shop in local stores in eat in local restaurants - and those who own those businesses will gladly testify to that. That's true, of course, but it also isn't why we're here. Why we are really here is harder to talk about, especially in a meeting of business leaders. But the truth is that we are here to pray, and that's the important thing that we do. And it's important not just to us, but to the area around us as well. In a society that is becoming more and more aggressively secular, it is crucial that there be places of the spirit present. We represent a dimension of the human personality without which people are not whole. The search for the Divine in the world around us and in the depths of our hearts is part of what it means to be human. To have places set apart for that is not just an optional extra. If you want evidence of how important this is, just look at the number of those who come here.

But we live, as I said, in a society that is becoming more and more secular. The Church scene as it has traditionally been is now often seen as irrelevant. Even the conservative Evangelicals with whom the word "Christianity" is so widely identified now are in trouble in many places. I recently saw an article which predicted a considerable upswing in feelings of rejection and anger towards to those churches in the years immediately ahead.

I don't think we need to look at this situation with dread, just with realism. The experience of Europe indicates that this sort of thing is likely to spread. It won't be even - there will always be places that are more religious than others, but it will happen. And we need to meet it with both openness and confidence. We need to see what a secular society has to teach us, and we need to know that we have something that is not going out of fashion. We are here to help make the search for God a reality and a possibility in our society, and that is a good and necessary thing to do.

Finding our way will probably not be easy. A lot of things are going to have to change. But the history of the human race indicates that the interior life is pretty resilient. It makes itself known practically everywhere there are people. Some recent research seems to indicate that our brains are hard-wired for it. And Benedictine monks have a tradition that knows the ways of this life. We know what the conditions are for deepening it and what the difficulties are that are met on the way. We offer something really crucial for humanity: wholeness and wisdom.

I have no regrets about having lived my life in the pursuit of this path. I'm really glad that I have been one of those who have learned the way and are passing it on. A good deal of my life has been spent in exploring the ways of the interior search and of figuring out how it can be passed on to this generation. This is what we have to offer. It is no small thing.

Learning, Teaching & Grace

2010-11-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

I have learned a new skill. I am very happy and satisfied.

I learned how to link this blog to the Home Page of the Holy Cross Monastery web site.

You may have noticed that there has often been a lag between when I posted the blog entry on Sunday mornings, and when the description of it on our web site matched the actual new blog. That's because I didn't know how to do it myself and someone else - either Br Bernard or Br Charles - had to do it, and it sometimes took a while for that to happen.

Over the years I've thought about doing it myself, but the last time I asked it would have required installing a piece of software on my computer and learning to use that software and no one seemed to think it was worth the effort for a 2-minute job once a week.

But a week or so ago I just got inspired to ask again. And it turns out that there have been changes in our web site that now make it possible for me to do it fairly simply.

So a couple of evenings ago I asked Bernard to teach me how to do it. It took a while because I'm a computer dunce. I know very little about how anything outside of my usual programs is done and I'm not comfortable poking around in it myself, because I've caused some disasters in the past.

Bernard was really good. He and I are both experiential learners. I don't learn things by being told how to do them. I learn by doing them. I never know how to get anywhere until I've driven there myself. You may give me clear and expert directions for any new task, but I don't learn from that; I learn by following the directions and doing it myself.

So Bernard gave me the instructions and I wrote them down as we went along, because I knew I wouldn't remember them, and then he patiently guided me through the process of following his instructions while I did them several times to make sure I knew what I was doing and why. It took a while because it involved learning several new techniques, and because he learns the same way, Bernard could see how I was doing it and he was content to follow along at my pace. When we were done I was absurdly happy. Learning this task gave me great satisfaction.

This is partly because in the past I've made the mistake of trying to learn computer stuff from people who teach essentially by lecturing, which is quite a good style, but unfortunately not of much use to people who learn like I do. This often left me in a deeper hole than I was in when we started, and the frustration, of course, slows down the whole learning process. As it turned out, I asked the right person, and now I'm really pleased. (None of this, by the way has anything to do with intelligence. Your learning style is quite a different thing from how smart you are, which is something that schools are just beginning to catch up with).

All of this has something to do with how prayer is taught, which is what I have spent much of my ministry doing. Christianity has a particular deficit in the teaching of skills useful for those who are drawn to prayer. Until recently there was, in fact, very little available to teach people who felt that they wanted to know about the ways of contemplative praying. There are a number of reasons for this, including the centuries of arguing about whether human effort was of any use at all or whether all good things came only from God. In addition, in recent times contemplative prayer has been regarded as the exclusive preserve of "specialists" - ie monks and nuns.

But in the last century a great thirst for deeper prayer began to manifest itself in our culture and Christians had a lot of catching up to do. I've been part of that process. In recent yeasr I've been involved largely in the teaching of the ways of meditation, but I've also done it with intercessory prayer and with lectio divina. I've spent much of my life discovering how to teach people to do these forms of prayer.

The success I've had has been because I paid attention to my learning style. I knew what I had to have in order to learn: I had to have a short, clear instruction and I had to practice it and then I had to ask questions about what I experienced. Any number of times I have said that one of the most valuable things about a prayer group is that I can ask the same question over and over and over in many different ways, until I finally get the answer.

But what does "teaching prayer" actually mean? It means, first of all, having as your foundation the knowledge that prayer is a relationship. It's the love relationship between you and God. That's it. You don't go anywhere without getting that straight at the beginning.

Next is knowing that I'm not "teaching" anything other that a way to be in God's presence, so that the relationship can develop. Centering Prayer is particularly good at this. Their literature describes the way of this prayer as sitting still in God's presence and consenting to the work God is doing in you. Yes, that's it. Now, how do I do that? Well, here are the guidelines........

Hey, folks, that's experiential learning. It's not a denial of grace, or a downplaying of the role of God in prayer. It's just saying that if I'm going to learn how to do this thing I need to know how. Just the instruction "sit still" is of some use, but limited. How do I sit still? That's where the learning begins - at least for me, and for a lot of other people I've encountered.

You may also have noticed that in the prayer teaching that is current in Christian circles these days, a lot of it sounds very similar to Buddhism. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, a lot of this stuff in universal. A certain amount of inner exploration is the same for everyone, whatever their religion.

Secondly, when Christians started trying the meet the great need that was being expressed for the teaching of prayer, the Buddhists were the ones with the directions at hand. And they have lots and lots of directions. They have spent centuries working out just how people are led into the ways of deeper experience. And people who went East in search of prayer came back with all this stuff, which then made its way slowly into the broader culture. It turned out that there were many useful tools there which are now used in many different contexts. And the Buddhists are smiling.

I'm smiling, too. I'm ridiculously pleased at knowing my new computer technique. I'm also pleased at the years of work I've done in coming to know the ways of prayer and in sharing that knowledge with other people. And I'm quite happy knowing that my style of learning is quite respectable. It has turned out to be useful to quite a number of people over the years. Just paying attention to how I need to learn has caused any number of people to say to me: "You explain things so well." And I smile. Because I know that it really isn't the explanation that matters. It's knowing how a person needs to learn, and making sure that's paid attention to.

Now what's the next thing I can learn about my computer?

Meditation and a Chipmunk, with bows to Mother Teresa

2010-11-14T07:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to a day-long meditation retreat at the home of Mary Gates, with whom I lead meditation retreats here at Holy Cross. There were a dozen of us there, including the teacher, and we had a great day. Very simple. Sit, walk, sit, walk, sit, walk, lunch, sit, walk, etc. The usual meditation retreat. It was exactly what I needed, and I came back more centered and settled than I've been in a while.

I got home just in time for supper, and when I sat down at the table one of the guests asked me where I had been all day. So I told her, and then explained what I had been doing. The answer seemed to rather unsettle her. Why would I want to do that? After all, I lead meditation retreats, don't I? Why do I need to go to one? "No reading?", "No lectio divina?", "No discussion?" To each of those I replied that no, we just meditated, sometimes while walking and sometimes while sitting.

Thinking about that encounter later I was wondering how to go about explaining it to someone who has trouble understanding why anyone would do such a thing. After all, even if meditation retreats are more common than they used to be, many people never encounter that sort of behavior. Why would someone want to do that? And how is it explained?

Then I remembered the story of Mother Teresa, who was famous for getting up at 4 a.m. each day to pray. No matter where she was or how late she had been up, she got up at 4 for prayer. Apparently a reporter once asked her what she did when she prayed - how did she pray? "Oh," she said "I just listen to God". The reporter thought for a while and then said: "And what does God do?" "Oh," she said, "He just listens to me."

Probably some people would want some explanation or commentary, but for me it's quite self explanatory, and I intuitively understand it. The mutual exchange of listening really reaches me as a means of communication.

And then I thought about the chipmunk. I had been out for a walk in the hills just west of the monastery one morning. It was a beautiful mild sunny day, a perfect time for a walk in the hills. I was gone most of the morning (it was a Monday, our Sabbath Day) and at the end of my walk, as I was coming down our drive, there just by the little stone building we call the Goat House (no one knows why), was a chipmunk on a stone. He (or she) was busy with some small task, but when he saw me approaching he sat up on his hind feet, very alert. He made no move to run or hide, but he sat there very still, and very alert. I slowed down and when I got close to him, I stopped.

He stood there. I stood there. He waited. I waited. We watched each other. Time went by. We waited and we watched.

And then something really wonderful happened. He relaxed. His muscles just untensed and his whole body relaxed. You could watch it happening, little by little. And as he relaxed, so did I. He didn't stop watching me, nor did I lose the eye contact with him. He sat, I stood relaxed, and we went on watching each other. I, of course, don't know what was going on for the chipmunk, but he seemed pretty comfortable with it. At least he didn't want to leave. Neither did I.

I was really surprised at the power of that moment. The chipmunk moved into my life. No words were exchanged, no actions brought us together, we just stayed there in each other's presence. He looked at me. I looked at him. And over the great distance between a man and a chipmunk, some hint of communication came in the silence. The looking wasn't empty. Not at all. We were being with each other.

We stayed there for a long time. At several points I wondered how long this was going to last. But I didn't want to break the moment. At least from my vantage point, we had established some contact, and I didn't want to break it. And whatever was going on for the chipmunk, he didn't want to leave, either.

But finally the time came. He moved a little, and then I did. He looked around, and then in a wink he was gone, under a nearby rock, and the time was over. But that time still has power for me. I show no signs of forgetting. Over all the things that separate a man and a beast, we had reached out and been with each other. It didn't need words. It was very full.

So, could you use that to understand a day of meditation? For me, at least, it sure is a good explanation. "I look at God. God looks at me." And in that look so much is exchanged, and even though nothing "happens", so much does happen. Sometimes the doors to friendship, companionship, sharing and even love open in silence.

I probably need to get more skillful in talking about this and explaining it. But my difficulty is that it's so natural to me and it makes so much sense. I listen to God. God listens to me. What else do you need? Just doing that is so full. Sure, there is teaching that is helpful, and ways of putting yourself there that can make a difference, and there are books and books about that. But I think it helps to have a chipmunk to make sense of it all. A soft furry little creature who will interrupt his day just sit there and be with you.

I've never forgotten. And it still makes perfect sense to me.

Of Turkeys and Teenagers

2010-11-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

No big thing to reflect on this week. Just a couple of small happenings that helped make up the fabric of the week.

We have a flock of turkeys on our land. There are 20 or 25 of them and they live in the woods just at the edge of our property and love to feed in the meadow which is below the monastery, between our buildings and the river. In fact, we have a perfect habitat, because turkeys like to live at the edge of wooded land, with a large field available where they can get the grasses, grains, berries and slugs and other small creatures that they feed on. We see them mostly in the mornings and evenings, and our guests love to watch them making their way across the meadow, pecking at whatever they can find.

I saw them one morning, going slowly across the field as usual, and didn't think much about it. Then about a half hour later I went over to the Guesthouse and I was walking outside, on the river side of the buildings, and passed below the Little Cloister. As many of you know, our monastery is built in a U shape around a large old oak tree, and this makes a small cloistered space in the center of our buildings, with the Guesthouse on two sides and the Church on the 3rd side. The 4th side is open to the river. And there in the Cloister were the turkeys, all 2 dozen of them. It was crowded - they are BIG birds. They were milling aimlessly around, looking very much like a bunch of tourists who have just realized that they've gotten off the subway at the wrong station. Turkeys are programed to go straight ahead apparently, and the only way to get out of the cloister is to turn around and go back, which seems not to be something they do easily, and they hadn't figured it out when I came along. I stood there for a while, and they weren't coming up with a solution, and they also didn't seem to want to come in my direction while I was standing there, so I went on about my business. When I came back a few minutes later, they were gone - either into the woods or up the hill towards the road, I suppose. It was a nice encounter; one that revealed something about the lives of turkeys that I didn't know, and it's nice to get to know the creatures that share this spot with us.

The other thing I'm thinking about is the admission of a new Associate yesterday. Many of you will know that we have a group of Associates who keep a rule of prayer for their daily life, and who promise to pray for us and support is in various ways. There are in the neighborhood of 600 or 700 of them, and a substantial number of them are frequent visitors and some are close friends of the community.

The man who came to be admitted as an Associate this weekend has been known to us for quite a while. His father is a deacon who is also an Associate of many years and a good friend of the community. He came with his son for the ceremony, and they had with them some of the next generation - the new Associate's son and his nephew and one of their friends, all youngish teenagers. They had come to be with their father/uncle/friend as he committed himself to the ordered living of a spiritual life in association with a community of Benedictine monks.

It was a grand occasion. There is absolutely no missing the pride and joy of our new Associate's father in this step that his son is taking. And the kids have been an important part of the weekend in their own way. They hadn't been here very long before they were down in the meadow and then went on down to the river, where one of them fell in, so they started their visit off in good style. Yesterday they explored the Walkway Over the Hudson, which is the old Poughkeepsie railroad bridge, now refurbished and made into a state park, and they seemed to really enjoy that. And they have come to every office in the Church and to all the Eucharists, where they sit together on the first row - something that Episcopalians rarely feel comfortable enough to do. The community has sort of looked after them while they've been here, and whenever one of us asks how they're doing, they say that they are having a great time.

This is not an altogether unknown kind of experience. From time to time fathers bring their teenaged sons here to introduce them to a part of life that they find valuable, and to let them know that the living of a spiritual life is part of what it means to be a man. Some time ago we had a man who came for a weekend with his 13 year old son because, he told us, his father had brought him here when he was 13 and he has never forgotten it. Our society doesn't have much in the way of formal coming of age ceremonies for either boys or girls, so people have to make them up on their own, and it is a great privilege to be part of that growing into adulthood when we get a chance. It's also great to be part of a weekend that you know is forming memories that are going to last a lifetime.

There there it is - a week of sun and clouds, prayer and work, monks and associates, turkeys and teenagers. All part of the Benedictine life and all lifted to God in praise and gratitude.

Short & Sweet

2010-10-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

I have just a few minutes to write today. All of my weekend (ALL of it - I haven't even looked at my mail or opened my email) has been occupied with conducting a meditation retreat with my friend Mary Gates and tonight is the special Halloween edition of our monthly Community Pizza and Movie night. So I'm squeezing this in between things.

The meditation retreats are a real favorite of mine. Mary and I got started on them out of desperation. We had an Insight Meditation retreat that we regularly held on the Labor Day weekend, and it was always popular. Then one year the teacher who regularly conducted it couldn't come at the last minute. His daughter was going away to college and parents' weekend was on Labor Day and he couldn't do it and we were stuck. Mary and I were both attending a class on Buddhist teachings at the time and I was agonizing about it, wondering how were were going to replace that retreat (and that income). Jose, the teacher of our class said: "Why don't you do it?" Well, I had been teaching the Jesus Prayer for years and Mary had been teaching Centering Prayer for a long time. We looked at each other and the Christian Meditation retreat was born.

That was 2001 (I think). At first we offered it yearly - on Labor Day weekend. It was an introductory retreat, and we designed it to offer people some exposure to 3 methods of meditation commonly in use in Christianity today (The Jesus Prayer, Centering Prayer and John Main's Christian Meditation). We allowed plenty of time for people to actually meditate in the 3 different ways, and plenty of time for questions and reflection. It went very well, so we did it again the next year, and after a while people started asking for more so we added a "Level 2" retreat, with more meditating and less discussion, each spring. And so we've been going on with it ever since. We have quite an alumni group by this time.

This year's fall retreat moved to October so that Mary and Dan, her husband, could have the Labor Day weekend for themselves. But it was its wonderful self. Great people. Quite a wide age range, from people still in school to those nicely settled into retirement. Some racial and cultural diversity, too. Interested and hard-working people. The questions and discussions were really good and deep. And we used our newly-renovated crypt as our venue, and it was wonderful. A great place for silence and for inner work. Couldn't have been better.

And working with Mary is always a joy. We are a great team, and those who come always comment on how we work together. We are very much on the same plane and we have an intuitive understanding of each others' way of teaching. My experience of it is that we are able to work together pretty seamlessly. After all these years we can tell which one of us should handle a particular question just by a glance. A really great working relationship and both of us enjoy it.

And the retreat really gives something to people. It helps them deepen and change their lives. One woman who has been coming yearly almost since the beginning said this time that she originally came just because she liked the quiet and the food at Holy Cross and not because she particularly wanted meditation. And she got caught. Very slowly, little by little and now, years later, meditation is a non-negotiable part of her daily life. She got hooked because, she said, she notices that when she doesn't do it, she feels different, in a way that she really doesn't like. It does "work".

So here I am, really tired from the weekend's work, really happy at how it went, and really contented with what we have created over the years. Not a bad space to be in on Halloween.

The Old Becomes New

2010-10-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Under our Monastery Church is a large space that holds several chapels. It has always been called "The Crypt". These days a great many people have images of Friday night horror movies when they hear that word, and I've known the occasional guest who wouldn't go down there because they found the idea going into a Crypt positively alarming.

But in fact, the Crypt has in the recent past been a favorite place for a lot of people. The various little chapels provided some nice, quiet, intimate places for prayer. A few years back, we made one of the chapels into a meditation room, and that became a favorite haunt of a number of people. And not least of all, our Founder, Fr Huntington, is buried down there, behind the main altar, and across the chapel from that is a Columbarium where members of the community are buried, along with various friends and Associates of the Order. Many people have liked to explore the history of the community through reading the plaques on the niches in the Columbarium.

The Crypt had a radiant heating system under its tile floor, and that always made it a cozy place to be in cold weather, and it was one of the things I liked about having the Vigil on Maundy Thursday down there. But 3 years ago that system, which had been state of the art in the 1930's when it was installed, finally gave up the ghost. We did everything we could think of to rescue it, but in the end, there was nothing to do but admit that it was gone for good. That was at the beginning of the current recession, and we, along with so many other people, had seen a large percentage of our savings disappear, and we were entering the present difficult times. There was no way that we could afford to do the repair work that was needed.

And so the Crypt languished. Being a basement essentially, it could be damp. In fact, about 5 years ago we had several ankle-deep floods down there until we found the difficulties with the drains that we causing the blockage. So with a tendency to humidity and with no heat our Crypt became more and more moldy, especially in the winter. We tried space heaters at one point, but they weren't adequate, and so the place that had been a favorite of so many was mostly deserted, and got more and more ratty and unattractive. It was sad.

Then an email arrived one day last winter, asking me if I recognized the name of a certain woman who had lived in Springfield, Illinois. Fortunately it came to the right person - for I had been Director of our Associates for a number of years, and this lady had been an Associate of ours, though we had not heard from her in many years. It turns out that she had been in a Nursing Home for quite a while, and that she had recently died and left a good part of her estate to a "Holy Cross Monastery", with no address or contact information. So her lawyer was contacting every place he could find that was called Holy Cross Monastery in the hopes that he would find someone who knew her. And I did.

And so all of a sudden we had the money to think about restoring the Crypt. So the Monastery put some funds into the project, and the Order of the Holy Cross added some money to the fund, and this summer we began the renovation.

The heating system had to be dealt with first, and what we finally decided to do was not to try to dig up the old floor, but just to lay a new one on top of it. This would accommodate a new radiant heating system, again state of the art, only now, 80 years later, it would be much more efficient. Once that decision was made, we had to think about the floor and after viewing all kinds of possibilities including tile and concrete, we decided to have it carpeted - a rich, deep red.

Then we replaced the lighting, which though again was state of the art for the 1930's was quite frankly appalling by the 2010's. And during the years of decay, the inadequate lighting has just added to the aura of neglect.

And of course the walls needed to be repaired and repainted.

We expected to be pleased to have our Crypt back in service. I think that none of us was prepared for how lovely it turned out to be. Having adequate lighting brings out elements of the architecture that we never saw. The arches that are so much a fixture of our buildings are now eye-catching features of that space, and the lines of those arches reflect back and forth on each other in ways that I had never, in all my 45 years here, ever noticed.

The lighting can also be raised and lowered to fit the needs of the moment and provides a great flexibility of mood. We've used several pieces of art from various times in the community's history to make prayer spaces out of the little chapels, and the meditation room is now restored to its use. We have moved our Tuesday night meditation meeting down there and suddenly the size of that meeting has increased - who knows whether that is cause and effect or simply fortuitous, but at least we have a lovely space in which to meet. And last Tuesday night I sat on the floor on my cushion and was surrounded with a nice gentle heat that made me think of dark and snowy nights in January, when we'll be comfy down there while the storms rage outside.

So our Crypt is now a beautiful, comfortable, and very serviceable space, and people love it. There is constant traffic up and down the stairs to that space. More often groups are requesting to meet there, and individual guests find a quiet refuge there. Of all our renovation projects of the past decade this certainly ranks as one of the least expensive, but one that has made really significant changes to people's experience of the monastery.

And I love to be there - with our Founder and the departed members of the Order, so many of whom I have known. It is yet another reinforcement of how beauty and spirituality intertwine. The Crypt is now again a place of genuine beauty, and one which is going to draw people deeper as time goes on. I am very moved by what we have accomplished there.

And the Result is.......?

2010-10-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

If you go around to a random group of people asking the question: "What is prayer?" the most common answer you will get is: "Asking for something" (either for yourself or for others). This is followed fairly quickly by all sorts of questions, centering around the concern of "Does it work?"

I've been involved in that dynamic myself any number of times over the years, and once had a fairly large spiritual crisis over it. I've talked to lots of people about this and been on both the giving and the receiving end of the conversations. The result of that over many years has been to learn that this whole approach isn't really the heart of the matter.

Last night I got a call about a very old and dear friend who is away on a trip and has been caught in a remote area with what may very well be a heart attack. When I got the call they were trying to get the local Emergency Response Team in to her, with the expectation that they would call a medical helicopter to evacuate her to a regional hospital.

My response was immediate: I must pray. And the second response was just as strong: I must get other people to pray. I made some telephone calls to mutual friends and wrote several emails to people who would want or need to know. I gave them the news, but that was really a vehicle for asking them to pray. I never stopped to consider what the result of the prayer was going to be or how likely it was that God's mind was going to be changed by these prayers. I was faced with an imperative: the most important thing to do right then was to pray and to get some other people to pray. The issue, in fact, was not the results, it was the relationship.

