At the Benedictine Spirituality Workshop and Retreat prior to my final profession, Sister Meg Funk from Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, described Benedictine life as having two aspects: above the river and below the river. This image has stayed with me over the years. Above the river we go to prayers and meals, share in community work and conversation, greet guests and participate in leisure activities. Under the river is where the soul work happens as we seek God in all things.

Under the river, praying the Psalms has offered an image of God who wants both mercy and justice, a God beyond dualism who includes all things. Under the river, living in community challenges my ego set in its ways and calls for humility. Under the river, hospitality necessitates looking at the parts of myself that I reject and my unexamined assumptions that judge others. Sometimes I resist the flow of the river and am tumbled around to smooth my edges. Sometimes I go with the flow and enjoy the ride with others. Sometimes I call out for a hand to buoy me up. Sometimes I offer a hand reaching out to another.

When I made my first profession 25 years ago, I couldn’t have known how the river of life at Holy Wisdom Monastery would flow and form me. These days, as I look back, I am grateful for all it has brought and pray that I may continue to be faithful to the journey to which God has called me into the future.

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After lunch, I went to the garden where Sister Denise West, and later Sister Paz Vital, met me. The previous Monday, I had raked the stubble off the asparagus patch and piled it up for burning. The following Saturday, Sister Denise and I burned the pile. So now the patch was ready for a new layer of wood chips. We spent the afternoon hauling wood chips from the large piles by the lower garden. I was surprised to find that about 10 inches down the chips were still frozen solid. That’s just a reminder that spring is only beginning. In fact, as I write this, snow is predicted later in the week.

Manual labor is built into Benedictine life. I love working outside in the yard and the garden. I learned my love of outdoor work from my mother who still takes care of her yard at 88. Whenever the weather was halfway decent, she would shoo us outside to find something to do saying, “It’s too nice a day to be inside. Go outside and play.” And we did. She was the one who did most of the yard work, so when I was old enough, I would help her rake or pick up sticks or plant and weed the garden. It was my job in high school to trim the bushes that surrounded the back yard.  Only once did I cut the extension cord with the electric trimmers!

When we weren’t working or playing in the yard, I would take a book and climb the old boxelder tree near the garage, sit in its branches and read until dinner time.

Sister Meg Funk, from Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, has written: “Work is a back door to pure prayer. For a proficient practitioner who is working mindfully, there is no distinction between work and prayer.” I’m not sure if I’m a “proficient practitioner” yet, but when I work outside, I feel one with my surroundings. My mind is quiet, and I’m not thinking about other things. I’m present, attending to the warmth of the sun on my skin and sensing my muscles as I lift the bucket of woodchips to spread on the warming earth. It feels like prayer.

On Sunday at the Eucharist we sang “O Christ Surround Me” as the communion hymn. I looked around the Assembly room at the people present and knew Christ was surrounding me. As I stood in the middle of the asparagus garden and looked around, the hymn came to my mind again, and I knew Christ was surrounding me in the garden. I think Sister Meg is right; there is no distinction between work and prayer. I’m blest to be able to work in the garden and deepen my prayer.

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