Let me say this about that: 1,500 years is a long time. Put another way, one thousand five hundred years is a mindbogglingly long period of time. Remember Arthur Dent? He was the guy wearing a bathrobe who hitchhiked throughout the galaxy following adventure and alien life-forms. He was the brainchild of Douglas Addams and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Lots of things are always mindbogglingly whatever to Arthur. I mean, he’s a guy who wears a bathrobe for Pete’s sake. He carries a towel because it’s the most useful thing to have while hitchhiking the galaxy, and this makes the northern European distributor of the adverb “mindbogglingly.”

The Rule of Benedict transcends time

I speak of Saint Benedict–not of his bathrobe, but of the anniversary of his birth. Fifteen hundred years is a mindbogglingly long time ago. It puts our mere life spans into a new perspective. It even changes the perspective of time from the great schisms of the church–the Protestant Reformation and the split between the Eastern and Latin churches. How is it that the simple ways of living prescribed in Benedict’s Rule have survived the tides of time, even the high tides of folks killing each other over “from” or “through”–as many of the obstacles to true church unity or even simple ecumenical tolerance have boiled down to.

If “ecumenism” is about the whole, what would the advice for living for monastics have to do with ecumenism? Aren’t rules about “who’s in” and “who’s out”? Are you really playing Scrabble if some of you are using French words and others German? The alphabet is the same, but the game is only an imitation of Scrabble.

This is about the bathrobe and the towel. Arthur Dent’s bathrobe, not Benedict’s. Didn’t you ever wonder why, adventure after adventure, book after book, Arthur kept showing up in his bathrobe? Those of us who have extended relationships with favorite articles of clothing are realistic enough to know that a certain amount of wear and tear eventually take their toll on even top quality faves in our closet. Arthur’s bathrobe endures in part because it’s fiction. It also endures because it’s his schtick. It’s essential to who he is within the adventure. It’s essential to who he is within the adventure. We listeners/readers identify him as Arthur Dent because of the bathrobe. That’s the way it is with Benedict’s Rule. Even in the face of ecumenism with its built-in difference and diversity, the Rule defines itself by the center, and that’s what makes it the Rule.

Ecumenism and the Rule

Ecumenism works in monastic community because the Rule is not about drawing a line. You are “in” because you do this. You are “out” because you do that. At the center of the Rule of Benedict is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s that stability thing again! The community itself is part the stability, but the Rule is the means of community. If the community agrees to seek God through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the Rule is the means of holding the community together.

Whatever planet he shows up on, we know it’s Arthur because of the bathrobe. We know he is still hitchhiking because he has his towel. Whatever the individual’s tradition, we know the whole is Benedictine because it is seeking God. We know it is community because it follows the Rule. A towel is the most useful thing in the galaxy to a hitchhiker.

Amen.

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I have been journeying into different lands from almost before I was born. My parents were both Russian Mennonite immigrants to Canada. As a family, we traveled to Ghana and Trinidad where my father taught school. In ways, I became a pilgrim, and for much of my adult life, I have lived and worked around the world. Always on the move. Always sensing the call into the “more of life.” I have now found my way into the stability and rootedness of monastic life.

I am not surprised. Perhaps it was inevitable that I should find myself in a place where I am always invited by Saint Benedict and Benedictine Women of Madison to ever begin again to live the ordinary life as the extraordinary gift that it is. What does surprise me is that I can bring with me my heritage–the times when I have plodded, hiked, skipped, swam, flown, delighted in and been frustrated by the journey.

True ecumenism embraces diverse faith traditions

I come with my relationship with God that has been nurtured by my Mennonite tradition and through the stretching experiences where I encountered people of different denominations, faiths and cultures.

Even though I come with all that has brought me this far, I am again invited to begin anew. I am invited to again discover what it is that really matters and to set aside those things that perhaps don’t matter as much as I thought they did. But don’t get me wrong, I am very much a beginner.

The other day, I was reading the reflections of a Mennonite volunteer in a Third World assignment as she grew familiar with a new culture. I had been thinking about my own experience in the monastery. It was feeling somewhat burdensome. What had been fun and exciting at the beginning was losing some of its appeal.

I feel embarrassed by my inability to figure everything out. Sometimes I even felt like an irritable and angry child. There is so much to learn and yet there is a part of me that says I’m tired of being a beginner again. This young volunteer’s reflections became a balm of comfort as I recalled the many times I had passed through similar periods of adjustment and learning.

