Sisters in Good Company

I awoke to clutter everywhere

Calling me to weave

My life into

Fabrics of soft, rich color or

Bold, dramatic design or

Lacey, light musical tones and texture

To drape on the soul

In her wild dance

Of Transformation.

            Weaving a Life by Sister Bette

…Yet will Love remain constant and pure.

I shall dwell with Love in gratitude and joy;

I shall sing praises to the Beloved,

Heart of my heart.

            Psalm 7 (last verses)

            Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill

An original poem and the ancient wisdom of poetic psalms speak of truth and constancy, two great lessons from blessed time spent with Sister Bette, hermit of Stockton Springs, Maine, living in the utter sufficiency of a circular wooden yurt on Lighthouse Road. Another structure, a canvas roofed yurt, her first home in the woods, now serves as her studio; the loom room in which she creates hand woven garments, shawls, mats and runners earning her reputation as weaver of note. This is paradise to the solitary weaver of her own handspun yarns.

First called to apostolic religious life in a Wisconsin community, Sister Bette eventually felt drawn to live an even further remove from the hustle and bustle of the ordinary market place. She began a long search for the right place to establish a hermitage.

“I…am waiting for winter, its silence and solitude speaking of Intimate love in the darkness – Let’s listen!”

Bette and I have written to each other once or twice a year since our first meeting at the 2004. I was drawn to her as a source of wisdom; an experienced practitioner of the contemplative way, following a solitary path. She was a courageous hermit persevering in steadfast presence before the God of Love and Mystery. Could she teach my extroverted self something about living as a contemplative in community? Could she offer some wisdom for my own journey, my experience of the contemplative way of living together as hermits sharing the common life?

“The unfolding mystery in us; is us.”

I have saved every wise and compassionate letter received from Bette. Our friendship is a strange, inexplicable mutual gift. We both admit to fumbling on our way to God – mysterious and remote while at the same time intimately present in ways beyond our comprehension. For us, sharing our struggles is a means of restoring the bulwark supporting the singular and often lonely contemplative path.

Sometimes longed for meetings with friends rarely seen in person can fall so short of eager expectation. However, my visit with Bette in the early days of August was all and more than I had hoped it would be. Merely being blessed with the opportunity for this contemplative nun and the reclusive hermit to meet was miracle. Bette was typically open and generous; happy as a child to know that I was coming; enjoying all of her planning and preparations for a quintessential Maine lobster lunch presented in her home. “Why eat out when we can talk so freely here?” Bette further explained how our festive meal was provided by the postponed use of a birthday gift from a generous friend. She rejoiced that the gift was magnified in being twice shared.

A tour of her weaving studio and then her wooden yurt replete with solar energy, wood stove, well water, and compost toilet gave a sense of the simplicity with which this hermits lives her days. After driving into the village to pick up steaming lobsters just out of the pot we drove passed the homes of her neighbors.  Many of these friends are very supportive and attentive in their care and attention to Bette’s needs as an older woman living alone in natural terrain and sometimes hostile climate.

Bette put last minutes touches to a meal set out with great love, blessed by her prayers and crowned as sacrament in the wine we shared. Cracking open our lobsters, we enthusiastically sucked out every bit of juicy meat they offered. But greater than this feast of tasty food and enervating wine was our presence to each other.  We rejoiced in the beneficence of God who makes all things possible, even a yurt and a visit to Stockton Springs on Maine’s rocky and lighthouse dotted coast.

“What really matters is Divine Love – and becoming an icon of Christ’s love in the world.”

We shared the challenges of our lives; making sense of vocations which seem to have little or no significance in our world and even our Church; coping with aging, mortality and loss of those we know and love; our own diminishing strength and number of days; the need for a tenacious hold on the Presence in us and among us; and persevering in our availability to the energetic Center of all creation.

Bette spoke so enthusiastically of the inspiration recently received at a Franciscan conference. The invitation issued there radiated from the lives of Saints Francis and Clare and the Gospel of John reminding of the call; the call to be in our own lives a constant presence, an ever-burning flame. If we do no more, we cannot fail if we but maintain ourselves as a burning flame in the Presence of God.

