Julian’s Window

Essays and Sermons by the Monks and Nuns of the Order

A Leading of the Spirit

July 6, 2008

One memorable summer when I was still in high school, my Mother read aloud to me the two-volume Wheatley edition of Samuel Pepys’ diary, including all the footnotes. After supper, we would go back into our Very Back Yard (our lot went back a long way from the street) and sit on an old pair of steps which had been propped up against a large oak tree and READ. We were both fascinated by the events and non-events which Pepys thought worthy of writing down, and all the historical and biographical information which the editor had supplied in the footnotes—but above all, by Pepys’ macedoine method of recording the business, pleasure, family, history, gossipy details of each day.

Pepys’ Diary certainly set the style of my own journal keeping—a hodge-podge of practical matters, of observations and judgments on other people (which in true charity might best have not been undertaken), of enthusiasms and dislikes, of introspection sometimes accurate, sometimes maudlin. When I entered the monastery, all my paper records and journals were put in a box and consigned to a family member; whether The Box still exists I have no idea. But when, in a fit of asceticism in my Juniorate, I threw all my monastery journals into a blazing trashcan out in the driveway, I did a poor thing as far as history was concerned; and being an historian at heart, after a decent break I started writing again.

I love Community and it is usually the chief character in my pages, and hence the journal has proved to be of value as an “everyday” archives. Should anyone want to know: when did we decide to do this? what were Community opinions on such-and-such? how did people react to newcomer X? what did we find funny seven years ago? when did the push-mower go kaput?—there is usually a comment available. As a personal health journal it is useful to me. As a spiritual record, there is more there than meets MY eye, alas.

I rarely go back and read over a whole week’s entries “just to see what I said”. But this week I did and was struck by my dreams—the details varied but there was a unifying theme which I hadn’t paid much attention to: the basic monastic commitment to death of the self and not being anxious about the struggle involved in doing so. What really startled me, though, was to hear our Guardian (who had been away from the monastery for almost a week) give a short homily in Mass on his return, expressing the importance of such death without anxiety—his first words spoken aloud on his return were what my journal said had been occupying my subconscious all week. Anxiety? The journal details spelled it out for my case, at any rate.

We often notice “leading of the spirit” here and usually it is a delightful, heart-lifing enjoyment. This instance was unusual in being darker—the Spirit obviously means business—and does this “leading” give notice that it will be Community-wide? I hope that I will be given the grace to record it.

——————————

Red Sea Waters

June 22, 2008

A great clamor arose from the Israelites when the pursuing Egyptians overtook them encamped by the sea. But when they went across the sea on dry ground between the great walls of water, there is no mention of any noisy outcry. Outside Fort Atkinson I recalled that scene, as the two OJN cars drove along a highway which was lower than the flooded Rock River—the waters held back only by a wall of sandbags. Clamor (then as now) was surely hushed by the sheer oddity of the situation.

The Community had driven across a sunny, verdant Wisconsin to Llewelyn House, a ceremonial visitation of thanksgiving for our presence there in the house, on the land, since November 15, 1999. My time there has been extremely important in my life, out of all proportion to the twenty-three months involved—in my spirit, the period is strangely elongated, hasn’t really ended.

There were certainly signs of change about the place, but not ones that impinged on the pervasive timelessness. When I lay down on my bed in the cell which had been mine, I felt as if I had been sleeping there all along—even though the slender frame of the young aspen outside my west window had in the intervening time put on enough girth that it blocked much of the view of the hills beyond. Sitting on the deck with a cup of tea—the same light, the same birds, the same “farm” sounds from the other side of the coulee—yet one of the big maples in the driveway had been cut down and was a heap of hollow logs on the grass but it didn’t really change the picture.

Whitby was not physically present, but her psychic presence in the house was so strong that my eyes would be surprised that she wasn’t actually stretched out on her back with her paws curled on her chest on the Great Room carpet. I have in the past pleased myself by imagining that I could feel “presence” in some historical setting; but this is the first time that I have ever been made aware without any effort on my part that a presence was there.

Shouting for Joy?

June 15, 2008

Our contemplative monastery is only rarely a really silent place, but it IS mostly a quiet place. Yet at times it can be definitely noisy: machines large and small in the house, machines in the garden, air traffic overhead, the road traffic in front of the house, birdsong never stopping, the cats yowling for their dinner—and of course the monks and nuns speaking in the course of their duties, and occasionally just chattering away and hooting with laughter. Even so, all of this audible commotion bears only the faintest kinship to genuine noise pollution. Therefore, I greatly value the wise saying of one of my sisters: “don’t label it as ‘noise’; think of it as ‘sounds’.”

She’s so right! Sounds are interesting. I very much enjoy trying to identify sounds without seeing them: the sequence in the rustles of vestment as the priest cleanses the sacred vessels after Mass; how different we all sound from each other as we walk down statio; who is drinking milk? Br. X; who is eating potato chips? Sr. Y; what pitch does the upstairs vacuum cleaner whirr at, as opposed to the downstairs one; who wants to be let in—Murphy, Tessa or Whitby? Every sound so distinctive in its components.

And those people who can imitate sounds have a valuable talent. One sister here has that skill and her imitation of a pulsating sprinkler can make me feel the spray and smell the wet plants. How wonderful it must have been to provide the sound effects on the old radio shows!

Inner stress turns sound into noise. It took me a long time after we moved to Waukesha to get used to the traffic noise in front of the monastery—why don’t they all stay home? why are they always on the move? where on earth do they have to go at this hour? But now I can hear it as the ebb and flow of the sea on a pebble beach and can offer a little prayer for each vehicle in an equally in-out motion. I am beginning to be able to hear neighborhood music in the evening in a way that has some element of sharing in their enjoyment of their gazebos, their iced drinks, their favorite songs.