Saint Benedict understood our impatience

I remembered the words I put on my screensaver during the first weeks I was a candidate. They are from the Prologue of the Rule of Benedict: “…don’t be daunted immediately by fear (and frustration)… It’s bound to be narrow at the outset… But as we progress in this way of life and in faith… our hearts will overflow with delight.”

Just hang in with the ordinary. I can live with that. I’ve been there before. And remember–it’s a new beginning.

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It’s difficult to think of Holy Wisdom Monastery without including the sisters. However, back in 2000, Sister Lynne Smith was just stepping into the life with the Sisters of St. Benedict of Madison. 20 years later, only two days after the anniversary when she committed herself officially to this life, we can return to her thoughts from the beginning.

The following post is a direct transcription of the article, New Monastic for a New Millennium by Sister Lynne Smith, as written in our newsletter, Benedictine Bridge, Ordinary Times 2000 issue.

I am one example of a new monastic for the new millennium. I am a Presbyterian Benedictine–an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a novice in the ecumenical community of Benedictine Women of Madison. Thanks to the pioneering vision of the Sisters of St. Benedict of Madison, I can live the monastic life as a Presbyterian woman. I am invited to embrace and be nurtured by the Rule of Benedict in a community of vowed, religious women, both Roman Catholic and Protestant.

For me, this opportunity is a gift of God’s grace. For more than 13 years, the call to a contemplative life in community grew within me. In the Reformed tradition to which the Presbyterian Church (USA) belongs, we do not have religious orders. During the Reformation in the 16th century, both Martin Luther and John Calvin rejected monasticism. Though a few houses on the continent initially became Protestant, monasticism remained suppressed in Protestant areas of Europe. Essentially, our tradition lost the monastic expression of the Christian life. Protestants who felt a call to the contemplative life had to find other ways to live it out. It was simply assumed that monasticism was outside the Protestant expression of the Christian life.

Spirit and faith open new doors to search for community

While human beings place limits on how the Christian life can be lived, the Spirits blows where it will through the community of faith and opens doors for new expressions of life in the body of Christ. I felt the Spirit doing just that in my life, and I’ve seen it among members of my denomination. The Sisters of Saint Benedict have sensed the Spirit blowing through monastic life and opening doors to a new monasticism for a new millennium. There is a spiritual hunger stalking people in this country.

When I served a church in Wichita, Kansas, I joined a small group of lay-women who gathered twice a week for centering prayer and guided meditation. Like me, all had made retreats at Catholic retreat centers and sought spiritual direction for several years. As we listened to each other, we identified a common spiritual hunger. We decided to meet regularly to share our spiritual journeys, practice guided meditation, pray together and open our lived further to the Spirit. Not all the women were free to become celibate monastics, nor were all of them called to that expression of the Christian life, but they sought something beyond what our tradition offered at the time. Monasteries can provide guidance and support for those who seek to enrich their spiritual lives in this way. They possess the spiritual experience and history to offer women and men a variety of ways to follow God’s call in their lives.

The wisdom of Christian traditions offers a model for new expressions

In the early 1990’s, my denomination’s newly -created national Office of Spirituality invited a number of us with a special interest in this area to come together for a weeklong retreat. We were introduced to a small group model of spiritual discipline created a year before and invited to used it to build community among ourselves. We met at the Catherine Spalding Center operated by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky.

A few days into the week, I commented on an irony. Here we were, struggling to develop a spiritual discipline for our denomination while surrounded by women who had spent their lives in a vowed, committed community. We hadn’t even bothered to talk to them about their experience! We didn’t consider that we might draw from models for living the Christian life that already existed in other Christian traditions.

There is a hunger among some Protestants for elements of the spiritual life that our traditions rejected at the Reformation. We do not wish to become Roman Catholic. We want to enrich the best of the monastic tradition, as we seek to be faithful to the path along which God is calling us.

The Sisters of Saint Benedict have seen an increase in the number of non-Catholics who use the retreat and conference center and come to the monastery for individual retreats. Some people who have either left their spiritual tradition or grown up without one feel a dis-ease, a lack of unnamed longing in their lives. They may not even recognize that their dis-ease may have a spiritual dimension. Monasteries are places where seekers find hospitality, silence and guidance as they name the source of their dis-ease and begin the journey to God who is the source of our fulfillment.