Woven in and out through our conversation like the hand spun yarn in Bette’s weaving shuttle was the theme of knowledge of self and truth to ones own reality. In remaining available to the Divine, in faithfulness to our spiritual discipline, in our generous contemplation, we learn who we are and find, in companionship with our loving God, the strength to live as who and what we were created to be. And so we ate with each other and fed each other all the while knowing and feeling the most Sacred of Energies flowing in, through and between, informing, enlivening, enriching and blessing it all.

Interesting Reading

Follow the Ecstasy -

Advice Not Just for

Contemplative Nuns

and Monks

My spiritual director recently recommended that I read a book now about twenty-five years old. It is a biographical work by John Howard Griffin, author of "Black Like Me", first published in 1961. It is the well-known record of his experiment living as a Black man in the United States in the 50s.

The book I am reading, Follow the Ecstasy - The Hermitage Years of Thomas Merton, was published in 1983. It is only one Thomas Merton & John Griffin part of an official full biography which Griffin was never able to complete. Merton's hermitage years began in 1963 when he was finally relieved of his position as Master of Novices and therefore able to live full-time in his small cinder block cabin on the grounds of Trappist Gethsemani Abbey outside of Louisville, Kentucky. For those who do not know Merton, he became famous when his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain was published in 1949 and became an immediate bestseller. He was only thirty-five years old and and a monk for just seven years.

Merton consistently sought the ambiance of solitude, believing it to be the most conducive to conversion, especially his own conversatio morem or the conversion of manners, one of the Trappist vows. This is a two-fold conversion; both a shift to charity in love for his brother monks in community and all humankind, as well as, the gradual achievement of total abandonment to the will of God. This conversion is marked by the lack of struggle in the face of what is, the realities of everyday life.

As I read Follow the Ecstasy, which covers the years 1963-66, I am also reading Merton's own journal of the period 1947 to 1952 entitled The Sign of Jonas. This record begins just before Merton's profession of solemn vows. I t is interesting to see how the desire for greater solitude grown from the believe that silence would be the greatest help in his spiritual growth was with him so early in his religious life. It took sixteen years for his desire to live alone in a hermitage to be fully realized, only five short years before his death.

In relation to myself, I am not living alone in a hermitage but in a contemplative monastic community which cultivates silence and reveres the solitude provided by ones cell, thus, it can be said, we live together alone. The way we live re-enforces the enclosure of the heart, the enclosure in which one gradually sheds so many things and very gradually acquires the abandonment to God's will which Merton experiences in the silence of his holy hermit residence. This is the self-abandonment, the shedding of ego gratification and determination in which can be born, by the grace of God, that incredible lightness of being which is the freedom of the children of God. As St. Romuald says in the first line of his simple rule for Camaldolese monks, "Sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything."

Kudos and Awards

Arte y Pico Blog Award

The extent to which blogging puts you in touch with the world is astonishing, especially when you have withdrawn to a rather hidden place, living a very small life in terms of miles traveled and people met.

Blogging changes all of that is very surprising ways. One of these surprises has been repeated and encouraging comments from a reader in Jerusalem! Dina is an archaeologist, gifted in expressing her Jewish heritage but very well-versed in things Christian and very open to spirituality across the spectrum of faith and of culture. Her blog, Jerusalem Hills is a joy to behold at http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/. The photography is tops but, in addition, you really get a sense of the city, its environs and current political experience.

Dina recently presented ARTE y PICO http://arteypico.blogsphot.com/ awards to five of her favorite blogs. Contemplative Horizon was one of her five choices. Here is how the award works:

1. Recipients must pick 5 blogs they consider deserving of this award for creativity, design, interesting material, and for contributing to the blogging community in whatever language.

2. Each of the 5 selected blogs must include the name of the author and a link to his/her site to be visited by readers.

3. The recipient must show the award and indicate the name and link to the blog of the one that handed it to him/her.

4. All award recipients must include a link to the Arte y Pico site to inform all readers about the origin of this award.The best part of receiving an award is the opportunity to pass it on, to play matchmaker between you and some of my favorite bloggers.

