On Monastic Stability

Monastics take three vows when they make profession: conversion of life, obedience, and stability.

When I began to learn about each in greater depth, I had an instinct that stability would be the most challenging for me. The vow of stability means we commit ourselves to a particular monastery and community. Or, another way to say it, from Pema Chödrön:

It's best to stick to one thing and let it put you through your changes.

That's hard for anyone, and it's really hard for perfectionistic/idealistic Val.

In August it will be eight years since I entered the community.  And I have thought about running away at least 800 times. Or, as Joan Chittister writes:

When a monastic makes a vow of stability it is a vow designed to still the wandering heart.

Because it's that 801st moment of grace that gets me every time. And these past few weeks, I have been having a grace-filled experience of stability. I alluded to it in my last post.

Watching spring arrive in the natural world would be a source of joy for me anywhere I planted myself. But now that I have been at the Mount for eight springs, I am starting to notice things. I can tell that the little green leaves popping up will soon be fully blooming irises. I know that the forsythia became its beautiful yellow a little earlier last year than this year. And then, there's this tulip.

When you walk into our old convent where I work, there's a row of green along a fence. In the spring it's daffodils; come summer it will be mint. And right after the daffodils begin to bloom, there's this red tulip. When I saw it a week ago, I realized that it stops me in my tracks each year.

I love this tulip; I think it's just gorgeous. And if I weren't here each spring, I wouldn't have the opportunity to see it, to let it delight me. That's the gift of stability.

The 801st grace always comes. Alleluia!

Let us walk in the holy presence.

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.