Time sure gets away from me. Seems like most times I come to post an entry it has been forever since the last one. For any readers, I apologize!

Yesterday morning I was walking up to the monastery about 6:30. There was a touch of winter in the air (Our weather recently has been more like Fall than Winter; this morning was no exception.)

Since it was still quite dark, I was looking down to make sure I didn't slide on some broken twigs or wet leaves. A short distance from our house I looked up and saw an almost breathtaking view. There was a slight foggy mist hanging above the road, and the streetlights had taken on a lustrous shine. Since the fog was not heavy, it gave the appearance of being gently laid out so it would float quietly just above eye level, creating a space where something magical might happen. It formed a filmy scarf  suspended between me and the front lights of the monastery while the air around the building itself was clear. The chapel's stained glass was brightly lit as usual.

I didn't recall seeing fog just like that before, so I stopped and tried to absorb the scene. A jogger was approaching and I wondered if I should suggest he stop and look back as he passed. I greeted him, but he was absorbed and didn't respond. I didn't try to tell him, but I was sorry he missed it.

This was quite a lovely Advent/Christmas gift from mother nature. It will stay in my memory for a while, I'm sure. I hope it doesn't too soon fade away like the fog.

a Kentucky monk

Surprising gifts

Over the weekend I had the wonderful gift of making two new friends -- and they are relatives! A second cousin and his wife were coming to town to bury the ashes of his mother in the family plot at a local cemetary; I invited them to stay overnight in our Guest House.

We had met once before, but hadn't had much chance to get to know each other. This single overnight here in KY, from Fri. to Sat. afternoon, provided space and time to remedy that. We hit it off famously! Two of my sisters came over because neither of them had met this couple, and they wanted to connect. By the time we parted, all 5 of us felt we had started a great friendship and strengthened family ties that had pretty much been ignored in the past.

We never know, do we, when surprising gifts are out there waiting for some gesture or effort so they can unfold in our lives. I hope I can be at least a little more alert to possibilities that are latent around us.

a kentucky monk

More images catch my mind

Since I wrote about images the other day, I guess I've become more sensitive to them.
This morning at prayers my mind was more tuned in to the countless pictures created by the words of the psalms.

The imagery that caught my attention today was the vivid language used by the psalmist to describe the bad things he was calling down on the enemies of Zion. (This brings up a whole other topic of how they expected God to treat people who did bad things to them.  Since this reflection is about images, I'll wait and see if the other topic comes up in my thoughts at another time!)

Anyway, the psalmist says:
    May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward.
    Let them be like grass on the housetops
    that withers before it grows up,
    with which reapers do not fill their hands
    or binders of sheaves their arms.....

The striking imagery of how God was expected to treat the enemies of Zion really jumped out at me.  First of all, to be shamed would, in itself, be terrible, for honor was at the core of relationships in this culture. Then to have the grass on your housetop and in your fields get so dry that it produces nothing. In this desert land homes would heat even more because the roof had no protection, the crops would fail, and food would become very scarce. This is a quite timely image for us in our country because daily we experience or read about what havoc the draught is causing in many regions.

This prayer says to me that the psalmist had great confidence in God. While I would not feel comfortable praying anything comparable to this about someone I was having trouble with, it seems to fit what I understand of the culture of the time where tribal rivalries generated much hostility. However, if I could take that degree of confidence and mingle it with my understanding of how Christ showed us how to treat our "enemies," I think my spiritual life would be a lot stronger.

a kentucky monk

Some images that speak to me of God

I am a visual learner; images really help me understand things. For example, I find a map or printed directions much more helpful than oral description. I had an experience during retreat that reminded me of how important images are in my spiritual life, and it took me back to the poetry of Hafiz, a 14th century writer in Persia (now Iran).

The book I Heard God Laughing is the renderings of Hafiz' poetry by Daniel Ladinsky, an American midwestern poet who lived years in India. (He calls his work "renderings" because his goal is to capture the spirit of Hafiz rather than give readers a  literal translation.)

The image that caught my eye this time was: “Pulling out the chair beneath your mind and watching you fall upon God” O that I could let go of my own plans and develop that kind of trust when things go awry. (If you are interested in reading a little more on this, I plan to write about it next week in our monastery blog: http://stwalburg.blogspot.com. )

Some of the other Hafiz images that I really appreciate:
* "We all sit in God's classroom" (page 41) - This sounds so much like Benedict and his image of the "school of the Lord's service"
* "I bow to God in gratitude and I find the moon is also busy doing the same." (p.37). It reminds me of a poem I wrote some 60+ years ago in high school: "I saw the moon aleisure on through a cloud-filled sky. I stopped and thought within myself,'What a God have I.'"
* "My heart sits on the arm of God like a tethered falcom suddenly unhooded." (P. 97)The freedom we have without realizing it!
* "God is trying to sell you something but you don't want to buy" (p. 13). Like any sales person, God is limited by my choices. I can't be forced because of the freedom God created within us from the beginning.
* "The saint is now continually tripping over joy."(p. 127)  Isn't that a neat idea? I know some people who seem to have that ability already. Maybe I'll get better in that department!

There are many more thoughts and images from this ancient writer that resonate with me. Maybe I'll come back to him in a future blog.

a kentucky monk

Recognizing gifts for our spirit

Have you ever had it happen to you that someone famous or a person you hardly knew died and you found yourself unexpectedly touched? That occurred for me a couple of weeks ago when composer Marvin Hamlisch died. Of course I knew I loved his music, but when I heard the news that he died, my heart felt heavy. That was something I hadn’t expected.

 I wondered why I had this reaction; after all, I didn’t know the man, and I wasn’t especially drawn to his public appearances. Then I realized that Marvin’s music regularly found openings thru which to come inside and touch my spirit; I didn’t even have to be paying attention. His melodies and rhythms would cause me automatically to toe-tap or drift off into another space.

