A Magic House: Alleluia!

Last year at Christmastime, my friend brought her kids over to see our decorated home. Her five-year-old son, upon walking through our motion-automated chapel doors, proclaimed, "Your house is a magic house!" They also couldn't get over how many Christmas trees we had.

Of course the adults got a good laugh.

But, in a way, our monastic life here is a bit of magic. Guided by Benedict's Rule, women who were once strangers come together and live a Christian life rooted in community and prayer. I do believe it is a bit of magical witness in our society today, or as Benedict puts it: "Your way of acting should be different from the world's way; the love of Christ must come before all else."

Christmas, Holy Week, and Easter are peak-magic for Christians. They remind us that even in our darkness and waiting, in our grief, our sorrow, and confusion, there will be "Glorias" and "Alleluias" resounding somewhere, somehow.

I've never learned a magic trick, other than trying to practice living this life in the daily. But this time of year—the Easter season, our springtime here in the Northern Hemisphere—makes it feel worth the effort, makes the attempt feel possible.

The changes in the earth each day are wonderful evidence, too, so right in your face as they are. When I turned into our driveway last night after dinner at the soup kitchen, the willow tree stunned me. It's complicated branch system and leaves beginning to do their thing...amazing. Magic.

A patch of crocuses springing up in the neighborhood, bursting in vibrant purple. Abracadabra, and there they are! Same with the hydrangeas in the inner courtyard. I leave for work, and the bush is merely branches; I come home and there's that perfect spring green popping through the ground. This morning it was the tiniest tulip tree that got me.

May it be a blessed Easter season for you, one that attunes you to the magic of life, of creation. Alleluia!

Let us walk in the holy presence.

P.S. Here's a shout-out to my sister Linda who wrote a piece for Global Sisters Report, also about the power of possibility and living differently as women religious.

One of my favorite things about the Triduum...the vigil candles leading us into chapel

Crocuses in our neighborhood

The root system of our irises at Benetwood, a tulip tree, and those hydrangeas

Mary was so happy to revive this daffodil blossom that had fallen off its stem.