Then I set out to do a thing or two. One of the questions about praying for others is "how do you do it?" Well, after a short time I almost always find it helpful to do something about my intercessory praying.

Picture by vuiphuong

I went to our Church and lit a candle and stayed there for a bit and prayed. I find candles very compelling, and anyone around here can tell you that I'm always lighting them. Again, the question is not results, it's the imperative. Where I'm faced with a dark situation, my instinct is to put some light in there - it's that instinctive. And I like knowing that when I'm done with praying by the candle I can leave, and maybe my attention and my prayer will wander, but the candle can go on carrying my prayer, even when my unreliable mind goes off somewhere else.

Then at Compline I found myself involved in prayer in a way that I haven't been in quite a while. The hymn we sing at that Office is a sort of lullaby. Wikipedia defines a lullaby as "a soothing song sung to children as they go to sleep". That works well enough, except that the 'children' part is too restrictive. Why just children? I used that lullaby for my prayer. I mentally made a cradle with my arms and put my friend in it and sang that hymn to her and for her:

"To you before the close of day,
Creator of the world, we pray,
that in your mercy you will be,
our guardian and security."

And that was my prayer - rocking my friend while I sang to her. I'm always inventing small things like that which I can do for praying when the mental issues ("How is she?", Will she get better?", "Is this working?") are unanswerable or beside the point. I need to do something for the person I love,and that something has to involve her and me and God. So I invent ways to pray. It's a straight line relationship. I light candles, I sing lullabys, I do God knows what. There are no mental negotiations involved at this point. There is a friend. There is need. I must pray. That, for me, is the real issue about intercession.

The monk Thomas Keating, who is the father of the meditation practice called Centering Prayer, describes Centering Prayer as sitting in the presence of God with the intention of consenting to whatever transformation God is working in me. That is exactly what I mean by intercession, except that it involves more people than just me. I sit (stand, walk) in the presence of God with whoever I am praying for. I lift that person to God - and the candle or the lullaby are just ways of lifting that person to God - and then I consent to whatever transformation God is working in our lives.

Does it work? Of course it works. It involves God and me and the person I'm praying for, so of course it works. But who knows what the result will be? God is always and at every moment at work, and what I'm doing is consenting to what God is doing in me and in those for whom I pray. The energy of that consent is my prayer. And that way, my prayer is a lot bigger than anything I can wish for.

A number of years ago I was really converted back to the practice of Intercessory Prayer in the course of a visit to the nuns at Burnham Abbey in England. Their life revolves around intercession. In those days at least, there was a prayer desk in the middle of their choir, which held all of the requests they had received for prayer. One of the sisters was there all the time, 24 hours a day. One of them kept a vigil from 12 to 3 at night each night and the rest of the community had an hour at a time during the rest of the 24 hours. That was their ministry. They are cloistered and they don't go out to minister. Instead they minster all over the world, by their intercessory prayer.

The sisters didn't explain their prayer to me or try to persuade me with arguments or anything like that. They just talked about their prayer very simply and very shortly. It was totally convincing. It hadn't anything to do with arguments. It was what they were, not what they said. Just seeing them there, kneeling at the intercession desk, was enough to convince me that they were absolutely authentic. That was the beginning of my return to intercession, and my journey to figure out how I was going to do it.

It really is a matter of relationship, not results. Everyone who has prayed for a while knows that there can be what we call "results". We also know that whether or not there are going to be results is always a mystery. And it always will be. It's because of the nature of relationships. If you start concentrating on whether a relationship is giving you the results you want rather than concentrating on the other person, pretty quickly the relationship is going to be in trouble. The point of intercession is people and God and the relationship between them and you. Whether or not it "works" is not the point. You might just as well ask whether Communion "works".

Intercession "works" if you have to do it. The "result" is your turning to God. When I got on that wavelength, I began to understand what intercessory prayer was all about.

James Huntington, who founded the Order of the Holy Cross, had a way of coining memorable phrases, and one that stays with me is "We shall probably find no surer test of our growth in the spirit of the cross, and of our Lord's high-priestly prayer before his passion, than a deepening fervour of intercession...." There it is. If your relationship with God grows, your need to pray for others grows. That's one of the few ways you can know if your prayer is actually deepening. As Fr Huntington also said: "Love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.", and part of that acting is praying for others.

Picture by belle fou

The rest we can argue about as we have time. But increasingly my time is taken up not with arguing but with the need to pray.

Where is it?

2010-10-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

I was out the past 2 nights looking for Comet Hartley. This particular comet is not visible to the naked eye, but I have a pretty powerful set of astronomical binoculars, and I knew just where the comet was going to be - near the Double Cluster, not far from the constellation Cassiopeia. The sky was crystal clear and as dark as it ever gets around here. Darkness can be problematical in this area because even though we are in a rural area, there are medium sized cities all around us, so the light pollution is pretty noticeable.

The comet hunting results were mixed. Maybe I saw it, maybe I didn't. The best one can expect from this particular comet is that it will look like a small fuzzy puff of light. Did I see that? Well, yes, but the problem is that at the moment it's pretty close to the Milky Way, so there is no lack of small fuzzy puffs of light in the area. So I know I was looking where the comet was, and I had fun. Whether I actually saw it or not is in some doubt.

Not too surprising. This comet is less bright than was predicted, and as I said it's in a fairly crowded field right now. I chose these nights because they were clear, and we don't get many clear nights in this part of the country. Also the Double Cluster is easy to spot and I thought it would give me some guidance. But the observing sites on the Net say that a lot of people are having trouble finding it with binoculars, though some pictures taken with telescopes are coming through. I may try again later in the month when it's moved a bit. Though by then the moon will be making trouble for this sort of observing. It may be a wash for this particular comet.

I've been an astronomy enthusiast since I was a teenager. I've been a subscriber to a magazine called Sky & Telescope since those days - more than 50 years now - and I still read in the field of cosmology and marvel at what has become known about our universe just in the decades of my life. I've seen a bunch of comets over the years, when the sky and the comet's location will cooperate, so I know that when it comes to seeing the smaller ones it's a matter of luck. But I often try, just to see what I can see.

The Astronomer, a trompe-l-oeil street painting in Auderghem, Belgium.
Picture by Eliseo Oliveras.

But that's not the whole story for me: there's more to this than just the excitement of astronomy. There's a direct link to my spiritual path. Nothing awakens my sense of awe more than looking at the night sky, and seeing it through a telescope or binoculars just increases that awesomeness. Knowing that I am looking into space more vast than my mind can comprehend, and that what I see carries me back in time as well as out in space - since the light from some of those stars has been on its way to us for hundreds or thousands or millions of years - that to me is awesome. And I mean awesome in the original sense of that word, before it became an expression that now seems to mean 'mildly interesting'.

This is tied up with my desire to pray, because having a sense of awe is directly connected to the ability to pray. If you're seeking to be in the presence of God, you are looking for something (someone) that is literally inconceivable. We have all kinds of thoughts about God, and all sorts of images of what God is like, but in the end, God is beyond all of that. To actually enter into relationship with the Divine, you have to go to that place where your mind shuts down in the face of a reality that you can't comprehend. You have to be able to encounter a love that is so vast that you can't think or know or conceive of it. You have to be willing to be with the One who is beyond anything that you can think. It is here that you enter into the reality that mystics call Apophatic, a Greek word that means "without images". You have to perceive something greater than that which can be perceived. You have to abandon words and thoughts and images.

And here we enter into the realm of phrases that don't seem to make sense. John of the Cross called this sort of prayer "silent music" and "the dazzling darkness". If you read in the Christian mystics you find yourself in the realm of these mixed metaphors and confusing references. And you also find that it is said that two things will penetrate that silence and that darkness, and they are love and awe.

On the bulletin board behind my desk I keep a large photo called the Hubble Deep Field. It is a picture that was made by the Hubble Telescope over a long period of time. The telescope was pointed to an apparently empty patch of sky and left to make a very long exposure photograph, and what emerged was hundreds and thousands of galaxies. They are so far away that they are nearly invisible, and some of them lie at the farthest limits of the Universe, and reach back a good way to the beginning of time itself. There's no way I can look at that photo and have much in the way of thoughts. Thousands and thousands of galaxies, containing millions and billions of stars, the light from which has been on its way to us for more than a billion years. I keep that photo there because it awakens my sense of awe, and it is with my awe awakened that I long to enter prayer.

The Hubble Deep Field.
Picture from the Space Telescope Science Institute web site.

Other people have various ways of accomplishing this. Mountains do it for a lot of people (of whom I am one) and the ocean does it for others. Some are awe-struck by the ways in which love works itself out between people and some find it in the complex simplicity of a single flower.

Critics of contemplative prayer say it is nothing more than narcissistic wool-gathering, and Lord knows, it can degenerate into that easily enough. But beyond that, awe keeps calling, summoning us to know what is beyond knowing, and hear what is beyond hearing and to love what is beyond all that we know of loving. God is quite simply beyond all of our ideas of God, and we have to find a way of going beyond our ideas. Looking at the depths of our universe helps nudge me a bit of the way there. It's up to you to find what gives that nudge to you.

Interupting the Day

2010-10-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

My first job was the summer after my 16th birthday. I had to get a waver from the State of Ohio to work before I was 18, because the Child Labor Laws forbid working that young, but all that was required was filing out a form at the Post Office. I worked that summer for Procter & Gamble in a small office in downtown Cincinnati, somewhere, as I recall, in the neighborhood of 6th and Main, in the same area where P & G's headquarters were.

I was a stock boy. That particular office dealt with sending out coupons and special orders, and I went back and forth carrying boxes which were considered too heavy for the women who made up most of the staff. In between times I was assigned to a special offer. I was the one who took care of the orders on the back of the labels of Crisco and Fluffo.

For those who don't know, Crisco and Fluffo were vegetable shortenings for baking that were very popular at the time.

Fluffo, picture by Heather Libby

The labels of both products had a notice that there were recipes and a special offer on the back of the label. I sent out a free pie server to everyone who had responded. I suppose one of the points of all this was to find out whether people actually took the labels off the cans to see what was underneath. Since one 16 year old could handle the orders, I think the answer was that the mass market wasn't responding very well.

At lunch time, the 4 or 5 guys who worked in the department ate our lunches in a small room off to one side. It had a table and some chairs, but was otherwise pretty bare. It also had a large window that looked out on the city, and I remember two things about the view of Cincinnati from that window.

The first was that right down the street a building had been demolished to make a parking lot, and tearing that building down had revealed the side of the building next to it, and there, in all its glory, was an ad four or five stories tall for a 1903 Oldsmobile. I knew exactly what it was, because one of my hobbies was antique cars, and I had actually built a model of that exact car. It was one of the first vehicles to be commercially manufactured - so early that it was essentially a carriage minus the bars to which horses could be hitched and with the addition of a motor installed underneath the seat. There was a roof to keep rain off, but no side enclosure. I was fascinated by that ad, which had faded a lot, but was still clear a half-century later.

A 1903 Oldsmobile. Picture from America's Classic Cars web site.

The other thing I remember noticing especially was a large church right across the street. I think it was called St Francis Xavier. Like all things Catholic, it was a great mystery, partly alluring and partly forbidding. But I hadn't been there very long before I noticed that a number of the women from our department were going in and out every day at lunch time.

The vestibule of St Francis Xavier, Cincinnati. Picture by Elyce Feliz

I was very curious. I had never encountered this kind of behavior before. My Baptist family was reasonably devout: we went to church regularly, if not every Sunday. I was taught to tithe at an early age, and my father sang in the choir for a while. Our Church, in common with most churches of Calvinist heritage, had no Christmas service in those days, but on Christmas Eve my father would take my brother and me on his lap and read the Christmas story to us from the Bible, which meant that not only did he think it was important, but he knew where to find it in the Bible, something that I realized even then was above the usual knowledge of Scripture.

But going into Church on a weekday was a new idea to me. I knew that those women weren't going to a service, because in those days there would not have been masses that late in the day, so they must have been going in just to pray. With part of me I didn't understand that at all, but another part of me was moved - deeply enough that I still remember that discovery 60 years later.

And now here I am, all those years later, going into church 5 times a day, and I've done that most days for the last 45 years. I've been thinking about that this week, and especially about the noon time prayer.

For us, as for most monastic communities, that prayer is short. It's a service called Diurnum (from the Latin word for "noon"); 10 minutes of chanting Psalms and 10 minutes of silence. The message of the noonday Psalms is mostly about doing God's will and following God's Law, and the whole occasion has a spare feeling of time out from the occupations of the day. Each of our Offices has its own feel, and people are attracted to one and another of them. I think that Compline would get the votes for the most-loved office from a majority of people. I doubt that Diurnum is anyone's favorite, or at least I'm sure that it would be chosen by very few.

But I've begun to wonder if it isn't the most important one, even if it isn't the most loved one. Why? Because it's the one that makes you stop. It interrupts what you're doing. It makes you suddenly leave what you're working on and go to Church. It's the most difficult Office to attend to, because the mind is often still whirling with preoccupation about the tasks of the day. People (myself included) often dash in at the last minute for that Office. It's a definite interruption. And that's important.

Cynthia Bourgeault in her book on Centering Prayer talks about those moments in meditation when we realize that our minds have gotten lost in thought, memory or fantasy, and we become aware that we've drifted away from prayer and have to bring ourselves back. That moment, she says, is a moment of great power. No matter how often we get lost, or how frustrating the whole process is, we need to realize that the moment of coming back is a time full of possibilities for walking the spiritual path. Stopping and coming back - repentance, really - is a significant thing for the human personality. In the Buddhist tradition of Insight Meditation it is said that the moment of realizing that you've drifted away into thought and have to come back is the moment of insight.

What those moments of realization do for meditation is the same thing that Diurnum does for the day. It makes you stop. It offers the opportunity to come back to the center. God is the core of our being. Being stopped and brought back to that central place is a moment of power, at least potentially.

It's fascinating to me that though I had no training in this sort of thing, I realized the importance of it the moment I saw those women going into church. I knew they were doing something important and that it was something that I wanted. It was a number of years before I found my way to doing it myself - I was in college when that came to me. But the discovery of that practice was a big enough deal that it has never left me.

Diurnum is frequently annoying. And trying to pay attention is often damn near impossible,frankly. But that moment, the moment when I have to stop and come back, even if my attention only cooperates for an instant, is a crucial next step on the spiritual path. It resets my priorities. It says: "This matters more than anything else." It makes me actually do with my body what I often say with my lips and write with my computer. Becoming conscious of that is central to the integration of my faith and my life.

So thank God for that unattractive little Office. I have a intuition that a lot of important work is done then. And thank God for those faithful Catholic ladies in the 1950's. Though they had no idea they were doing anything for me, they opened a path that I'm still treading.

A Bit of an Accident

2010-09-26T07:19:00.001-07:00

If you follow this column regularly you may be wondering whether something happened last week that kept me from posting as usual on Sunday. Well, indeed it did!

Last Sunday morning. There I was, on my way to the Refectory for breakfast, intending to make a stop-over in the kitchen to get myself some gluten-free bread. I was going the outside way, around the river side of the building. When I got to the kitchen door, I started up the 3 stairs to the door, put my foot down wrong and missed the middle step. Down I went, which wouldn't have been much of an incident, but I fell slightly to one side and hit my head on the brick wall of the building and ended up flat out on the pavement. Edward, our chef, came dashing out and was the soul of kindness. The only problem was that he was wanting to get me up, and it took a while before I was ready to try that. Then we had to find something to deal with the bleeding, which was quite vigorous, and I needed to get readjusted to being upright. Shock.

Not to keep you in suspense, I ended up with some bruised ribs, a quite mild concussion, and a cut that needed 4 stitches. Oh, and a skinned knee - mustn't forget that piece. I wasn't in the mood for writing for quite a few days. I guess everyone gets to the point in life when they finally realize that a fall is not a small thing, and I certainly learned that lesson last Sunday morning. I was very, very fortunate, because even with all that happened, it wasn't a terribly serious event, and with just a bit different fall it could have been. I've healed quite rapidly: the symptoms of the concussion were gone by the end of the day, the stitches came out on Friday and the doctor is satisfied with the wound's healing, and even the ribs, which I know usually take weeks to get better have come along quite nicely - still some pain, but this morning I stopped taking the pain medication and I'm doing fine. But I surely know that I have been through something, and that I have a way to go.

So.... I should say something spiritual, yes? After all, this column is supposed to be about the life of a monk and how the spiritual path runs through everything that happens. So how did it run through this particular happening?

Well, first of all I think of the caretakers I encountered that morning. First, there was Edward, who was so kind and attentive. That was such a help, to have that while I was still trying to get up off the fround. Then let me say that I can't say enough good things about the Emergency Room at Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie. They have a sign over their door about how highly their patients have rated them, and if I am counted, their rating will only go up. It's actually a pleasant pleasant place to be. I didn't have to wait long. And the staff was, without exception, kind and caring.

They got me cleaned up and determined that I had no major problems but that I needed stitches. In short order a young Physician's Assistant appeared and did the stitches. I felt nothing. Nothing. Which is exactly what I wanted to feel in that situation. Bernard, who was with me and in a somewhat better state to be objective, said that it was a real pleasure to watch the PA work because he was such a craftsman. He is a true healer. I've written before about how akin the path is for meditators and for people who practice a craft, and I experienced all of that, with a layer of cheer, concern and kindness added to it. What more could I have asked? We are called by the Gospel to care for each other, and I experienced real caring. God was in the middle of that, and it was clear. When Bernard said to the PA that we would pray for him in his ministry he was obviously rather startled and also quite pleased. Then I was sent on my way with detailed paperwork explaining about caring for the laceration and the concussion, and promising all kinds of support if I needed it.

And..... you may not believe this part of it, but I was there for less than 2 hours, and they apologized to me for taking so long! When I think of the times I've spent in emergency rooms, well, this was quite different.

This whole incident has also awakened my awe and wonder at the body's healing mechanisms. No sooner had I fallen, than my body swung into action, marshaling all the things it needed to begin healing the various parts of my body that had been assaulted. I think I'm particularly aware of this because my healing has been so rapid. Day by day it was obvious that my body was hard at work on this project, and I could see and feel what was happening. That is just plain awesome. And awe is one of the things that is necessary for a spiritual life. You can't see God without awe, and conversely, experiencing awe does open you to the divine. So this week opened me a bit more to the depths that the spiritual paths leads me through.

And the Psalms - the good old Psalms - opened up a bit more. There's quite a bit of complaining in the Psalms about what happens to the body. Lots of crying out to God about my strength failing, my body feeling like there is no healthy part in me, and the experience of dragging myself through the days because of one sickness or another. Usually those phrases go by me without too much response on my part, but not this week. And this is one of the biggest gifts the Psalms have to give us; there is nothing in human experience that isn't prayed in them. It serves, for one thing, as a powerful reminder - oh yes, I may be miserable, but I can pray that stuff. I may be suffering, and it may be hard to pull my mind together to pay attention, and I may not want much attention anyway, because it makes me aware of the unpleasant things that I'm feeling, but I really can pray that. I don't have to just endure it. It can be part of the link between God and me. "Though my heart and my flesh should fail, God is my help and my portion forever." I kept that on my mirror at one time in my life when I was going through a long illness. And it came back to be with me this week.

Wherever you go on this path, some awakening, some deepening awaits. Not that it's all going to be joyful or fun, but we can just consent to being opened. Just doing that is enough for the Spirit to enter, and then some transformation is possible.

It's also nice to have come far enough to be feeling pretty good again!

Big Changes

2010-09-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being late this week - a combination of technical difficulties with the site and the time crunch that this produced.
________________

Anyone who writes for public consumption gets a lot of different responses, and I have been musing this week on the content of those responses. I'm especially interested on responses to the times when I write about my own frail nature.

Like last week - I talked about having the expectation that getting home after weeks of a strenuous series of trips would be pure joy, and about how anxious I was to settle into my usual routine and to plumb the depths of it, and of finding instead that I was restless, anxious, keyed up, unable to settle and barely able to keep to my routine, and that I was just going to have to endure that until my embodied spirit got readjusted.

Some people are happy to hear a message like that. They have similar experiences and often feel guilty about them. Just like I do. They get some affirming from hearing someone else say they had the same experience, and had the same ambiguous reaction to it. They're glad to know that they aren't alone in all of this and that at least one person thinks that it's o.k. to have this experience and that it doesn't mean that they have dropped out of the spiritual path altogether.

But there are others who have quite a different experience of reading what I have written. They are usually smaller in number, but often make up in the power of their vocal reaction what may be lacking in their numbers. They have responses that range from disappointment to unbelief to real anger, and sometimes to outright fury. They can't believe that if I had an experience like this, that I would write about it. This isn't the kind of approach to spirituality that they want to hear. Over the years I have had everything from my approach to my integrity questioned.

Well, I understand both reactions. I know how deeply satisfying and supportive it can be to find that you're not alone and that you're not all wrong. I also know what it's like to build expectations that aren't met and to have those expectations challenged and to see them fall apart. I've been in both places.

I'll just say that it is important to me to recognize the realities of human nature and of the physical body, and that the limitations of both our physical and our emotional nature are part of the spiritual path. I've learned, to my delight, that it's even possible to have considerable spiritual progress come as a result of just being who I am in the body that I happen to have. I think this is an important part of an incarnational approach to my faith.

I'm remembering an article that I read some time ago written by some sociologists who went to India to do psychological testing on men and women who were recognized by their communities to be enlightened people, people of real spiritual realization and knowledge. They wanted to explore the ways in which significant spiritual development affects personal development and psychological functioning. The results of the testing were quite a surprise to them. The tests indicated very little in the way of extraordinary changes in personality structure. These paragons of spirituality couldn't actually be told from everyone else in psychological terms. They were just are neurotic as most people, and their spiritual development hadn't changed that. They were, in a word, ordinary people. What was different about them was the way in which they were able to accept themselves. They saw all sorts of faults in themselves and difficulties in the ways in which they functioned, but they also had kindness and patience with themselves, and of course as a result of this they had kindness and patience with everyone else. They also had a good deal of humor. They had a perfectly normal amount of idealism, and they also knew what it is like to live with ideals that are never achieved. They were both deeply devoted spiritual men and women and also comfortable with being ordinary people, and this made them extraordinary people.

I think that the good news of the spiritual pilgrimage is that among the things we discover in our journey is who we really are, and what what we develop includes an ability to accept and treasure who we are because it is God's gift to us. And this very discovery means big changes get made, energy gets liberated, discoveries come to us. Big things happen on our spiritual journeys, but they are almost inevitably things we weren't expecting, or even wanting.

I was told by my Novice Master years ago that the secret to discovering a vocation in the monastic life was to know that you wouldn't get any of the things that you hoped to get in this life. It was certainly true. I had to discover how unrealistic and unhelpful most of what I had hoped for was, and to let those fantasies go. The big gift in all of that was that I also discovered that what I got in this community was a whole lot better that what I wanted. My vocation has indeed been a big surprise gift. And I'm not the only one with this experience. Perhaps this is the truth of any relationship. The journey to God is like that for us all. And now that I'm getting old and have been here a long time, I'm even discovering that some of the things I wanted to begin with are beginning to come to me. They're coming in ways that I wouldn't have dreamed of and in forms that I wouldn't have wanted originally, but they're coming.