My five awards go to (Do I hear a drum roll?):

A Nun's Life http://anunslife.org/ by Sister Julie, IHM. A refreshing look at apostolic religious life in the USA. Attractive, informative and very well done.

Homilies http://journals.aol.com/tjtrower/Reflections by Rev. Thomas Travers, CSsR. Fr. Tom is an exceptional homilist - funny, practical, insightful, faith-filled and theologically on the mark. He often shares from his vast experience as a Redemptorist missionary. His compassion and commitment to serving the poorest of the poor are evident.

Notes from Still Song Hermitage http://notesfromstillsong.blogspot.com/ by Sr. Laurel, a hermit in the Benedictine Camaldolese tradition bound by vows in her diocese. This is a recent discovery of mine and very welcome because I am much drawn to Camaldolese spirituality. The spirituality of the hermit living in a community has helped me to come to grips with the realities of being an extroverted personality in a contemplative community. I am drawn to the hermitage of the heart.

Lazy Gal Quilting http://lazygalquilting.blogspot.com/ by Tonya, an American living in Paris who has been quilting for twenty years. This site is also a recent discovery. Impressed by the liveliness and use of color in Tonya's creations. Her imagination sparks mine. The photography is super, especially for lovers of Paris, quilts and cats. Like the French influence on this artist and her sharing.

Reflections by the Bay http://reflectbay.blogspot.com/ by Father Andrew Costello, CSsR. This is yet another homily blog and another that you may find refreshing and inspirational - new takes on perennial issues of faith, Christian life and discipleship. Fr. Andy has a great sense of humor too. Some don't get it but others surely will.

I urge you to check out these blogs. Our world is expanding all the time.

The Dangers of Solitude

All of the People of God, all of the baptised are called to a life of prayer and contemplation, not just contemplative nuns. Most people get the prayer part but not the contemplation part. How can I, with my busy life, the obligations I am bound to by conscience, my short attention span, my weaknesses and addictions, my phobias and fears, be called to something as other worldly as contemplation? Does it help to translate a life of contemplation as a life of intimacy with God. Or is that notion of intimacy with the Almighty just too scary?

Well, in spite of all the possible objections we are all called to contemplation to some degree or another according to the circumstances of our lives. But, instinctual fear at the thought of such engagement is not so far from the mark. We ask, "What will happen to me if I go there? What will happen if I go to that secluded place, or if I just enter into the seclusion of my own heart and dwell there for a while with God? We are wise to ask.

Believe it or not, there has been a recent wave of people choosing to move even more radically into contemplation by living the life of a hermit. They do not chose to dwell in caves as did St. Anthony of Egypt but make their apartments, their trailers, their cabins or yurts into their hermitage, a place of intense and exclusive intimacy with God.

According to the practice and customs of this monastery silence and solitude are sought and cultivated outside of the times in which we prayer, work, eat and recreate together. For an extrovert like me, these times carved out of daily life feel like my hermitage. For a busy family person, or someone with a career, the time and place they find to engage in the life of prayer and contemplation may feel like their hermitage, their place apart.

And now we get back to that question. What will happen to me if I go there? What will happen to me if I make myself available to God? Some have images of St. Teresa of Avila in levitation, to the ecstatic look of the saints in medieval and Renaissance art. I don't think most of us have to worry about this happening to us. At least, I don't.

Much more realistic possibilities were explored in an article by Kenneth C. Russell entitled The Dangers of Solitude (Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec. 2000, p. 575). The intended audience are hermits living alone. However, I believe that anyone who seriously pursues the contemplative life in the midst of their particular day to day will inevitably face the same experiences. Here is some of his wisdom in the short form. Hope it draws to seek the entire piece.

* If you leave the flurry of activity you will come face to face with the self that you usually scurry around trying to avoid. If one begins to see behaviors for what they truly are it can be awfully uncomfortable. Even worse, it can make it a matter of conscience to do something to correct an unfortunate reality.