As I reflected on this often unconscious experience, it dawned on me he had given me a gift. Through his music, and with hardly any effort on my part, he put me in touch with a part of my soul. I don’t know exactly what it was in me that his music touched, but it might have to do with deeper realities – freedom, connection, or maybe just appreciation of beauty.

My thoughts went further, and I realized how often someone enriches my life without my even taking note of it. It could be the person I meet in passing who makes me think “I’d like to get to know her,” or the person I rub shoulders with frequently whom I can’t wait to move elsewhere. Both of these hold within them some gift for me. Sometimes, as with Marvin Hamlisch, the fact there is a gift is obvious; I just need to become more conscious of its significance. In other cases, however, the gift may even be uncomfortable, but it is there. In these cases I’m being called to discern where the meaning or the “teachable moment” lies.

So, the next time I hear Marvin’s music, I’ll recognize the gift, but I’ll also be reminded to put up my antenna to try receiving the gifts that come from the other people and situations around me.

a kentucky monk

It has been a really long time since I wrote anything here, the last post being a follow-up to my post on our monastery blog. Now here I am, once again making an entry after writing on the monastery site, stwalburg.blogspot.com. Not sure what that says about me!

What's prompting my reflection here today is the response to my thoughts about non-verbal communication that I wrote last week on the St. Walburg blog . Several people have responded, all focusing on the power of silence in communication, and grateful for being reminded of this reality.

I guess silence is one of those entities that gets glossed over in our daily busyness. It falls into the cracks between noise and chatter. Once in a while silence makes itself felt by its absence, times in our day when sound becomes a blanket that smothers instead of merely embracing us.  On occasions when that happens to me, I just want to retreat.

There are other times, however, when silence comes as a quiet little gem waiting to be appreciated. It can be between friends, family members, co-workers, or even an individual and her surroundings. This kind of silence is an invitation to go deeper, to leave the momentary surface and find a new dimension of some current reality. Silence can take us into ourselves, to some infrequently visited aspect of our life. This inward journey can lead to hidden treasures about a friend or even about ourselves.

Silence can carry a lot of weight too. It can hold pain, frustration, anger  - all kinds of emotions. When we pay attention to silence and find this kind of  treasure, we are often faced with more work than we bargained for. Because we have uncovered these feelings, it's likely we have laid bare a reality that needs attention.

Silence is a gift that, when savored, can bring unxpected rewards that challenge us to live more fully with ourselves and with others.

a kentucky monk

Century-old Music Leads to Reflection about Today

The thoughts below are what I was referring to in my last entry when I said I was thinking about something, but it would be a few days before I got it developed. Well, it took longer than I expected, but here's what was behind my "promise."
                                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other day one of our community archivists found a fascinating piece of music in some old files. Called “St. Walburg’s Academy Grand Jubilee March,” it was by S. Mazurette, and was “composed expressly for and respectfully dedicated to the pupils of St. Walburg's Academy, Covington, KY." The occasion was the 25th anniversary of the academy in 1888. This tickled my research bone. Who was Mazurette and how did he happen to compose a piece for our small academy in Covington?

When I discovered that Salomon Mazurette was a Canadian, born in Montreal in 1847, it raised even more questions. Did someone local know him and commission the piece? Turns out the composer lived and worked in Paris. Did he  know his contemporary Frank Duveneck, a Covington-born artist who at one time lived around the corner from St. Walburg Monastery? He became a renowned painter who taught in Germany and lived in Paris for a while. Could Duveneck have crossed paths with the internationally recognized Mazurette in Europe? Or could it have happened in Cincinnati where the artist  taught and the musician may have come on  tour or to see his music publisher?

This jubilee march written almost 125 years ago has raised questions that reveal how small a world it was, even a century ago.  It shows that the connections we make today thru Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media are not new, just accelerated. You may have heard that there are just 6 degrees of separation between any one individual and any other one individual on the planet. Though not proven to scientific satisfaction, this theory still points to the reality that each individual touches other individuals who in turn touch others, and this creates the fabric of humanity. One thread can’t be pulled without affecting others; together we form the connective tissue of the human race.

Many philosophers, poets, and theologians have expressed this reality. Poet John Donne wrote that “No man is an island…every man is part of the continent”.  St. Paul says the body consists of many members, and “if the whole body were just an eye, how would there be any hearing?”   

Who would have anticipated that finding a century-old piece of sheet music would lead to reflecting on the connections between individuals across time and space? Today’s social media have exponentially increased both the number of  links as well as our awareness of them. There is a downside, however. There is evidence that while individuals purposely increase the number of people with whom they link, they are, at the same time, unintentionally decreasing the depth of these relationships. (Can one equally nurture 50 – 1000 “friends”?)

For me, the dusty music discovery leads to this contemporary question: Can I use Facebook and other digital communications in a way that deepens my humanity and increases the quality of my relationships? This is one link I’m really going to be looking for.

a KY monk

Some Good Dream Quotes

It sure has been a while since I've written here. I have an idea I want to reflect on, but probably won't get to it for a few days. Meanwhile, in working on my expectations and dream entry for our community's blog (http://stwalburg.blogspot.com/), I came across some really nice quotes that I don't want to let slip away.

* "Dream your dreams with open eyes and make them come true."  - T.E. Lawrence
*  "We grow great by dreams.
    "All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days 'til they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true."  - Woodrow Wilson
* "God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow into them." - Unknown
* "The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it."  - Harry Emerson Fosdick [Amazing quote since he lived 1878-1969.]
* "What is now proved was once imagined." - William Blake
*" What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible." - Theodore Roethke
* The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt

A KY monk