God is very surprising. And very good.

The Return, Cont'd

2010-09-05T07:51:00.001-07:00

When I wrote last week, I had just gotten back from my wanderings of the summer. I was talking about "settling down". About being where I belong. I was looking forward to getting back into the life here and musing on how the events of the summer were going to be affecting my monastic journey.

Boy, did I underestimate what I was going to have to cope with!

So how did this week of gentle reflection and deep prayer actually turn out? Well, I had major difficulties sleeping. Every time I looked inside what I saw was more like chaos than peace. When I tried to force myself to meditate I got emotional rebellion on a major scale. I was, in short, a mess.

This was not, to put it mildly, what I was expecting. Hadn't I had several enriching journeys? Had I not benefited wonderfully? Wasn't I looking forward to integrating everything I had experienced since the beginning of July?

It took several days of puzzled struggling before I began to cope consciously with the realities of what I had put myself through. In less than 8 weeks I had traversed through 9 time zones and 14,000 feet of altitude. I had changed my diet several times. I had coped with all of the wonderful stuff people had offered me in the way of things to eat and to drink. My hours of sleeping had been wildly erratic. The physical demands had been considerable.

And now I had suddenly stopped. Did I think I was going to settle down automatically and quickly? Did I think that peace and inner harmony were going to envelop me on call? Whatever would cause me to expect that? The image that comes to mind is a big tub of water being sloshed around. When you stop pushing the tub, the water still keeps sloshing back and forth for quite a while. It doesn't settle down immediately.

That's me. Sloshing.

Add to this the fact that one of the things I deal with on the physical level is a fairly severe case of Hypoglycemia. And one of the first things I learned about coping with this condition when I was diagnosed years ago is to avoid anything that would upset the adrenal system. Eat at the same time every day. No big changes. Go to bed at the same hour every night and get up at the same time every morning. Be careful of big emotional swings. Take it gently and quietly.

Oh sure. The exact opposite of what I've been up to for weeks. No wonder it seems to me that I'm such a mess inside - I am! Among other things, adrenaline is pumping through my body, and I suddenly have ceased doing all the stuff that produced this reaction. The adrenal system produces lots of wonderful chemicals that have all kinds of emotional, psychological and physical effects, and this has major spiritual effects as well.

Not that the spiritual life can be reduced to a matter of what my adrenaline is doing, but the body is a crucial part of the life of prayer, for better or for worse. And for the moment, things are rather on the worse side. When it comes to the spiritual journey, the body isn't going to be ignored.

It will calm down, of course. I'm already seeing that. There are various things I can do to help that along too: diet, regularity of sleep, breath work, gentle exercise. And I can observe the progress of this curious pilgrimage my body is making. I can also make some plans. I knew that doing the programs in England and Kansas back to back was not the best idea. I was right. I've said that I'm not doing that again. I have to be serious about that. I already know that I'm doing the Benedictine Experience in Canterbury again in two years, so I have plenty of time to get serious about how I plan that time. Obviously I have limits, and I have to be respectful of that. Easier said than done, of course, but I have to be serous about it. This is a physical matter, and it is a spiritual one.

It's also a pretty amazing experience, all things considered. You never stop encountering things that you can learn from.

Home Again

2010-08-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back.

And that's important - at least to me. Being a monk away from his monastery is very much being a fish out of water, at least for this monk. Everything I did this summer was really wonderful, but when I got home on Wednesday afternoon and went into Church for Vespers, and the Officiant sang "Oh God, make speed to save us" and the choir responded: "Oh Lord;, make haste to help us" I knew I was where I belonged. 45 years of Gregorian Chant really gets under your skin, not to mention into your soul.

Which is not to take away from my time in Colorado. It was so great. Mountains feed my soul, and I got plenty of feeding. My friends John and Stefi were determined to show me every mountain in Colorado, and they made good progress on their project.

It began with my bedroom, which had an 180 degree view of mountain peak scenery, with a view straight up to the Continental Divide. They live at 9,500 feet, and the weather was perfect for a vacation - warm enough for a short sleeves when the sun was out and cool enough for a fire when there were clouds. Dry. Glorious.

We went over/through so many mountain passes that I lost count. But some were unforgettable - Cottonwood Pass, at 12,400 feet particularly, in the middle of the "Alps of the Rockies" with truly extraordinary views on either side. On one side you look into ranges of dark, bare peaks and on the other side down to a beautiful lake framed with mountains all around it.

We hiked up to St Marys Glacier at 10,000 feet. There were people skiing on it - in late August. I met a very friendly Golden Retriever named Milton who was dragging a 5 year old boy behind him, and I put my hands on an actual glacier for the first time. Another high mountain lake, fed by the melt from the glacier, deep blue and perfect.

We drove down the high plain behind the Front Range - a large sweep of range land where cattle are fattened up during the summer months, framed with mountains on either side and occasional rock "castles" and other formations.

I saw an actual ghost town - Nevadaville. Being Colorado it was a mining town, of course, and some of the mining works are still there, and though most of the houses have been pulled down, the foundations are still visible. It started to fail as the mines played out in the 1920's and the Great Depression finished it off, even though five or six houses remain and the old Masonic Lodge still stands.

And we saw innumerable small places with quaint "Old Towns", varying in loveliness and tourist appeal depending on circumstances - Idaho Springs, Leadville, Crested Butte, Georgetown, to name just a few. One of my favorites was Redstone - a social experiment that dates back to the 1880's. It was a mining town and John Cleveland Osgood - at the time the 5th richest man in the United States - built a town for the miners who worked the mine that he owned. He built 84 small houses for the families, complete with steam heat and plumbing, which at the time was unheard of, and a lodge for the single miners which is now an inn and spa and which serves (I can testify) very nice lunches.

And every evening we came home to our house in the mountains where the deck offered incredible views of a star-filled sky, shooting stars and Venus setting over the mountains shortly after sunset.

One night we played a game of Washers with one of the local guys - you throw metal washers about 3 inches across at a board that has a hole in it and hope to get the washers either on the board or through the hole in its center. The scoring rules are very complex and I'm told that the whole experience is helped a lot by not being entirely sober. And we also explored an old cemetery not far from where I was staying, with graves dating back into the 1870's and '80s. The mining settlement which the cemetery served is long, long gone, but the graveyard is still there, and still in use, buried itself on the side of that pretty remote mountain.

It was an adventure filled with wonder (who knows how many times I said: "Oh, wow!"), with beauty and with the deep silence of places that truly are far away from the normal noise of contemporary life. John's father describes Colorado as "one picture postcard after another". That's as good a description as I could come up with. "Rocks and trees" the locals say. That's another one.

A great, great time. I'll be thinking of it for a long time.

And now it's time to settle down to the ordinary routine of life and prayer and ministry, knowing that this summer of teaching in England and Kansas and of roaming the mountains of Colorado has changed me, and deepened me, and given me more to take with me into my monastic life. No doubt I'll be referring to this time again as I go along.

And More From Canterbury

2010-08-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the protracted absence. I was only home one day from Kansas City when we began our annual Long Retreat, which lasts for 10 days. I quickly discovered that I was a lot more tired than I had realized after teaching in England and Kansas back to back, and I needed first to catch up with myself and then to give as much as I could to the retreat. So that's what I've been doing.

I've had some requests to say more about the time in Canterbury. Well, one of the best things about the time there was the opportunity just to explore the Cathedral - "Christ's most glorious church" according to one poet - at leisure, so here are some of the things that I discovered:

First a real treasure - the Chapel of All Saints. It's not something that many visitors to the cathedral discover. In fact, it's a well-kept secret. But if you know just where to look, you will see a small plain door across from the Choir in the area of the Transepts and it is marked "Chapel of All Saints. Private." And if you have permission and open the door, you see a small and narrow staircase that goes sharply up to the right. It's almost like a cave and it's very narrow and very steep. It's furnished with a rope railing that helps you haul yourself up through the dimness of the stairs. At the top of the stairs you make two sharp left turns and there you are in a spacious chapel, and it's light and airy because it has two large Late Gothic windows with a lot of carved tracery and lots of glass. It's plainly furnished and the walls are covered with graffiti, much of it dated beginning in the 1500's and going on for several centuries, so it was well visited for several hundred years, but also had enough privacy so that people could carve their names and drawings into the soft stone. It's completely quiet - no trace of the noise that several hundred visitors and tourists are making a couple of floors below. It feels like you've come out into a little world that's separate from the rest of the Cathedral.

I've tried to find out about it - its origin and its use over the years and I've had no success yet. At least I haven't succeeded in getting the Internet to give up its secrets. We were told that it's now used for prayers at the close of meetings of the Cathedral's Chapter (the governing board), and our group had the Eucharist there one day early in our time in Canterbury. Apparently it was used as a center for contemplative prayer for some years not too long ago. Looking at it from the outside of the Cathedral, it looks like an add-on - it's just a little square addition nestled in the corner of one of the Trancepts. It fascinates me. I'm going to keep exploring and see if I can find something out.

Then one afternoon towards the end of our stay, Tay and I were wandering about the cathedral, just seeing what we could find, and we were going around the large Cloister adjacent to the north wall of the Cathedral when I found a door labeled "Archdeacon's Garden." The door was firmly locked, but it was old fashioned and had a large keyhole, so I bent down and peered through the hole to catch a glimpse of the garden. As I did so I was aware that one of the staff was bearing down on me, and having transgressed enough regulations in my day I thought: "Now I've done it" and straightened up, ready to take my scolding. It was one of the maintenance men, and in a complete reversal of my expectations he said: "Sir, you don't need to do that..." and therewith he pulled out a large ring of keys and put one huge hey in the hole and swung open the door on the Archdeacon's Garden and ushered us through. The garden itself was not a mystery. We had been to a reception there after Evensong several days before. But as we stood there our host pointed out the buildings and explained their original use and gave us their dates and we had our own little private tour of that enclosed space that almost no one else gets. It was a wonderful little treat and a perfect example of the quality of the hospitality we encountered at Canterbury Cathedral. The staff is fiercely loyal and very proud of the place. And the quality of the welcome is marvelous. I know quite well the costs of that sort of hospitality, and what it takes to keep extending it when the number of guests you have in a year is over 1,000,000 instead of a mere 7,000, as we have here, I have trouble imagining. It was a very special moment, and a special gift.

A few minutes later we had another moment like that. Tay wanted a picture of the organ console to take back to his parish musician in Toronto, and we came across the Verger (a person who oversees liturgical ceremonies) who had arranged the Eucharists that we had in the Cathedral, and asked him if we could see the console. No problem. He hurried away and then reappeared with another big ring of keys and another private little door was unlocked and up we went on a narrow staircase, this time a circular one, until about a story and a half higher we came out on top of the choir screen - the carved stone wall that separates the area of the Choir from the Nave of the Cathedral. These screens are common in English cathedrals. Sometimes they were put up to cut down on the winter drafts, since spaces this large tend to develop their own microclimates. But in the case of Canterbury the Choir was almost completely enclosed so that the monks could say their offices in some privacy, while the throngs of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Thomas Beckett could come and go without interruption. And there we were - high above the Choir, and even higher above the Nave, because in Canterbury the Choir is up a long flight of stairs from the Nave - having a view of the Cathedral that few people ever have. It's the only place in the building where you can see straight through from one end to the other. And there was the organ console. And in one of those little surprise revelations, there was also an overstuffed sofa and chair where presumably the organist and any assistants relax when the service goes on too tediously. There was also a video camera that looks down on the Choir, because the organist can't see over the edge of the screen down to where the actual choir sings and he needs to watch the director. Apparently in earlier times an assistant leaned over the edge and signaled the organist when to begin and when to stop. And we had another small guide to the mysteries of that wonderful place, and another demonstration of how very much the staff is devoted to it.

And lastly in my memory is the East end of the crypt, under the former location of Beckett's shrine, where the Jesus Chapel is, where we had most of the services for our group. It's another light and airy space, because of the late Gothic windows all around. What I remember most from there is the silence, because that part of the building is kept for prayer. And I also remember the huge columns - some about 4 feet in diameter - because they spoke to me of how the weight of that tremendous building has borne down on them for so many centuries. There's a sense of stability and power in those columns, and they speak with their own language.

And of course there are many other things, but this will have to do for this time.

Now I'm off to Colorado for some vacation. Mountains feed my soul, so I'm going to visit friends who live in Idaho Springs and let myself be fed. Expect another interruption in my writing, but I will be back towards the end of the month and then I'll resume again. In the meantime, I'll hope that you are relaxing, too.

BE Canterbury

2010-07-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

My travels have kept me from doing any blogging for a couple of weeks now. I had a firm intention to get something written while I was in England, and even had a time set aside - Sunday afternoon. But alas, things turned out otherwise. In fact, that afternoon Tay and I went off in search of the oldest pub in Canterbury, The Parrot, built in 1350. And of course once we found it, it would have been discourteous not to stay and sample some of their wares. So writing had to be postponed.

But now I'm in Kansas City and just about to start the series of Meditation workshops that I'm doing, and I do have a little bit of free time this afternoon, so I'll get at least a small amount written.

The Benedictine Experience in Canterbury was, in short, splendid.

First there was the Cathedral. It turns out that it makes quite a difference having a 12th century cathedral in the back yard. We stayed in a conference center on the cathedral grounds which was very nice, and my room looked out over the cathedral. And every morning and every afternoon we were there for prayer, and many members of the group did some helping out there in the afternoons during our work period, either in the Shop, or with the "Holy Dusters". I've been in Canterbury and in the Cathedral a number of times, but I never had the time to take it for granted. I could explore little nooks and crannies, I could sit in odd corners and just feel the centuries roll over me. The years of prayer are clear: the present prayer is just building on centuries of practice and that makes it an extraordinary place. Having the time to just let the place reveal itself gradually was a grand experience, and not one that the pace of travel usually permits.

Next, there was the group. There were 35 of us, which is large for forming a community, but it worked. We had people who are serious about their spiritual journeys and very hard working. I led them in a consideration of how one goes about working towards the living of a balanced life, and the quality of the discussions, both during the classes and at meals, was frequently extraordinary. As the week went on, the conversation turned towards to the relationship of this practice of living in a balanced way to the development of compassion, and it was very rewarding to me to see things move in that direction. And yes, we did form a community. By the end of the 8 days, we could feel how far we had come.

And the music. What a part of things the musical tradition of the Cathedral was! Evensong every afternoon. The Sunday morning service on the Feast of St Benedict, in the cathedral nave with somewhere between 750 and 1,000 people present, and the organ growled and thundered and the choir pierced the vaulting with song. There was an evening concert featuring the Bach Magnificat and the Mozart Requiem. There was ancient music, medieval music, English choral music of the 17th and 18th centuries, and some very modern and surprising music. And in the evenings after the cathedral had closed for the day you could still hear the sounds of rehearsals coming from inside the Cathedral while strolling through the grounds. For someone who lives a life of prayer by music, as monks do, it was a very great privilege to have that week of being soaked in the richness and variety of it.

There was also a day for visiting with the nuns of St Mary's Abbey in West Malling, a village about an hour's drive away. This was a really nice change of pace from the intensity of the program, and it was wonderful to be in a place where the Office is sung in such a simple and pure way and where the Monastery Church, the grounds and the buildings are all so very obviously reflective of the prayer of the community.

And of course there was a lot more, and I wish time were longer this afternoon, but now I have to get to St Michael's for supper and then my first workshop, so this will have to do. But it should be enough to give at least a taste of that wonderful week, and to urge anyone who has a chance to experience Canterbury or a place like it to do so. The time in such a place is so richly rewarding.

Flying Monk

2010-07-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

My bags are packed. The plants are watered. My presentations are done. All seems in order. The plane leaves at 9 pm (this is written on Sunday) and by tomorrow I'll be in Canterbury, where it's predicted to be 73 degrees. I'll have a day to recover and do necessary planning, and then the program begins on Tuesday with Evensong in the Cathedral. Bliss!

It will be quite nice to have a week with a 12th century cathedral in the back yard.

I'm very excited to see how the experience unfolds. The plans for the program look really wonderful, and I'm eager to see how the group evolves as a community begins to form. There will be 35 participants, I think, and that's the largest Benedictine Experience I have ever participated in, so no doubt there will be some differences to this one. But I'm ready to experience whatever it turns out to be.

I don't know exactly when I'll be able to do any blogging next, but I'll endeavor to find some time - even if just to share a few tidbits.

Monk in a Flurry

2010-06-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

A flurry of preparation is upon me.

A week from today - July 4, no less - I fly to England. I land in London and then get transported to Canterbury. I'm providing leadership for a week-long Benedictine Experience that will take place at Canterbury Cathedral. This magnificent centuries-old building was a Benedictine monastery for hundreds of years, as were most of the ancient British cathedrals, and it still maintains a regular round of Offices and Eucharist each day, giving voice to the monastic tradition that lies behind the Book of Common Prayer which has guided Anglicans in worship for the past 400 years or so.

I wrote about Benedictine Experience just a few weeks ago, but if you didn't see that post, it is a program which is designed to let people experience the life of a monastic community by living in the pattern of Benedictine life for several days. We will have a group of about 35 people attending, mostly Americans. We are going to be housed in what I am told is a very fine facility called the International Study Center, which is just a few years old, and sits within the Cathedral precincts.

When Betty Swenson, the organizer of this program, asked me a couple of years ago how I would feel about doing an 8 day Benedictine Experience in Canterbury I told her that I'd feel like I was in heaven. Though I have not been to Canterbury in the past 20 years, I have been there many times, but never for more than a couple of days at a time. The opportunity to explore the cathedral and the town at leisure is more of a treat than I had ever hoped to have.

So what will we do? We'll pray several times a day, following the cathedral rhythm which has its roots in monastic tradition. This will include that most glorious of Anglican traditions - Evensong - every day. We'll have talks in the mornings (mostly delivered by yours truly, and Esther de Waal will come in to do one talk at the beginning). There will be work sessions in the afternoons (I'll be fascinated to see what this is like). In the evenings there will be informational or fun sessions, some just for the group and some presided over by the Cathedral staff. On Saturday night we will have a concert in the Cathedral - the Bach Magnificat and the Mozart Requiem no less. We'll have one day-long expedition to a monastery of Anglican Benedictine nuns at West Malling, which is not too far from Canterbury. And from 9:00 pm each night until after breakfast the next morning we'll have silence.

And the weather in Canterbury for the past week or so has been sunny and in the 60's and 70's. It really is almost too good to be true.

I come back on July 13 and and I have 3 - count them, 3 - days, and then I fly to Kansas City. I'm going to be at St Michael's Church in Mission, which is a suburb on the Kansas side of the line. Though I haven't done any work there in a number of years, I have deep roots at St Michael's. If I have a church home anywhere other than Holy Cross that's it. It's hard to describe how deep and important that place is for me. The only thing that could convince me to fly half-way across the country 3 days after getting back from England is an invitation from that parish. I'll be preaching on Sunday and giving a series of workshops in the evenings on meditation and contemplative prayer. They are wanting to start something that will be on-going, and it's such a privilege to be the one who helps to kick that initiative off. I get back here on the 26th, just a couple of days before our Long Retreat begins. I'm going to need it.

Hence my flurry this week. There are talks, sermons and workshop sessions to get ready before I go. There are a multitude of details to attend to and emails arrive about that every day. And there's all the of the business of getting ready, packing and making sure that the things I'm leaving behind here are attended to. If I get away with just a flurry, without it turning into something worse, I'll be fortunate.

So you will understand that I may be rather irregular in my blog postings for a bit. I'll try to get a thing or two posted about how it's going along the way as I get the time. But I can't promise how regular that will be. I'll just do my best.

Meanwhile you can think of me wandering about in the Medieval splendor of southern England. I've been preparing for 2 years and it's still hard to believe.

Called to Prayer

2010-06-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

A number of jobs around the house are shared out in the community, week by week. I've written about being Refectorian, which is one of the jobs, and ringing the bells is another. There are a number of them, and one of them is called Closing Up. I am Closing Up this week (as well as Bell Ringer). Closing Up means that you go over to the Guesthouse sometime after Compline and make sure the doors are all closed, that lights that aren't needed overnight are turned off and that the coffee carafes are emptied and rinsed out, so that the Refectorian will have clean carafes to make coffee in before Matins the next morning.

The jobs begin on Saturday evening and go until the next Saturday noon, so I had my first evening of closing up last night. I went over to the Guesthouse and did as much as I could, but some of it had to be left because the group that is here this weekend was in the Refectory. So I did as much as I could and then headed back over to the monastery.

As those of you who have been here know, you get to the monastery by walking a corridor that goes around our Church, and last night when I got opposite the Church door there was again an experience that I've written about before: a small pressure that seems to reside in the pit of my stomach that can be fairly insistent, and that says something like "Come in". Some times I resist, but usually that's pretty futile. If I try to walk away, the demand seems to get stronger the further I get, and it finally becomes too much to be resisted. So whatever my initial reaction is, I usually wind up going in. Last night I didn't even bother trying to refuse the invitation, I just turned aside and went in. As it turned out, it was just for a few moments. I sat by the Tabernacle in the side aisle and was just quiet for a while. That seemed to do it, so then I went on to bed. Nothing any more "special" than that. I prayed for a while and went on my way.

In quiet conversations with friends who talk to me about their interior life, and sometimes in reading, I discover that I'm far from the only person who has these experiences. Frequently they seem to happen at night. I have a good friend who grew up in a small Evangelical church in which it is common for people - usually the women, I gather - to be wakened in the night to pray. He says that sometimes they know why, but often they have no idea, they just know they have been summoned to pray. He also says that some times they find out, maybe years later, what it was about, but that often they never know. These experiences aren't unusual apparently, but the people who talk about them seem to belong to Churches that are so small that none of us have ever heard of them. Those of us in the more usual churches seem just to deal with these "calls" however we do, and seldom talk about them.

My conviction is that these experiences are indeed common. But often we don't even notice, because we're not tuned in to that part of our lives, or we're embarrassed that they've happened, or we're afraid that people will think that we're crazy. But there is a whole society of people in the Anglican Communion (or at least there used to be) for people who feel called to pray in the middle of the night, and you can bet if that exists, there's a lot more out there than we ever hear about.

What is this about? Is God actually calling me to pray at that particular moment? God calling me? Well, I don't deny the possibility, but I think that speculating about these things is probably not particularly productive, because there isn't any certain answer, and the chance of getting "inflated" (as the Jungians say) is definitely there. But if we're not going down that analytical road, what do we make of this?

I think that one way of understanding is just to acknowledge the ancient Christian tradition that God dwells at the center of each of us, and that God reaches out to us at every moment. There is never a time when God is not reaching out to us, summoning us, inviting us, loving us. But mostly we don't know that's happening. The pressure of our daily lives and our constant distraction, and our semi-conscious conviction that "that sort of thing doesn't really happen" keep us from hearing.