Not all Christians are called to the vowed, contemplative life; however, there are many ways we can witness to the unity for which Christ prayed. The Rule of Benedict offers great wisdom on how to live a balanced, Christian life. Monastics provide the larger church a great service as they demonstrate ways the Rule can be lived out beyond the monastery walls. Writers Joan Chittister, OSB, and Esther deWaal make the Rule accessible to all as they adapt it to everyday life. Kathleen Norris found a way to bridge the Reformed and Roman Catholic traditions in her book, The Cloister Walk. She writes about her personal experience of the Rule of Benedict and monasticism and tells how they shape her spirituality.

As a new monastic, what do I seek from monastic life?

I seek a community that holds Christ and Scripture at its center and shared the values important to me: truth, integrity, gratitude, joy, wisdom, humility and education. That is what I found when I read the Rule of Benedict. I seek a place where I can grow toward union with God in the company of others, where I will be supported, challenged and held accountable for my life and growth toward God and others.

What do I hope to contribute to monastic life?

I seek to offer my gifts for the up-building of the body of Christ. I hope to share the richness of my Reformed tradition with its emphasis on the study of Scripture, scholarship, the sovereignty of God, corporate worship and stewardship of all life. I want to become a bridge between the American Benedictine community and the Presbyterian Church in the USA.

Not all monastics in the new millennium will be Roman Catholic. At the turn of this new century, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic women have the opportunity to live in a religious community guided by the Rule of Benedict. Monastics have much to offer the church boundaries and listen to those outside our own tradition. Then, the church will move one step closer to the unity for which Christ prayed.

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The co-directors arrival culminates the work of more than 16 volunteers, many of them oblates, who served on the Lilly Foundation Inc. grant writing team and the search team to find the co-directors.

The new co-directors are Reverend Jerry Buss and Reverend Nancy Enderle.

Jerry Buss is an ordained Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) clergyperson who, across 30 years, pastored three congregations in Washington state and served as a judicatory leader in the NW Washington Synod of the ELCA. While working for the synod he guided the development of 15 new church starts, supervised clergy engaged in new innovative ministries, designed quarterly support gatherings of first-call and multi-cultural clergy, and collaboratively started a coaching and mentoring ministry for clergy and lay leaders.

Jerry says—

“In my heart-of-hearts, I know how important spiritual renewal is for clergy. My knowledge begins with my own experience and need for renewal. After many years as a pastor, my renewal journey began with a contemplative-based, emotional intelligence intensive. A few years later, my sabbatical included training and practice in both centering prayer and mindfulness. This helped me establish these practices in my daily life and to maintain them as I returned to my work. Trusting that God can bring new life out of impossible situations is a trust that the Holy Spirit has shaped within me. I am energized to start new things, where the Spirit guides and with the skills I’ve been given.”

Jerry and his wife, Darlene, moved from Seattle, Washington to Madison, Wisconsin in 2018 to be near their new grandson.

Nancy Enderle, an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) clergyperson, pastored congregations in Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York and served as Interim Executive Director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians where she guided the work of a national movement toward inclusion and ordination of LGBTQ Presbyterians in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She leads retreats and workshops nationally, and in 2018 completed the Living School program from the Center for Action and Contemplation, where she was introduced to transformative teachings about contemplation and spiritual practices by Father Richard Rohr, Dr. James Finley, and The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault.

Nancy says—

“In 35 years of ordained ministry, I have witnessed and experienced the exhilarating sense of purpose that grows out of a call to serve God, as well as the sometimes soul-crushing weight of the demands and requirements of religious leadership. Key words of the ECCSR speak to what I value most in my ministry: Ecumenical points to the movement of the Spirit to unify us and create a new vision for Christ’s church in an age when so many are leaving organized religion; Center indicates that this is a place of gathering—not defined by a particular tradition; Spiritual is at the heart of attending to the transforming, indwelling presence of God’s living Spirit; and Renewal highlights the ever-present possibility of God’s Spirit breathing life back into us when we have run out of ideas and our activities leave us exhausted.”

Nancy and her husband, Gordon, live in Madison, Wisconsin. They have two children in college.

Please stop by Nancy and Jerry’s office beside the Garden Room in the Retreat & Guest House and introduce yourself!

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Preface

Concerning the word “haibun”…

The writing and study of haiku is one of the pillars of my life. So, I have chosen to express my Rule in the form of a haibun:  a Japanese literary form which consists of prose interspersed with haiku. The relationship of the haiku to the prose is often mysterious. They make sense to me, and I hope they make some sense to you.

Though I am giving what follows the title of “Rule,” it is essentially a series of reflections on the spiritual dimensions of my life and how they are interwoven with the Benedictine principles that have been most resonant for me in the formation process.

