Communal Retreat

This week our community, along with friends/oblates, will enter into retreat together.

Pray for us (as we will for you) while we hear our own Joan Chittister speak on women and holiness--an opportunity for reflection and growth.

Until we meet again...

Mary Oliver gives us her wisdom.

First Happenings
A morning-glory morning with its usual glory,
dawn particularly startling with citrons and
mauves, petunias in the garden flashing their
tender signals of gratitude. The sunflowers
creak in their grass-colored dresses. Cosmos,
the four o'clocks, the sweet alyssum nod to
the roses who so very politely nod back.

And now it is time to go to work. At my desk
I look out over the fluttering petals, little
fires. Each one fresh and almost but not quite
replicable.

Consider wearing such a satisfying body!
Consider being, with your entire self, such
a quiet prayer!

Let us walk in the holy presence.

(Planting our own quiet prayers--four rows of corn--to be greeted in a couple of months!)

Goslings, Double the Fun!

This weekend I went for a run. As I headed back toward the monastery, I noticed a family of geese crossing the road. The goslings grow so fast!

Which got me thinking: goslings. It’s June! Teachers are in the homestretch! I remember those days when I was teaching fourth grade, just waiting for that last day, totally exhausted. We would be at the point in the year where we would have kids balance ice cubes on their heads in contests. Yes, there was no air conditioning!

I thought about the Ryan Gosling “Hey girl” memes. Here are a few for those teachers in the homestretch looking for a laugh. (All from Google Images.)

Stay strong, teachers! We’re with you!

Summer is coming!

Let us walk in the holy presence.

The Joy and The Challenge of Solitude

I spent the long weekend enjoying some down time over at Glinodo. Although I crave regular doses of solitude, I am usually more than uninterested in dealing with the personal “stuff” that solitude allows to arise. Oh well—it’s a trade-off, I presume. I do love solitude, though, because while all that “stuff” is arising, I sense deep peace, too. Solitude reminds me that I can—and must—find peace amidst the complexity and challenge of being human.

And when that doesn’t work, just go to nature! Here’s a few scenes from Friday’s sunset.

Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer

Mary Oliver

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught—

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

Let us walk in the holy presence.

Continued Communal, Culinary Creations!

In the kitchen I played again, this time attempting to create something playful for a 6-year old going on 7. My friend’s daughter celebrated her birthday this past week, and I offered to make the treats. My friend showed me a picture of unicorn cupcakes, unicorns being “all the rage” these days for the kiddos. Although I hadn’t attempted anything like it, I said, “Sure, I can do that!”

Away we went.

Of course, I must say “we” because I did not pull this off on my own...community coming to the rescue yet again. I had to make fondant for the first time to shape the unicorn horns and ears, as well as tie-dye frosting for the first time, too. After some internet research, I had a plan. Here’s how these edible, sweet unicorns came to life.

This was the creation of fondant. Although the recipe claimed that it would be a messy experience, I should have trusted the words a bit more. Melting marshmallows, adding heaps of confectioner’s sugar, and kneading it all together left us gooey and full of laughs. Thanks to all who cut open bags of sugar, scraped the mess off our hands, and a special “Thank you!” to the saint who cleaned up the sticky remnants when we only had 6 minutes left to get to our new class on the Gospel of John!

The next afternoon, I ventured to create tie-dye frosting in bright colors. This involved making icing, dividing it up and coloring it vibrantly, then placing it in a piping bag in thirds. Finally, squeeze away!

Lastly, the belles of the ball, the unicorns! Fondant was much harder to work with and much more unwieldy than expected. You can see how the “slimy substance” became more solid overnight and with—yes!—more sugar. This got rolled out and shaped into horns and ears. Jackie was an inspired co-decorator!

What fun it was to create these little mythical, magical monsters. And when I saw the recipient’s reaction, “Oh wow! These are beautiful!” the effort was well worth it!

Let us walk in the holy presence.

P.S. Bonus! Spring-time-flowers-and-unfurling-ferns edition!

Liminality & Becoming

I am not sure how many posts I’ve written about liminality since I began writing this blog, but I know it’s at least a handful.

