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
With this image of the sun breaking into the Sacred Heart Chapel at Saint Benedict's monastery, MN on New Year's Eve we greet you one last time in 2020. Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen (By gracious powers wonderfully sheltered) is a much-loved hymn that is widely sung in German speaking lands at the turn of the year. May it grant you peace and consolation at the end of this year…
Instead of simply saying good riddance to this Annus Horribilis, we invite you for a time of gracious recollection and redemption. You can do this by walking in silence, by looking back on the reflections of this 12 day journey so far, or by taking some time to look with kindness on your life using the practice we provide.
Today we muse on the difficulties and distractions of the way before us and we invite you to deepen your heart, and to (re)visit or practice some aspect of this shared journey. Do not lose heart, dear one. Take courage.
We live in challenging times, thrown back more than usual onto the small communities of our household. You may have suddenly found yourself becoming a caretaker or a parent again. Or found yourself lonely and longing for someone with whom to share your solitude. So now more than ever we need to practice the art of solitude and especially to learn how to share places of solitude.
This first Sunday of Christmas, take time to ponder the Mary of the stable and of the Magnificat. We invite you into a Visio Divina meditation on a ceramic Madonna and Child.
This COVID Christmas invites us like no other to breathe new life into our rituals. The enforced isolation casts us back on our own resources and on our own tenuous grasp of the holy. But it also opens a space that we can fill with rituals that give structure to our longing. They provide a form, a frame, and an architecture in time that support the slow and painful birth of the divine within us and that bind us together in love. Having abandoned them once, we can now re-inhabit them in that love.
Let JS Bach transform your sorrows this Christmas season. Listen, ponder and sing…
This Christmas Eve might be the darkest and quietest night for many, one not seen in a life time. It might well be the night which brings us closest to the original Christmas. No busy church services calling for attention. No big family meals to prepare or plan. No last minute shopping in overflowing malls. Thrown back onto ourselves we walk into this night wondering, quietly, pregnant with the unknown …
We hope this letter finds you well this Advent week. It is different in many ways for us all this season: some might feel burdened under the forced solitude, some might blossom, many might feel exhausted by the never ending health scare under which we all live. To all we send our well wishes, prayers and thoughts of gratitude.
With this Easter Oratorio by Bach we greet you on this Easter morning one more time. Finally the trumpets and timpani. Bach has led us tenderly through deep emotions of loss, failure, fear and grief, on Easter Sunday trumpets and timpani get their say.
When singing the St. Matthew Passion with the Munich Bach choir one moment stood out: silence. The silence entered when our conductor intentionally held onto the rest after Jesus bowed his head and died. He stood still, with his arms in suspension, cradling the time. It was as though the whole audience sighed together, like our hearts stood still for a moment, pausing in unison. Since then I have known that conducting the pause is as important as conducting the whole Passion...
Where is our hope in times of daily death counts? Our hope is in a God who died publicly humiliated outside the walls of a minor city in a great empire. Our hope is in a God who chooses humility over grandiosity, a God who bows deeply, who suffers with us, even unto death.
One can hardly say anything more meaningful than is already said in this ethereal Aria of JS Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and the angelic earnestness of the interpretation by the male Alto Tim Mead and the Netherlands Bach Society. May you find comfort and healing in it and may it move you to shared compassion with those who suffer in these troubled times.
Today we walk with Peter through his courage, betrayal, and desolation at the cock crow. The music is frenetic and the themes are challenging. But Bach has strategically placed soothing moments that show empathy for the sufferer and offer consolation. We will look together at both the difficulties and the consolations, and then suggest a process and practice to bind them together.
The arias in Bach’s Passions are wells of deep emotion. Time stands still, while we follow a movement of heart to the depth of our soul. Bach’s aria “Have mercy, my God”, invites us almost to dance through our bitter weeping, to get out of our frightened state, and back into motion. It seduces the listener into graceful mourning and the gentle desire for mercy.
With his Passion JS Bach has created a grand lamentation. He does not to believe that coping with our fears and sorrows means to keep them in check in order to quickly get over them. Instead his music gives us a container for our sorrows and seduces us into the beauty of lamentation. Joining in this orchestrated experience of mourning can actually be self-soothing and a strategy for resilience in the face of tragedy.
A Pandemic, memories of childbirth and JS Bach’s Passion.
Around this time last year, I was carrying a heavy load. Our tender little baby daughter was still growing, but ignoring her due date, making every step and breath more difficult with the hour. When she finally decided to enter this world I was thrown immediately into heavy labor which seemed to stretch for an eternity. Pain beyond any I have known was washing over me, the pangs of labor coming so fast for countless hours that I could barely breath or think. No indeed, it was not the graceful Yoga birth I had envisioned. In the end my baby and I clung to life as my doctor ended our passion by cutting me open, lifting our baby daughter from the wound, and stitching me back together. As they bound me to the operating table, both arms stretched wide open I could not help but remark what that felt like: to be tied to my own cross…
Have you ever been in the eye of a storm? A storm of your own making? I have.
Many times. In fact, I think I am a storm maker. I guess, every parent has some things one does not want the child to learn. Mine would be storm making. Though there are good storms. Needed storms. Snow storms. Rain storms. Storms which clean the air and, just as a snow storm in Minnesota, cover the old grey with a new layer of snow white, dampening the noise and leaving freshness and calm behind.
Have you wrapped up the Christmas season yet after the three kings left the scene? Or may be wondered how to make sense of Divine birth the rest of the year? Here is an invitation to pause at the threshold to “ordinary” times once again and ponder the mystery of Divine birth with a little help from two of my favorite depth psychologists: Søren Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung.