Concerning the word “oblate”…

waning gibbous moon

so much left

to pour out

To be an oblate means to make an oblation:  a pouring out, a sacrifice. This has a deep resonance for me: a life of pouring out, of emptying oneself and, thereby, open to being filled with God.  As someone on the contemplative journey, this paradoxical image of emptying-and-filling is the central guide for my Rule.

Concerning “practices”…

cottonwood fluff

                        trying so hard

                        to give up trying

If a personal Benedictine rule is a trellis to guide the growth of my life, the rungs of my trellis are practices:  the regular, repeated routines and relationships of my everyday life that exemplify key Benedictine values. These practices are skillful means to the end of purity of heart: to live focused on Mary of Bethany’s “one thing necessary”–the abiding presence of God–letting go of attachment to my unavoidable cravings and aversions.

Prayer

prayer at dawn

                        the chambered nautilus

                        unwinds

My practice of prayer is both private and communal, and it takes a few different forms:

• daily practice of contemplative prayer or zazen
• daily practice of studying and writing poetry, primarily haiku; this is my lectio divina, with the oratio aspect of the process being my own writing.
• regular attendance at the Midwest Soto Zen Community for zazen and chanting
• regular participation in a centering prayer group at Holy Wisdom Monastery
• participation in Zen sesshin (retreats) and Benedictine retreats
• attending the Sunday Assembly of Holy Wisdom Monastery for the prayer of the eucharist

words of consecration

billions of neutrinos passing through

our one body

A final prayer practice is my work as a psychotherapist.  At its most effective, this work is the practice of presence, without judgement or preconceptions; putting myself in the position that offers the least resistance to the inner reality of the client; to accept, hold, and even love that reality. It is the extension to the other of the same attitude toward oneself that is cultivated in interior prayer.

Prayer is at the heart of my daily life. Through prayer, I work at achieving purity of heart, which is the contemplative foundation for the Benedictine principles that have been key for me during my formation year:  humility, obedience, and community. The regular routines of prayer are the means by which I open to the ongoing conversion of my life.

Humility

oak leaves becoming soil

                        before any steps

                        of humility

To practice humility is to accept what is; to accept the reality of myself and others. It means embracing and, ultimately, loving what is real. It means living in accordance with that truth, rather than living according to ideas about how I want or don’t want myself and the world to be. Humility is living in accordance with how I am being created moment to moment.

My relationships with significant others are my school of humility:

• marriage
• family
• friendships
• my Zen teacher
• fellow seekers
• clients
• work colleagues

It is through the challenge and support of all these others that I continually learn who and what I am, and learn to accept, embrace, and love that truth. This is an unending conversion.

Obedience

wind chimes moving

                        just enough

                        to be silent

Though she did not know she was talking about obedience, a wise woman once said to me that the key to any successful relationship is in saying three words: “Maybe you’re right.” This is a very simple but very difficult practice. It requires deepening my capacity for silence, inside and out. It means listening to the other and all that he or she is saying. It means resisting the familiar impulse to launch into formulating my own response. To be under obedience to others means accepting the possibility that they are right; that maybe their voice is the voice of God.

wrensong unraveling an old argument

My relationships with significant others are my school of obedience. Through them I learn to listen and be open to their possible influence. This is an unending conversion.

Community

lake stones

smoothing each other

she invites me in

Community has been a challenging Benedictine principle for me. At the beginning of this formation year, I was resistant to the format of the retreats.  I wanted more solitude and silence.  But, as the year unfolded, I began to see that becoming an oblate was about belonging to a community. I was witness to and impressed by the intimacy among the more seasoned oblates.  Eventually, I made the choice to surrender to the community formation process, seeking connection instead of  solitude. It has been a significant transformation. In practical terms, my wife and I decided to gather with other candidates for meetings between the retreats, to share our experiences. This has been very helpful to our formation process. This group will continue on as a reflection circle after we are fully fledged as oblates.  It is an unending conversion.

home from retreat

fallen leaves

cling to our shoes

Epilogue:  Obedience to the Earth

There is an implicit goal in these reflections: to deepen my fidelity to the guiding Benedictine principles of humility, obedience, and community. The way to that goal is the daily practice of prayer and right relationship. There is one principle, however, that began to emerge in my last few months of formation. I call it Obedience to the Earth. For me, this means recapturing an intimacy with the land that had been a central part of my life in recent years. My devotion to haiku poetry grew from this relationship with the land. In the last two or three years, this relationship has faded a bit. I used to take a slow, meditative walk in the conservancy park near my home almost every day, no matter what the weather. I feel the need to be more attentive to the natural world, and want to reinstitute my walking practice on a more regular basis.

lectio divina . . .

slowly reading

the burr oak

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After about a year of getting to know the monastery and its members, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life living and growing and praying and working with these people—with you people—and to do whatever I could to help make real the mission and vision and values of the Benedictine Sisters of Madison. One way to do that was to become a Benedictine oblate. So I joined eight other intrepid souls to become the oblate class of 2013.