But every once in a while that constant call breaks through, and we experience it. Often it happens at night because our defenses are lowered then. Sometimes it happens in a time of great need. Other times when our hearts are particularly open it will happen too. And some times we don't have any idea why it gets through. We only know that there is that small voice, that pressure at the pit of the stomach, that warming of the heart, that feels like an invitation. I also think that these things happen more frequently than we are conscious of. Often we half notice them and put them away. We're too busy, or too tired, or maybe too scared. It takes being sensitized to become aware of the "call" when it breaks through.

But once you're recognized it or heard it, then you don't forget it. Maybe you don't even answer it. There are plenty of times when I've said "no", because it seemed like whatever else was going on at the time was more important, or I was too worn out, or because I was doubtful about the whole thing.

However, if you do answer and actually sit down or turn aside or make room and pay attention to that little "call", a funny thing happens. You start hearing it again. Once the door swings open, it's likely to open up another time. The next time, it doesn't have quite so much trouble getting through. When you actually hear that small, insistent, loving voice/presence and respond to it, it tends to be there again. And again.

It's a grace. It's the realization that the Divine Presence does live deep at the center of me. So to consider again the question I mentioned above: "Am I being called to pray?", the answer is certainly "Yes!" But it's a bigger, broader call than I think of when this first starts happening. In fact, I'm called to pray all the time - everywhere, at all times, no matter what. I'm called to realize who I am, and to know that means that God's presence is always with me, and that my response is always called for. It's not that I'm being singled out because I'm special. In fact, I'm being singled out because I'm so ordinary. This is part of what it means to be a human being, as especially to be a Christian. Yes, it takes time to figure out what this means, and how to respond, and how anyone can possibly pray at all times. That Presence, which is meant to be part of our moment by moment experience is so closed off from most of us that we have to learn how to deal with it.

And that little call when I go by the door to our Church is just a summons to take one more step in realizing who I am, and what my life is about. It's important that I recognize those moments, and that I respond to them. Because responding means opening my heart, and that is the primary call of every Christian; to live with an open heart - open to God, open to the world, open to others. Even, if you can imagine, open to myself.

These special moments are, in fact, intended to become ordinary moments, part of the fabric of our lives, if we will but pay attention. In the words of one of the Quaker mystics: "There is that which is in you which will comfort and guide you. O, wait for it!"

Wiped Out Monk

2010-06-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2010 is over. I am fried.

That doesn't mean it wasn't good. It was, in fact, very good. We worked hard. We worked really hard.

When we finished yesterday around noon, I had an idea that I would do my blogging in the afternoon, so I could get it posted nearly on time. My mind thought that was a nice idea, but my body refused to cooperate. Not that I spent all the afternoon sleeping: it turned out that I was too tired to do that. But whenever I tried to think about doing something productive my mind tuned out. In the evening I watched a movie. So far today I've been doing things like laundry and emptying the trash baskets, but always with the idea that I'd get to my writing when the energy was sufficient. I have some social appointments in the next 24 hours too, and by the time we resume our usual schedule on Wednesday, I should be back in shape for normal work. I would say something about being 72 years old, but everyone around here seems to be in the same shape.

Our work was in communication with each other, and we did a good job. We worked hard to say what was important and to receive each other's sharing with respect. That takes a lot of energy. We used a technique that turns out to be quite effective. We sit in a circle and a question is proposed and anyone who wishes to respond does so. No one can speak more than once until everyone who wishes to participate has spoken. Then you can speak again if you want to. No one speaks more than twice. It turns out that this makes people think carefully about what they are going to say and it created an atmosphere in which we all listened with great care. It was a remarkable experience. It took quite a lot of energy.

We've been talking about our future. This year we didn't try to make big plans for the years ahead: we were laying a foundation for other conversations as time goes on. Like most monastic communities, as far as we can see we will be smaller in the years ahead. We are fortunate to have continued to have new men entering our Order, but the pace is slower than in the past, and it appears to us that the community will thrive, but it will be smaller. This is going to take respectful attention and careful planning, and we made a very good start this year. Of course, some initiatives are already in progress - the new school at our monastery in South Africa, for instance, and the plans for that and the support which will be needed occupied a good deal of our time. We also had time to hear from our Br Leonard, who is teaching at a seminary in Cape Coast in Ghana where we had a monastery for a number of years, and about his work for the Ghanian Church.

On Friday afternoon we had the great joy of the Life Profession of Br Randy Greve. It was a wonderful occasion for us all, even more so as it is the 3rd Life Profession that we have had in the last year - Br Bernard last fall, Br Daniel in South Africa last month and now Randy. And if God continues to be gracious, we will have 2 more in the next year. It has been a long, long time, since we have had so many men committing themselves to Holy Cross, and it's a good sign for the future with which we were concerned in our Chapter.

It's always a real treat when a Profession is celebrated during our Annual Chapter, with so many more brothers here than are usually present. There were also a good many of our friends and Associates present, as well as the members of several other religious orders, and our good friend and companion Br Vincent Ignatius OSB from St Joseph's monastery in Natchez, Mississippi was here to play the organ for the service, and as usual he coaxed some remarkable music out of our instrument. He is a very talented musician and is usually here each summer for one of our Flute Masters weeks.

Following the service we had a very special supper that everyone shared, and after the eating and the celebrating with good friends, the community had its own party on our porch overlooking the Hudson. It was a lot of fun, and even, on occasion, a bit raucous, and it made a very good end to a wonderful celebration. Randy, as many of you will know, was trained here at West Park, and has recently moved to our Priory in Toronto. In the fall he will begin seminary, and in a couple of years, we hope, he will be ordained to the priesthood.

After all of that was over we finished Chapter with our business sessions, passed some resolutions, received the budgets from all of the houses, had a final service in which we renewed our vows, as we do each year, and then adjourned for another year. Most of the brethren from other houses have now departed, and by tomorrow it will be just us again, and on Wednesday we'll start another year, and I, for one, am full of gratitude for what we had this week, and for the future that lies before us.

Airport Monk

2010-06-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

This will be a short one, and I'm getting it up early, because I will be gone much of Sunday. Some of you will know that Br Bernard has been in his native Belgium for several weeks helping his family, particularly his parents. They are both in failing health, and he has been visiting them regularly in the past few years and he had planned another trip for this August. But in April the medical people said they thought that would be too long to wait. So he went home and has been working very hard ever since.

Last week his parents moved to a nursing home. They are able to have a large room together, which is a great consolation, and there is some relief in knowing they are in a place where they will get the care that they need in these difficult times.

Now Bernard is coming home for a bit. Our annual Chapter (the yearly meeting and conference for all of the Holy Cross monks from our 4 monasteries) begins on Tuesday and he is coming to be with us for these meetings. Today we found out that he will arrive at Kennedy Airport in New York tomorrow about 1:30 pm. So after Mass I will fix a sandwich for my lunch and take off for the City. There really isn't any way of knowing how long it will be before we return - there are so many variables including possible delays, long lines at Immigration and Customs, whether we want a meal on the way home - all that kind of thing. So I don't have any idea exactly when I will be home, nor whether there will be any time for blogging, so I'm just leaving this little note.

The following two days will see me at Stewart Airport in Newburgh to pick up two of our brothers from South Africa: on Monday I get Br Timothy Jolley and on Tuesday I will meet Br John Forbis. So my days will be filled with matters of transport. Actually I like going to airports, which I know is a bit on the odd side, but I often volunteer for these journeys, since I know that many people don't like to do it.

And waiting isn't any problem. If I have time to wait, I always have my wrist beads and I can meditate and having extra time for meditation is almost always a real treat. So I'm set to go. I'll try to get something down when we have a break during Chapter later in the week.

BE

2010-05-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is the week for BE (that's Bee Eee). Short for Benedictine Experience.

BE is a Guesthouse program that we have offered in May every year for more than 20 years. It used to last for 9 days, but since the recession began the market for long programs has been way down, so we've altered it and it's now 5 days long. After several years of declining attendance the number of participants is now back up. Over the years we've had as few as 4 participants and as many as 23. This year is an average group - 11. It's been a really nice sized group for the experience.

It's quite a diverse group. In age they range from grad school to (being polite) farther along in life. They come from all over. Usually we expect people from the "quadri-state" area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania) and a few Pennsylvanians are part of the group this year, but most have come from further afield: a couple from Virginia, three people from a parish in a town in the mountains of Western North Carolina and two from Ontario in Canada. And there's a good deal of religious diversity as well. Of course most are Episcopalians or Anglicans (the people from Canada), but there is a Mennonite minister from the Pittsburgh area, a Unitarian from Philadelphia and a charismatic Baptist from Hong Kong. We haven't lacked for interesting conversation.

BE is a program that introduces people to the Benedictine life by having them live their days here by the Benedictine pattern of prayer, work and study. Benedictine Experience was begun by the noted author Esther de Waal during the time that she was in Canterbury and has grown from there, especially in this country. The very first one to be offered in an actual Benedictine monastery was here at West Park in the '80's, and we've been offering them ever since.

Participants (we call them BE'ers) attend the Offices in Church, have quiet times for prayer and meditation and get some instruction in the ways of individual and liturgical prayer. They have classes each morning which cover various areas of the monastic life. The afternoons are for work, this year mostly in the gardens and in getting the porches and other outside areas nicely arranged for summer. In the evenings they have a good long time for a gathering with various members of the monastic community for sharing, questions and general conversation.

So they pray together, they study together, they work together, and they share their experience with each other and with us. It shouldn't be any surprise that what results is a community. It is, in fact, quite remarkable how quickly community forms in these days. People usually come to Benedictine Experience expecting to learn something, and discover that in fact they have become something. The evening conversations range over a very wide spectrum of topics and as the week progresses the talk moves to fairly deep areas of their own faith and lives, and those of the monks. Last night, as the program began to draw to an end, there was a deep and moving gratitude expressed for what we had offered and what they had received.

I think that BE is one of the best things that we do. It really does introduce people to the monastic life, and it's the only really effective "explanation" of monasticism that I know. The most frequent question we get is: "But what do you do?" BE is the answer to that question. It does open peoples' eyes. Not infrequently it opens their lives and their faith as well. It's not unusual for people to come back year after year for BE, and to become close friends and Associates of Holy Cross. A couple of years ago one of the participants described his experience as "one of the 3 best weeks of my life."

Of course having Benedictine Experience in a monastery is ideal, but in fact most of the programs are offered in retreat centers and other places not associated with an actual monastic community. I've worked in some of those programs and I've always been impressed with how it works. Get people together to pray, to work and to study together and give them time to share their experience and community forms. It has happened that way every time I've participated in a BE.

This year I have not only the Holy Cross BE, but a special treat - in July I'm going to be leading the study sessions at a week-long Benedictine Experience at Canterbury Cathedral in England. When I was first asked, two years ago, how I would feel about doing a week-long BE in Canterbury, my immediate reaction was that I would feel like I was in heaven. We'll see how it actually works out, but it would be fair to say that my expectations are quite high, both for myself and for the 50 people who will be participating. I've got my tickets, and I already know what I'm going to pack.

I'm ready!

Pentecost and on

2010-05-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

So here we are at the feast of Pentecost - the Coming of the Holy Spirit. For the past week I've had a sense of this feast that is fresher than I can ever remember. Since Ascension the liturgy has been longing for the coming of the Spirit, and I seem to have caught some of that longing, and I have a feeling of understanding, in a really fresh and new way, that this celebration really is the crown and culmination of the whole Easter season: it's the point towards which we have been moving since Easter Day.

So it's about 11 o'clock on Pentecost morning and we've had our liturgy, and it was grand. Towards the beginning of our celebration we read the account of the first Pentecost 2,000 years ago, and hear again of the mighty wind and the different "tongues" of fire and of the tongues of speech that the Apostles found themselves uttering and while that reading was going on, several of us created a murmuring babble of different languages to accompany it.

When that was finished we blessed oil for anointing - one of the oldest symbolic actions that the church has. And then the whole congregation anointed each other with the oil we had just blessed. As with the Foot Washing on Maundy Thursday and the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, it is always really moving to see the faces of people as they come forward. On Pentecost there are always smiles and looks of anticipation, as well as some anxiety from people who have never done this before. But it's easy to see that they are touched (physically, of course, as well as emotionally) as they receive anointing and then turn to mark the forehead of the person behind them with oil while they say "May the Spirit of God live in you." Many people have never done this sort of thing in Church, and it expands their experience both of their faith and of themselves.

Then we floated seven candles in the oil we had just blessed and used for anointing, and we brought the fire from the Paschal Candle and as we lit the candles we named the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. While we were doing that the Paschal Candle was put out, marking the beginning of the end of Easter for another year.

Of course the rest of the day will still be full of the Pentecost celebration. There will still be the antiphons at the Offices and the reading of the various Scriptural accounts. And those seven lights in the oil burn until the end of the day, and that's really nice, especially for a candle freak like myself. But it also has the sense of something winding down, the end of a significant time, and the turning to face in another direction.

Now all of the Alleluias stop. I'm not one of those people who feels tired of so many alleluias by the time the Easter season comes to an end. They stir up joy in me every time we sing or say them. Those alleluias touch something down at my core and ignite a little spark of joy each time they go by in one of our services. But it's been 50 days after all, and a change is due. It feels right to be finished with the Easter season and turning in that different direction.

When we start our next week, everything will feel different. There a sparseness to the ordinary time, compared to the rich symbolism and liturgical action of the past several months since Lent began - and really since Advent and Christmas. Now it really will be . . . . . ordinary, for a long time. And I really do love the feeling of the transition into the ordinariness of the coming season. Pentecost has been here to teach us the depth and reality of ordinary time, and now its time to learn to live that out once again.

I am a person who lives by the liturgy. It's just as well, since I'm a Benedictine monk, and we've sure got plenty of liturgy. But I'm one of those people for whom liturgy is always unfolding something new and in whom it stirs up unexpected things. This morning at Communion, I lifted the chalice to my lips and felt an enormous, well, something. A Presence, a Force, a (yes) Communion. For an instant a world beyond this one touched and held me. And then I was back in our church and the liturgy was continuing. But it was a lovely gift and one that will stay with me.

My days, my months, my years are marked by the flow of our liturgy. It's energizing sometimes, and boring sometimes, and revealing sometimes and surprising sometimes, and there are times when it's beautiful and times when it's not. And it's my life and where I turn for my nourishment and the place where I finally understand the meaning of my faith and my existence.

That's why I'm a monk, and why being a monk has been such a wonderful gift to me.

The Vagaries of the Incense Business

2010-05-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

Just in case you think that monks are insulated from the craziness of retail sales...

Many of you will know that we make incense here - and that by "we" I mean me. I've been in charge of the incense business for about 20 years now and it is one of my great loves. It is my craft and by now Holy Cross Incense bears my stamp. I've made enough changes and improvements over these years that my mark is definitely on our incense.

We make a good incense. Each of our blends is made from pure frankincense and myrrh, blended with essential oils, perfume oils and balsams. Most commercial incenses are diluted with sawdust, and we don't do that, so our product is quite concentrated. This means that our incense is very intense, and this has an advantage: the less you use the better it smells. Sometimes I have to work hard to convince customers of this, but it's true. The price is also quite moderate, compared to some other blends, so Holy Cross Incense is a real bargain. It smells great, and you can use less.

There are four blends; Santiago (Lemon), St Augustine (Rose), Sancta Crux (Rosewood) and St Benedict (Herbal - not sweet). The major ingredient is frankincense granules, which are called "peas". A bit of myrrh is added and then a special tincture of the special ingredients for each blend is stirred in and the whole batch is allowed to dry, with daily stirring.

Our incense is intended for church use. It burns on charcoal, and is usually used in a thurible, or censer, though some parishes do burn it in a bowl, as we do here at the monastery. A few people use it at home, but the fact that you have to have a heat proof dish or bowl and have to get the charcoal lit means that most people will opt for incense sticks or cones which are easier to use in a home setting.

We sell it by the pound or the half pound, and as I've said you don't need much. If a church uses it just a few times a year - Christmas and Easter say. and maybe a couple of big feasts - a half pound will do most places for a couple of years or even longer. Parishes that use it more frequently will order a pound or two at a time. Places that use it enthusiastically every week will usually need about 5 pounds a year, though most of them will order smaller amounts more frequently than yearly. Santiago is the biggest seller, followed by St Augustine, then Benedict with Sancta Crux at the bottom of the line (though it is my personal favorite).

And now we come to the tricky part. There is a substantial market for St Augustine, but it is the slowest of the blends to dry, or "cure". I can get a batch (5 lbs) of Santiago ready in 4 or 5 days. Benedict and Sancta Crux each take a week to 10 days, slightly longer in summer. But Augustine takes at least a month to cure, and if the weather is hot and humid it can be longer. So I have to take care that the stock of St Augustine doesn't get very low, because it takes a long time to rebuild. I try to keep about 20 pounds of each of the blends on hand, so that I always have enough.

And thus we come to the story of the week. Business was quite heavy during Lent, which we normally expect, with parishes getting ready for Easter celebrations. I had enough to fill all the orders, but by Holy Week the supplies were pretty depleted, and we were seeing the bottom of the barrel for all of the different blends. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a concern. After Easter sales usually decline and stay very low through the summer, and then start to rise again in the fall. There's plenty of leeway for rebuilding our supplies.

But not this year. This year the sales have continued right on, and big orders. I don't know why. One never knows, but last fall business was very light, which I put down to the state of the economy. It may be that people stretched their supplies and made them last through Easter, and are now having to restock. Who knows?

And what have they been ordering? St Augustine, of course. Nothing but. And only large orders. Parish after parish ordering 2 or 3 or 4 pounds. And it doesn't take too long, if your supply is 20 pounds, before you're looking an an empty bin. And because of the high humidity this spring, I can't get the new batches to dry. It is fingernail chewing time.

This week the crisis occurred. I've never seen a streak like this, but 7 weeks after Easter the orders are still coming in, and all of them are for St Augustine. This week I just had just enough left to fill the orders that came in and that was it. But also during the week the newest batch was finally ready. So I breathed deeply, gave thanks and admired my 5 pound reserve. Surely that will carry me for a while, until I can get some more finished.

On Friday afternoon, I got an order for 5 pounds of St Augustine.

All I can do now is hope. It's going to slow down; it always does. People are going to start ordering the other blends; they always do. Will that be this week? I hope that a new 5 lb batch will be ready within the next week, and several more are curing after that, but right now I'm holding my breath. I hate to put people on back order. Only once in 20 years have I had to do that, and that was only for one customer. Not only is it not good business, but it just makes it harder to finally replenish the stocks, and I'm going to be away a lot this summer, which is stock rebuilding time.

Yes, this is very much small potatoes. And yes, no doubt we will negotiate this tempest one way or another. I can always send partial orders if I have to, and given that our incense is usually used over a period of time, that will probably work just fine. But every one with a business worries about stuff like this, and our business may be small and our worries minuscule compared to General Motors, but I still get stirred up about it.

I do my best to let you know what life in a monastery is like - all the ups and downs. I write a good deal about various spiritual issues, because that is what our life is concerned with. But life has lots of other things, and this is one, and it's my issue of the week. Next week it will be something else.

A Weekend of Meditating

2010-05-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm late this week because I wasn't available this morning at the time that I normally write these pieces. At noon today Mary Gates and I finished conducting our most recent meditation retreat. The two of us have been offering these retreats for 8 years now. It began sort of by accident. I was the Administrator of the Guesthouse at the time and we had a traditional Labor Day Insight Meditation Retreat. Then during that summer the man who had conducted the retreat for several years suddenly discovered that parents' weekend at his daughter's college was on Labor Day weekend and he couldn't do the retreat.

What to do? The retreat was a standard part of our guesthouse offerings by that time, and many people would be expecting it. It was also an important source of income. We had to find something to replace it, and I had no idea what that would be.

At the time Mary and I were in a class on Buddhist religion moderated by Jose Reissig, who is the teacher who runs the Meditation Group that I attend on Wednesday evenings. She and I had been friends for some time, and I was aware of her background in Centering Prayer, and I had been teaching the Jesus Prayer for many years, and just off the cuff I just said: "Do you think that you and I could do a retreat on the meditative traditions of Christianity?" Mary said: "We probably could." Jose said: "I think you should do it." And so the Labor Day Christian Meditation Retreat was born.

It was conceived as an introduction to the practice of meditation, using the forms of meditation that are in common use in the Christian churches at the present time, and it proved to be very popular. A couple of years later we added a weekend in the spring at a more "advanced" level, for people who had experience in meditation. It offers more silence and meditation and less teaching and sharing. It also has been quite popular. And so we have gone, year after year, and people are still coming. Each retreat brings back people who have come before and also brings some new participants. These retreats have been very rewarding, both for those who attend and for Mary and me. Almost always they end with expressions of gratitude from the participants and with a sense for us as teachers that they were well worth the effort.

Mary and I work very well together. We each have backgrounds in both Christian and Buddhist meditation practices and have very similar approaches to meditation. We work pretty seamlessly together. We can, and often do, finish each others' sentences, or offer exactly the right correction to something the other one has said. People often remark on how effortless our collaboration seems, and it's one of the best parts of the retreats for me.

This spring's retreat was small. We scheduled it on a weekend that had enough available space in the Guesthouse, without noticing that it was Mother's Day weekend. We had 9 participants instead of the usual 20. I had some unease about that but that quickly melted away. It was exactly the right size. The people who came had a variety of levels of experience but were all very motivated and hard working. The small numbers gave people the opportunity to ask everything and say everything they needed to in the short periods we had for talking and sharing. It had the feeling that the people who really needed to be here were the ones who had come. I had no feeling of lack during the entire weekend. It was different from a larger group, but it was a nice difference and I'm glad that we had this experience.

Our spring retreats offer brief introductions to the practice of meditation using Centering Prayer and the Jesus Prayer, with some emphasis on the differences in each practice, since the use of the Jesus Prayer is a traditional "concentration practice" and Centering Prayer is much more formless and is centered in an intention rather than a phrase. There is always one other class on some aspect of meditation practice, and one session for questions and sharing. Otherwise it is silent, and the hours are for sitting (or walking) quietly and meditating. This year at the closing session, one of the participants remarked that she had come specifically because this retreat offered more time to practice: she really wanted more meditation than the introductory retreat offers. But she found by the end of the afternoon of the 2nd day that she was really being challenged by the amount of time that we provided. My reaction was: "Good. That means that we are offering just the right amount." We do try to challenge people on several levels, and this group responded with enthusiasm. It is such a privilege to be able to guide people who are seeking a knowledge of God.

Of course, the teachers don't get the same experience that the participants do. We have to keep an eye on how everything is going and be aware of what people are needing. There are all kinds of things that we need to be alert to. But even so, it is good to have those hours to join in the practice.

And it's hard work. From time to time I'm amazed at how much energy it takes to sit still and be quiet. People find they have used a lot of energy by the time it's over. I have had some health issues in recent weeks, so my energy levels weren't all that high to begin with, and I find that I'm very, very tired now. But Monday is coming, and I can rest. For now I'm happy at what I gave and what I got. It's a good ministry, one which gives people some important experiences and in which I find joy. I'm so glad that I had the inspiration for it all those years ago.

