"How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place..." Psalm83

The following passage from the Old Testament reading at Eucharist today really struck me:
"And I saw that the temple was filled with the glory of the Lord...The voice said to me: Son of man, this is where my throne shall be, this is where I will set the soles of my feet.." (Ezekiel 43:4,7)
Day after day, year after year, for 23 years, I remain continually awed at the majestic beauty of our Monastery Chapel.  Its soaring Gothic architecture, feminine color scheme, radiant jeweled stained-glass windows, Benedictine symbols, and inherent silence invite all those who enter to an awareness of the peace and presence of God.  In the silent pauses of our monastic prayer together, I often find myself gazing at the stained-glass windows, always becoming aware of something I've never noticed before.  I frequently observe my Sisters gazing also at the windows.  I'm sure we all have our favorite windows and symbols, God's revelation to us from where we "set the soles of our feet" in our assigned choir stalls.

Our chapel is in the center of our monastery residence and reminds us that Christ is the center of our lives. Whenever I stand outside in front of it and gaze to its highest point of 75 feet,  my heart leaps in gratitude for our Sisters who gifted this beauty for us today.  Sister Mary Ruth Coffman, our archivist, describes the Sisters who launched the building of the chapel as risk takers: "When they made the decision to go forward with the building, they could not know that the nation's greatest financial crisis was imminent.  If they had known the difficulties ahead of them, perhaps even those risk-takers might have hesitated, and the chapel would have been years away.  Instead, the building was constructed during the first years of the Great Depression, affording much-needed work for artisans and workers in Cullman."
(Sister Mary Ruth Coffman, OSB, On Good Ground, Benedictine Women of Alabama)
The Sisters raised $51,000 and borrowed $42,000, "a considerable sum to be repaid in depression years." (Coffman)  Imagine what this beautiful dwelling place would cost today!  It continues to hold a centrality in our hearts and we cannot fathom changing its location.  Other buildings may be renovated, relocated, or demolished, but the one thing we agree on is the preservation of the chapel in its present location to remind us of  the centrality of God's presence in our lives.  It constantly feeds us, inspires us, renews us, and mesmerizes us.  "Since 1931, the noble lines of Sacred Heart Chapel have become the most recognizable symbol of the Community-a call to prayer, a promise of peace, an assurance of loving concern, a witness of faith, both to the Sisters and to all the people whose lives they touch.  In truth the chapel has become the Community's "stone of witness":(Coffman)
"See, I am laying a stone of witness in Zion,
a stone that has been tested,
a precious cornerstone as a sure foundation;
whoever puts faith in it shall not be shaken." -Isaiah 28: 16

How grateful I am to have responded to God's call to "set the soles of my feet" in this holy dwelling place.
There is so much to share about our beautiful sacred space, so for the next few weeks my blog will continue on the holiness of this awesome foundation.

My home is by your altars,

Lord of hosts, my king and my God!

Happy are those who dwell in your house!

They never cease to praise you. Ps. 83

Letter Writing~A Lost Art

In our high-tech culture of electronic communication, I have become more aware of the fact that I rarely receive good old-fashioned, heart-warming, snail mail letters. That is, I never receive a letter that I can actually sit down, take a load off, and leisurely savor the wisdom and journey of a loved one.  I don't mean this as a lament on my part, but rather a longing for communication meant to be genuinely shared and that will immediately ignite my spirits to respond with like-minded "soul mate" connection.  There tends to even be less junk mail which I usually throw away (always thinking what a waste of our beautiful trees!).  Instead, most communication is via e-mail, more junk mail than non-junk correspondence.  The communication I must respond to is very brief, not even in complete sentences- sometimes just an impersonal "OK" seems to suffice. But with the advent of social networking, I am aware that there is even less e-mail, less talking on the phone, more and more texting everywhere I go.  I am really not aware of people writing letters anymore.  Greeting cards are still a part of my life, but even these are often sent electronically.

Saint Basil the Great in a letter to Olympius resonates with my lament:
You used to write us little enough, but now you do not write even that little; and if your brevity keeps increasing with time, it seems likely to become complete speechlessness.  Therefore return to your old custom, for I shall never again find fault with you for practicing Laconic brevity on me by letter.  Nay, even your little letters, seeing that they are tokens of magnanimity, I shall value highly.  Only write to me.

Sister Macrina Wiederkehr OSB, in her book, A Tree Full of Angels, describes the reception of letters as Finding God in the Mailbox.  She believes "letters are the stories of our souls. Unlike a telephone call, a letter can be picked up again and again.  It can be deeply pondered.  It can be eaten.  Always serve letters with a cup of tea and a footstool.  Celebrate "the reading" slowly.  It is irreverent to read a letter fast."  She goes on to say that she treasures her letters "like morning sunrises. I see the rays between the lines.  I hear the dreams and yearnings, the gratitude and delight...A letter bears its own copyright.  Standing before my mailbox holding an original very limited edition in my hands is like standing before a feast."