But I haven’t yet managed to hear the full dining room at our annual Julianfest as anything but noise, even though I can see that everyone is having a wonderful time. The onslaught of that many people talking and eating all at once is overwhelming. Hear it as sound, hear it as sound, I keep telling myself. I try to think of the Old Testament—the music of cymbals, tambourines and hand-drums, the people shouting for joy, even the rivers clapping their hands and the hills ringing out. But, no, the dining room is more like the New Testament for me: dinner with the scribes and pharisees looking reproof (myself —most unwillingly—cast the s. and the p.), the crowd gathering ominously, the clanking of the Roman soldiery assembling.

It’s a pity about this—certainly a hold-over from childhood terrors (but what terrors?). About time to let it go…let it go…let it go.

_______________________

Jigsaw Puzzles

June 2, 2008

We are listening to an Anglican Classic in the Refectory just now: R. Somerset Ward’s To Jerusalem, written in 1931. The words of this early 20th century spiritual director are touching my heart in a strange way: it is as if I have heard them before many times—in fact (and this is the strange part), as if they were my own thoughts arising from the past. And yet this is a new book for me.

Yesterday we heard that when God wants to give us an insight into our heart, he will choose the area of our greatest temptation as the arena for his breakthrough. So THAT is why God usually sends me illuminations while I’m working, at tasks ranging from simple sweeping to armed combat with the copy machine. Work has never been a comfortable area for me, yet I always thought that not being sociable was my particular sin turf. But (recalling that New Yorker cartoon of a matron standing by a new gravestone and saying to her friend, “I told him it wouldn’t kill him to be nice, but I was wrong”), perhaps God wants me to LIVE and actually put something to rights. His messages are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle—the problem is that I thought I was to put together a picture of ‘Afternoon Tea in the Garden’, but the picture he wants me to do is ‘Men Working—Take Care’. I need to re-orient my examen of conscience.

Think of Julian’s experience with the parable of the Lord and the Servant. The basic incident—the servant falling into the ditch as he rushed off to do his Lord’s business—was clearly presented to her, but she pondered over it for twenty years without fathoming what it was all about. God had to give her a hint to change her way of thinking: “look at all the practical details, no matter how inconsequential or uninteresting they might seem to you”. So, like a good witness in a police procedural, Julian looks at everyday details: their clothing, who stood where, and so on. And these details began to bring deep, spiritual comprehension in their tow.

Our Community is deeply involved in work at the moment—the conjunction of getting out our newsletter with the preparations for our annual Julian Fest, plus a big special mailing, plus getting our plans for new construction presented to the City Planning Commission and filling out grant applications, plus the work arising from giving up our Eastman property, plus getting the Julian House gardens stocked with new plants—no one is exempt from special tasks in addition to the usual daily work of house and chapel.

Benedict knew what he was doing when he balanced labora with ora—each calls up illumination from the other. The practical aspects of our life have always greatly impressed me as spiritual and intellectual “niceties” which lead to transformation. Now, surely, it’s time for the actual DOING of them as spiritual, intellectual and physical actions, as goods in their own right, confident that these ordinary things done in ordinary ways also lead to transformation.

______________________________

Teach Me Your Paths

May 25th, 2008

In the small Southern town where I grew up, my family did not have a car. So from a very early age I learned “walks”: the best way to get to somewhere, how long it took, how to look carefully at street crossings, what other hazards (like barking dogs) I might face. I never found these set routes boring or constraining, for the restraint gave me the confidence to see new things along the familiar way and to think my own thoughts peacefully. Yet these walks figured in my dreams for years afterwards and that fact was just enough disturbing to wonder about.

Therefore, when I visited my hometown after years away from it, one of the things I set myself to do was to walk all those walks again. In the intervening time the small town had grown into a city, but the basic routes were still there.  The walk to what had been my elementary school still went down an alleyway between two fraternity houses but the school itself was long gone, replaced by high-rise student apartments and a shopping mall. The frightening crossing on the way to the swimming pool had been civilized by traffic lights and a realignment of roads. I was hot and tired when I finished this expedition into nostalgia but it was definitely worth doing, for it clarified some hazily remembered anxieties and thereby curtailed the dreams.

As my mother set out the various walks for me, so our monastery sets out certain paths as the best ways for living the contemplative life. Some of these paths are intensely practical and immediately understood. Others, hallowed by monastic tradition, take time to absorb, since at first experience they may seem counter-intuitive.

But what interests me at the moment is: would I want to walk again those early paths in the monastery? Would I want to re-experience that blissful honeymoon period of the new novice, where every path has a halo? Would I want to walk again along the many (usually self-inflicted) hazards of the Juniorate? And hear again the harsh cacophony of Screwtape after taking Life Vows? Some memories are full of wry amusement. Some represent the undertaking of effort I would not be capable of now. Some are remembered as so genuinely sad that they are truly a memory of the Cross. But all were gained by keeping to the paths laid down for my benefit in learning to live the contemplative life, something I felt completely called to do and satisfied in doing, for it resulted in clarification.

To the extent that I can consciously re-walk those paths of the past, one thing is clear:   the anxieties of the childhood paths still linger in the monastic ones--the fears then are the fears now, the pains likewise, the pleasures also--but they are not near so overwhelming emotionally. The monastic experience has managed to realign the roads internally and to install internal traffic lights. Perhaps it is too early to claim Benedict’s “inexpressible delight” (Prologue v. 49)--but I certainly do see what he means. And I offer it as encouragement and enticement for this intriguing and fulfilling way of life.

