Death Where is Thy Sting?

Yesterday one of our sisters died. Despite her death it was largely a day like any other. Death is not something rare, unusual, or to be feared in the monastery. Death is an absolute, integral part of life. We accept it, ritualize it and give it meaning. In doing so we honor the death of our sister and the life that she led.

When someone is approaching death we put up an announcement on the board. We invite community members to come sit with the sister who is dying, to pray with her and for her as she prepares to go home to God. We try to honor her wishes at this time, whether for certain types of prayers and songs or for quiet and silence.

We try to keep vigil, ensuring that the dying sister has someone sitting with her throughout the night, to accompany on her journey home. Dying is seldom easy, any more than living. Some people slip away quietly, many struggle to make the transition.

As soon as the sister dies the bells are tolled, a slow, solemn ringing as an announcement to the world of someone passing from death to life. An announcement goes up on the board and word spreads quickly. Many people come by to say last good-byes. Plans for funeral arrangements begin to be made.

In the meantime life goes on in all its ordinariness. Dishes need to be washed. The community gathers for prayer. There is mail to be picked up. Meetings happen on schedule. Plans are made for the future. It may look callous to outsiders, this lack of drama around death, but this is the witness of the monastic way. Death isn’t an end, it is a homecoming, it is the goal of all monastics, to reach everlasting life. In the midst of life we rejoice in our sister who has reached her goal and in our ordinary lives we too continue to press on to the same goal.

Common Work

We all have to work. Very few, if any of us, belong to the leisured class where we don’t have to worry about working for a living. But work in a Benedictine community is a little different. Most of us have a specific job, or often several jobs! Everyone who is able also has assigned chores. The dishes have to be washed, the floors swept, meals taken care of, all those everyday tasks that have to be done. Generally everyone knows what they have to do and they pitch in conscientiously and help out.

In this regard we aren’t really any different from a family or organization where everyone has assigned jobs and they carry them out. One way we are somewhat different is in common work. There are always jobs that come up that have to be done that no one is assigned to do. Here in the fall the leaves must be raked, the chestnuts gathered off the lawn. In the late summer it is time to can, dry and otherwise preserve for the coming year. These are all jobs that can’t be done just by assigned people.

So the notes go up on the bulletin board. Are there “volunteers” for canning, raking, folding and labeling newsletters, decorating the dining room for special celebrations? It is a rare week that doesn’t have something above and beyond the usual chores.

And so we sign up. Like the workers in the vineyard some of us sign up early and stay late. Some of us rush in at the 11th hour just when the last of the leaves has been raked or the last pear cored and put into a jar. But perhaps the amazing thing is that it always works out. Everyone comes and contributes to the best of her ability. Rarely does anyone complain that someone came late and didn’t do much. Perhaps after years of living this common way of life we begin to live out the parable. This isn’t our vineyard, it is God’s harvest and God’s reward that we will receive. It is simply our place to show up when we can and welcome one another as we labor together.

Communication

This morning I have been thinking about communication. I need to send some information to our oblate community about what is going on in the monastery. It takes some careful thought and conversation with various people to know exactly what to say and how to say it.

Communication is critical to creating and sustaining community. Even more than that communication is what makes us human. It creates, and sometimes destroys, relationships. If we withhold communication we hold people at a distance, we don’t let them into our lives, we convey the idea they aren’t important. But sometimes the opposite occurs. We can give people too much information, we flood them with news to the point they are overwhelmed and drowning. It is a case of TMI, “too much information.”

The problem in each case is that we are centered on ourselves, not the other person. If I withhold communication it is because I am putting my own needs, my own lack of trust first, rather than believing that other people care and want to know what’s going on. If I overwhelm them with information I am also acting like I am the center of everyone else’s universe as well as my own. I forget that people are kind, supportive, but they have their own lives to lead.
Ultimately our communication needs to model that of God. The ultimate word, the ultimate communication, was God’s word in Christ, the Logos, the Word. God communicated God’s very self in the incarnation of Jesus. God spoke in the form of flesh, the flesh that came and dwelt among us. God communicated, spoke, with deep, unassuming care, out of an unfathomable love. God’s love in Christ respected the needs of all while sharing their burdens and suffering with them unto death.

May our word to one another echo the Word that is God’s presence in our lives.

Cloud of Witnesses

On November 1st we celebrated the Feast of All Saints. It is a day to commemorate all the “saints,” women and men who live lives of deep faith, both those recognized by the Church as saints and those whose faith is known only to a few.

Here at the monastery we celebrate the “saints” all during November. It is a month both poignant and inspiring. Outside the earth reminds us of the cycles of loss, leaves are falling, the earth is sliding toward dormancy. Things are slowing down. We reflect on Benedict’s admonition to “keep death daily before your eyes;” the admonition that life is both a gift to be appreciated in the moment and a gift that is simply an invitation to eternity.

In the chapel we hang long banners with the names of all the sisters who have died in the community since our founding in 1882. There are close to 200 names now. These women are part of our “cloud of witnesses” referred to by the Letter to the Hebrews. They are the women who lived quiet lives, who will never be canonized by the Church, who will be remembered only by those of us who lived with them or who have heard their stories.

There are the names of all kinds of women on the banners. I have known over 25 of them in the eleven years I have been here. There are the women who were deeply humble, saintly people. There are the women who were deeply wounded, who challenged and stretched us as we tried to love them. There are the “characters,” larger than life, alternately infuriating and funny. There are the little people who were little noticed in life or death, treasured by God if not always by us. All of them surround us now, these witnesses who have completed their journey and who now urge us on to the finish line of our faith.