An Ordinary Week

2010-05-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

When I thought about this week, the first thing that came to mind was that there was nothing particular about it. It was ordinary. Nothing outstanding came to mind. Not bad, mind you. Not boring. Just ordinary.

So what do you say about an ordinary week?

So I thought about the guests, who are such a major part of the experience of this place. When I did that, I found that actually I wouldn't describe this week's guests as ordinary. They were as interesting and diverse as our guests usually are. One was a Southern Baptist pastor from Poughkeepsie (think about that for a minute). He pastors a congregation that was established by southerners who came to the mid-Hudson Valley to work for IBM and wanted some religion that was familiar to them. Then when IBM downsized, they returned to the South, leaving the Church as a sort of outpost in these parts. He was a warm, friendly and outgoing man, who was here to do some discernment about going into foreign mission work.

We also have here a nun from a nearby contemplative community who has come for retreat. Her community and ours have had a relationship of friendship for many years, and we share each others' celebrations from time to time, but to have one of them here for retreat is a new experience. It's a nice experience, too. It's very good to get the know her and her community in this way.

We also have 2 monks from a fledgling Benedictine community in Mississippi with us. We first got to know them when one of the brothers, who is a musician, came here for our Flute Master's Classes in the summer several years ago, and the relationship has been growing ever since. Now the whole community - both of them - have come to visit for a while to experience our life and deepen our sharing. Tonight several of us are going to our favorite Chinese restaurant in Woodstock. A very monastic thing to do on a Sunday night. A growing relationship - how ordinary is that? Quite ordinary, of course, full of quite remarkable moments.

An Alanon group that has come yearly for about 30 years now is also here with us this weekend. We have watched them grow (and watched some of them grow old), and they are a very established part of our life in May. And other people, singly or as couples, have come to be here with us. Yes, it's just an ordinary week, full of people who are actually not so ordinary.

I suppose that a week of ordinariness might introduce some boredom into the life. I suppose. But actually that's not the way it takes me, because I just seem not to be inclined to boredom. When things just go along as usual, my mind turns to noticing small things that sometimes go by without much attention paid. I've spent nearly 50 years now listening to the sound of the train whistles and don't pay much attention, don't even notice them most of the time. But last night I found myself paying deep attention to the plaintive wail of a train as it hurtled through the Valley on its way to Albany, and maybe points beyond. It was a beguiling sound that seemed to speak of many half-heard things, and it was a comforting sound. It was good to really open up to it, and to pray for the people on the train, and to wonder if any of them were noticing us as they went by.

And one evening this week just before Compline a bird in a tree just outside the Church sang the most amazing song. I don't know what kind of bird, and I wish I did. It hasn't sung again since that night, but it was sure singing it's heart out on that one evening. Just for just a few minutes it filled the area with an extraordinary sound of beauty, and made me glad and grateful.

I watched the slow growth of the pansies that I planted just outside the sacristy. They are putting out their first blossoms now, and each one is a revelation, in the manner of pansies. They are such wonderful combinations of bold color. With the weather suddenly turning warmer, the plants should begin to grow this week and then the display will get really nice.

The ordinariness also makes it possible to turn my attention more closely to the Psalms as they come and go through the week. What an amazing combination of emotions and thoughts float by, sometimes in the course of singing a single Psalm. People sometimes complain about the completely unashamed way in which the Psalms put all of human experience before God, and before us, but I'm a follower of an English Benedictine Abbot who said: "If you don't cope with the anger in the Psalms, you're unlikely to cope with it in yourself." True for me. And not only the anger, but the sorrow, and the joy, and the complaining and the self-satisfaction and the suffering. The Psalms are truly a mirror in which I behold myself, and I find that in an ordinary time my beholding can go deeper.

In this ordinary week, I found myself giving thanks for the gift of living in this extraordinarily beautiful place. And one evening before Compline I was overtaken by a renewed sense of how lovely our Church is and how deep the atmosphere in it is. And one morning the sky was a really extraordinary color of blue.

Ordinary? I suppose so. But this ordinary week has given me some freedom to see how very unordinary life really is,if our hearts and our attentions are alert. Then we see that the fabric of ordinariness is woven of many colors and patterns and the experiences of an ordinary time is really full of wonders. I love discovering small amazing things!

Evangelical Easter Surprise

2010-04-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a gorgeous Spring week. With the first burst of flowers beginning to tone down a bit, now the trees are at it. The crab apples that line our drive behind the monastery are putting on a display like we have seldom seen and the apple orchards in this part of the country are in full flower. Lots of hills in our neighborhood look like they are covered with smoke because the blooms are so thick.

And there was another kind of beauty lurking about. As I mentioned last week there were a lot of brothers away from the monastery this week, and we were fortunate that this was one of the few periods that we've had in a long time when we had very few guests so the work load wasn't too bad for the few of us at home. But we did have one group in for an overnight visit, a student group from the Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, which is a city down towards New York, right at the end of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

The seminary is operated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which is a small Evangelical denomination. We discovered after the group arrived that they function in an ecumenical way, also training pastors for other evangelical churches. The only woman in the group is a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which is fairly well known. There was also a Seventh Day Baptist in the group. Seventh Day Baptists are a Church which has pretty standard Baptist faith and practice, but who worships on Saturdays. Very few people have heard of them, and they are often confused with the Seventh Day Adventists, but are actually quite distinct from them. Many people do know about the Ephrata Cloister in Pennsylvania, which was one of the Christian communal groups that were so much a part of the American scene in the late 1700's and early 1800's, but very few people, even those who have been there as tourists, know that Ephrata was a Seventh Day Baptist foundation.

As it happens, there was a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church just around the corner from where we lived when I was a teenager, and when I was a parish priest in southern Wisconsin I always passed a Seventh Day Baptist Church on my way to Diocesan meetings, so I am familiar with both groups, and that was a big leg up, because the group was prepared for no one to ever have heard of their churches. I also have a friend who attended the college that is associated with their seminary and he described them as "very ardent people, who are centered in a deep sense of Christ as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer (literally) and Coming King." "Well," I thought, "I'm all of that. I might not always mean it in exactly the same terms as they do, but I can claim all of that - especially the ardent part - so I shouldn't have any trouble talking to them."

That turned out to be more true than I would have expected. And they didn't have any trouble talking to me - and us - either. It was quite a wonderful exchange, in fact. They were open, friendly, curious and grateful to be with us. As is always true with people that age, they could also be very funny. They talked about their lives, their faith and their hopes. One of the guys talked about tattoos. They were eager to know about our lives and our faith and hopes. Presumably they would have been interested in our tattoos, too, if we had any. They were certainly interested in my wrist beads.

It was a time of sharing that was a nearly perfect example of what an encounter of two very different faith groups could be like. They were curious about the things that were different between us. We celebrated the things that we shared. And there was no question at all that our common faith was a bond that they could accept and affirm. One of the reasons they came to us is that they had discovered that we were Benedictine Monks who aren't Roman Catholics, and that meant that they could take communion here, which they did with deep gratitude.

One afternoon they were gathered together on the Great Cloister, which overlooks the river, and as I watched them I got a bit of a nudge from something inside that said: "There's a group who have questions." So I went out and settled in the midst of them, and I was right; they had a lot of questions. They asked about the details of our life, some to do with our religious practices and some with very ordinary details of where we get our money for vacations and how we relate to each other. It was a conversation that flowed with ease. It was also fun.

As it happens, I was a Southern Baptist until I was in my early 20's, and look back on those days with great fondness. This meant that I had some common ground with them, and I shared some of their outlook. It was easy to understand the way they approached their faith and their visit to us.

They loved it. They had a great time and raved about the experience. They signed up for our newsletter and talked about coming back. Well, we've developed continuing relationships with Princeton Seminary and the Yale Divinity School, so why not? A bit of an excursion into the fields of small evangelical denominations could open our eyes a bit more and even deepen our faith. If it happens, it will be a challenge, as relationships always are. But we've had a good start, and I hope for more.

You never know what you're going to get into, even in a Benedictine monastery.

Monks Go A Roamin'

2010-04-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

With everything that happens during Lent and then in Holy Week, leading up to Easter, it seems as though now that the Easter season is here there should be a time of relaxing and catching one's breath. Seems like that, doesn't it? It certainly seemed like that during Lent and especially in the latter part of Holy Week.

Well, it might seem like it, but the reality is somewhat different. From now through the middle of June is always one of the busiest seasons of the year. Several of our guests have said the same about their lives at this time of the year. The scramble to get everything done before summer sets in seems to catch up with everyone. The last meeting of the season, the last conference, the last project, the retreat that we have to squeeze into the schedule, all of them have to be fit in.

And of course, one of the places that people go to hold that meeting, finish that project and have that conference or retreat is here. And some of the people who conduct those conferences and those retreats and manage those projects and meetings are us.

So it has begun. The day after Easter Br Adam left for Southern Indiana for the annual meeting of Formation Directors of the Benedictine communities in the United States. This is a (barely) ecumenical event, mostly Roman Catholic of course, but including us and one of the monks from St Gregory's Abbey in Michigan. Hard on the heels of that Br Ronald went to Lake Placid for the annual Continuing Education event for New York Massage Therapists. Br Charles went to the Utica area to do a retreat for the Diocese of Central New York. Br Robert, the Superior, was off to Toronto to make his annual Visitation to the Order's Priory there. Br James had a few days with part of his family who are soon moving to England. This week Adam, Andrew and Scott join Robert in Toronto to attend a meeting of CAROA (the Conference of Anglican Religious Orders of the Americas) whose parent organization we helped to found in the 1940's and have been active in ever since. Other smaller and more local events are happening as well.

If you think that this might leave those of us at home a bit stretched, you would be thinking right. If I count right, however, there will always be at least two of the lead singers in Choir, one for each side, so we can continue to sing the Offices. There will always be enough people to do the dishes - though we may be doing them more frequently. But guests are always willing to help with cleaning up the refectory and mopping off the tables, and we now have Jamie, a woman from one of the local villages, to help with dishes on the weekends.

There will be some meetings that we will postpone until more people are home. Some tasks won't get done exactly to schedule. Those of us who are home will see a lot of the inside of the Pantry, where the dishes are done. Once when I was conducting a Benedictine Experience for a group in North Carolina and they all talked about how relaxing and peaceful it was I said to them: "If there were a real experience of the Benedictine life the first thing we'd do is give you all too much to do." Sounds like the lives of most folks, doesn't it? Some things are universal.

But Spring is coming and the weather is moderating. We can get outside now, and there are a lot of flowers blooming. There is the joy of new life in the world and in the liturgy. If we participate in the common craziness of the world at this time of the year, that isn't a bad thing for monks. It still feels good to be doing what we do; singing God's praises, and helping people to deepen their lives and get a bit more meaning out of it all.

Alleluia!

Leftovers

2010-04-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

I'm still musing over some Easter leftovers. Not really leftovers, actually, but things from Easter that are still turning over in my heart. Things waiting to be fully digested.

One of them comes from our Easter afternoon concert. Each year now we have a Vespers/Concert performed by Kairos, the choral group that are Artists in Residence at the monastery. They practice here every Saturday morning and we've gotten to know many of them.

Kairos rehearsing on Holy Saturday 2010 under the direction of Edward Lundergan

Br Scott has been a member for a number of years and Br Andrew has is now singing with them. They perform here, to large crowds, five or six times a year. And every Easter afternoon we have a Vespers service at which they sing the Bach Easter Cantata.

It is always jammed. We always have to turn people away because our Church won't hold any more. It is always magnificent, and gets better with each year. And... it's the last thing we do on Easter day, so after it's finished we have nothing to do but shout 'Alleluia' and relax. So the Cantata has lots of wonderful overtones for us, and it's one of the things we look forward to.

It lingers with me, but it's really not the Cantata that has held my attention for all these days. It's the small piece that began the Vespers, the Handel setting of "Since By Man Came Death" that I've been replaying in my mind. Many of you will know it. I certainly do. I've sung it and heard it sung probably hundreds of times. You could have put me up there in the middle of the Kairos group and I could have sung the tenor part with no trouble, completely from memory. It holds no surprises for me.

But it did. This year it stunned me. If you know it, you know that it begins very quietly, rising out of silence and sung a capella, softly and intensely, the music expressing a depth of lamentation: "Since By Man Came Death... Since By Man Came Death..." And then silence for a moment, a moment of gathering tension. Then a deep note from the Bass and the Organ and a shout of beauty and joy with the orchestra and the chorus completely filling the church with sound: "By Man Came Also the Resurrection of the Dead."

Then it does it again. Softly and deeply, almost unbearably: "For as in Adam All Die... For as in Adam all die..." Silence. Boom! "Even So in Christ Shall All Be Made Alive.... Even So in Christ Shall All Be Made Alive... Shall All, Shall All Be Made Alive."

I've heard it over and over, but this year I really got it. I was helped, certainly, by the splendid performance that Kairos gave to this piece. But I suspect that the more important part was that something was waiting inside me to be touched. Holy Week and the Easter celebration had dredged up that tension, that ambiguity, that conflict between the human situation and the divine promise and released a joy in me that was hard to contain. I cried. My body moved in pace with the tempo. I smiled from ear to ear (some of the Kairos people told me afterward that they couldn't help noticing the smile). It was really my Easter moment, when the straining and the weeping and the hoping are answered by God's promise and Christ's reality - when it all bursts forth. "Oh yes, this is what it's all about. And I see it. I hear it. I FEEL it."

The other thing I'm keeping company with is something much quieter, just a deep, old companionship that has been with me all my life with my friend the Moon. I've known the heavens since I was a little boy. I began studying astronomy in my teens and even before that I was subscribing to one of the journals, which I still receive every month, and I still read in Cosmology. I'm fascinated by our universe and what is being discovered by it. And I always know where the major constellations are and what the phase of the moon is. It's part of who I am.

So I'm one of those people for whom the connection between the moon and Easter is intuitive. I forget that so many people have no idea that the date of Easter is determined by when the full Moon happens: "The first Sunday after the first full Moon after the Spring Equinox." (there are a few complications in there, especially in the difference in the reckoning between Eastern and Western Christians, but that's basically it.)

So the Moon is an essential part of my Holy Week. I'm always up in the middle of the night for the Maundy Thursday Watch and I always go outside on my way to or from the Watch to be with the Moon. If it's cloudy, I go anyway to spot the moon behind the clouds, or at least to see it lighting up the clouds as it shines behind them.

This year the 3/4 Moon was in the heavens, right where I could see it, all during the Easter Vigil on Sunday morning. It provided light for getting around in darkened buildings and it kept us company in the southwestern sky as we read the Scriptures and told the old stories and sang the hymns and the Litany of the Saints. And as the Sun rose, it faded away, yielding to the joy of Easter Day.

So those are my two mementos of this year's Easter: the silent companionship of the Earth's Satellite, giving a cosmic dimension to our celebration, and the burst of beauty given to us by one of the human race's greatest musicians. These two provide the context in which I've been remembering our Holy Week and holding the Mystery we have been celebrating.

Easter and Our People

2010-04-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

I had all sorts of thoughts of getting this post done before I got into bed on Easter evening. It turned out that I needed more recovery time than that.

Usually during this week I end up reflecting on something in the liturgies of Holy Week that particularly caught me. This year it has to do with our history, and with our heroes, and with everyone who walks this Christian path with us.

Here at Holy Cross we do the Great Vigil of Easter in our Refectory, which for those of you who have never been here, is an octagonal building with large windows on all sides which look out over the Hudson Valley. It's the perfect location. We begin in the dark, on the adjoining porch, lighting the New Fire of Easter and then settle down in the Refectory for an hour (more or less) of hearing the stories of our history from the Hebrew Scriptures - the Creation, the Flood, the Parting of the Sea and others. As we read it grows slowly lighter outside and the world comes back to life all around us, and we finish the last of those readings just as the sun rises over the Hudson River. This year there were clouds at the skyline, but they were thin enough that the sun shone through weakly, and we at least had a glimpse of it as it rose.

Then we form up in a procession and we go all the way to the other end of our buildings - a distance of a tenth of a mile (we have a lot of buildings!)and as we go we sing the Litany of the Saints, which carries us from the Scriptural histories into the history of the Christian people. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us" we sing. "Holy Joseph Guardian of God's Son, pray for us". "All you holy angels and blessed spirits, all you holy patriarchs and prophets, pray for us". And then the Apostles: "Holy Peter, holy Paul, holy James, holy John, pray for us". Then we move to our fathers and mothers in the monastic life: "Holy Benedict, pray for us. Holy James Huntington (the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross), pray for us". "Holy Anthony (from the deserts of north Africa), Holy Columba (Ireland and the island of Iona),holy Aidan (Lindesfarne, off the eastern coast of England), holy Dunstan, holy Romuald, holy Hildegard, Holy Frances, holy Clare" and many, many others.... "pray for us". "Holy Alphonsus Liguori, holy Catherine McCauley, holy Frances Xavier Cabrini (founders of Roman Catholic orders with whom we have or have had close relationships) pray for us." And then our fathers and mothers of the American Church - Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day - and especially of the Episcopal Church - Absalom Jones, Paul Jones, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, "pray for us." "All you holy champions of the oppressed, pray for us." "All you holy servants and handmaids of God, pray for us."

And I found, as we walked in those darkened corridors and sang of our family, that there were a lot more walking and singing with us than the few score of people who were here for the liturgy. The walls of time and of history became almost transparent and there we were, processing towards the blessing of the water that commemorates our baptism, and then to the altar in our Church for the encounter with the risen Christ that comes in Communion, going along with all of those who have gone before us - remembered and unremembered, heroic and ordinary - all of us going to God, caught up in prayer for each other.

All of you who have ever caught a glimpse of the Divine, pray for us. All who pilgrimage through life without knowing exactly what you seek, pray for us. All who have had a glimpse of God that has transfigured your life forever, pray for us.

All who have touched my life with love, pray for us.

And as we arrived in our Church, and shouted "Christ is Risen!" and sang our hymns and rang all our bells, we did it with all of them - all who went before, all who go with us now, even those who are yet to come, caught up in a great web of prayer that binds us all to each other.

Such is the reality that our liturgy opens to us. It's always there. But we only see it every now and then. But once you have seen it, you don't forget.

Christ is Risen!

A New Initiative

2010-03-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

We're beginning a new project, or undertaking a new initiative, or whatever words are appropriate to the beginning of a new ministry. Yesterday (Saturday) we had the first of a series of events that we hope will enable Holy Cross to spread the knowledge and practice of contemplative prayer to people who live around us. Contemplative prayer is the foundation of the monastic life, so it's something that we have to offer and there is a good deal of interest in this kind of prayer at the present time, so we're hoping to find an enthusiastic audience.

As a vehicle for this project we're going to be using Centering Prayer, one of the most well-known forms of meditation in Christianity. Yesterday we had the introductory workshop, and it was a great success.

We advertised the event among the local Episcopal parishes and in other places that we know about, and we didn't know what kind of success we would meet with. This is a rural and small-town area and the immediate neighborhood is pretty poor. We didn't know how much interest there was going to be in an introductory workshop in Centering Prayer, so we thought that maybe if we got between 5 and 10 people, that would be an encouraging beginning. We actually had just over 30 people come, which both surprised and delighted us.

We are working with Contemplative Outreach, an organization that oversees how Centering Prayer is promoted and taught, and they provided us with a presenter named Bruce Gardiner from the Albany area, and they couldn't have done better for us in our first effort. He was superb. He is obviously easy on his feet and confident in his abilities as a speaker. But much, much more than that, he has a thorough knowledge of the contemplative tradition, and an ability to present it so that people can grasp what he is talking about. This is not a common combination.

Centering Prayer is a nearly formless approach to meditation and that makes it hard to describe. It has as one of its central focuses the use of a "Sacred Word" - a one or two syllable word like 'peace', 'Jesus', 'open' etc., which you use to draw yourself back into silence when you get carried off by thoughts. Exactly what the sacred word is, what it's for, and how you choose one is one of the most important parts of Centering Prayer and it turns out not to be easy to grasp. Our need for control is so great that it's tempting to use the word as a sort of mantra to center the mind, or even as a club to beat down distractions with.

The real purpose of the sacred word is to help you to consent to just being in silence and to waiting for whatever transformation God has to offer you. It needs to be used gently and delicately and if you don't, the result can be something far distant from what Centering Prayer is intended to be. Bruce did the best job of presenting this part of the discipline that I have ever heard, and over the years I've heard quite a number of presentations.

With a deft touch and a solid confidence in his presentation, Bruce guided our little group through the introductory material and led us in two sessions of practice. The silence was deep and it felt like the prayer was on target. I could not have asked for more for the day, and I've been teaching meditation for about 40 years, so I'm intending that to be high praise.

At the end of the day, 14 of the participants indicated interest in the six follow-up sessions that lead on from here. If those sessions go well (and maybe even if they don't) we want them to lead into the formation of a meditation group that will meet here one night a week, and can be an on-going resource for people in our area and for those who come to our Guesthouse.

We are also beginning a series of Centering Prayer retreats which will provide a more intensive experience in the use of this form of meditation, and can serve as an opportunity for deepening the spiritual practice of those who live further from the monastery and who can't get here frequently.

So this effort joins our other recent initiatives in beginning St Rafael's Place - our work with people with AIDS - and the work we are doing with the homeless in Kingston and Newburgh. We've been very successful in attracting people from around the Northeast to our Guesthouse, and from much further away as well. Now we're concentrating on those in our immediate neighborhood, to see how the prayer that sustains the life of this place can also sustain the lives of those who are our neighbors.

This also happened in a small way this morning. We've been working on our celebration of Palm Sunday for several years now, and putting some effort into seeing whether we could create a procession that was truly joyful. What kind of music could be used, what sort of instruments would get Episcopalians to actually break out into joy? This year it seems like we have succeeded. For the first time in my many years of Palm Sunday processions, I felt like I actually wanted to dance during the procession - so I did. (I was also beating a large drum and holding Palms and Pussy Willows, so it was quite a project!). It was joyful, it was fun, it was holy. It was, in short, an excellent way to dive into Holy Week, and wonderful to share with people from our area who came to celebrate with us.

The Bow

2010-03-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Spring has come. The Snowdrops, the Crocuses and the first few Daffodils are blooming. The weather is warm and gentle. And the two varieties of the flu that have afflicted me, (and most of the rest of us) seem to be on their way out.

A friend who is also a physician talked to me about Post Viral Exhaustion. Somehow it's comforting to know that it has a title and Capital Letters. She says it probably is my body's reaction to a virus that it has not encountered before. The prescription? Notice what your body can do and what it's asking for and do as much of that as you can. Keep your life a simple as you can. I feel a bit abashed to have a disease with a spiritual treatment. Shouldn't I be doing that already?

Well, it's a good reminder.

Another doctor I know of said to a friend who asked him how to deal with this virus: "All you can do is live longer than it does."

And as if the Holy Spirit was proving a point, this goes right back to my post of a couple of weeks ago about illness and the reluctance, or inability, to engage in spiritual practice while I'm sick.

So where have I gotten to? Did I learn anything as a result of my musings a couple of weeks ago?