_________________________

Being Nice

May 12, 2008

Niceness was not one of my inborn assets. While I was a pleasing enough child among my own folks, family lore makes it abundantly clear that once out of that safe haven, I was insufferable—definitely not the sort of little girl to take visiting, or one enthusiastically invited to birthday parties. My mother said that she made up for this sad lack in my personality by being “particularly charming” herself—so for me “being charming” was tarred with the same brush as “being nice”. NOT a good profile for a girlchild growing up in the South in the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s.

Yet “being nice” was always a hidden aspiration for me, in fact second only to “being organized”—both unattainable as far as I could see. Even in middle age, and in a stressful time of moving house to another country, the goal that was to be pursued in the new place was “making a practice of being nice to people”. In one of God’s more inscrutable manoeuvers, that goal was achieved, but with a different configuration of persons all round.

Being nice to people was certainly one of the customs of the monastery. When I entered, the Warden (later our second Guardian) was a Southern woman from Virginia, possessed of formidable charm. And our Fr. Founder was anxious for all Members to adhere to a formal ecclesiastical and monastic tradition of good manners. Both of them also had iron wills in this matter.

“So. . .you said you wanted to be nice to people,” God remarked to me. “Well, here you are, then—get on with it!”

All this was brought to mind by my making a card to give to our new Novice on her Clothing day. Making cards for each other on birthdays, anniversaries of Life Vows, of ordinations, was a nice custom. At least when the number of Members was quite small; as numbers increased it grew to be a serious task and one in which competition unfortunately entered (to make the nicest card and to get it to the recipient before anyone else did. . .tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk). In addition, there were “little cards” to be mailed to all who sent us donations of money or kind; to our Affiliates on their birthdays and special anniversaries; to people who had asked for special prayers; and little notes of comfort to people who needed it. For some of us, providing counsel and comfort on the telephone was also required (apart from formal spiritual direction, I mean).

For someone of my temperament “little cards” could have turned into a ho-hum duty, but it never did, though it could sometimes be an anxious business to get them done on time. Or I might cynically comment that it was only because the most of the people were not actually present that “little cards” stayed “nice”. But, no, I refuse to say that! I think this was aspiration genuinely answered, with as much challenge offered as I could cope with. Thanks be to God!

_________________________

Rogation Cold

May 1, 2008

Last week had been almost all sunshine—spring at last? Two sisters spread out all our yard machines on the driveway and got them ready for use. The snow blower was winterized and put away (perhaps a bold move for April, since the weather map had warned of possible snow early next week).

My “yard machine”, when I entered the monastery, was a little red wagon in which I pulled cans of water to the various planters on the lawn’s perimeter and birdseed to the many bird feeders. I increased that task by spreading seed on windowsills and under bushes—and providing distant basins of water in addition to the bird baths. With the inevitable consequence that the squirrel, chipmunk, rabbit, and bird populations increased and visiting families of racoons, possums and skunks enjoyed the largesse as well. In the early evening, with the sun’s rays slanting across the green grass, Julian House looked like the peaceable kingdom. But one result of this ecological tampering was the pitting of the lawn with rabbit burrows and chipmunk holes; and that was for a long time accepted as the status quo.

So it was a pleasure on Monday’s Rogation Day to find firm footing—the strenuous work of our groundskeeper—as we processed diagonally across the lawn to the southwest corner. We trod on violets, both purple and white, nestling down in their leaves and new dandelions still tight shut. And came up to the big golden sunburst of the forsythia bush which is hidden from the house by the fir tree. But our joy in this spring loveliness was soon naughted by a sharp wind blowing cold weather up the hill from the west; and by the traffic whooshing past on Highway 18, warring with our efforts to sing “We plow the fields and scatter”. Vestments flapped in the wind, the slack of the thurible chain clanked against itself.

We persevered up the west side of the house—no longer in procession but in a throng: a cloud of witnesses blown along by the petitions of the Great Litany—to the haven of the northwest corner. Momentarily, we were out of the wind. The mourning doves comforted us for our chilly trek: “there, there, there-there-there-there-there”. We moved across the back of the monastery (where the new construction will take place) to our well by the side porch, passing on the way a miserable fledgling huddled under the back stairs, his mother urging him out into activity.

Then back out into the wind tunnel to the pond, everyone thoroughly chilled; around the back of the chapel, past the compost bins and into the vegetable garden, one quarter of it neatly rowed and planted. The north- and south-east corners of the property had to be omitted since much of the pasture was under standing water—so no divebombing by the redwings this year.

Usually we get too hot on Rogation Day, faces pink. This year we were too cold, faces blue. But we all love the procession, love our property, even love (well. . , appreciate) our changeable weather. And God’s protecting hand held off the snow!

_________________

The Inner Bench

April 20, 2008

Once a month Julian House has a DAY IN: a silent retreat day of prayer, spiritual reading, and recollection. Attendance at Chapel services is required, but a Retreat Steward looks after almost all the usual jobs of the house. This past Thursday was the first DAY IN in months and months when it was warm enough to sit outside, and I looked forward to this.

Nourished first by the monthly Julian Votive Mass (with its Prayer of Consecration using so many of Julian’s own words) and then by a forage-for-your-own breakfast (toast and mango butter!), I made my way to the Inner Bench in the pasture, the bench farthest from the house. I call it “inner” in sympathy with St. Anthony’s Inner Mountain, since in the height of summer luxuriant pasture growth makes it seem inaccessible—the jungle standing in for the desert, as it were—and I always have hopes that a little bit of St. Anthony’s spiritual clarity might be found there.

Although the trees were just beginning to bud out, there was plenty of other new life to look at. My brothers’ and sisters’ work of clearing, pruning, composting, mulching—even some early planting—was evident. The daffodils scattered about the pasture were golden-yellow, the moss on the paths was golden-green. Two robins gave a dazzling display of low-level speed flying around the pasture path, wings tilted in formation. A party of redwing blackbirds rattled on and on about where and who belonged to whom. Finches swooped and twittered over last years’ bull thistles.

