Pilgrimage: When Roaming About is Good for the Soul

"Something to bring back to show
you have been there: a lock of God's
hair, stolen from him while he was
asleep; a photograph of the garden
of the spirit. As has been said,
the point of traveling is not
to arrive but to return home
laden with pollen you shall work up
into honey the mind feeds on.
R. J. Thomas

What kind of honey will this pilgrimage produce? I have been home from Rome for a week and a half, a very intense, busy time of volunteers and meetings. But I also have the sense of still having a foot in an alternative time and reality, carrying the gifts of a sacred time and space.

Benedict frowns on travel for his monks, at least travel without permission. He designs the monastery to be self-contained. “Then there will be no need for the monks to roam outside, because this is not at all good for their souls.” (RB 66:7) I suppose for all of us an aimless “roaming,” born of an inner antsiness, a desire to stave off boredom or simply be titillated by some new and unique thing, is indeed bad for our souls. Pilgrimage though is an inner stretching to see God in new ways and to be open to God doing the work of transformation in us. I think Benedict would appreciate this kind of travel.

To be in Rome and visit the sites of Benedict and Scholastica was an experience of standing on the shoulders of giants. We owe our faith to the men and women before us who lived, suffered, rejoiced and died with the integrity of their beliefs and search for God. It is humbling to visit sites of people who gave up everything for their faith, who paved the way for us who now walk easily on the road of faith.

In the company of about thirty other Benedictine women from North America, Australia and India I had a chance to appreciate the great heritage we have as Christians, as sons and daughters of Benedict. I came back with a sense of both gratitude and caution. Seeing multiple, rich, elaborate churches is a caution that Jesus’ radical option for the poor and marginalized cannot and should not be buried in baroque grandiosity. I also experienced deep gratitude that the church, this often limping and clueless collection of pilgrims on the way, is still struggling mightily to live out Jesus’ call to bring about the Reign of God in the world.

In the days ahead I will share more specific stories of the roaming (Rome-in) about that was good for my soul.

Benedictine pilgrimages and other oxymorons

Can Benedictines go on pilgrimage? I mean we profess stability, remaining with the same community all our life. What business do we have galivanting all over the globe? I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, mostly because I am leaving for Rome on Wednesday for the “Benedictine Renewal Program,” a month of classes and sight-seeing centered on Benedictine and monastic topics. It is an incredible opportunity for a once in a lifetime experience and I want to enter into it deeply and be open to the gifts it will bring.

One way to do this is to see the trip as a pilgrimage. This has been a stretch since frankly the idea of pilgrimage has never made a lot of sense to me. What does going somewhere have to do with faith? Is God only present in certain supposedly sacred places? Traveling can be fun, enriching, challenging, but faith enhancing? I’ve never really been able to see it.

Of course my doubts are reinforced by the fact Benedict isn’t big on monks going anywhere. The Rule is deeply distrustful of any kind of travel as harmful to the soul. Benedict wants the monastery to be entirely self-contained so that monks aren’t wandering around seeing and doing things that will get them in trouble and lead away from God.

As if all this weren’t enough I am not exactly the world’s most adventuresome spirit. The idea of going off by myself, not knowing anyone, to a place where I don’t speak the language, from tiny little Cottonwood to the megalopolis of Rome, tends to make me queasy. I tend to prefer my adventures to be of the intellectual sort, not the kind that involve lost luggage, pickpockets, foreign currencies, and the skin problem known as “Rome rot.”

So all in all I am not exactly the perfect candidate for a pilgrimage.
But lately I have been reading a lot about pilgrimage (some of us have to understand things before we can experience them) and it is starting to make sense. Pilgrimage is a journey with many levels; it is simply the human journey of faith in an explicit tangible form. All of us are on the journey of faith, traveling toward the sacred.