It turns out, to my delight, that I did. This is fairly rare, in my experience. I have to agonize about some dilemma for quite a while before anything actually changes. Probably this is a self-protective mechanism, but whatever it is, change seems to usually come in slow steps.

What struck me this time is an illustration that the Buddha is said to have used himself, though it's a common enough story with a pretty evident point. It's about the skill of archery. If you're going to hit your target you have to attend to your bow. You have to stretch the string just right. If you use too much pressure, you will damage the bow or break the string. If you too little, you ruin your aim and don't have enough power to hit your target.

So because that image was in my mind I used it very deliberately. Lying on my bed at one point I thought: "Just how much effort would it take to focus just enough to turn to God within my heart? Not a big effort. Not a major labor. Just enough to bring me to center. What's the right amount of pressure on the bow?"

So I tried just a little effort. Then a little more. I did a deliberate experiment to see where the line was. How much of my precious little energy would it take to produce enough focus to be aware of the prayer that always prays itself at my center?

To my surprise and my complete delight, the answer turned out to be that it took very little. Hardly any. Just a bit of willingness did it. As it often is at this point in my life, prayer was there waiting for me to make some kind - any kind - of movement in its direction, and when I did, it came running to meet me.

What a really cool discovery. I wasn't being called to heroic self-denial. I wasn't being asked to summon up energy that wasn't there. All I needed to do - on that particular day at least - was just to want to pray enough to make a little effort, and I was welcomed. I could hardly believe it. How long have I struggled with this issue? Years and years. And there was the gift, right before me.

I won't say that this resulted in great amounts of prayer. For one thing, this particular virus had as one of its symptoms the need for nearly constant sleep. I simply wasn't awake very much for several days. So long hours of praying - or even long minutes - weren't the picture. But I could turn in the direction of prayer and know that it waited for me.

I also discovered as the week went on that the amount of energy applied to the bow differed every day, sometimes more and sometimes less. I needed to watch and see what it was like with my body, find out how much energy I had to employ and how I could summon a little of it. This time the gracious Spirit did the rest.

A fail-proof recipe for spiritual success? I think not. I expect that there will be more wrestling and more pondering as my strength returns, and more dilemmas to be sorted through. It was just the gift for this time. And it was a really nice one!

Meanwhile, the depression that is part of the after-illness stuff has partially lifted and my strength shows preliminary signs of reasserting itself. Mostly it happens in having ideas of what I'd like to do. The reality isn't there yet, but at least having some ideas about wanting to do stuff is an improvement.

So for now, watch my body, and keep my life as simple as I can. And respect the Post Viral Exhaustion.

And stop writing when I come to the end.

Slammed Again!

2010-03-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

A case of the stomach flu has intervened. I'm toast. No post this week. I'll be back as soon as decently possible.

How To Make the Effort Without Making the Effort

2010-03-07T07:35:00.000-08:00

Viruses moved in here in a big way this week. An especially virulent chest cold and a quite spectacular stomach flu both arrived at the same time, and some of us got one and some the other, and a few lucky souls had both.

And nearly everybody has been involved. At one point the only non-sick member of the community was Bernard. This is quite unusual. We don't often get each other's ailments quite like this, and often we don't get them at all - whoever has a cold just usually goes his way with it and the rest of us don't get it. This week was a very noticeable exception to that rule.

And what with several members of the community away in places like Ottawa and New London for Lenten ministries and a number of the rest of us either in bed or laid low in various ways, that has left us scraping for people to do the work of the Guesthouse which has been exceptionally full. Well, every household experiences this sort of time, and it came to us this week.

It also brings up for me an issue that I mention every once in a while, and that is the business of praying while you're ill. As I've said before (and before that, too) I have this theory that prayer and meditation should sail right through a period like this. After all, there I am in bed. I don't have anything else to do. Lots of free time has just been handed to me. It's a great gift. So if I'm faithful, I'll meditate, chest cold or not, right?

Wrong.

Not that I haven't talked to people about this. And talked, and talked. The majority opinion has always been that a lot of your energy isn't available when you're sick, and prayer and meditation require a lot of energy. Just focusing itself uses quite a bit. Well, that is more or less obvious to me, and while this explanation offers a reason, it's not one that I find satisfying. Prayer keeps calling out to me. I'm just not responding, more often than not.

Is this just guilt? The unhealed remnants of out of control perfectionism? Should I just ignore it and wait until I feel better?

That doesn't do it.

Oh I admit to some of the guilt and perfectionism. But I know what they feel like, and I can face them pretty well at this point. But when that's done, that inner imperative, that 'call' to come closer is still there. I don't seem to have the energy to do anything about it, but it doesn't go away. Making the effort is beyond me. What to do?

However, not all is the same this time. This time around, I think there may have been a shift. I'm not just rehearsing that same old familiar arguments. This time I'm thinking that framing this dilemma in terms of energy and effort is probably making the problem worse rather than better. After all, I'm being called to open the door, to let God in. Does that always need to require a lot of work - a huge effort?

What this comes down to, of course, is how much of this process I think depends on me. I have to pray. I have to make the effort. I have to force my prayer into line. I, I, I. But if the experience of generations of monks and mystics and just plain ordinary people who pray is to be taken seriously, there is an aspect of prayer that isn't dealt with that way at all. Prayer is something that is always going on in your heart. The connection between you and God is always there, always live, always reaching out. You were born with it. You didn't put it there and can't start it. Or stop it either, for that matter. But you can tune in from time to time.

I think that maybe these frustrating periods when I'm sick are trying to teach me something that will be of tremendous value at all times, not just in illness. I need to make an effort to stop with all the effort. I have to cease trying to create prayer. I just have to turn to what is already there and let it reach out like it's trying to do.

After all, there were moments this week when my strength was at its lowest and effort was beyond me when a word or a phrase from one of the Offices reached out and grabbed me. Maybe it was just for a moment. Maybe I couldn't even make the effort to remember what it was 5 seconds later. But who says that I have to remember it? It's the opening, the contact that is the central point of prayer. It will do what it needs to do, and if that means remembering it, well, I probably will. But it clearly doesn't always mean that. It means something more like giving up all this effort to create some prayer and just relaxing into the arms of what (Who) is calling me.

I will have to admit that when I sat with my beads in the Church last night after Compline it felt like nothing much was going on. But I had the sense to promise myself that I wasn't going to try to make something happen. I was just going to be there with the beads and the Jesus Prayer and as much focused attention as I could manage. That part of it was pretty dry and distracted. But when I stopped - and just looked at that deep and silent place, it was so good to be there. And the silence was alive. And the depth was more than I could ever measure.

I think the dry and distracted time was needed. It kind of prepared me. It introduced me to what I was doing that wouldn't be of much use, which was more effort. When I quit that, what was there waiting for me was free to emerge - that deep and silent Presence that lives in our Church, and in my heart. And that was my lesson.

Funny how you have to learn some things over and over and over again. No doubt this will rear its head again.

Meanwhile, I'm still hacking and sneezing and coughing, and my strength isn't all back, so there's a good opportunity staring me in the face.

Less effort, more openness. That might just be a helpful prescription for relationships other than prayer, too.

Bugs Should Be Kept Out of the Wilderness Area

2010-02-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

It snowed this week. And it snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed.

And we didn't even get half of what some of the areas around us got. As has been true all winter long, the path of the storm went south of us, so we were on the edge of it. But even so, it was the biggest storm of this winter, and it was wet and heavy. Mike, our groundsman, worked all day long for several days, and often into the night as well, just keeping our driveway clear so that guests could come and go.

And it is very beautiful. It is majestic. Looking out of the refectory at the River, and the hills, and the mountains beyond, all covered in deep snow and muffled from sound by the depth of the snowpack is breathtaking. And as always, when I am presented with the majesty of our surroundings my sense of awe and wonder is awakened, and because that sense is so involved in spiritual response, my prayer leaps up easily and naturally as I watch this wondrous sight.

But all this happens with some sense of ambiguity. I am captivated. But I am also aware that tens of thousands of people not far from here have no electricity and no heat and some of them are suffering bitterly from the cold. Because of our work in some of the local shelters members of the community know personally several people who sleep under bridges, and it's hard for me to even imagine what these nights have been like for them. And the storm has inconvenienced and endangered countless people in all kinds of ways. The power of nature is a two-edged sword. I'm very aware that I view the beauty of the storm through a nicely tinted plate glass window. And I'm warm.

Nature is often admired most by people who are most protected from it. The reality that stalking and killing are the primary fabric of most of the life around me is something I think of only intermittently. Violence and destruction of life are a daily ho-hum part of the forest that stretches up and down the riverside. I took the title of this post from a story of one of the wilderness areas maintained by the United States Forest Service. At the exit from the area there are pamphlets and maps and some forms where people can write down their comments and suggestions. One of the suggestions received not too long ago read: "Bugs should be kept out of the Wilderness Area." We like our wilderness without wildness. Or inconvenience. Or scratching. It is more beautiful that way.

More importantly, these reflections come at the time when a lot of the world's attention is fixed on Haiti and Chile. What do we have to say about the natural forces that produced the destruction of earthquakes? And what do we have to say about our sense of God in the midst of destruction?

One very common reaction is that such events are evidence that there is no God. "I could run the world better than this". Countless church programs in the days immediately after the quake in Haiti took the topic: "Where is God in what happened in Haiti?", as though our religious beliefs have no place for God in a world where earthquakes happen.

Well, it's a complicated issue, and I won't pretend otherwise. But I will just point out that our Scriptures are a bit more encompassing than we often are. They tend to make room for the human sense of awe in the worst of disasters. Take Psalm 29 for instance. The Psalm pictures God as riding "on the wings of the storm." It describes a great storm sweeping over the Mediterranean area and pounding its way ashore, crashing over the mountains and beating down the forests. The storm roars with thunder and lightning, which the Psalmist describes as "The Voice of the Lord", when he says: "The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor." And at the end of the Psalm he wraps things up after all this power and destruction by saying: "And in the temple of the Lord all are crying, 'Glory.'" And if "all" are crying glory, that has to include the people who suffered destruction and loss in the storm that this Psalm describes.

Is there any room in us for crying 'Glory' in the face of Chile and Haiti?

It's a big question for people of our century. But the people who lived in the days in which our scriptures were written were no less sensible of the destruction and havoc caused by natural forces than we are. That's clear if you read the verses of lament and the questionings of faith that the Psalms present over and over. They had all the questions that we have. But they seem also to have had a larger capacity than we do for a sense of awe at the display of nature's raw power.

It's part of our way of looking at things that we expect that raw power to be muted and we expect to be protected from it. That's what the world means to us, and our building codes and our public services are all mobilized in harmony with these expectations. And it effects our view of God, too. We expect God to be the ultimate protector. And we wonder if there could be a God if we're not protected.

But it's an embarrassing reality that whatever our ideas and our systems may be, God is always going to be greater than our ideas. That's what it means to be finite and to have an infinite God, after all. Whatever we think things SHOULD be like, God is always acting in ways that transcend our expectations. We often find this incomprehensible. Sometimes we find it hurtful.

I also think we need to make room for crying 'Glory' in the face of a God we periodically cannot understand. I try to practice it when the lightning strikes on the hillside between us and the river. That's raw power - having a lightening bolt in your back yard - and we get them on a regular basis. My natural reaction is always alarm and fear, and sometimes anger or even terror. But I also try, as soon as my body has settled the least bit, to turn and inwardly cry 'Glory'.

This doesn't make me any less sensible of the damage that lightning inflicts, nor does it tame my sense of grief and outrage and compassion for the people of Haiti and Chile, nor my need to reach out in whatever way I can. Far from it. But it does keep me in touch with the reality that, as God says in the Book of the Prophet Isaih: "My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts."

God can be my Comforter, my Consoler, my Companion and my Friend. God is all these things to me. God is also my Challenger, and the one who regularly calls me to outrageous things completely our of my expectations.

God is now, and always will be, totally beyond my ideas of who God is. My life proves that.

Glory.

Lent Begins

2010-02-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

I find that I have a real zest for Lent this year.

I realize that some of you may be surprised to hear me say something like that. Some may even find it alarming. It certainly is different from the usual sort of remark you hear about Lent, which is more like the noises made by someone about to undertake an arduous and not very pleasant task.

But there it is. I have been looking forward to Lent this year and have given an unusual amount of attention to planning for it.

???????????

That indicates that I'm as puzzled about this as you. Or I was, until I had to think about Lent for an Ash Wednesday sermon. And it began to unfold then, and that process has continued gradually in the days since.

It begins with one of my favorite antiphons for this season, which we sing at Vespers during Lent on Mondays and Thursdays. I've always loved this text, and this year it seized me with a particular power.

It begins: "Use the present opportunity to the full". I think what's going on in me has a lot to do with the years I've spent in a meditation practice and how that has developed in me a subsidiary practice of careful attention to whatever moment I happen to find myself in. You may recognize this from posts I have made about the things I notice and the relationship of that noticing to my spiritual path.

This has led to the discovery of a conviction that The Present Opportunity is available in any moment. It's here. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whatever my mood, this moment of time is the present opportunity. What I need to do is see this moment as an opportunity waiting to unfold. Cannot I just stop and ask myself the question: "What is the present opportunity" and ask it with expectation? Can I ask that with the conviction that an answer will arise, and that it will usually be obvious from the situation I find myself in, whether that is in church, or at a meal, or in a conversation about to begin, or while stirring the latest batch of incense, or whatever? Whatever is, there's an opportunity there. What could it be? What exploration will make it clear? I find real excitement in orientating myself this way.

So my primary Lenten practice this year is going to be to take the antiphon as a mantra. I'll repeat it whenever it comes to mind, wherever I may be, however many times a time I can manage to think of it. "Use the present opportunity to the full." And when I think of it I'll know that there is an opportunity there, and I just have to think of how to use it fully. It might be that I need to be really attentive to how I'm stirring the incense. It might be that the conversation in front of me needs real attention and skill. It might be that the mysterious headache that's been following me around needs to be considered to see whether it has anything to say to me. It might even be that I need to stop what I'm doing and be still for a short time (or even a long time).

Of course it might be ever larger than that. This practice might bring up a change in my future direction, or the discussion of a future direction for the community. It might mean that my attention is being drawn to a really important decision. Who knows what each moment may reveal as an opportunity. And that's what is exciting. The open-endedness of my life is asking to be recognized and taken seriously. I'm just being directed into seeing much more of what is there to be seen.

And all I have to do is ask the question: "What is the present opportunity? Right here. Right now. How do I use it to the full?"

I'm not going to be obsessive about this. (Well, any more than I can avoid, actually.) I'm not going to worry if I don't think of this phrase very often. I know I'm going to get reminded of it regularly when I see it in my breviary, which will be once a day, minimum. I expect that I'll vary a lot in how often it comes up. I'm just going to make myself a little promise that when it does come up I'm going to ask myself the question and pay attention to any answer that manifests.

In addition - the antiphon is longer than just that one phrase. The whole thing is: "Use the present opportunity to the full, for these are evil days. Try to understand what the will of the Lord is."

Now I know there is opportunity there to get completely thrown - the business of 'evil days' is troublesome. I'll analyze all that sometime else. I'm not going to let the whole process get bogged down. What I do recognize is that any time I see an opportunity I know that there are things that are waiting to get in the way, and that's as good a definition of 'evil days' as I need right now. When I recognize the present opportunity, I'm also going to take seriously what might stand in the way of my using it to the full. I'm going to go into this being as conscious as I can that I'm not going to be getting an easy trip down a smooth path. The present opportunity may be something difficult. It may require a lot of work or some significant change. There are going to be things standing in the way That's part of the Lenten path that I'm going to be investigating. There's a beckoning opportunity, and there's the roadblocks that are going to be there ('evil days').

What's being held out is the need for a dialogue - a dialogue between opportunity that I see, and the forces that try to get in the way of my taking advantage of that opportunity. And it's in this dialogue that the will of the Lord will emerge. I believe this, and I'm going to take my stand on this belief. If I look for God's will in this moment, I'm going to find it. Yes, I might be mistakened. I might be seeing wrongly. All kinds of things can happen. But I believe that in the dialogue that I undertake is bigger than just me. I also have to take into account the vision of the people and what they think about the 'present opportunity'. That often provides the steady, correcting guidance that everyone needs.

I'm also not going to obsess about the size of this project. It may end up being tiny. The opportunity might be something that would seem utterly insignificant to most people. It might also be big. It might be the need for a real life change. Probably it will be somewhere in the middle, but you never know. I'm just going to start out on an adventure and see where the path leads.

And of course this adventure has the possibility of being what any really good Lenten discipline is. It may be something that will still be going on for me when Lent has gone, and we're in Easter. Or in "ordinary time".

I hope this makes some sense out of the zest that I'm feeling for the Lenten journey this year. It really does feel like a journey, and I love a good trip! We'll see what happens now.

Transition Back In

2010-02-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

I'm home.

Being away was quite a time and coming back has been quite a time, beginning with the trip itself. I came back on Tuesday, which as you may remember was the day the latest snow storm was churning its way up the Atlantic coast. I changed planes in Detroit and had about an hour and a half there, which was a good thing, because it takes quite a while to negotiate the trip from a large plane (far end of the main concourse) to a small plane (other end of Concourse C) in the Detroit airport.

I didn't have any idea what the weather was doing when I started out. There was snow and fog in Detroit, but not a lot of either and it didn't interfere with our landing. On my way between concourses I checked the flight board and everything looked normal. The next time I passed a flight board there was one block of red which caught my eye - a late afternoon flight to New York canceled. "Must be equipment trouble" I thought. The next flight board I came to had several red blocks - several afternoon flights to New York and one to Washington canceled. "Hmmm" I thought. By the time I got to my gate the board was a sea of red - flights to New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Hartford canceled and the times of the canceled flights were creeping backward to nearly the time of my own flight to Newburgh.

But there was actually a plane at the gate, which seemed like a good sign and a slightly earlier flight for Syracuse was loading, so I decided to look hopeful and see if that would help. It did.

But just barely. We were one of the very last East Coast flights to get out of Pittsburgh, and it was the a rare event for these days; a flight that was three quarters empty. We got to Newburgh a few hours before the snow began here - a very narrow window of opportunity.

Was it a sign or just a happenstance? I don't know. It doesn't matter. But the fact is that the readjustment to life at home has been a difficult one.

On the physical level it has been a real trial. The friends with whom I stayed in Kansas City knew that my time there was very hard and they went out of their way to take good care of me: good meals, good drinks, late nights (by my standards, at least). Since I was gone two weeks I had time to get used to a wholly different way of living the days and the evenings, and getting out of that and back into my usual routine wasn't easy. My body rebelled. I am hypoglycemic to begin with and dietary and life-style changes are always a challenge for people like me. My body doesn't like adjustments. And it let me know in no uncertain terms. I have been miserable for several days.

The more difficult, not to mention ironic, challenge has been on the spiritual level. In Kansas City I was completely out of my usual routine. No structure of Office to frame my day. No long periods of time into which meditation fitted naturally. And grief - a lot of grief - not to mention a lot of work, in the aftermath of Bill's death and the need for Betty's move.

But contrary to my expectation, this didn't produce any sense of spiritual dislocation. Whenever I could turn to prayer, it flowed. My sense of inner connection remained uninterrupted. It nourished me. It sustained me. I was more grateful than ever for my decision of some months ago to wear my meditation beads. Beads have been an aid to my prayer for years, and now I don't even need to reach as far as my pocket to have them in my hand. They are there any time I want or need them, and in a stressed time like this, it was a great benefit and a comfort to have them. They carried me through all kinds of times, including some periods when everyone else was watching the TV. I discovered that the television slid quite easily into the background while I attended to the Jesus Prayer. I have no idea whether anyone noticed what I was doing. At any rate, it didn't cause cause any disruption. And it did keep me grounded and centered, which I really needed during those days.

The ironic part is that when I got home and back into my usual routine it all fell apart. Here I was, back in the structure of the Offices, chanted with great beauty, and I couldn't attend to them. I had my usual times for meditation and I felt paralyzed. When I tried to force myself to attention and to focus all I could sense was a knot at the center of my stomach which resisted any kind of attention. Nothing I could do resulted in any sense of connection. I was completely adrift.

It lasted several days. It was partly physical, of course. Difficulties with balance in the endocrine system typically produce all kinds of emotional results, with resulting spiritual effects as well. And just letting down after all that pressure couldn't help but affect any kind of inner balance that I had. It wasn't really a puzzle for me. I understood what was going on. But I didn't manage very well when it came to having perspective on it. My capacity for just observing what was going on seemed to have taken a vacation. And I learned once more just how much suffering comes with the loss of one's capacity for noticing and observing. It was a good lesson.

Fortunately the one thing I never lost was the conviction that all of this was (probably) temporary, and was mostly an effect of the transition process I was in. I had lived through a highly stressed physical and emotional situation and had marshaled all my resources in order to get through it. My resources came through in a big way. They gave me strength and stability and they got me through. And the Lord was very good.

But then my resources claimed their need for some time off. I'd been on duty pretty much full time for two weeks and I am, after all, nearly 72 years old. They were right to take off and disappear. It's too bad that I couldn't take a vacation along with them, because that would probably have made the process better. But some long naps and a determination on my part not to press myself too hard did help. Otherwise it's been just waiting.

It's coming along. I'm not totally back yet, but I'm getting there. Last night after Compline I stayed in the Church and just let joy at being in that beautiful deep place fill my heart. Matins this morning lifted my soul at the beginning of the day, as it is supposed to. My attention still isn't what I would like and my brain is a touch foggy. But the process is moving and that's enough to sustain me for now.

Quite an adventure. I want to let it deepen my compassion, both for others and for myself. We are all seized by times like this and we flounder our way through them the best we can. I'd like to be more skillful in negotiating the next one. I'd like to deepen my prayer for people caught in similar conditions. And I'd like to learn to be more intuitive and more gentle with myself in the process. It is, after all, just a human process. It is, among other thing, the laboratory in which we learn to love God in the midst of all kinds of different conditions.

(And having Sushi with a friend tonight will no doubt help.)

Still in KC

2010-02-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

I'm still in Kansas City for a couple of more days. This week we worked on helping Betty get her cottage cleaned out and ready for moving and got her moved into a very attractive apartment, where she'll have all the help she needs. She is delighted with her new "digs" and there are plenty of people there waiting to welcome her. It's a big relief.

At this point, of course, my regular routine is competely disrupted. But the disruption seems not to carry over to the deeper parts of my life. Prayer, when I turn to it, flows easily and naturally. Actually, more often than not, it starts itself and I just become aware that it is going on, and then I "tune in". So, in spite of not often "doing" what I usually do in the spiritual part of my life, that part of my being seems to carry right on, doing what it needs to do. I know this wouldn't last forever, but I'm grateful for this on a temporary basis, and it feels deeply nourishing.

It sure helps that I'm in a place of great beauty. I'm in a semi-rural part of Johnson County, and the house I'm in is backed up to a completely wooded area. The house is full of glass and both the living room and my bed room look out on the woods, and a small pond and a stream that runs down at the bottom of the hill that the house sits on. At the moment, the whole vista is covered with fresh snow, and there is predicted to be more tonight and tomorrow. The fact that I'm not going to have to do anything about getting out of the house if I don't want to certainly adds to the relaxation. All I have to do right now is see that the fireplace is tended to and enjoy it.