* "Hermits [read as contemplatives] also soon discover, as the Carthusian GuigoII put it, that they are a crowd unto themselves." Distractions and temptations will abound. This reminds me of a saying that can be heard in 12 Step support groups. "While you are at a meeting, your addiction is doing push ups in the parking lot." In other words, spending time in contemplation doesn't necessarily make life any easier.

* Solitude, not playing an active part, even for a short time, on the busy stage of life can makes us "vulnerable to the imagination's readiness to reassert our right to a place in the world."

* "Hermits have to live without the external momentum that social interaction usually provides."

To the extent that we are addicted to this momentum, that we think we cannot live without it or that live without it is not worth living, we resist the life of contemplation to which we are all called.

* Doing "good things or deeds" to relieve pressure or to justify a lapse from our contemplative practice can lead us down the proverbial road that is paved with good intentions. For people who are not hermits but living in the world, these can also happen to those enticed into speaking more and more about contemplative prayer to others, to suddenly entertaining groupies and finally to the total collapse of their contemplative life. Russell quotes Aelred of Rievaulx, "When you are pressured to get involved: Tu sede, tu tace, tu sustine. Sit still, keep quiet, and stick to it!"

* The social self will not go lightly into solitude. Our moodiness will show. Solitude once eagerly sought will become distasteful and repugnant. Those who spend time apart can become the target of acedia (dryness in prayer) and sadness.

* In response to all of this is the advice to live in the now. Living in the present moment counter acts weariness and distraction.

* Above all else is the need to remain faithful to the practice and to stay focused on one's center, the place within where God dwells waiting for us to cast the eyes of our soul upon the presence and contemplate the glory.

Feast of St. Romuald

Saint Romuald (951c. - 1025/27) was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century renaissance of eremitical asceticism. The following comes from Richard McBrien's Lives of the Saints (pgs.245-46).

Born of a noble Ravenna family, Romuald Onesti fled to a local Cluniac monastery after his father killed a relative in a duel over property. His austere lifestyle and devotional practices irritated some of the other monks, and after about three years he left the monastery and place himself under the spiritual direction of a hermit near Venice. He lived a solitary life for some ten years and only returned to his home area to assist his father, who had also become a monk after his duel and was having doubts about his vocation. In 998 the emperor Otto III appointed Romuald abbot of San Apollinare in Classe (the very monastery he had originally entered some years earlier), but he resign after only a year or two to live once again as a hermit, this time at Pereum, which became an important center for the training of clergy for the Slavonic missions. He later wandered through northern Italy, setting up hermitages, and obtained a mandate from the pope to carry out a mission to the Magyars in Hungary, desiring a martyr's death. Illness upset his hopes, and he returned to Italy.

After prolonged study of the Desert Fathers, he concluded that the way of salvation was along the path of solitude. He founded a monastery at Fonte Avellana, later refounded by his disciple Peter Damian, and another in Camaldoli, an isolated valley in Tuscany....After Romuald's death, this latter community developed into a separate congregation, known as the Camaldolese order. He did not leave a written rule.

His distinctive contribution to Benedictine monasticism was to provide a place for the eremetical life within the framework of the Rule of St. Benedict...

The charism of his Calmadolese order is to live a eremetical life in community. Camaldolese monasteries, like the one at Big Sur in California, feature separate hermitages in which their monks spend most of their time in prayer, work, and tending a small patch of land. They come together at set times in the day for communal prayer.

Romuald did not write a rule for his monks. But the following is attributed to him and speaks of the fertile soil that is the silence and solitude of the hermitage. It is known as St. Romuald's

Brief Rule.

Sit in your cell as in paradise.

Put the whole world behind you and forget it.

Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman

watching for fish

The path you must follow is in the Psalms;

never leave it.

If you have just come to the monastery,

and in spite of your good will

you cannot accomplish what you want,

then take every good opportunity

to sing the psalms in your heart

and to understand them with your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read,

do not give up;

hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God's presence,

and stand there with the attitude of one

who stands before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely

and sit waiting, content with the grace of God,

like a chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing

but what his mother gives him.