The formation program for oblates included a series of weekend retreats with other experienced oblates. But one retreat was for oblate candidates only, when just the nine of us spent a weekend with members of the formation team at our wonderful Retreat & Guest House. And within that retreat, I most remember and treasure when the sisters joined us for a session focused on the history of Holy Wisdom and the essential values and practices of Benedictine spirituality—some of which you just heard reflected in the sisters’ comments.

After the sisters had shared their thoughts, we moved into an open conversation. I asked Sr. Mary David if there were some definitive moments or events in their long history, forks in the road or turning points of such significance that had they made a different decision, the monastery as we know it might not have emerged. Mary David, in her straight-to-the-point manner, said, “No, not at all. We just got up each morning, prayed together, and did our work.  Each time we faced an issue or challenge, we made the best decision we could, and trusted it would be enough. And the next day, we did that again. And the next day, again. And here we are.”

That’s 65 years, day after day, of faithfully living the Benedictine way, with all its routines and rhythms, its gifts and challenges, its highs and lows, its predictability as well as its wondrous surprises. I did the math. That’s 23,709 days (and yes, I factored in 16 leap years!), 23,709 days, one day at a time, of living the Benedictine vows of stability, obedience and conversion of life. And here we are. Amazing grace, indeed.

Fifty years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I bought a book titled Markings. It’s author, Dag Hammarskjold, was a Swedish diplomat and served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations until his death in 1961 in a plane crash while en route to negotiate a cease-fire in a conflict in the Republic of Congo. His diary was discovered after his death and published in 1963 and became an international best seller. Many who knew Hammarskjold were aware that he was a religious man, but they were stunned by the diary’s spiritual depth and insight. Some consider him a genuine mystic.

One very brief entry in this book has over time become a kind of mantra for me, summing up in just a dozen words the attitude with which I try to live my life and, at the risk of melodrama, hope to have in my heart, if not on my lips, when I die. And I think they might sum up what we now feel on this very special occasion. Hammarskjold wrote this:

For all that has been—Thanks!
To all that shall be—Yes!

This evening, dear sisters—old, young, and in between (and you know who you are!)—this is what we hold in our hearts for you and because of you, and what we want you to now hold in your hearts as well:

• For ALL that you and all the Benedictine women who have walked these sacred grounds over these 65 years have done—for day after day after day faithfully living into the mission, vision, and values of what is now Holy Wisdom Monastery, and especially for inviting all of us into your home, we can only say, thank you, thank you, thank you.
• As for all that shall be? Of course, that’s wrapped in deep mystery. But given what has unfolded here over the past 65 years, it’s possible that the Holy Wisdom Monastery of 2083 may look as different from today as we do from our founding as a high school for girls in 1953. In light of that, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer you this evening, sisters, is this commitment: We will do everything in our power to do what you have done: We will try every day to get up with hope in our hearts, to say our prayers, to do the work that has to be done, to make the best decisions we can make, and trust that it will be enough. And we will do that day after day after day. And 65 years from now, our heirs may gather in a celebration like this one, and shout out, “My, oh my, what wonders Spirit has done among us!”

To that unknowable future, with trusting hearts we loudly proclaim yes, yes, yes! Amen, amen, amen!

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Though it may appear that we are celebrating the past, I suggest that this is actually a celebration and welcoming of the future. Benedictine scripture scholar, Demetrius Dumm, OSB, now deceased, said: “In scripture, the entertaining of guests and the entertaining of strangers is the entertaining of mystery; this is to make room for that which is not known, for that which is potentially threatening for the future, ultimately for God. The greatest stranger is the future.”

For 65 years, we have been welcoming the stranger together. All of us can tell our stories of being welcomed and of welcoming others. Through this hospitality, and by the grace of God, we have entertained mystery and welcomed the Holy in each other and in strangers who come seeking welcome. These small and large acts of hospitality have helped us receive the future God desires to give us which is more than we could ever create for ourselves.