Last night, just at midnight, several geese flew over the house, honking as they went, and then an owl called out. Wonderful to have that to fall asleep to.

And I'm also sustained in this part of the journey by some old and very deep friendships, and the strength of that has eased my journey all this past two weeks.

I'm also getting to the place where I'm longing to be home and back to my community and my usual life by the Hudson River. Hopefully that will happen on Tuesday, and the next time you hear from me things will more somewhat more usual.

Far Away

2010-01-31T07:44:00.001-08:00

I'm in Kansas City at the present. It feels far away in many, many ways. But I've spent so much time here over the course of the past 40 years or so that it also feels like home. It's real mixture of things for me, especially at the present time.

I preached at the funeral of my friend Bill on Thursday. It was the most natural thing in the world to do that - it was also one of the hardest things I've done. I didn't know that Bill had left instructions for me to preach, but right after he died I was sitting at home, thinking about the years we had shared and about who were were to each other, and I all of a sudden thought: "this sounds like a sermon". The next day I got an email from Gail, the rector of St Michael's (their parish - and, if I ever have to identify a parish as "mine", St Michael's is always the one I choose) wrote and asked if I would preach. Loss. Reunion. Joy. Sorry. It's quite an adventure.

And my wrist beads keep me in touch with my spiritual life. I really know now why I wear them. I am completely out of my routine, and it would be so easy just to do what is in front of me and let the whole spiritual practice thing go. But the constant pressure of the beads on my wrist keep bringing me back. And even I am surprised at how I just naturally reach for the beads whenever there is no activity or conversation going on around me. Last night I had a good hour and a half to say the Jesus Prayer while friends watched TV. It was really good to be drawn back to who I really am.

And how about that KU-K State basketball game last night!

A Time of Waiting

2010-01-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

I don't have a lot of words this week. At the moment everything revolves one reality: My friend Bill is very near death

In the time of our relationship we've done nearly everything together: we've laughed and cried, we've worked and played, we've shared many great conversations and also silence. We've traveled together and we've sat still together. Like most guys, I guess, we've also taken each other for granted a good deal of the time. He has been my friend for almost 40 years.

Bill and his wife Betty have been a big part of the fabric of my life for all those decades. We also share a passion for the Episcopal Church and for one particular parish. We love history and politics and we love good food. We've shared an awful lot for decades.

Now he's dying. It's not a big shock - he is 89, after all and every time I've seen him in the past few years, I've wondered if there would be a next time.

He is 1,000 miles from here, so I'm not with him. But we've had wonderful conversations in these past few days, and we've said goodbye well. I've been very blessed by these 40 years of friendship, and I know I have blessed him as well.

Many of you will have walked this path yourselves, so you'll know why I don't have words today. I need to be quiet and pray. I'll be back when I can.

What's a Monday For?

2010-01-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

On January 1, New Year's Day, our Guesthouse closed for a 2-week respite period for our community. We've had this break for many years. Very few guests would be coming during this time in any case, and we need to get rested from the pace of the Christmas season and of our Guesthouse ministry in general. These "sabbath" periods are really important to us and they enable us to continue our ministry of hospitality at the pace at which we normally operate.

While this time is not a vacation, it is one in which things are definitely slowed down. We have a relaxed schedule of services in the Church, and we cook for each other, since our chef is away during this period. There's time for seeing friends, for taking extra naps or for extra prayer. Of course, many of us also use the time to catch up on neglected work and other projects, and therein lies the big problem with this whole enterprise of work and time off.

This sabbath rhythm seems to be important for human beings. The Jews usually get the credit for inventing a regular weekly calendar with a day of rest every seventh day. Of course there were "days off" in the lives of people before this observance became widely known, but these times were usually attached to religious feasts scattered through the year or to things like Fairs and local community observances, and were usually irregular. The Jews were thought by many of the people among whom they lived to be very curious folk indeed for insisting on a regularly scheduled day when no work was done.

But somewhere along the line people began to notice the benefit on many levels, physical, mental and spiritual, of taking a regular free day, and the practice is now nearly world-wide. Indeed, we take it for granted in our society that not only one, but two free days are necessary. The rhythm is firmly established. But so are the various problems that were being noticed as far back as the writings in the Bible.

For one thing, when it comes to making money, it's hard to stop. It was hard to stop in the days of the Biblical prophets and it's hard to stop now. The Prophets railed against commerce on the Sabbath and the Church forbade it in a number of ways through the centuries, with varied degrees of success. Hardly anyone rails these days, at least in this country, but there are countries in Europe which have very firmly resisted the move to have stores open 24/7, and who see their time with family and friends as crucial enough to be worth a day a week. Sabbath is there precisely to keep the addiction to work, which is universal, from completely taking over the human race. But maintaining it takes vigilance. To have a day devoted to not working doesn't come naturally to most of us, and unless we watch it we find ourselves using our weekends and other free times for catching up on work that we didn't get done earlier (due, of course, to the amount of time we feel we have to give to our work).

It's always good to remember the Biblical Sabbath and what is permitted on the Sabbath day: worship, socializing and study. That's it. Not much else is included. How many of us, monks included, keep a sabbath like that?

So those of us in the Holy Cross community have found that we need to have regular times when we are attentive to our schedule and its effect on us. We work hard. Our public schedule lasts from 7:00 am until 9:00 pm, and many of us are up much earlier in the day for prayer. We have a demanding ministry in our guesthouse which has grown substantially in recent years. While this is cause for celebration on a number of levels, the increasing number of guests makes larger and larger demands on us - physically, mentally and spiritually. We are involved with our guests to an extent that is unusual in monastic communities and we have to take that seriously. Each time the numbers of people in the Guesthouse has grown substantially we have discovered that we have to make adjustments in our schedule for private time so that we get enough 'sabbath' time to be able to do our ministry well.

Our present schedule is the result of this dialogue between our work and our need for freer time.

Our Guesthouse is closed one day a week: usually on Mondays.
We are also closed for a month in the late summer - from late July to late August.
We close for the first two weeks in January and a few briefer periods, like the five days following Easter and a couple of days after the Order's annual meetings in June.

All of this is to enable us to do the work of being monks: to pray well, and to minister well. And it's pretty important. On the rare occasions when we don't get our regular weekly sabbath day, all of us notice how our energy for prayer and our zest for our ministry suffer. In weeks like that we have had what have come to be known as "rolling days off" - that is, a couple of us will be free of work on various different days of the week. It helps, but it's not the same and it doesn't refresh us like the Monday sabbath. We need a day to be closed. We need a day when things are quiet and we can be assured of having the place to ourselves, and when we can enjoy our place and each other. It's crucial to being able to live the lives we have been called to live.

Everyone, including our community, needs periodically to evaluate how sabbath is incorporated into our lives: time for worship, socializing and study. We need especially to look at the compromises we make in the time that has been set aside. The Jewish devotion to the Sabbath is sometimes criticized for regulations that are extraordinarily minute and sometimes seem silly to the rest of us. But those regulations are there because the pressure behind our need to disregard sabbath time is so relentless. And disregarding sabbath means paying a high price. It means neglecting some of the things that keep us healthy and human.

It's worth thinking about. It's worth it for monks and for everyone else. In fact, just writing this makes me think that I need to give some attention to how I am going to use my Monday time this week.

Sitting on the Sharp Edge

2010-01-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

Christianity gives us lots of beliefs that feel like impossible dilemmas because they involve holding together two very different realities: Jesus is God and Man. Communion is Bread and Jesus. We are Redeemed and we are Sinful. The trick is to hold both sides of these dual realities together. But we don't. We're always falling off one side or the other. As a seminary professor once said to one of our brothers about Jesus: "Once you've called him God, it's hard to call him anything else." Zen deals with this human difficulty with koans, which are little impossible dilemmas. Christianity does it, in the words of Alice in Wonderland, by 'resolving to believe two impossible things before breakfast each morning.'

So I got reminded of this in a fairly powerful way this past week. I was sitting with a close friend, talking about the dilemmas of life (my life,of course)and some of the difficulties of sustaining a spiritual pilgrimage amid the pains and difficulties we encounter (I encounter). After we'd gone on for a while, he gave a small pause and then said (as I recall it): "You know, the first time my brother took me body surfing, before we got in the water he said: 'The wave is going to pick you up, and you can't fight it. You have to ride the wave. You have to let it take you where it's going to. If you try to control it, you'll get in trouble - maybe bad trouble. You have to let it take you.' Then he said: "I think it's like that for you. You have to ride the wave. Sometimes you'll even get dumped on the beach, and that hurts, until the wave comes back and carries you off again."

On occasion, I do have the grace to realize when something important has just been said, and I knew as I heard that story that I'd been zapped again. As it turns out, this was not just important, it was momentous (in the sense of 'for this moment').

Later, I thought about it, and again I was fortunate enough not to think too much. This was mostly because I didn't know what to think. I knew this image applied to my life, but I didn't see just how it applied to the situation we'd been hashing out. So when thinking didn't prove fruitful I just went with it. I imaged that wave and I tossed myself into it and I rode it. That certainly worked. The image wanted to be used that way, not in reasoned thinking. That wave that I summoned up in my imagination took me for a wild ride and tossed me down on a beach and didn't come back for me. I waited quite a while, waiting to be carried off again and knowing all the time that the wave wasn't coming back.

And then I knew. Prayer is one of these sharp-edged realities. We do it. God does it in us. Both are true. If we don't hold both of those realities together we'll go off in some funny direction and maybe get in trouble. And while I was lying there on that beach (in my mind) I saw the tiny cracks in my facade of spirituality where I had let in the attitude that my prayer depends entirely on me. It's my doing, my planning, my spending the right amount of time, my working with thoughts and distractions. It wasn't conscious, but it was what I was doing. And the wave was only going to put up with so much of that, and then it was going to dump me and not come back.

This is so easy to do in a spiritual journey. Early on in my spiritual searching I was given a saying: "Pray as if everything depends on your prayer and work as though everything depends on your work." It appealed to me because of it's insistence on balance between work and prayer (very Benedictine!). But it wasn't until years later that I realized that it isn't balanced at all. Expressed that way, it has the subtle insistence that everything depends on ME. My work, my prayer. For me, anyhow, I need something more like: "Work as though everything depends on you, and pray as though everything depends on God." That comes closer to getting the balance where I need it to be.

I had expected that this little visualization exercise would give me some ideas to work on, or thoughts about a way I could use to go forward. This is all about me, remember? Instead it was complete in itself. After I did it, a new road opened in front of me. All I need to do when I sit down to meditate is to image that wave, and that seems to restore the balance I need. I'm not the one in charge of that, but I do have to cooperate with it. It's an immense power/reality that I have to work with, sing to, make love with. If I do that, my prayer is ok. Otherwise I get dumped.

Ain't God wonderful?

New Year's Miscellaneous

2010-01-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

A couple of things about this past week:

On Thursday, New Year's Eve, Br Bernard became a United States citizen. He is from Belgium and has been in this country for a long time. Now that he has made his vows for life, he thought it was time to declare his Stability politically as well as religiously.

The ceremony was in New York City and several of us went to be with him for the occasion. I'd never witnessed a "Swearing In" as the Bailiffs referred to it, and I have been really looking forward to it. It turned out to be a combination of a number of things, including a lot of empty time.

We were to be there by 9:00(a.m.) and we were there quite early, mostly by design. We didn't know what the traffic might be like, and it can easily take an hour or more after you get to Manhattan to negotiate the streets of the lower part of the Island, so we left plenty of time. As it turned out, no one was around Lower Manhattan on New Year's Eve Morning, so even though we got lost in a minor way in the twisting streets of that part of the City, we arrived at the Daniel Patrick Moinahan Court House about 45 minutes early. Bernard, who had been in New York for a day already, got there a while after the rest of us.

It took a little while to discover what the shape of the morning would be like and that it was mostly going to consist of waiting. The first two hours were for registering the 52 people who were being made citizens. This was done individually, and each person was closely questioned and signed lots of papers. Bernard had to swear, among other things, that he hadn't become "A Habitual Drunkard" since his last interview 2 weeks ago. The rest of us sat. And sat. And sat. Luckily Bernard was in the first group of people to be processed, so when he was done we did some of our sitting in the cafeteria and had a snack. And sat some more.

We got back to the Court Room at 10:45, when we had been told to arrive. The judge entered at 11:00. The ceremony was pretty informal, complete with a sort of Mutt and Jeff routine by the two Bailiffs which was pretty funny at times. But when the judge entered I found myself suddenly very moved as the Bailiff called out the words you have heard in movies so many times: "All rise. Hear ye, hear ye. The Court of the Southern District of New York is now in session, The Honorable ________ ______ presiding. Draw near and be heard."

All of the candidates stood and swore their oath of citizenship and then we all stood and pledged allegiance to the Flag. I can't remember the last time I did that, but it may have been in Junior High School. I still know all the words. Then the judge gave a short speech in which he congratulated the candidates, who came from all over the earth - from, as he said, Albania to Yugoslavia. He then talked about the duties of citizenship - voting, paying taxes, serving their country when there is need - and urged them to not discriminate against any of their fellow citizens. He was direct and personable. He obviously liked doing this.

Then each of the 52 candidates was called forward by name and received their certificate and a copy of the Constitution and it was over. There wasn't a whole lot to it, but it was quite obviously important and made quite an impact. There was lots of picture taking afterward and people were clearly going off to celebrate.

As were we. We had lunch in one of the nice restaurants that New York supplies in profusion. We toasted the new citizen and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I'm so glad I was there to share those moments and to be part of this transition. It was very good. Then we drove home and arrived about 2 minutes before the bell rang for the First Vespers of the Feast of the Holy Name (New Year's Day).

The other thing I'm musing about is evidence that was handed to me this week that at my advanced age, I apparently am still shockable. Hard to believe, I know, but it happened. It was in a conversation with a guy I've known for a while and have recently been getting to know better. We were sitting together one morning and had been sharing some personal stuff, as people do when they are deepening a friendship, when quite unexpectedly and with just about no preparation, he said (as well as I can recall): "I might as well say this now: I've been praying for you for quite a while. I just figured that someone who upholds a lot of people should have someone upholding him."

I stammered my thanks. I wonder what my face looked like. I was truly shocked. It probably isn't any exaggeration at all to say that I was stunned. Of course it was a good kind of shock/stun. A really wonderful one, actually. What a great gift. But shock/stun just the same.

Why? I had to puzzle with it and run it around and the answer is embarrassing, but it's the same old thing. I had a "Christian" upbringing. I was told, over and over, beginning at an age where it wasn't even appropriate: "You shouldn't think about yourself. You should think about other people." We know by now that, whatever truths are hidden in a phrase like that, it's simply no way to deal with the problems of narcissism, much less a way to teach Christian ethics. But the result is that like so many other people, I'm thrown out of balance when someone actually attempts to give me some support. Sigh!

All of that aside, there's also another level of stuff here that has been percolating in me since this happened. To have someone say they had undertaken not just to pray for me but to have that prayer be a support for me, and to do it without needing to tell me about it, and to keep at it for a considerable time just because he thought I would need it, was a surprise gift of considerable magnitude to me. I just hope I managed to react appropriately. I can't, in fact, remember anything I said. Sometimes relationships produce things that are a total surprise, and this was one of them. I have no idea whether I managed to express how much this meant.

It is also one of the things that I think life, and our faith, are all about.

It has made me spend a lot of time reflecting on the truth of human connection. So much of the fabric of life is about the things we do for each other just because we think other people are important. At its best, it's an imperative, not something that we do to be recognized or thanked. We depend, very deeply, on people we may not know and on actions and kindnesses that we never hear about, but which support and strengthen us anyway. This is truly what Intercession is about, and why it is so important. In the end, the major importance of Intercessory Prayer isn't what we can get God to do for other people. It's just about weaving the fabric of life with the threads that are us and God and others. It's about standing as a support for others, as a force for kindness and healing in their lives, and as a concern for their well-being, if they know of our concern or if they don't. That's a lot more important for all of us in the end.

I think about the people across the river in Hyde Park for whom I have prayed every night for years, and for whom I will pray for as many years as I have left. It's important to me to be involved with them like that. When I do it, I'm not particularly asking for anything for them. I'm just expressing my bond with them and doing what I can to call down Grace on us all. Who knows what importance it has to them; most of them will never know about it. But is it important? Oh yes, it is very important that people do this. We really do depend on it, whether we know it or not. So it was breathtaking (literally) to me to discover that I was sitting across from someone who shares this belief and this little private part of me and was giving the same gift to me. Humanity depends on this sort of exchange.

Little things often move me more that big ones. This is a very happy New Year.

What Day Is It?

2009-12-27T07:49:00.000-08:00

Long,long ago, when I was looking around at various Orders trying to decide whether I was going to be a monk or not, the Superior of one of the communities that I visited said: "In monasteries there are two kinds of days, Sundays and not-Sundays".

So, is this Sunday? Well, it must be because we had a cooked breakfast and a high mass with sermon. That's what makes it Sunday. Isn't it? But what was that we had on Friday? And yesterday didn't feel at all like Saturday. It's very confusing to the body. It is every year. And of course we'll do it again towards the end of the week, with New Years Day coming. That won't be Sunday, either.

Still, however the days have been arranged, we've had quite a celebration. It began with our Service of Lessons and Carols last Sunday, sung by Kairos, the acapella choir who are are artists in residence at Holy Cross. This has become one of the artistic events of this part of the Hudson Valley and there were somewhere around 200 people in our Church and that doesn't count those who had to be turned away. You understand that our Church usually seats 35 - or 40 if we squeeze. The Service was magnificent - just plain magnificent! People were so happy.

Then on Thursday we decorated: a huge tree in the Pilgrim Hall, which is the social center of our Guesthouse, and a smaller one in the Monastery Common Room, and everything looks beautiful. The Midnight Mass was also very grand. In recent years the Lessons and Carols Service has taken the place of Christmas Mass as the event that everyone comes to, so the crowd, while quite good, was not such a strain on our facilities, and that was nice.

We had a reception after each of these events. So many people come whom we don't know very well. They come from all over this part of the Hudson Valley and we have such a different relationship with them than we do with the guests in our Guesthouse. These are people who often come only when there are big musical events, or who drop in to light a candle or to come to the Bookstore, or who sit on the lawn and enjoy a moment of quiet by the river, or who come on Christmas Eve. And so we feel that we need to incorporate these folks into the life of this place and every once in a while we invite them to socialize with us. Since we remodeled the Pilgrim Hall, it makes a wonderful place to have a reception, and it can be set up and taken down in very short order. Because of the size of the crowd for Lessons and Carols we could only manage cookies and cider, but we're talking about Edward's spiced cider and Lori's cookies, so people felt quite well provided for. (Edward is our magnificent Chef and Lori is the Guesthouse Administrator, and also a professional pastry chef). After Midnight Mass, Edward provided something more elaborate, with meats and cheeses and eggnog and more cider - quite grand.

It is really wonderful to be able to talk with people who may not see us often, but for whom this place is part of their lives, and who feel a tie to us that is important to them. People who stay in the Guesthouse often have a chance to talk with us, to confide in us, and to become close to us, especially if they come here often. But there are many people who live much closer to us, and for whom Holy Cross is important, but with whom we don't spend a lot of time. The receptions are for those people, so that we can welcome them and enfold them in the prayer and hospitality that make the life of this place. These are special and important times, and we work hard to make them special.

And now we go onward until New Year's Day. We don't close on Monday this week. We're open straight through until the end of the year - and that's going to make it even more difficult to tell what day it is. After today it will be fairly quiet with only a dozen to twenty guests for several days, which will be nice both for us and for the guests who are here, and then there will be a New Year's Retreat that will have a sizable group in attendance. Then the Guesthouse will close for a couple of weeks, as we usually do in early January.

I still don't know what day it is. Tomorrow I'll try to take a long walk in the hills and see if I can't convince my body that it's Monday, since that's my usual Monday recreation. But maybe that won't work at all, and that's ok. Knowing how to deal with the unexpected and with surprises is part of the spiritual journey. God is always surprising us with something, big or small. We have to be ready to see it. We get to practice every year at this time.

Quiet Before........

2009-12-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

Today is a whole different sort of time from last week. Last week I was feeling the pressures of the season in a big way. This week it's hard to imagine being more relaxed.

Our retreat was the big factor, of course. We have retreats for our community four times a year. Our major one is in the summer and that one lasts 10 days. Then scattered through the rest of the year we have 3-day retreats. It's been our custom for some years to have one of the retreats during the 3rd week in Advent. It's usually a slow time for the Guesthouse anyway. People are busy getting ready for Christmas and with other Holiday activities, so the number of guests would be low in any case. It's a good time to close the Guesthouse from Tuesday through Thursday and give ourselves a break. A spiritual break. The house is in silence. The daily schedule is somewhat relaxed. Most of our daily jobs don't need to be done - though at this particular time I do need to keep up with incense orders. The big push is over, but there are always a few last-minute orders.

One of our friends, who was a priest in one of the local parishes said that she always delighted in dropping in during the middle of December, and right in the middle of one of the busiest shopping weeks in the year seeing the sign on the Book Store door: "Closed For Retreat". She thought it was a wonderful counter-cultural statement. And so, I suppose, it is.

This time I knew very clearly that I didn't need more intensity. Sometimes during retreat I make a big push for meditation, study, a special project or something of the sort. That didn't feel like it at all this year. What I needed was space. I needed a bare minimum of stuff to do, with plenty of time around each thing, so I could move slowly, gently, and with a lot of attention to each small thing. I needed to stretch interiorily. And I needed to feel a lack of pressure.

I did have some projects, of course. One hardly ever escapes projects. There is a room next to my Office that has been a store room for quite a few years and it has been crying out to be cleaned and sorted for a long, long time. Some of the stuff stored there is important - many of the files and papers of the last Prior, who died suddenly and without time to do his own sorting, had yet to be gone through. And there was a collection of miscellaneous stuff in there that has gradually been getting higher and deeper. This seemed like a perfect time to do it. I also did some study in the teachings of Marcia Rose, a very talented spiritual teacher whom I have recently discovered. Those two things, some Mozart Concertos and the few incense orders were plenty to occupy the time.

Predictably, my latent guilt got activated. I should be busier. I should be praying more. I should be more intensely focused on my study. Fortunately I was burned out enough that I couldn't pay much attention to that voice even if I wanted to. So I just had to trust that I had what I needed: a few things to do, and silence.

It worked quite thoroughly, even beyond my expectations. Though I didn't feel very "spiritual" during much of the retreat, and my goals for myself were only partly met, by Thursday evening I realized that I was centered, I really was bathing in the silence, and that I had got my self back. God had blessed this retreat, and me.

The rest of the week has just carried this blessed time forward. Many times we emerge from retreats on a Friday morning, just of the edge of a full house of guests descending, and the transition can be quite a shock. But this time, because it was the last weekend before Christmas, we had only 5 to 7 guests. So the quiet has continued to be the overriding part of the atmosphere, and things are relaxed. Imagine having a week at this time of the year just to get back to yourself before Christmas is celebrated. On a regular basis, being a monk is certainly wonderful!