To go on pilgrimage is to let go of control, of the known and comfortable, and to listen to the voice of God that beckons us to a new destination, to a place of transformation. In going on a pilgrimage to sacred places we are saying that our faith is a journey that requires us to face challenges, to go in the company of other seekers, to ask for help to find our destination. In other words going on pilgrimage is like living in community with addition of blisters and a passport.

So I am more or less ready, I’ve got my passport and tennis shoes, camera and guidebook and I’ll be setting off. I am going with three main goals: to be open and receptive to all that the trip offers recognizing God’s presence in everything and everyone; to give thanks for my Benedictine forebears and to remember that sometimes the journey is the destination.

In a month I’ll be back, with plenty of stories and pictures and when I am back the pilgrimage will continue in the company of this motley crew of pilgrims who live in the same place and whose pilgrimage is the on-going, interior journey toward transformation.

(I probably won't have internet access in Rome. Check back after July 15 for new posts and pictures!)

Pentecost: Communication Transformed by Fire

The feast of Pentecost was celebrated in great style here at the Monastery today. At Morning Prayer and Mass there seemed to be a sea of red blouses and skirts, a great visual allusion to the tongues of fire from Acts. In the chapel streamers were hung from ceiling, bright blues, greens, yellow, orange and red. As the breeze came up they swayed gently and reminded us that the Spirit still moves in our midst. Red flowers and vestments provided reminders of the first tongues that gave birth to the Church. The picture was completed by the “Holy Spirit” picture above the altar, the painting based on a picture from the Hubble telescope, the shape of a dove hovering over the cosmos. Tonight at Evening Praise we had statio. The community slowly processed in while Sr. Cecile played the theme from “Chariots of Fire” and we bowed to the presence of Christ in the tabernacle and to the presence of Christ in one another before going to our places.

The first Pentecost was a marked by diversity as people from all nations had gathered in Jerusalem. Our chapel and dining room this morning echoed the feast we celebrate. I don’t think we had any Parthians, Medes or Eliamites, but we had a great diversity of visitors, retreatants, volunteers and oblates. We came from the Prairie, from Seattle, from Boise, from Central Washington, we were Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists and others. Together we celebrated the Spirit that continues to blow in our midst bringing new life.

It struck me that one way to read about the account of Pentecost in Acts is to say it was about communication, communication that is birthed in transforming fire. When the Spirit came upon the apostles they were able to communicate with the diverse, multi-lingual group that had gathered in Jerusalem and share the Good News of Christ. This wasn’t simple or easy communication it required courage, compassion, honesty and trust.

In the cenobitic community we are looking at how we communicate, how we can be honest with one another about the things that really matter. Perhaps the example of Pentecost can be our guide and a guide for all who seek to be Church.

It took courage to speak on that day in the Upper Room. Believers in the resurrection were a minority, what they experienced seemed bizarre and impossible to many people, threatening and frightening to others. The disciples risked ridicule and punishment for speaking their truth and sharing the word. Speaking to the diverse crowd required trust, trust that the Spirit would give them the words to speak and allow the listeners to truly hear what was being said. It required honesty to jolt people awake with the news that in the coming of Christ their safe, known world was being turned upside down. The disciples needed compassion to share their life changing news that would shake each person’s safe and comfortable world.

So this is how we are called to communicate in our communities today. It is the Spirit that gives us the courage and allows us to speak truth to power. Only through the Spirit moving in our midst can we go forth in courage to say the difficult things that need to be said, to one another, to institutions of power. In the Spirit we speak with honesty. We are empowered to name the places in ourselves and others that are broken and need healing. When we speak in the Spirit we can speak the hard things, necessary things with compassion. When we are grounded in the one Spirit and we speak out of love and we hear one another in love and trust.

We don’t know the whole story of the first Pentecost. In Scripture we are given only the smallest glimpse of the communication that spread the fire of the Spirit burning through the world to create the Church, to animate believers and transform our world. As we celebrate this day let us call ourselves to speak in the Spirit, to communicate with compassion, honesty, courage and truth. Let us give thanks for tongues of fire that are still blazing in our midst bringing about the Reign of God.