But as the morning progressed it became cooler. The breeze got up; a scrim of clouds cut the sunlight, distancing and muting the spring glories. I saw the grey dried goldenrod fronds and the shriveled fingers of Queen Anne’s Lace cups; the blackened spear of a mullein that had toppled over in front of the bench; the dead bindweed tangled in a small tree. My thoughts chilled too: how my library cataloging showed me so many good books I had no time to read; proofreading piling up; a friend dangerously walking into a little-understood situation. And above all, how in Tuesday’s Julian Class I contributed a bit about my life in the stark terms it warranted—WHY had it taken me so long to see it that way, let alone SAY it out loud to my community.

I always imagined that St. Anthony fought his demons in the intense heat of the day but no doubt they also came in the bone-chilling desert night. Certainly, all my demons all seem to be creatures of pinching cold.

    There blows a colde wind todaye, todaye,

    The wind blows cold todaye;   

    Crist suffered his Passion for mannes salvacion,

    To kepe the cold wind awaye.

The Inner Bench having started my DAY IN seriously enough, I dared to return to my cell for a bit of warmth—and a cup of tea.

_____________________________

Breakfast

April 14th, 2008

Not looking avidly at what others are doing; not verbally or visually engaging with others as one passes them; yet maintaining an ordinary level of alertness and responsiveness. . . , respecting each other’s physical space.

I think that those few pointers on composure are the practices which I found to be the most different from the practices in my secular life—and to be also the most liberating. To be sure, they are small things when put beside the four great vows; but, after all, it is the often the “small things” which impinge more strikingly—and, should one be momentarily out of sympathy with the life here, this enforced “distancing” can be quite distressing, a cross truly to be taken up.

Breakfast can be a good time to observe this distancing in process, for our breakfast is self-service without any designated seating. Breakfast is at 7.30 a.m. and, since we have been up since 5, we are all ready for a little something—so eagerness is thrown in to contest the principles of composure. The self-service counter is laid out in an unvarying way, starting with napkins and cutlery and ending with the toaster and cream cheese; the coffee and tea are off to one side, the cart for used dishes off to the other, and the microwave is even farther away.

Some people head for the toaster (for the machine takes quite time to make toast); some to the coffee pot; some get their napkin and cutlery and sit quietly at table waiting; others go methodically down the line, some managing to carry a great number of things to the table at once without dropping or spilling. And weaving in amongst all the sandalled feet are the four white feet of Whitby the cat, who manages never to get stepped on and has her own dish of crunchy things on the windowsill. In fact, the only noise is the crunching of various cereals by teeth human and feline. Now, if one were a fly on the long wooden beam that stretches the length of the Refectory, one would see a lovely pattern of movements: going forward, holding back, turning to this side, turning to that, going round by the outside edge—like the results of a stage director managing the movements in a very deliberate crowd scene. But in this case, it is these internalized practices set out in the Customary which are the “director”. A newcomer or guest stands out by their unfamiliarity with the patterns of movement—the broken bittiness of their actions—but the community members flow around them like water. It is really quite lovely to look at. Custody of the eyes? Ah, but one is being a fly and it is the nature of flies to observe!

I find starting the day with this nourishing, calming, unvarying routine very satisfying. And it serves me as a reminder of the ability to manage composure throughout the day. In work and in prayer, one can go round the outside edge, or hold back, or flow around the obstruction or—if the last blackberry yogurt has been taken, as it were, decide that passion fruit will do just as well.

————————————————

Silence and Speaking

April 6th, 2008

“Each Member Regular is responsible for cultivating the community-wide practice of silence. . .which is characterized by gentleness, humility, courtesy and an appropriate sense of personal boundaries. . . .” (from our Customary).

There are many remarks about silence and its preservation in our Customary as might be expected for a contemplative community. And, naturally, our vocations are drawn from people who have a comfortable relationship with silence and solitude. The flip side of the comfortable relationship, though, is that many of us don’t speak as well as we might, through sheer lack of practice as well as the natural bias to wordlessness.

So a certain glow has been added to this week by our having had two classes in which group discussion played a part and in which we “did” well—and we are chuffed! We all expressed ourselves with some clarity, and appreciated what others were saying in their distinctive ways.

This modest triumph was followed by an unusual treat for me after the video (“Becoming Jane”) on our April DAY OFF. Three of us sisters lingered behind after the others had left. The Common Room was dark except for the Gro-lights on the plant stand in the corner. One sister sat on the floor; the second curled up in the corner of the sofa; I sprawled in an arm chair—and the ambiance of earnest chats after lights-out in the dorm began to creep into the room. And so (you ask), what do three nuns talk about after lights-out? The subject was yet more pondering about “speaking”.

One of our brothers is very gifted in speaking without notes. There are no desperate pauses, no “uhhhhs”, no irritating digressions, no slang. How does he do it? How nice it would be if we could, too. For we three sisters find that we are handicapped by having our “intellectual” (as opposed to our “prattling”) thoughts completely bypass our tongues to get to our fingertips: we have to write before we can speak. Maybe. . .perhaps. . .his rigorous practice of lectio, that basic tool of monastic transformation, might have something to do with it.

Transformation was what Paul wrote about, using the language of Jewish mysticism current in his day, but one still very apt for the process as observed in our life here. The problem with using Paul as a model is that, as convert, he was viewed with suspicion by the group he left (the Pharisees) and the group he wanted to join (the apostles)—he was fighting for his place and voice, and he sounds like that. When we are asked to explain what our life is like here, it is easy to let words and voice become pushy and shrill. It is hard to put silence and solitude into words; hard to convey why transformation is such a fascinating process; hard not to ask querulously “why can’t they SEE”. Yet, in his time, Paul had amazing success, shrill or not shrill. In our time, what should we do? Suggestions?

