Many of the people who come to Holy Wisdom Monastery return again and again. Some join communities such as Sunday Assembly, the worshipping community, or the Oblates of Holy Wisdom Monastery. Others volunteer, attend daily prayer, read in the library, live with the sisters’ community, come on retreat, walk the nature trails or attend events. The Benedictine sisters who run Holy Wisdom Monastery base their ecumenical, monastic community on the Gospel and Rule of Benedict and hope those who come here learn a little about Benedictine spirituality and take these values home with them. A group of volunteers who want to help …
Taking Root: An Unbroken Intimacy with Life
by Anne Hillman The following article appeared in the fall/winter 2012 issue of Kosmos Journal and is reprinted with permission. Anne Hillman will lead two retreats at Holy Wisdom Monastery in April 2013. feature article | 21st century spirituality Taking Root: An Unbroken Intimacy with Life At 4,800 years, the oldest tree in the world is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. How do we cooperate with life’s gradual shaping of the human mind—its painstaking work of drawing us towards the light of greater wisdom? Life has been molding our clay since birth: drawing us, as it did our earliest ancestors, out …
What to do on a Personal Retreat
Jesus told his disciples to “come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” We welcome all people to experience the quiet spaciousness of Holy Wisdom Monastery. Whether you choose to walk the nature trails, sleep, browse the library, join community prayer or find a spot near the lake to write in your journal, you open yourself to the inner journey. –From the www.benedictinewomen.org website We give first time personal retreatants at Holy Wisdom Monastery a list of suggestions on what to do with their time away, appropriately called What to do on a personal …
Keeping your house light and easy to carry
What could a children’s book, the writings of Richard Rohr, and Benedictine simplicity have in common? Barb Abbott, oblate of Holy Wisdom Monastery, helped us weave these connections today at our final Women’s Lenten Lunch. We gathered for midday prayer and a delicious meal created in part from local produce (including apples grown here at the monastery). In true Benedictine style, a meditative reading was offered during the meal, including excerpts like these from Radical Grace, by Richard Rohr: “Soul knowledge sends you in the opposite direction from consumerism. It’s not addition that makes one holy but subtraction: gripping the illusions, …
Listening to my life
Another wonderful experience today in our third Women’s Lenten Lunch. Thank you to Carol Kretschman who served as reader during lunch, to Chef Barbara Wright who served us a simple and delicious noon meal, to Claudia Greco who offered us the opportunity to listen to our life through the shared experience of lectio divina, and to all the women present who took time to listen and share from the heart. Claudia framed our conversations in the opening lines of the Rule of Benedict: “Listen carefully, my child, to these words. Listen with the ear of your heart.” She shared a …
Stilling the wandering heart
Our Women’s Lenten Lunch speaker today, Carole Kretschman, focused on stability, balance and silence – opening the door to “stilling the wandering heart” (Joan Chittister) enough to make space for God. Carole helped us explore monastic stability in light of these thoughts from Jan Richardson, In the Sanctuary of Women: The monastic vow of stability recognizes that in committing ourselves to a particular place and staying rooted despite changes around and within us, we grow in a way that is different than if we are constantly on the move. Carole invited us to develop a sense of stability that might be …
Bearing with one another
Thanks to Trisha Day, member of Sunday Assembly at Holy Wisdom Monastery, for leading off our series of Women’s Lenten Lunches today. We were joined by 48 guests as Trisha offered a new perspective on Lenten disciplines. She suggests we give up some of our own self-interest and unhelpful patterns of relating to others in order to “bear with one another,” to show true compassion, to reverence what is sacred in others. Trisha references this spirit of compassion in a variety of writings: Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as sisters and brothers …
Sacred Space
Over the past weekend, I met several guests out walking on the grounds of the monastery. One retreatant spoke about how meaningful it has been for her to walk the grounds, to sit and reflect. Her comments spoke to me of our ministry at Holy Wisdom Monastery as holding sacred space. Spaciousness and leisure are important in our lives to allow room for the deeper meaning of our experiences to surface. Monasteries fulfill an essential service to society by providing this space. Monastic space, both indoors and out, is shaped by the values of silence, solitude, beauty, use of natural …
Broken, Breathing, and Healing on the Contemplative Path
Love breathes us into being moment by moment, breath by breath, no matter how broken we are. This is one of the most important messages that I’ve received from Jim Finley during the half dozen retreats I’ve attended with him over the past 11 years. The first silent retreat I attended with Finley was entitled “The Four Noble Truths for Christians.” It was the beginning of the new millennium and I was in my year of formation as an oblate at what is now known as Holy Wisdom Monastery. The topic of Finley’s retreat intrigued me because I had become …
LGBT Spirituality Retreat: Focusing on Being "in" and "out" in Our Lives
The following post was submitted by Rev. Craig Mueller of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chicago. Rev. Mueller is leading a LGBT Spirituality Retreat at Holy Wisdom Monastery on August 27, 2011. The LGBT retreat at Holy Wisdom Monastery looks two directions: in and out. Clearly spirituality is about looking inward. A retreat gives us an opportunity to step back from our ordinary lives for some time to pause, think, reflect, pray and seek inspiration from God and one another. Hopefully the retreat on August 27 will leave time for some silence and solitude with a healthy dose of community …