Benedictine Balance, The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus

The idea that Benedictine spirituality is all about balance seems to be a pervasive one. I frequently hear people say it is why they are interested in coming to the monastery, in learning more about Benedict and applying Benedictine principles to their lives. It is a very admirable goal in our world characterized by frenzy and headlong activity.

I think there is one problem with it. (Warning: this is where I am about to commit Benedictine heresy, the fainthearted among you may want to quit reading at this point and skip to something safer.) After having read and tried to live the Rule of Benedict for a number of years I think the idea of Benedictine balance is a lot like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It is a wonderful idea that reflects our deepest needs and desires but is ultimately a myth.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny speak to our childlike desire for the free gifts, the chocolate eggs and new bicycles that we want so badly. The idea of Benedictine balance speaks to our deep, childlike desire for a life that does not seem to involve intense, unending busyness, a life in which our desire for God is a significant part, not a piece that is shoehorned in-between meetings and obligations. This idea of balance seems to be based on an ideal of a life that would be equal parts work, family, leisure and God. It is not a bad ideal. But I don’t think it is Benedict’s ideal.

For Benedict monastic life is not about achieving a balance of various activities it is about a life in which absolutely everything is centered on God. God is not a significant part of monastic life, a primary priority in a hectic schedule, but monastic life is completely, absolutely, unequivocally focused on God. Work is what monks have to do to support themselves to live a life focused solely on God. Everything in the Rule, everything in monastic life, is about God, how you handle the dishes, how you sleep, how you relate with one another, how you pray and how you eat your food are all about the journey toward God, the ultimate journey to eternal life.

This is usually where people start to despair. They think that if this is the case then Benedictine spirituality cannot speak to ordinary people with families and demanding jobs and all sorts of responsibilities in “the world.” Clearly this kind of total focus on God can only happen in a monastery where all the structures are oriented toward this full-time, wholehearted, immersion in God.

I don’t think that this the only or even the easy answer to the “balance” problem. It is quite possible, even easy to live in a monastery and not be focused on God. It is also quite possible to live an ordinary, hectic life in “the world” and be a true monastic. Perhaps the key is not trying to achieve “balance” as if our search for God were a task on our “to-do” list that we can check off. If I do a certain amount of prayer, lectio and spiritual activities then I have achieved a balanced life. Our search for God may instead be a matter of cultivating mindfulness, awareness of God in all that we do, in all that we are.

This mindfulness is implicit in the Rule. Benedict encourages his monks to be aware of the presence of the sacred in all things, in tools and utensils, in the demands of the sick, in the disruptive visitors. Benedict encourages an awareness of God in all activities. He reminds his monks that the life of faith is about service of God and others in all things. Benedict encourages his monks to make prayer something that not only happens at set times but is a practice of dwelling deeply in God’s word throughout the day.

The Benedictine life is one that structures everything so that God can come first. Even in a monastery that means the hard work of learning to see things differently. We can decide whether or not God will be present in the chores, the irritations, the demands and challenges of the day. Each of us will decide whether our errands, our work, our relationships will reflect God and faith or whether they will be things and activities that are somehow separate from our desire for God.

Striving, running, climbing and making progress are all images that permeate Benedict’s Rule. Being a wise abbot Benedict knew that all of us fallible followers of his wisdom wouldn’t be able to instantly see God in all things at all times. In our overwhelming busyness and distraction we start by longing for balance, for a little more time and space for God and prayer. This is a wonderful goal but Benedictine wisdom challenges us to go deeper. To be Benedictine, to be Christian! is to make God part of the air you breath, the presence you see in everyone you meet, the coming of God’s reign the objective in every task you do. Don’t strive to make God an important part of your life, run your life’s journey striving to make God present in all that you do, in all that you are, that God may be as close as your breath.