_____________________________

The Long Rehearsal

March 31, 2008

I have always enjoyed rehearsals. The teamwork between conductor and performers is intriguing and edifying: the skill to see how talent may best be brought out and the willing skill to respond to that insight.

Holy Week/Easter/Easter Week are noteworthy for rehearsals at Julian House. Our liturgies are not complex but we try to do them smoothly so that neither we nor our guests get rattled by the process. The work of the sacristan makes a firm foundation (books marked correctly, vestments hung out, all the props in place and working, decorations just so) on which we have at last achieved a level of teamwork which makes rehearsals pleasurable as physical and mental exercise—and accomplishes that for which they were purposed: to bring the momentous events of this Holy Season alive, right here and right now. The smallness of our numbers and the silence and stillness of our Chapel into which these events irrupt is an asset rather than a limitation: everyone/everything becomes both recognizable and not quite recognizable: it is “just us” and yet maybe it isn’t—maybe marginally perceptible “not quite us”.

I had a childhood experience—a “dress rehearsal”, if you like—which is still so potent that I’m not embarrassed to tell it again and again. How (when I was around six) Mother called me in from happy play to dress me in my going-out-to-be-polite clothes. Disgruntled and uncooperative, I was stripped of my playclothes and rather roughly washed. Turning me this way and that in front of the big dressing table mirror, Mother undid my braids, combed out and rebraided them to my flinching protests. A slip with eyelet edging was dropped down over my upraised arms, then a light blue dress with a smocked front tugged down and finally a white pinafore with a sash. My braids were put up on top of my head with little blue bows. My Keds were replaced with white anklets and shiny Mary Janes. And all of a sudden it was over and I realized that I was absolutely delighted with my appearance—had I seen in a picturebook what I now saw in the mirror I would have poured over the illustration and wished I looked like that. My mother had drawn out of me a “talent”, a quality, I didn’t realize I had: being pretty. She was, of course, quick to point out that “pretty is as pretty does”—but that didn’t destroy the sparkling delight that had arisen from following someone else’s better insight for me. It was a mercy teaching and it has never left me.

The stories of this Holy Season make it so clear that our life here is one long rehearsal of accepting a fruitful teamwork between ourselves and our Resurrected Lord in the Blessed Trinity—all along the way, skills and assets we didn’t know we had are drawn out to everyone’s benefit—and any disgruntlement on our part is only momentary. This teamwork carries on after our biological death; and when everything is finally as it should be our Lord Jesus joins us here amongst His renewed creation in which we play our own special part. That’s EXCITING news!

____________________________

not clear / delete / close up / align

March 23, 2008

I have spent my week entering corrections from a editor’s printed-out text onto the computer one, adding my own emendations if appropriate, re-reading the whole text and preparing endnotes.

Proofreading has been my (largely) unpaid task ever since my mid-twenties. Only for a few years (in middle age) did I have a paying job, but the time at a university press gave me fine standards of working. When I came to the monastery, I found that proofreading would still be an on-going task. So I’ve been reflecting on what could be called “my changing perception of duties”, seen in the icons of copy-editors’ marks.

Not clear. I long thought that if ever an author needed the blue pencil, it was St. Paul—I would fill his margins with “not clear” “not clear” “not clear”. He deliberately left out steps which might have brought real conviction. But over the years of hearing him read aloud so often, as well as from my private reading, he began to grow on me. And through the mediation of Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity who incorporated many of his words in her writing, my tolerance increased. And later still, I began to realize that Paul had not left out “logical connections”: what he was trying to say rested on an entirely different system of understanding, and, to the extent that my experience permitted, I knew that he had actually got it right! Not clear? Oh, no—very nicely put!

Delete. When I came to the monastery, I was proud of my experience in organizing “moving house”, since I had organized many moves. But the organizational power of my new brothers and sister put my abilities to shame—I was amazed that I was even allowed to sweep up occasionally. This “deletion” was so just that I could only agree wholeheartedly.

Close up. There were three good cooks waiting for “my challenge” when I joined the Order—and soon after, another good cook with professional experience joined. But the spirit of competition would not desert me—I battled on, trying to set the standard. Increasing years brought physical challenges as well as a desire for simpler food, which curtailed my kitchen work. Until the time came when I was no longer on the kitchen rota. <Sigh?> No! Earlier I could not have imagined how I would cope with such a diminution of a task that had loomed so large in my life: I needn’t have worried—it was a blessing to me (and probably to everyone else as well!) to close up.

Align. OJN puts out lots of publications—many of them only internal, but a growing number of items offered to the public—hence the continuation of my proofreading ‘role’. Compared to my university press, OJN’s publishing standards seemed lax and I strove mightily to instill the wisdom of St. Turabian into the Community. In fact, I was so fiercely pharisaical about it that I made things quite insufferable for myself, if not for others. The angst of being “watchdog” was oppressive; so the appearance in the Community of others with skills in editing ,design and technical expertise in the process of printing was not a threat—it is good to know that OJN’s work is in capable hands, to admire their productions and to have only a small role in their work. And above all, to accept my own mistakes in this area—a matter of regret to be sure, but not requiring a scourging of self.

Align—that is perhaps the most comprehensive mark, the most desirable process of all. The continuation of my secular “reputation” (in my own eyes, that is) is not why I came here. It is gratifying to be in a place and with people who see that it gets aligned with what is really important.

_____________________________

My Bonny

March 10th, 2008

My bonny lies over the ocean,

My bonny lies over the sea. . . .