I really can't remember the last three or four page letter I wrote to anyone.  I have written short letters to God in my journal and have written special greeting cards with maybe three or four sentences of generic "best wishes" jargon.  I do believe writing should be an artist's  soul connection with another- a sharing of one's sacred journey to another Holy Listener.  It calls for the discipline to carve out holy, sabbath time- a time that will allow me to reflect on the sacredness of my daily journey, to share it with a special listener, to send the written, "limited edition" and to await the blessed surprise of a return letter in my mailbox.

The Sabbath time of letter writing is a challenge for me.  It is a gift to me and to the one with whom I share.
I am reminded of one of my favorite Scripture passages- "The gift you have received, give as a gift." (Matthew 10:8)  In old-fashioned, snail-mail letter-writing, I gift my self to another with a "token of magnanimity."  If I receive a response I am equally blessed by God's presence in that person's life.  If I do not receive a response, I am still blessed.

So I start this holy art of letter writing this week.  The first loved one that I write to will be my dear mother.  The second one will be my former spiritual director-a wonderful Holy Listener.  And if anyone else wants to send me a genuine, old-fashioned snail mail, I promise to send you one also.

"The connection to the Friend

is secret and very fragile.

The image of the Friendship

is in how you love,

the grace and the delicacy,

the subtle talking together

in full prostration, outside of time,

When you are there,

remember the fierce courtesy

of the one with you."

A Year with Rumi ~Coleman Barks

Earth...Metaphor for Life's Journey

The Earth is "full of harsh realities, but sometimes it's just paradise."

 from the movie narrative, EARTH

I dearly love to travel and to watch movies.  Although I have had the opportunity to visit the Northwest, the Gulf Coast, the Midwest, British Victoria, the Carribean and Italy (my favorite pilgrimage), my life as a monastic does not allow me just to embark on a new adventure anytime I feel like it.  To compensate for this desire, I read travel memoirs and watch the Travel Channel.  Last night I took a breathtaking  journey of Mother Earth as I watched the movie EARTH( Disney Nature Films) .  I have come to love nature films, but this movie was by far one of the most spellbounding portraits of nature I have ever witnessed.  It gifted me with such "landscapes of spectacular beauty" that I will probably never have the opportunity to visit.  From the frigid Arctic to the Kalahari Desert, from the tropical rain forests to the vast blue oceans, the photography experience was a gift from God.  Time captured budding forth of flowers, mushrooms, and leaves spoke of vigilance to me- if only I could be present to see a bud open its face to the sun.  The film depicts the migration of polar bears, elephants, and whales journeying thousands of miles in search of food and water for their family.  Besides the long journey, they must endure the threat of predatory creatures who are also struggling to survive.  The aspects of global warming threaten the livelihood of the living creatures of our planet.  But the creatures of the earth persevere even in the dryness of the desert and the turbulence of the ocean.

As I watched this earth's journey, I thought of the Genesis story- God's creation of the heavens and the earth, night and day, sky, water, vegetation, plants, trees, swarms of living creatures, birds of the sky, great sea monsters, cattle and creeping things, wild animals, and male and female.  God saw that the gift of all creation was good.  And so should I!  How could one watch this film and not feel grateful. How could one watch it and not reverence the earth.  How could one watch it and not realize its message of God's presence and beauty all around and at every moment.

Christine Valters Paintner, in her book Water, Wind, Earth and Fire, quotes Peter London to exemplify earth as a metaphor for "our internal landscapes and spiritual journeys:"

 Each of the great forms that Earth takes- mountains and hills and plains and valleys and meadows and steppes and swamps and marshes and deserts and forests and jungles and savannas and beaches and islands- each of these geographies we transmute to geobiographies of our own personal journey across time and circumstance.  We too rise up, we ascend, we fall, only to rise and fall over and over, until we are leveled and become one again with the single mantle that is the resting ground and birthing ground of it all....The finite summit of the mountain's peak, the river's final arrival to the sea, the clearing in the depths of the woods, serve as exemplars and as metaphors for the often steep and uncertain and perilous journey that is our life.  (Peter London, Drawing Closer to Nature)

This journey around the world last night is still with me.  I watched it again today and I believe it will be a keeper- a meditation I will use when I feel the dryness of the desert and need a pick-me-upper on my daily journey through life.  I hope I will remember its vivid images whenever I pray the words of Psalm (103) 104:

Bless the Lord, my soul!

Lord, my God, you are great indeed!

You are clothed with majesty and glory,

robed in light as with a cloak.

You spread out the heavens like a tent;

you raised your palace upon the waters...

You bring bread from the earth,

and wine to gladden our hearts,

oil to make our faces gleam,

food to build our strength.

The trees of the Lord drink their fill,

the cedars of Lebanon, which you planted.

There the birds build their nests;

junipers are the home of the stork.

The high mountains  are for wild goats;

the rocky cliffs, a refuge for badgers...

All of these look to you

to give them food in due time.

When you give to them, they gather;

when you open your hand, they are well filled.