Ordinary Transcendence

Almut Furchert

Some people think you have to do something, something special, to experience transcendence. Like sitting on a pillow, listening to chants or meditating with closed eyes.  Others think you do not need to do anything at all to experience transcendence. Though it is helpful to go to a monastery to retreat from our busy lives, to share some moments of quiet and rest, or to learn how to breath naturally again, the real art, say some wise teachers, is to find all this in the ordinary moments of life.

Emptiness and openness on Father's Day

Chuck Huff

This Father's day weekend I have been sitting in the garden, empty.  The weather has been wonderfully cooperative for those having feasts and outdoor barbeques, and the noise of celebration drifts over into our garden where I sit.  It is, for us, a day for crying together, but also for pondering together the greening power of nature. Creation brings beautiful abundance and also an abundance of loss; not every bud becomes a flower.  To participate in the beauty is also to risk the loss.

Method and Madness in Rumi

Method and Madness in Rumi

Chuck Huff

I have spent the weekend at my Benedictine home, St. John’s Abbey, getting lost in mystical lyrics like these.  Rumi, a Muslim sage, scholar, and poet seems so inviting at first.  But when I try to puzzle out what he means, I get lost. Because the poetry of the 12th century mystic Rumi is easy to love, but much harder to understand.This is why Rumi calls everyone to become lost, all who would experience the deep things of the Spirit, and even all those who are not interested. As long as you love anything at all, you are on the way to the Ocean.  All loves, even shallow, incomplete ones, are a mirror in which we can see, darkly, the great ocean of Love. 

Welcoming Spring: Hildegard on "viriditas" and the greening of the soul.

Almut Furchert
Hildegard of Bingen

There is likely no better time to ponder Hildegard of Bingen's concept of viriditas, the greening power of all creation, than a Minnesota spring. I am every year taken by surprise when dead looking branches finally, suddenly, purposely, sprout little green buds. And how full of potency do those red rhubarb heads look while pressing their new stems forcefully through the rock and cold mud? If we were only patient, we could watch their first green leaves slowly unfolding.

Remembering sorrow in Spring.

Remembering sorrow in Spring.

Chuck Huff

The Christian observance of the days leading up to Easter are not the most popular on the religious calendar.  There are not many oratorios or cantatas dedicated to Lent.  There is some grand music associated with holy week, such as Bach's St. John's Passion. Almut and I attended a moving performance of this a few weeks ago.  These musical works leave one with a profound sadness, and sadness is not a popular emotion in America. We prefer to skip right to the "Jesus is risen" bits, thank you very much, without all the suffering and scourging and sorrow.

FOMO and the unspeakable sweetness of love

Chuck Huff

We are indeed busy with all the "work of our hands” that feels thrust upon us. But why is it someone else's fault?  How did we become so busy?  How did we get to this place where the work of our hands rules us? I recently learned of new anxiety that may be a cause, or a symptom, of our busyness:  FOMO.   This acronym stands for the Fear of Missing Out. Students are said to be frantically checking their facebook pages to keep track of all the interesting and important things that others are doing, to make sure that they don't miss out on the fun, or get left out of the action.  So the constant checking of the cell phone is not out of interest, but out of fear.

Pondering your questions: Buber and Rilke on being "in-between"...

Pondering your questions: Buber and Rilke on being "in-between"...

Almut Furchert

Coming back from our winter solitude retreat last weekend we are still filled with the good spirit that flows when people spend time with each other in solitude. It reminds me of a beautiful line I learned back in my philosophy studies, reading Martin Buber's brief but challenging book on true encounter. When we meet each other in a climate where the other turns from a mere object of my interest into a Thou, we help  a new space open up "in-between" us, Buber states: "The extended lines of I and Thou meet in the "eternal Thou."

Gathering within...

Almut Furchert

In our last blog post we reflected on the art of solitude and introduced you to the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and his letters to a young poet.

Today we offer you a special invitation for a winter solitude. With this we hope to create a space of rest and rejuvenation for all of you who long for a time of quiet and reflection and also those who feel they have not yet fully arrived in the New year. Just as winter is a season of resting and deepening, in which life's forces work in hidden ways, our soul's winter solitude may be preparing us for new awakenings. 

The Art of Solitude

The Art of Solitude

Almut Furchert
poetry

Currently on our own writing retreat tucked away on a little island in mainland Florida surrounded only by water and wildlife we came to ponder on the art of solitude in new ways. It is not always easy to be with each other in solitude.  Suddenly you are met by problems which long wanted to be discussed, by duties which long needed to be done, by questions which have long waited for answers, even by a blog post which is not written yet. 

Spiritual homecoming and hospitality

Spiritual homecoming and hospitality

Chuck Huff
poetry

Any tradition, any spiritual house, will fossilize without being open to new influences, and it will not stand without some grounding.  Both tradition and openness are long habits of Benedictine practice.  And hospitality, welcoming the other, is a central aspect of Benedictine spirituality that points it outward from its tradition.  Benedict was very clear that monasteries should always have guests, should welcome them, and treat them honorably. The Sufi spiritual teacher and poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī  makes a similar point, with more extreme imagery, in his poem “The Guest House.”  

Expecting Deliverance

Expecting Deliverance

Chuck Huff

As a Benedictine Oblate, I regularly pray the daily office, and at the end of the day find myself praying the Magnificat. My long apprenticeship as a Protestant metho-bap-terian did not prepare me for the beauty and terror of this praise poem.  Through long practice, I have seen deeper levels and more variety of meaning than my initial Calvinist skepticism would have expected.  The text has alternatively left me peaceful, puzzled, cold, frightened, hopeful, and comforted. 

This is a canticle of justice finally being done, of a deliverer finally coming to the aid of the oppressed. It is part of a long tradition of Hebrew women in scripture who sing pointed praise songs about a deliverer who "triumphs gloriously" in favor of the oppressed...

Launching Cloister Seminars.org with a tale from the monastery

Launching Cloister Seminars.org with a tale from the monastery

Almut Furchert

When I first visited St Johns Abbey with Chuck (we had just begun dating) I was shocked. What did they do to that cloister? "That is not a cloister," I complained. "It is a bunch of concrete."

Well, I was biased. Coming from Germany where Baroque cloisters sit nestled in lush countryside I was expecting the same sight in Minnesota. I had to learn my lesson.