Welcome to our “little cloister”
where we
EXPLORE MONASTIC WISDOM FOR EVERY DAY LIVING
Drs. Almut & Chuck with little one
Home of
+The Hildegard Seminar,
+Kierkegaard Masterclass,
+Bach Passionweek Consolations,
+The 12 Days of Christmas Contemplations &
+The “Little School” of Spiritual Formation
The sorrow of the days before Easter is at the heart of the Desert Elders' teaching. But grief is out of fashion. We prefer to be spiritual.
Spring break is a good time for doing all sorts of things: cleaning up, writing articles, having a vacation. For many it is also just work as usual. But being called to mourning is an existential task. No religion can do it for us. It cannot be mere theater that we watch. But religion can help us to be reminded and can provide for us an occasion. There is no resurrection, no new beginning without the deep mourning of the old, without letting go what we loved so dearly, without mourning our losses.
What to do when we find ourself in the Desert? Welcome our fears with a fiery humility.
Our pilgrimage is interrupted by unexpected events. Can obedience to these interruptions be the real journey?
When our will bumps up against the will of another, we can discern the desires of the true self.
I have always thought of humility as simpering and self-effacing – silent because of fear or weakness. While reading the Sayings of the Desert Elders, I was stunned by the image of a fiery humility. Where had that been hiding?
Today I want to introduce you to a central practice of the Desert Elders: conversation. This is not a conversation to meet the other, it is a conversation with another in which we meet, and come to know, ourselves.
Three hundred years after the death of Jesus on the outskirts of Jerusalem and 1,000 kilometers away, the habitable margins of the deserts of Egypt were filling up with strange people devoted to becoming more like him. The eldest and most revered of these are called the Desert Elders. Most were native Egyptian villagers and peasants who left their villages and farms to enter the desert and follow more seriously the way of Christ. They were mostly poor, not well educated, and of lower social class. Their language was Coptic, with its roots in the ancient agriculture of the Nile.
The deep origins of Christianity are in the desert. It was an urban and pastoral culture on the edge of the desert into which Jesus was born. When he was baptized, Jesus was driven to walk into the desert for 40 days of fasting and reflection. The origins of monasticism came from Christians walking into the desert, away from the distractions and comfort of urban society. This Lent, we will be reflecting on the spiritual journeys and wisdom of those desert Elders. What knowledge can these gentle and severe extremists bring us for our own life journeys?
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.
In 1962, I was seven years old. My sister and I were watching cartoons on Saturday morning when the picture tube of the television died. Ploop. Darkness. The argument about whether we would watch Tarzan or Captain Kangaroo was now moot. Mother's solution to this argument was to never repair the television. So I never watched the moon landings. Or pictures of the Vietnam War. Or President Kennedy's speeches. I was pressed into duty handing out campaign literature for Barry Goldwater. But I never watched the Rev. Dr. King give a speech, or march; I never saw the news reels of black protesters' bodies rolling down the street assaulted by water from firehoses. I saw neither the terror nor the triumph of the civil rights movement.
Have you wrapped up the christmas season yet after the three kings have left the scene? Here is an invitation to pause at the threshold once again to ponder the mystery of Divine birth with a little help from two of my favorite depth psychologists: Søren Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung.
Some women point out rightly that if it had been three wise women, they would have brought different gifts to the holy child, perhaps a blanket and some food, and they might have watched the baby so Mary could sleep. These would have been wise gifts for a cold infant in winter and an exhausted mother. But when we translate the story into our own inward journey, bringing our most precious gifts might not be so inappropriate, after all.
With Epiphany approaching here is an invitation to ponder the mystery of Divine birth once again with a little help from two of my favorite depth psychologists: Søren Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung.
Kierkegaard tells a tale of a man rowing out on a lake in the quiet of dusk. The shallow lake lay silent beyond the circles where the oars broke the surface of the water, trickling little droplets of murky water back into the boat. It was then that an oar hit a dark object on the shallow floor of the lake. When the man lifted it out of the water he found himself looking at a little treasure chest...
Yesterday we practiced looking at the Divine birth through the eyes of a child. Today I would like to offer some guidance about the story of wise men from the medieval Abbess and spiritual guide Hildegard of Bingen. In her Christmas homilies, she invites us to translate the Christmas story into the heart's journey. But what does Epiphany, the feast of the three kings, have to do with our heart's journey?
Or CAN'T YOU SEE, THE JESUS BABY IS FREEZING! What if we could see Christmas through the eyes of a child again? What if we were able to put our adult perspective away for a while and just listen in child-like innocence to the unfolding of this story?
Have you driven by all the outside nativity scenes in front of houses or churches? Well, that might be cosy in warmer climates, but what about little Jesus freezing outside at 20 below? Wouldn't a child cry out: "Look, little Jesus is freezing!" How have we gotten used to the Christmas story as mere decoration item? Who had the idea to put nativity scenes outside in the snow anyway?
Yesterday, in arctic temperatures, we went on our New Years' walk over the lake towards Stella Maris Chapel. Our footprints in the snow, and the icy stairs reminded us of a poem by the German poet Hermann Hesse. Hesse knows we often prefer to live with our comfortable selves, and not step out into the challenging new. Here he calls us to health and wholeness, to taking courage, to walking through our farewells, to stepping forward by leaving behind, one step at a time. We share this, our own translation of the poem, with you as a blessing for this day.
With this image of the moon rising over the Sacred Heart Chapel at Saint Benedict's monastery, MN on New Year's Eve we greet you at this turn of the year. By gracious powers wonderfully sheltered is a much-loved hymn by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that is widely sung in German speaking lands at this threshold. May it comfort you walking into the new....
Are you tired of bucket lists and New Year's resolutions? We would like to invite you for a time of recollection instead. You can do this by walking in silence, by looking back on the reflections of this journey so far, or by taking some time to look with kindness on your life using the practice we provide below. For this the writer Søren Kierkegaard offers us two guides from beyond.