Whenever it was my sister’s turn to sing me bedtime songs, she would always choose this song about “my bonny”. I don’t think her choice was based on Jacobite sentiments, but because she liked the word ‘bonny’. And I came to associate the word with her because she (15 years older than I) was blond, beautiful and charming, in contrast to my olive drab blunt self that I was already aware of. I adored her—the desire of the moth for the star—and she loved me.

The OED says that ‘bonny’ is of uncertain origin. Its meanings include “pleasant looking, comely, of good quality and size, gladsome, bright; and as a term of fondness or coaxing, and of eulogy”. It is an “exterior” term; I want to suggest that synesthetically it makes a very good “interior” term as well. Julian would see the point of this cross-over usage: in her inner empathy with Christ’s passion, she suffered intense physical pain, and when Christ on the cross changed his countenance, she became as “as glad and merry as I could be” [Showing 8].

But, first, what on earth am I proposing to talk about here? I want to talk about what it “feels like” to have one’s “faults” “corrected”. When one enters the monastery, there are many new ways to learn—ways which reflect the accumulated wisdom of the monastic tradition combined with the particular charism of our Order. If you are going to live in our monastery, you have to learn our ways: it’s as simple as that. At the beginning one makes many mistakes and everyone expects that. “Satisfaction elbow” [we make a sign of the cross when we realize we have made a mistake] is an on-going condition of the newcomer. A little later, we are expected to have absorbed most of these teachings and if we make a mistake it is because of inattentiveness. Then the Guardian or the Formation Director may react in quite individual ways: the rolling of the eyes upward, the heaving of a great sigh, a little cough &c—reactions which immediately recall the transgressor to the present moment. [My sister’s blue eyes would flash swords of ice when she was exasperated with me.]

I called “dying to self” the glory of the monastic way—but I realize that some people might think that I am glorifying “being picked on”. But if the present moment, the Now, is the thin place where our eternal and temporal selves touch, practices which abet awareness and attentiveness are very important. Once this is accepted wholeheartedly—for the love of our Lord Jesus (the reason for coming here in the first place)—then one day a mistake and a correction will be made; discomfiture no doubt will follow; but then something quite unusual takes place: a sense of liberation, a sense that a threshold has been crossed. Yes, it has indeed been crossed! Such shifts of feeling will become more frequent, but always arising out of simple everyday activities—these are not “consolations” but a genuine physical awareness. It will always be frustrating to make mistakes and one tries hard not to; but discouragement is mostly kept at bay by “feeling that one is bonny”: gladsome because one is thought to be dear, pleasant, comely, fondly coax-able—in a right relationship with someone greater than oneself.

“You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.”

_____________________________

Old Friends

March 3, 2008

Our newsletter, JuliaNews with its insert Julian Jottings, is sent out quarterly. Most of the work is started well ahead, but the day comes when bulk mail trays are fetched from the post office and our printer delivers three or four heavy boxes. The real fun now begins. The task is simple: slip in an envelope, fold, tape and label. But the smoothness of motion involved in shuffling all this paper feels almost choreographic—and there is the delight of PAPER itself.

When I was a child I would spend my whole allowance in the stationery store; and this fascination with the paraphernalia of making marks on paper is still with me—but drastically changed in one respect. It was a sad day about seven years ago when I accompanied our Guardian into Office Depot and had the opportunity to go down the aisles admiring the products, but without any zeal to possess them. What is wrong with me, I wondered; what has happened to this lifetime desire? It surely isn’t sated—it’s just gone. I actually felt a pang of grief.

But back to JuliaNews. Most often we work at the task of preparing the mail trays in our own cells, where we can work in solitary comfort. But sometimes we work as an assembly line around the Refectory table, which means that we work in Lesser Silence: we speak only if the job demands it—going against that instinct for comfortable, desultory chat round the kitchen table. Even so, we manage to be quite disciplined—until it comes to the task of sticking on the labels.

What good friends, what old friends, what exciting new friends, these labels represent! Over and over we see them. Most of the people I’ve never met and never will; some I know a little bit more, for I have written thank-you notes to them or replied to a prayer request; with a few a genuine correspondence will spring up for a time. But whatever, these “labels” are FRIENDS! Friends of all of us sitting round the table. So. . . a tentative comment breaks into the silence: “I see that John A. has moved from Massachusetts to New Mexico—will he really like that.” Or “Dick and Jane B. aren’t all that far away from us—wouldn’t it be nice if they would drop by someday”. To be followed by “I wonder if Mary C.’s husband is still with us”—“oh, yes,” a sister replies: “he’s doing fine now, I had a note from her the other day”. And then the floodgates are likely to burst open with chit-chat, from  “Here’s another person in Woonsocket—such a lovely name”; to “did I ever tell you about the time I had a flat tire just outside Taunton”. . . and so on.

Break in discipline it may be, but this very ordinary talk, very precious storytelling, renews bonds among the brothers and sisters, renews bonds between them and our dear friends “the labels”— with the whole project of sharing our Order with a larger community.

No wonder we all like “doing JuliaNews”.

_____________________________

Gnawing on Bones or Apples?

February 24th, 2008

Think of me as an old dog with a bone buried under a tree out in the garden. There’s something about that old bone that makes me keep digging it up—not so much for comfort but as something I have to do.

This is the bone of “testimony”. I don’t see why there are such problems with it—problems from the point of view of trust. I gnaw on this over and over. “Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet none of you receive our testimony.” Why don’t we trust! There are sound reasons to do so.

After the astounding event of the Resurrection, Jesus’ earthly mission was seen in new light by his disciples. Suddenly they knew they had Faith in Him and they took great risks because of this awareness. The post-Pentecost believers met constantly with awe of what they had witnessed and now understood. There was a vital energy in their gatherings which attracted others and which ran satisfyingly counter to the society surrounding them. The awe, the new understanding, the energy, the counter-cultural boost, enabled the new Church to spread rapidly.

