Temperatures soared into the 50s at the monastery, and the welcome sound of trickling ice melt filled the air. Hooray! After a long cold winter in Wisconsin, spring thaw has begun. I’ve been delighted by the sight of patches of green grass poking out from beneath the ice caps on the trails. I’d nearly forgotten there was anything alive under that thick white blanket of snow. The start of spring often parallels the beginning of Lent in North America, but until recently I hadn’t considered how they might complement one another. Ask anyone what they associate with Lent, and you’ll …
Desert Wisdom: Discernment and Mentorship on NBC’s The Voice
I’ve tricked most of my house into following the popular NBC television show The Voice, which features four superstar music coaches who select teams of vocalists in blind auditions. The rivalries and ribbing between the coaches make it particularly entertaining, but the really fun part of the show is when multiple coaches want the same person on their team (photo, above, by Trae Patton/NBC). Then the power to choose a mentor shifts to the singer, who listens to each coach make their case— and finally, she gets to choose. One of those moments occurred on the opening night of the show last …
Olympics and monastic stability
I love the Olympics. I watched the opening ceremonies this week with wonder and fascination as athletes from all over the world paraded into the Sochi stadium, displaying colorful flags and costumes. Like many others across the globe, I was riveted to the screen. There was so much to see and celebrate as each nation was announced and their young champions strode past. But this year, my attention was especially drawn to a ubiquitous presence around each and every athlete at the Winter Games. How had it escaped my notice before? Alongside the athletes marching into the stadium often appeared …
Praying the psalms in the dark days of winter
It has been an unusually cold January at the monastery. In the wake of a “polar vortex,” temperatures dropped well-below zero in the Madison area, forcing school and office closings. I know that for some the winter months are a delight, but the Wisconsin cold makes me feel a little trapped inside, like a kid desperate with cabin fever. I noticed that these feelings intensified as the monastery celebrated a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an international Christian ecumenical observance kept annually in late January. Each day we prayed for connections, relationships and appreciations to grow among our diverse …
Keeping the gifts of Christmas – in Ordinary Time
I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness as we put away the Advent/Christmas Liturgy books last week and replaced them with the Ordinary Time books. Google “post-Christmas blues” and you’ll discover that it’s listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a mild depression that commonly occurs after the winter holidays, when people feel a little sad and find it difficult to return to their daily rhythm. After the anticipation and excitement of the holiday season passes, the New Year seems to yawn open, a bleak expanse of time filled with resolutions to lose weight, …
Art as prayer
“For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all powerful word leaped from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed … .” — Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-15 I’ve heard it said that “writing about painting is like dancing about architecture.” So when I was asked to offer a reflection on a painting that I created to accompany poet Michael Belongie’s 2013 Christmas sonnet, We Await a Great Light—I struggled to find something, anything to say. [see below for the full text of this poem by Michael …
Preferring nothing to the Work of God
“Prefer nothing whatsoever to the Work of God” (RB 43:3), Benedict insists. But what happens when your ceiling springs a leak? Coming up the stairs on Sunday morning, I took in the scene. It was a disaster. Overnight, water had poured from a leak in the monastery ceiling. Soggy pieces of plaster and water sluiced onto the floor, mere steps from where worship was scheduled to begin in less than an hour. Everyone seemed to spring into action at once, grabbing buckets and mops and towels to avert the worst of the damage while others figured out how to shut …
Finding your way home
Wooed by positive reviews, I went out to watch Gravity with a couple of the other Benedictine Sojourners (Yes, for those who wonder: it’s not all ora et labora at the monastery—sometimes we go to the movies!) Gravity has a simple plot: an accident at a space station detaches one of the astronauts from her shuttle, leaving her tumbling through empty space and struggling for survival. Alone and radically disconnected from everything that is life-sustaining, she desperately tries to find a handhold, anything to anchor her from floating away forever. In zero-gravity, where falling and flying are the same thing, which …
Please respect the fence
I have a tree in New York City. It lives in Prospect Park, not far from my apartment in Brooklyn. Over the years, I cannot recount how many times I headed there when I felt confused, afraid, direction-less. Sitting under its broad branches, I sought solace and a place to pray. My tree always seemed to welcome me into quiet contemplation: “Don’t run. Don’t be afraid. Stay rooted. Offer your life gently—in every season—as a steady and consistent witness of God.” Strange as it may sound, I like to think of this tree as my first monastic teacher in Benedictine …
Can You Help Me?
The young man’s question hung uncomfortably between us. It was my first Saturday away from the monastery. I and another Benedictine Sojourner had decided to go into downtown Madison to check out the famed Dane County Farmer’s Market that sprawls around the Capitol building. We had spent hours exploring streets thronged with shoppers, lined with fresh produce and flowers. Lingering in one of the many coffee shops along State Street to celebrate the end of our day, we rationed our time carefully, calculating the number of minutes to reach our parking spot and make it back to the monastery for …