Now things will shift. (Don't they always?) This afternoon is our annual Lessons & Carols Service with Kairos, our Artists in Residence, singing, and that will be a wonderful occasion. If it's anything like our usual experience, the Church will be standing room only and The Holidays will be in full swing again.

And then the countdown to Christmas begins. A great tree stands in the Pilgrim Hall waiting to be decorated on Christmas Eve. Yes, I know it's outrageous, but we really are so old-fashioned that we don't decorate until Christmas Eve. We believe in letting Advent have it's full voice for all four of its weeks, and not doing Christmas until its time. If you've never tried it, it really is a wonderful rhythm. Guests will be flowing in all week, bringing every possible sweet pastry with them, ready to help with the decorating and humming carols. The usual energy of the place will get restored as the week goes on, and will come to a climax at the Midnight Mass on Thursday evening when we are joined by people from all over the surrounding area for our traditional High Mass.

I'm ready for it. I think the whole community is ready for it. We've done a good job of letting Advent prepare us for Christmas.

Connections

2009-12-13T07:41:00.000-08:00

My friends are complaining about this time of the year. Most of the complaining doesn't use the word "Advent", even from among the most religious people I know. It's about "The Holidays", which are a different set of things altogether.

The complaining is about the craziness of our behavior at this time. This year there seems to be a lot of discontent with the party scene. You, know - you are invited to a Holiday Party and so you have to have a Holiday Party to invite all of the people who invited you to their Holiday Party. All of this starts at the end of November and has to be done before the 24th of December. I have one friend who has been to 2 parties a night, 6 nights a week, for the last 3 weeks. He was also invited to parties on the 7th night of the week, but that is where he drew the line. He thinks it's crazy, but doesn't see any way of dealing with it.

And of course, there is the usual complaining about all the commercialism and the craziness of the shopping scene, but the last I heard, the amount of shopping was going up faster than any of the financial experts had expected - about twice as fast, according to one report. And when I did my own shopping last week, the stores were pretty packed - and this was on a Monday, so the complaining doesn't seemed to have changed that, either.

I do draw a line between Advent and The Holidays, and there have been times when I wrote passionately about the differences between them (see December postings for the past couple of years, if you're interested) but this year I'm musing on whether they might not be just two two different ways of responding to the same situation.

I wonder if Advent and The Holidays aren't two different ways of responding to chaos. Advent has all those apocalyptic themes - the end of the world, battles, wars, everything falling apart, and I wonder if this isn't at least partly a response of inner symbolism to the outer realities of December in the Northern Hemisphere. At this time of the year our whole world gets steadily darker, and colder and more difficult. On a semi-conscious level things are headed "down". There is a part of us, which goes back to the days of living in caves huddled around small fires, that has to be wondering whether we're going to survive this. We're feeling threatened and vulnerable and death lurks at the back of our minds. Many people respond with depression, and that's perfectly natural. I think there's also a variety of other responses.

Advent responds with archetypal symbols of chaos: wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, plagues, dissolution of civilization. The Holidays respond with behavior that we hope will keep us from thinking about this stuff: we party so we won't have to confront our mortality, we shop so we'll feel provided for and won't have to think about our fragility. We do various things to shore up our feelings of security and let ourselves know that we will get through it.

And we do have our secular apocalypses, too - 2012, for instance. There are always apocalyptic movies around at this time of the year. These themes are always with us.

Looking at it this way makes several responses available to me:

1) I can investigate the various apocalyptic scenes that the liturgy provides me with and see what interior stuff is being evoked. It's not a bad thing to root around in my feelings about death, helplessness, vulnerability and such. This helps me realize what I'm responding to, and provides opportunity for enlarging my prayer. Yes, there's lots to pray about and meditate on in this stuff. Advent insists that it's better to have this stuff be conscious than to let it control us in other ways.
2) I can look at what I'm doing with my shopping and partying. You may think this amusing for a monk to be saying, but I have all those responses, even if my opportunity to act on them is more limited than those of most people. But I have old friends for whom I always buy small presents, and I am invited to various social occasions. And among all the wonderful reactions that God has provided us with, I have to assume that the ability not to think dark and dismal thoughts 24/7 has got to be one. We're created to face anything that comes along, and also to be able to have a respite when it all gets to be too much. How am I using these facilities? What do I need to face, and when do I need to give it a rest? How do I want to do my resting? Much to think about.... and to pray about.
3) Decisions. What do I want this time of the year to be for me? Like everyone else, I tend to get out of control in December. My calendar for this last week was a real nightmare. Why would any sensible person agree to everything I agreed to in the week following one of the biggest retreats of the year? Where was my time to do some recovery? How was I supposed to deal with the work that got set aside while the Advent Retreat was being planned, set up, conducted and taken down? I planned all of this past week in a state of unconsciousness. Do I want to do that again next year? Or even next week? What do I want to do to see that doesn't happen again? Much to think about, and to pray about.

I love Advent. I really love it. The Holidays aren't bad either. There is so much to be involved with. So many opportunities to deepen my humanity and my faith.

Sharing the Peace

2009-12-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Years ago, when I was a young monk, I knew a nun who was also young and quite new in her order. She was going through a time of confusion and perplexity, as young monks and nuns do, and went to talk to their chaplain, an elderly and very kind man, and laid out her dilemma: "People come here and talk about how peaceful it is, how serene the sisters are and what a place of holiness this is" she said: "I know the reality of our life, and it doesn't look or feel like that to me. The life isn't like that. We aren't like that. I never know what to say." And he replied: "Ah yes, but you see, the peace isn't for you. The peace really is here, and all the rest of it is too. But it's meant for them, not for you."

No doubt under the influence of psychological analysis and systems theory and much else, we'd use different words to describe the situation now. But I've still always remembered a point well made. No matter how acute the observation of our guests may be, and sometimes it is amazingly accurate, still many of the gifts of this place are for them, and not for us, at least not directly. Our perspective on this place will always be somewhat different, and usually less starry-eyed.

I'm applying this directly to this weekend. This was the annual Advent Retreat, which I have been leading for many years with the author Suzanne Guthrie and Sister Helena Marie of the Community of the Holy Spirit. It's usually a popular event and the guesthouse is most often completely full, as it was again this year. We work hard on providing creative programming and with Suzanne's gift of vision and Sr HM's very creative music, we most usually succeed. We certainly seem to have succeeded this year, if one can judge by the feedback. But the peace of this weekend retreat was definitely for them, not for me.

We organized this retreat around the theme of pilgrimage and the relationship between architecture and the interior journey. We processed them all over the place. In the course of examining themselves and our buildings they went upstairs, downstairs, through the chapel, into the monastery, down to the library. Our buildings are 1/10 of a mile long and we went from one end to the other, more than once. We worked hard and so did they, and their contributions were enlivening and sometimes exciting. It was wonderful to be part of a very creative time.

But moving 40 people around this set of buildings is no small deal. It was wonderful for examining the spiritual journey from a variety of perspectives, but I didn't anticipate how much energy would need to go into carrying things back and forth, setting up a different room every few hours, and providing candles, water, paper, books and ideas every few hours. My principal gift from this weekend appears to be exhaustion.

Was it worth it? Of course. It was a gift to be able to offer a truly creative opportunity for people. It may take a while to recover, but I will remember this time with pleasure and with gratitude. And there was one moment above all the others that I will keep with me for a long time.

Saturday night we provided a pilgrimage to the Crib. Our Creche was set up in the Library on the bottom floor of the monastery building. Close to the entrance of the Library is a sunken octagonal area that the building's architect thought was clearly important to the Library. Heaven knows how he thought that space would be used, but his original idea is now long lost. For us it's a puzzle and we've never known what to do with that area. We've tried artistic displays, couches, study tables and much else, but nothing ever really works. Except for the Creche at the Advent Retreat. It seems to belong there.

There are pillars around "the Pool" and with some dark cloth Suzanne created a sort of cave and the Nativity figures were placed in it. Our Creche is a modern one, done in a semi-abstract style, which I find very beautiful. The light was soft and low. Sr Helena Marie's music was very evocative. The atmosphere was quiet and deeply peaceful. We provided a candle for everyone who wanted to offer one before the Nativity scene.

As I went forward to offer my candle I also went down on my knees and touched my head to the floor. It's a natural gesture for me and one that I use with some frequency. Some years of yoga practice have made me unselfconscious about using my body however I want to in worship. Besides, I thought it might give people permission to do something out of the ordinary if they wanted to.

And it did. As I stood and watched, retreatants came before the Child, with Mary and Joseph and all the animals and the Wise Men. They bowed, they knelt. Some did a prostration like I had done. Some reached forward to touch the figures. A few caressed the head of old Joseph, or kissed the crib or the baby. People really did seem free to express the depth of feeling in their hearts and to do it in ways that are rarely seen in church in this country. It was an hour of meaning, and depth and tenderness. It was then that I knew without any doubt that we had created for those people the sort of retreat that we had hoped for. And, for a few minutes, it was a bit of retreat for me, too.

I was on the edge of tears for some time, just watching the scene and seeing how all of those people expressed what was in their hearts. And for those moments I didn't have to provide anything or teach anything or arrange anything. I could just be there at the Crib with everyone else. It's rare when a retreat leader can enter into the experience of the retreat, and I never expect it. Usually it's really important that you stand aside from that and make sure that things are going appropriately. But there, for a moment, I could just be at the manger with everyone else. It was a rare gift. And Advent has changed and deepened for me now.

Our History, Our Selves

2009-11-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

When I first arrived at Holy Cross in 1964 to begin the process of seeing whether I had a monastic vocation or not, one of the jobs that was given to me was to be Fr Tiedemann's secretary. Karl Tiedemann was one of the Order's larger-than-life figures: a very big man with a booming voice that he used to good effect in the countless preaching missions that he gave all over the United States and in England. He was also the founder of our work in the western United States, first in Nixon, Nevada and then in Santa Barbara in the building that he discovered which became Mt Calvary Retreat House.

Not long before I arrived, Fr Tiedemann had been moved back to West Park from the West Coast in order to let Mt Calvary develop some new directions without the pressure of its founder looming over everyone's shoulder. He became the editor of the Holy Cross Magazine, which was largely a theological and spiritual journal in those days, though it also had some news items from the Order. It was felt that "KT", as he was called, could use some help with his voluminous correspondence and other paper work as well as with the editorial tasks of the magazine.

Actually the task that occupied me while I was a Postulant turned out to be rather different: he put into my hands a thick sheaf of paper which turned out to be a memoir of the Order's early days written by Fr Sturgis Allen, the Order's second member. It had just been discovered in the Archives and Fr Tiedemann was afraid that it was going to be lost because the paper was crumbling and the text was fading, having been written in pencil long before the days when typewriters were commonly available.

So it fell to me to make a typewritten copy of Fr Allen's writing, and that was no small task. The document was faded to begin with, and in places almost illegible. Add to that the frequent references to places and things I had no way of understanding (what, for instance, was a "Dupanloup Catechism"?). But I loved the whole task, from beginning to end. It took me from the Order's founding on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1880's, through the times of wandering, when Fr Huntington gave up the work at Holy Cross Mission where we were originally located and he and Fr Allen had to find separate rooms to live in until the Brothers of Nazareth (a community that Holy Cross had founded) found them an apartment in a building next to the convalescent home which they ran "out in the country" - on 122nd Street. He then chronicled the move to Westminster, Maryland and the conditions of life there and then brought his reminiscences to an end just about the time the community moved to West Park early in the first decade of the 20th Century.

I was entranced. A sense of history has always come naturally to me, which I suspect was nurtured by growing up in the mid-South (Kentucky) as the son of a woman who very strongly lived from her Southern roots. People from that part of the country frequently identify my speech as coming from the South, though northerners seldom notice it, and I'm always surprised when it's pointed out to me. To say that southerners have an acute sense of history would be understating it a lot. I know exactly what Tennessee Williams was referring to when he said: "In the South, the past isn't forgotten. It isn't even past." Whenever I settle into a place I always start acquiring tales and information about my surroundings. It just comes naturally to me. I may be the only person in West Park who still knows where the Beulah Vale Baptist Church once stood and who remembers the jar of pickled eggs which stood on the bar in the establishment down the hill from us, which was the only remnant of a once flourishing Italian summer resort for people from "The City". I remember the old general store in the Village of West Park, long closed and abandoned when I arrived in 1964, I also remember its destruction when a train derailed in town in 1968 and one of the cars rolled over on top of it. I could go on and on. Sometimes I do.

So for me the history of my community which unfolded before me as I typed Fr Allen's manuscript isn't forgotten - at all. It really isn't even past. I have a natural understanding of why Holy Cross has almost always been willing to welcome whatever is new in the development of the Church. That comes to us from our Founder: that's what Fr Huntington was like. He welcomed new developments in Church and in society and he trusted people to make good use of them. And his love of adventure and the way he welcomed such a huge number of people into his life still mark us, from the sort of hospitality we offer in the guest houses of our Order to our stepping out and founding our new work in South Africa a decade ago. And the depth of the prayer of those first two men, which so obviously marked their lives and their ministries is still ours as well. We truly are the sons of that first generation. As I struggled to read that dim penciled text and preserve it from disappearing I learned not only about Fr Huntington and Fr Allen, I learned about myself and who I was going to be. I learned what it means to be a member of an institution with a century of history.

This past month has been rich with these reflections for me as we celebrated the 125th anniversary of our founding and this week celebrated the feast day of Fr Huntington, which is the actual anniversary of the founding of the Order. And this has been a time for exploring the future, too. This week, more or less by chance, there have been quite a number of men here exploring the possibility of vocation with us, more than we have seen in years. How many will actually come? How many of those will persevere? Whatever the answer, the march of the history of this one small and rather remarkable community appears to continue. It was quite moving to see them sitting side by side in the Guest Court of our Church, and watching them build the first ties of their lives as possible monks.

There are two things that always have to be held in tension: first, our past reveals a lot about who we are and shows us where we are going, and second, we can't be imprisoned by that. We have to be our own people with our own vision as we go to meet our own future. Both of those things have been strong in me this week as our past, our present and our future intersect and we move into Advent, which celebrates in its own fashion the ways in which past and future meet.

The Dark Time

2009-11-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

The days are darker now, the nights longer. Often there's fog, mist and gloom. Conversations devoted to lamentation are part this time of the year, when the hours of summer sun seem so far away. It depresses lots of folks.

Usually I am quiet when conversations like that are going on since I can't join in with the complaining. The truth is that I love this time of the year. I'm very fond of dark, gloomy afternoons. I really enjoy the colors of winter, after the leaves are gone; the very subtle shades of gray and brown and dark green. Something in my soul wakes up when the days get shorter and the light gets dimmer. I've tried sharing my enthusiasm for cold, dim November afternoons, but you know what it's like when you're having a good session of grouchy conversation with friends and someone tries to be upbeat. Being quiet is the better part of wisdom at those times.

I can't trace my love of dim light to any one thing or event. I know that a dark afternoon with an easy chair and a lamp beside it always seems like an invitation to me: an invitation to read a really good novel or something that will take some concentration. And I have such good memories of childhood Saturday afternoons when my father listened to the Metropolitan Opera on the radio and my brother and I played on the living room floor with Lincoln Logs or our Erector Set.

erector set
Originally uploaded by tigerluxe

(Those who are as ancient as I may know what I'm referring to when I say that we had an Atwater Kent console radio which was regarded as being very fine for "good music", and good music was one of my father's great joys, and one that he passed on to me.)

Atwater Kent Cathedral
Originally uploaded by jschneid

Whatever its root cause may be, I have a fondness for winter's darkness. Coming out of Compline at this time of the year is a treat for me. The dark at the end of the day, the Great Silence which is so thick it could be cut if only I could find the right knife, dim hallways, far away lights winking on the river, all seem very welcoming to me. I often go out to our porch just to sit for a few minutes and wait for the express train from New York to Albany which races past at a brisk pace, or for the passing lights of planes or artificial satellites, while the constellation Orion presides over the winter stars. Even when it's cold, I go often go out. I guess my nice layer of fat provides good insulation. Then there's my room, with the light over the bed and a candle in the corner. It seems so welcoming, so peaceful, so enfolding.

Orion the Hunter Striding Across the Sky on a Winter Night
Originally uploaded by Madison Guy

Best of all is prayer at night. I really don't have to start praying, prayer is just there. Sometimes I have to look for it to see how I can tune in to it, but it doesn't seem to be anything that I "do". It's part of the reality of the night and if I have to look, what I'm looking for is simply a way to get into what's there. But more and more it's just there, and what I need to do is turn my attention to it and settle in. I've written before here of the sense of fulfillment that I had in the months that I lived with a community that got up for prayer at 2:00 a.m. That was 30 years ago, and I still treasure those nights and I seek those times when I'm able to do it now and then. There have always been religious orders that included middle of the night prayer in their schedules.

Some years ago I discovered a society in England composed of people who pray at night. Some of them get up to pray an Office, some just turn their minds to God when they wake up. Some pray on the way to the bathroom and back. I will do the Jesus Prayer on my beads for a while. I don't know whether the society still exists or not, and I can't find them on the Internet. The one person I know who was a member has had a stroke and no longer speaks, so I won't find out from her. But having some support in this endeavor isn't a bad idea and I wish I was in touch with them, if they still exist.

That's my time, and my way. Maybe prayer finds you on sunny afternoons at the beach, or whenever. There are times when all of us suddenly awake to the reality of it. Prayer really isn't so much something that we do as it is awakening to the reality of the world and ourselves. Prayer is a part of who we are and of the world we live in. We discover our way to it as we go along, just by practicing and seeing what happens. Monks sing Psalms day and night. Some people find prayer awakening when they hear a siren. Some people find that level of their being when they are in the middle of a crowd of strangers. Whatever. The times and places are unique to each of us. The important part of it is discovering what our times are and then showing up.

And it does change things.

At Night By the River

2009-11-15T07:10:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago I blogged about being called into our Church one night when I was very tired and thought I was too tired to go. Well, it happened again this week, in a rather different way. There seem to be two factors at work in these summonses - night/dark, and tiredness.

We've all been worn out this week. The week before was glorious: 2 celebrations of the 125th anniversary of our founding, a profession of life vows, a really productive meeting of our Council. It was really good, but it was also a major disruption for people who live by a schedule, as we do, and it took all our energy. Not only that, but we started this week in the Guesthouse earlier than we usually do, and we had to hit the ground running because we had a group of about 40 people from the Diocesan Staff of the Diocese of New York. It was a great group, and from what we hear they had a wonderful time, but......

So we've been going through the week, each of us looking for the time or the place for some recovery, some respite.

This time it was after Compline one evening early in the week. I always love the sense of quiet that comes over our place after Compline. It almost has its own texture. And as I was headed for my room and savoring the evening silence there came again the sense of an intuitive invitation, this time to come outside. And this time I wasn't quite so worn out as the last time so my initial resistance wasn't awakened. I just turned down the hall and went outside.

When I got there I did the thing that seemed most natural: I went to the edge of the little bluff that our buildings sit on and looked out over the river. This is what I do every night from the window of my room, so it seemed like the thing to do. And I stood and looked.

Then I thought about my regular nightly exercise of praying for the people whose lights we can see across the river. I've done this for many years and it's part of my bed-time routine. But here's where my resistance came into play. Doing even that simple prayer seemed like it would take more energy that I had. It just didn't seem right somehow, and I'm in the process of learning that at times like this it's best if I follow the promptings that got me to this place. So I just stopped making any effort and looked at the river and waited.

The first thing that happened was a puff of wind from the cold front that was moving thought tousled my hair. It was just like someone messing my hair with their fingers, sort of saying: "Hi." "Hi", I said back. Then I waited.

Then I heard the sound of the river. Actually the river makes layers of sound. When it's moving there is always a sort of grumble; a low sound just about at the threshold of what can be heard, the sound of millions of gallons of water flowing. And because there was a cold front coming through and a fair amount of wind was blowing I could hear the noise of the wind and the sound it makes when the wind hits the surface of the river and then the sound of the waves stirred up by the wind. It was a restless, high sound, the sound of ceaseless energy.

Then I waited again. And I became aware of the lights across the river - lights from houses that are now beginning to be visible again since the leaves are dropping from the trees, and street lights and floodlights on the Vanderbilt Mansion and lights in the park land around it, and a couple of lights down by the river shore, and over all of it, the winking of the laser-like beams from the radio towers on the hills back from the river.

I watched all of those lights, just letting the sight of it sink in and became vaguely conscious of the people and the life that each of them represented. Then the next thing was spotting a winking light just above the horizon that was moving very slowly; a plane, so far away that there was no sound connected to it, probably out over the ocean, which is 80 or 100 miles away to our southeast. As it crept slowly along, so far away, I thought about the 200 or 300 people on board and wondered where they had come from and where they were going. Many of the planes that cross the North Atlantic pass this way, so there is always much to guess about when you see their contrails - so many dreams and expectations and lives.

Then the smell of the night came to me - damp, moist, fresh, overlaid with the smell of fallen wet leaves. This is unusual. I don't have much of a sense of smell and never have had, so I tend not to relate to the natural world around me by its smells. This was an extra little gift. And then another little gift, the feeling of the old, warm, moist air mingling with the cooler dried air being pushed in. I'm not sure I've ever been so aware of a cold front coming through and sweeping the old air out before it. And I saw the textures of the clouds, low and thick, sweeping along before the wind.

This gradually melded into a sense of the river itself, this great conduit of life that has flowed back and forth between these shores for a couple of million years or so. The Hudson is actually an estuary from New York to Albany, but it is so nicely river-shaped that no one thinks of it as anything else. The Esopus People who lived here before the Europeans came called it "The River that Flows Both Ways" and their story was that they originally lived to the West and were told by a prophet that they should move and should travel East until they found a river that flowed in both directions. And we are, in some ways, their heirs.

And then, slowly and gently, I became aware at last of the unity of all who live here or who have ever lived here - those represented by the lights across on the other shore, and those on the plane and those who came before electricity was invented, and those who lived here before people were here at all and those who live in the river and on its shores and in the air above. The great unity that joins us all became very evident to me.

This is one of the places to which the spiritual path is said to lead - to the knowledge of our unity with each other and with all life and with the earth and with God. I stood and felt that oneness.

Then I realized I was hungry and went to get a bed-time snack of a nice trail mix that I have that consists of some dried fruits and some raw nuts and some seeds. It seemed like the right food for the right time.

I tell this story partly as an account of one monk's experiences in the living of his life in this place, and partly just to say that I don't think that what I experience is particularly unique. I think that God calls out to us with the experience of unity pretty much all the time, 24/7. We just sense that call rarely. Only when the veil that is constructed by our minds and kept in place by the busyness of our lives is drawn aside for a bit do we let the reality of that call be heard. But it's there. It's always there - always. We just need to learn to listen. And how you do that is particular to your own circumstances and the conditions of your own life. But the testimony of the holy women and men of the ages is that we are drawn to this realization and we need to open to it to truly know who we are and where we are going.