It’s impossible to not write about it yet again as we have reached a unique time nestled within the season of spring, the time in which trees become a home for both flowers and leaves in the same moment. I took notice this morning while running, and then again while looking at the gorgeous tree outside our library window with another sister later in the day. I thought about how the trees know they must transform those lovely blooms in favor of the leaves that will sustain them in the summer and into the fall—less showy, for sure, but outstanding nonetheless.

I thought about how full of life and color we are in our youth and how things might mask themselves as sameness in our lives as we get older, but the green on those leaves certainly changes throughout the months they live on branches.

I thought about my friend who entered the monastery one week ago, who is definitely lingering in liminal space. I thought about myself, who feels settled at times, but who is still most definitely living liminality in discerning her vocation. (I think about this each Sunday as we pray for those discerning a vocation in our Prayers of the Faithful; although some might think of those people as the women who are considering entering the community, that prayer spans a larger group—in my opinion.)

I thought about my sisters who have lived this life for a decade, or maybe many decades. They must discern to stay and live this life each day; anyone living life authentically must do it each day with whatever path they have chosen.

Liminality is an uncomfortable reality of being human; there is no certainty. And that uncertainty and liminality—they’re constant, though some experiences of them are more pronounced than others. Besides experiencing liminality in nature, I think I might be pondering this because I just finished reading Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming. In the epilogue, she writes:

For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as a forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end...It’s all a process, steps along a path. Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.

I want to be patient with my liminality, as much as it makes me feel weird inside. I want to be patient with others’ liminality, recognizing the call to compassion when being present to others in their evolving. I want to be rigorous about attempting to live authentically. I want to learn from the trees.

Let us walk in the holy presence.

All that fog: unable to see what came next on the morning’s run

Living in-between: Our lovely tree outside the library

Another teacher

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

Although she has been helping out on dish teams, reading at prayer regularly, and working at a community ministry for more than a year, yesterday was a special day, indeed. The Erie Benedictine community welcomed Jackie Small as a postulant, the first part of the journey toward discerning a monastic vocation with our community.

The ceremony, which involves knocking on the door to the welcome and blessing of the women who create the community, is simple, yet touching. I still remember looking at the group of people in front of me when I knocked three and a half years ago and seeing those women who would teach, guide, listen, and accompany; it was a bit overwhelming and so full of gratitude

Whatever Jackie ends up discerning for herself, we are graced with her presence in the here and now, and we offer our prayers of support to her. Of course, I might be a bit biased, but I hope her journey with the community lasts and lasts and joy and more of it.

Jackie is a wise woman, a passionate voice, and a true seeker. Yay for us all!

This was the minute no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting.
She did not cry, “I cannot, I am not worthy,”
nor, “I have not the strength.”
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.

(Consent, by Denise Levertov)

Let us walk in the holy presence.

Happy Dirt Day!

Today is a gorgeous, sunny day here in Erie, the perfect day for Jackie Small, our upcoming newest postulant, to move into the monastery. It also happens to be Earth Day, a perfect day to celebrate the new life that Easter brought us this weekend. As I took a walk in the sunshine today, I listened to a fantastic episode of On Being featuring the poet Sharon Olds. In it, she read a poem called Ode To Dirt, and I couldn’t help posting it here on this feast of our planet, our land and waters so in need of the new life and love that we can offer to them.

Also, enjoy a photo of Jackie holding dirt, or to be more politically correct, soil. One of Jackie’s resolutions, as she tries on monastic life, is to grow a deeper appreciation for nature. Call this photo “forced growth” on my part, a pre-official-entrance foray into conversatio morum.

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought that you were only the background
for the leading characters—the plants
and animals and human animals.
It’s as if I had loved only the stars
and not the sky which gave them space
in which to shine. Subtle, various,
sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,
you’re our democracy. When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I had not recognized
a character who looked so different from me,
but now I can see us all, made of the
same basic materials—
cousins of that first exploding from nothing—
in our intricate equation together. O dirt,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you who have brought us forth, and fed us,
and who at the end will take us in
and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.

Let us walk in the holy presence.

Welcome, Jackie!