Arise, North Wind!
(from The Cloistered Heart)
Posts
A Morning Habit
Nuns and monks dress anew in their habits every morning, usually turning even the act of dressing into an opportunity to renew their consecrations to Christ. And what about those of us who do not wear the pieces of a habit? I find great richness in the following morning prayer... (continue...)
Ourselves the Garments
"Let us spread before His feet, not garments of soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves clothed in His grace, or rather, clothed completely in Him. We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before Him...." (continue...)
I Just Know
'How does one know if the Lord is calling? In varied ways, but as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta responded when asked how someone knows if she is called: 'She knows. She knows.' This is the language of the heart, and often it is difficult to put words to the language of the heart. The good news is, no one discerns a vocation in the Church alone - with the help of a vocation director, you will be able to discern whether the Lord is calling you to one community or another, or to marriage or the single life. All disciples of Christ are called to love without limits...' (from Sisters of Life website) 'She knows. She knows...' When I first heard these words spoken by Mother Teresa, I thought my heart would burst into flame. Watching a videotape with my husband, I too felt an inexplicable, unwordable sense of being called. Not able to understand how that fit in with my life as a wife and mother, still I knew. I just knew.... (continue)
Astonished by Beauty
'There was a lush cloister garden,' I wrote several years ago, 'and it was separated from the streets by high walls. My plan was to sit with Bible and journal and gather together scattered threads of thoughts and prayers. The sounds of traffic around? No problem. I looked upon those as bits of minor background noise. I would spend the day with God, in peace. An ideal set up for serenity. That is, until the band. From a campus nearby, there were sudden sounds of an outdoor concert. A LOUD outdoor concert. I sat in the garden surrounded by trees, statues, birds, and THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD. Thud thud thuds out of context, setting my nerves on end. Suddenly, ordinary street sounds began to unsettle me. How long had there been planes flying overhead, one after another, and so close-by? The city seemed filled with sirens. Voices shouted, just outside the enclosure walls. Oh dear. However could I pray?...' (continue)
The Absolute Center
How can a man or woman leave home, possessions, career, entertainment - and so many things the world considers important - in order to take up residence behind monastery walls? For what reason would a person even consider such a thing? (click to continue)
The Right Address
As one striving to live 'cloistered in heart,' I look upon my life, even my body, as a 'monastery.' I can be a place where God is loved, served, lived for in the midst of the world. I do not stand out from people around me. I look like members of my family, dress like other women my age, talk like everyone else. No one passing me on the sidewalk would cry out 'why, look at that - there goes a walking monastery!' Yet my prayers and babysteps toward holiness happen, in large part, right in the midst of everyday life. Standing shoulder to shoulder with others, in the middle of the world all around me, I'm situated precisely where I need to be.... . (read the rest here...)
If the Season Finds You Hurting
It's a bad time of year to be hurting. Not that there is a good time for pain, of course, but the weeks around Christmas and New Year's can be particularly poignant for some. I suspect many of us have had such seasons. Times when we can't be with loved ones, or a relative or close friend has died, or we've suffered a miscarriage, or we're sick, or we've lost our job, or there is illness in the family. Even the time of year can make us feel blue. Here in the northern hemisphere, night falls early in these months of bleak midwinter. We may be struggling to adjust to the long, long, long dark. For anyone reading this who is sad, in pain, or maybe just wishing the holidays would be over and gone - know that you're not alone. In fact, you are so 'not alone' that I'm going to ask a favor of everyone reading this..... (continue)
We Interrupt Your Life To Say...
Sometimes the activities of Advent and Christmas can feel like an intrusion. Day to day life is more or less put on hold by an urgent need to shop and wrap and plan. Chairs and tables are displaced by, of all things, a tree in the middle of our house. There is no time to do ordinary things, as everyday life is seriously disrupted for weeks on end. It can seem like a major interruption. A few years ago, the truth of it hit me. This is what Christmas has been since the instant of the Incarnation: an interruption. Please stay with me here, because our first reaction to the word “interruption” could be negative. But interruptions are often quite positive, and this Interruption was the most positive of them all.... (continue...)
The Advent Window
In the midst of a secular, godless, 'we're-doing-fine-by-ourselves' world, there appears in this one season a window of opportunity. There is a slot, a crack in the Everyday. A few short weeks during which the whisper of God might be heard through carol or card.... (continue)