But when Christianity became the Imperial religion, something seemed lost. Men and women tried to find the awe again, moving from the surrounding culture into the solitude of the desert. Their faith was strong and compelling enough that they took great risks—physical, emotional, spiritual—through its support, so that they could to re-capture that awe, energy and understanding.

They succeeded! The desert fathers and mothers were much visited, much admired. Their teaching was gathered into collections and treatises: the solid groundwork of the monastic tradition, the counsels and precautions which help it to work. The Abbas and Ammas brought to life, through their own struggles and consequent self-knowledge, the parables and other teachings of Jesus. Their faith was deepened by the self-knowledge garnered from their struggles. Over the centuries, as monasticism became too “comfortable”, there would always be another reform movement, going back to the desert wisdom again.

It seems to me that the monastic tradition we have from the desert needs to be presented as a mirror of the Gospel tradition. The monastic tradition, only a few centuries younger than the Gospel tradition, is likewise something in which we can place our trust and can take risks for. Reading the Desert Fathers, St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Teresa of Avila, with more attention to their mirroring quality than as constraining “law”, we might see the challenge and opportunity of living as Jesus lived and taught, and think it is very well worth taking risks for—the world needs this counter-culture now as it did then.

Back to the old dog, though. Is the testimony problem really a bone and thus a paradox useful for soul-work? Or is it an old moldy apple with a couple of bites out of it, fallen off this tree in the middle of the garden? I fear it is the latter, for it was ever thus: “this people do not heed my testimonies”—and I wish it weren’t.

_____________________________

Grayscale with Center Erase. Please!

February 11, 2008

Monastic life is not an escape. It is an almost continuous journey into self-honesty as well as union with God, with bracing and humbling moments all along the way. Sometimes this honesty is actively worked at, when preparing for confession, for example, or as a community, when our Bishop Visitor comes once a year to review the community’s life. We started off Lent with just such an ‘episcopal visitation’ with Bishop Leidel in the monastery, talking with each of us privately and in plenary about our purpose and mission.

But sometimes the essential honesty we need comes to us all on its own. Our delusions and limitations are sharply revealed by the force of circumstance. Julian reminds us that this is part of our Lord’s plan for us, and that in response we are to “accuse ourselves, willingly and truly seeing and recognizing our falling and all the harms that come therefrom. . . ,” while at the same time acknowledging the “everlasting love that He has for us, and His plenteous mercy.” We are not to allow ourselves to “incline to despair, nor on the other hand be over reckless as if we gave no heed.” We are to “hate sin for the sake of love alone.’

This past week I found myself in a dudgeon over our new copy machine, after a half-hour of trying to learn how to speak in ‘Konica Minolta’ as it spit out booklets every which way but the correct one. And just the day before that – a monthly Day Off for the community, when we cook our own meals – I had selfishly eaten all the tuna in the house, knowing that one particular sister would very much have liked to share this delight. These are small things, minor irritations and minor fallings, not much in the eyes of the world, and they are held within a strong and committed offering of myself to God, day in and day out. But Grace can pick up seemingly insignificant things and use them to show us how dependent on God we still are after years of work, how there still can be such self-love. This can be a hard and humbling experience. Sin, Julian says,

“…is the harshest scourge that any chosen soul can be struck with. . . . It damages himself in his own eyes to such an extend that sometimes he thinks of himself as not worthy except to sink into hell.” Only the pressure of getting my packages out by mail time prevented me from quitting my task and over-indulging my pitying self-regard.”

Julian does not write a black-and-white picture of our life—we are a muddle of well and woe, of Christ and Adam. From a distance the blacks and whites makes a gray. But gray is a beautiful homely mixture of light and dark, quiet and soft, a pause while things come into focus in a new way. And we know that our sweet Lord who sits in the center of our soul erases, with the miracle of divine love, all the smudges, squiggles and creases that mar our pages. It is a transforming way to learn, worthy of deep gratitude, worthy of Lenten reflection.

_____________________________

No entry for week of 2/3/08

_____________________________

Loosening the Bow

January 20th, 2008

In keeping with St. Antony’s admonition not to break the bow by over-bending it, our Order loosens its bowstrings once a month (except in Lent!) by taking a DAY OFF. Each Member is required to say Morning and Evening Prayer in private, but that is all. No meals are prepared—we scrounge in fridge and pantry, or indulge in a meal out: Taco Bell or cereal at every meal. No work is done--we can go out or stay home. This monthly breather is refreshing, in part because it is so satisfying to be able to return to our usual routine the next day.

The only near-communal activity is watching a video on the Vigil of DAY OFF, with popcorn both sweet and salty. What to watch is always a problem, so we usually end up with a film someone has seen before. We actually own a small collection of videos which have been deemed worthy of re-seeing, and within those are an inner few: what one might call a “Novice Viewing List. Steeling myself not to list them here, I suppose that their unifying characteristic might be called “extremely well-produced, slightly wry, lightheartedness”. At any rate, this little clutch can be drawn on in case of indecision or to redeem a disaster from Blockbuster.

This brings me to my subject: re-watching movies, re-listening to music, re-reading books. Why is repeatable entertainment so satisfying and why is it so acceptable here? The acceptability question is easily answered. Our whole life here is built around the stability of repetition: the seasons of the Church year with their commemorations, the readings, the psalms, the horarium, the ordinary tasks, the simple food, the same people. Variety for the sake of variety is kept on a tight leash. To be comfortable at Julian House, one has to be at ease with repetition.