Tonight we give thanks for this gift of the future from God and pray for continued openness to listen, dialogue, pray, respond and be changed by the mystery that comes to us in each person and draws us into God’s future.

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I confess some reluctance to entertain the question, as a litany of ups and downs in this place flashed through my mind:

• an open pasture as the setting for our monastery—really?
• opening a school/closing a school
• in 1966 not many people were ready for an “ecumenical” retreat and conference center. Bill Wineke, religion writer for the State Journal wrote: “nuns take leap of faith into the dark”—could have written a “leap over the cliff” (Guess some folks believe we did)

And what did happen? We planted an ecumenical seed and everything came up ecumenical: a big family-variety of friends; you; the sisters’ community became ecumenical; and Wisdom Prairie, to daily remind us of our Creator’s love of diversity. What a good reason to celebrate 65 years at this place: we are blessed!

In closing, I share a friend’s definition of heaven. When asked what he thought heaven would be like he answered: Party! Party! Party!

Is there some event you need to take time to affirm and celebrate? You’ll be grateful you did—both for the event and the celebration.

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You and all who have gone before us are gems and miners of this place beginning in 1953 when three of our sisters from Sioux City, Iowa, walked to the top of the hill overlooking Lake Mendota and the City of Madison, said a prayer, buried a medal of St. Benedict and whispered to one another, this is the place.

Sixty-five years later, we are celebrating the remarkable work and witness of women and men, like you, who prayed with us, spoke and acted with holy boldness on our behalf and collaborated with us in creating new forms of communities and ministries. This celebration belongs to all of us.

Today we reap the fruits of the past 65 years as we sow fresh seeds of hope. As Eleanor Roosevelt said “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things you cannot do.”

The relationship between the sisters and this land is part of our history and mission.

I have one story to share with you tonight. In 1985 a developer purchased approximately 600 acres of land near and adjoining our land. Thirty acres of our land separated a large parcel of his land. His plan was to build a 27-hole golf course.

He asked to meet Sister Joanne and me and discuss crossing our driveway and frontage into his land. He laid the plan on our table and I noticed that there were golf holes on our property. I could feel the resistance in my body and it prompted me to tell him a story about my dad, an Iowa farmer, and his neighbor’s bull.

The neighbor’s bull had jumped the fence to be with dad’s Holstein cows. Dad was very concerned and used some buckshot to help the bull jump back over the fence. He talked with his neighbor about adding an electric fence in addition to the existing fence.

Two years of negotiations passed without a resolution. The sisters, Neal Smith and others worked diligently for a win-win solution.  The developer complained to a reporter from the Cap Times of our reluctance to sell the top of the hill to him for his golf course.  The reporter then called me and I gave him our understanding of the negotiations. As a result, the Cap Times printed an article about our differing opinions with the caption “Nuns teed off at golf course.” A consultant added, “only a fool would come between nuns with a vision and this developer.”

In the developer’s lifetime, we did not sell or swap any land and he built his 18-hole golf course. Ironically in 2012, we bought from his estate 52 acres with the generosity of a neighbor and our friends.

Our mission of weaving prayer, hospitality, justice and a shared way of life lives on in you and the many people who find their place at Holy Wisdom.

In conclusion, many people have contributed to this event. I thank each and everyone of you and name especially Janet Neurauter and her team and our past and present coworkers for their dedication and work.

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Holy Wisdom Monastery is recognized by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism

On February 28, 2017 a representative of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism presented Holy Wisdom Monastery with a recognition certificate from the Travel Green Wisconsin program. Sisters Mary David Walgenbach, Joanne Kollasch and Lynne Smith accepted the award for Holy Wisdom Monastery with many coworkers in attendance. The program recognizes and promotes organizations dedicated to sustainable practices.

In a press release Tourism Secretary Stephanie Klett commented, “Wisconsin has a longstanding tradition of conservation and Travel Green Wisconsin is an opportunity for businesses to further distinguish themselves for their sustainable practices. We applaud Holy Wisdom’s commitment to making sustainability a priority to their operation, knowing the importance of doing our part now preserves our natural resources and treasures for future generations.”

The application is 19 pages long and assesses an organization’s attention to conservation practices in numerous ways including land use, energy and water conservation, education efforts, and the use of green cleaning products. Holy Wisdom Monastery received a score of 120 points on the application, the highest score the Department of Tourism representative has ever seen!

Many people over the years have been part of our mission to care for the earth, so this is really a recognition of all of those contributions. Thanks everybody!

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