But there is more to it than that. Do you remember your combination of meditative calm and keen anticipation when your mother began to read (at your request) “The Three Little Pigs” again? You were not worried how it would turn out, but the progress to the final triumph was an important journey. There was never a “been there/done that” attitude sullying your enjoyment—the story managed to seem new. Or re-reading all of Barbara Pym now, or Jane Kenyon: both a meditative calm of the familiar but also an informed anticipation of being shown new facets. The similarity with lectio is obvious.

Re-reading can turn into gobbling—an orgy of the eye tracking down the lines in the hope of sensation. Re-listening to music can turn into a fantasia of imagining that you are the performing musician or reliving the scene when you first heard it. Re-watching a movie can seek a thrill of identification which breeds discontent. And reading the scriptures can turn into jumping from one stirring line to another, no matter how many verses intervene. Perhaps these occasional lapses serve their purpose: to teach a compassionate patience with oneself and a reminder that there is a haven to return to.

_____________________________

Beowulf and I

January 20th, 2008

The Order received a dvd of Benjamin Bagby’s Beowulf, a stirring performance of the poem in Old English with harp accompaniment (and, luckily, subtitles). I was blown away by the power of the work. Blown off course, even—blown into the area of Work, always a troubled sea for me.

And why? There is an aura of impermanence built into work at the monastery: we work on rotating two-week shifts at the ordinary jobs of caring for a house and a chapel. Even if special tasks are assigned on a longer-term basis, they can be re-assigned. Each person works as well as he or she can, but it is never “my work”; it is always “our work”. Therefore, it is unwise to identify strongly with a job while it is going on or once it is finished. One could say, there is no “job security” here, and that takes getting used to.

How sharp the pain can be, then, when the free-floating worker falls into the brier patch of “my work”! It so happened that a project which I had been assigned and completed some years ago was resurrected and assigned to others to re-do. I rushed to open my file on the project (ostensibly to offer help but really to mourn and resent), only to find that this particular folder had been victim of a computer mishap and was largely unreadable. I searched my file cabinet and my closet shelves for a printout, but there was none. All that work vanished. . . .

But as I deciphered what I could of my text, I realized that it was not satisfying; those were no longer the right decisions—our Community had grown since I did that work and what I had written sounded cold, stiff, unadventurous. So there was nothing at all to hand on to the new workers, yet I was left with the burden of having been resentful and possessive over nothing.

Now. . .only God could have thought up this piece of synchronicity! With vague thoughts of using it as a libretto for our new dvd, I grabbed my edition of Beowulf from the dark shelves of my closet and set about erasing all the interlinear translations, linguistic comments, bibliographical notes which I had inserted back in 1958. These showed me that my work in that year-long course had not been well done—it had just been showy, surface fizz—no signs that I was blown away by the power of the poem—I hung my head in shame. Now it became urgent fierce Un-work: rub rub rub whoosh and blow away the crumbs—rub rub rub whoosh. Result: clean pages and a clarified mind. The cherished pretensions of a 23-yr. old had been blown apart thanks to the folly of a 73-yr. old. What a connection! What an Odd Thing!

God bides His time to work His wonders. His painstaking care in His on-going lessons in “dying to self” is the glory of the monastic life. Luckily they will fill a lifetime.

•   •   •   •   •

New Beginnings

January 6th, 2008

I arrived as an Intern Postulant to the Order of Julian on the mid-afternoon of January 6th, 1990. Travel plans had prevented my being present for the Solemn Mass of the Epiphany; and jokes were made at my expense about the fourth Wise Man having got there better late than never. Certainly I thought that the three Members Regular who welcomed me were Wise Men—how would I ever learn the torrent of new things which poured over me on that grey afternoon. But one thing I sensed instantly: this monastic way to worship the Incarnate Son of God was what I needed.

As weeks, months, years followed, the icon of the monastic way grew up from the Baby in the Manger to the Son of Man on the Cross; then from the Passion to the Resurrection; from the Resurrection to the Blessed Trinity. And then back full circle, over and over—but always new, always a new beginning. After harrowing visions of the bleeding Christ on the Cross, Julian is startled to see the Lord’s face transformed with joy, and He asks, “Where now is any point to thy pain and thy distress?” If I turned His next question upside down and asked: “Art thou well satisfied that you suffered for me?”, I would definitely answer with Julian’s words, “Yea, good Lord, thanks be to Thee. Yea, good Lord, blessed mayest Thou be.” That sums up for me the fascination of the monastic way: that momentary pain is transformed into certain joy—and slowly, into the blessed liberation from “self”.

But this “way” need not be limited to monasticism. It is available to anyone who dares to start with the very nearest: first, themselves (too often shackled by fears and desires)—and then, using the means readily available to them: family, next-door neighbor, classroom, work place. . . . That is, looking outward to “community”. Jean Vanier expresses the paradoxical process of “community” neatly:

The more a community deepens, the weaker and the more sensitive its members become. You might think exactly the opposite—that as their trust in each other grows, they in fact grow stronger. So they do. But this doesn’t dispel the fragility and sensitivity which are at the root of a new grace and which mean that people are becoming in some way dependent on each other. Love makes us weak and vulnerable, because it breaks down the barriers and protective armour we have built around ourselves. Love means letting others reach us and becoming sensitive enough to reach them. The cement of unity is interdependence.1

The Wise Men returned to their home “by another way”, but not for the sake of excitement or the sheer exercise of choice. Rather so that they could continue to walk in the manifestation of this new grace. So that they would not, like Herod, fall into the trap of clutching their protective armor tightly around them and putting to the sword anyone who just might someday threaten their desires.

The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles—and for me (privately), The Anniversary of My Arrival into a new grace—new beginnings!

                                   

1 Jean Vanier, Community and Growth: Our Pilgrimage Together (Toronto: Griffin House, 1979), pp. 18-19.

© 2008. The Order of Julian of Norwich. All Rights Reserved.