Time and time again ...

     Having just spent a week in one of my most favorite places on earth, I am reminded of the breadth of time and depth of inner space. I can forget about that when my world becomes compressed into the quotidian demands of a busy life.

  I'm struck by the great fortune of my life to be able to spend a week being still, yet moving; being silent, yet speaking; being .... really just being ... and in that place finding the grace and abundance of love that is.

      I'm no poet.  I can't express the beauty and goodness that fills me when I'm there.

It certainly is inspiring to be able to participate in the services.  I am humbled by the welcoming I get, and the acceptance of my presence. 

 But it is more than that.  I also feel the presence of God in the world at large.

 I'm not sure I can blog about it.  But I just needed to take note of the moment. 

Waiting

Spending the first week of Advent away at a retreat is a kind of three dimensional experience .... like the kind created in those virtual roller coasters. Yet there is nothing virtual about it. The darkness, the waiting, the sense of something about to happen. It is real. So I'm quite fortunate that I could take a few days this week and go do that - go wait.

Here are some thoughts from my time.

Humility – pulling up to a Monastery and choosing to simplify my life for a few days was scary last year, and yet this year felt like a welcome relief. I have a tendency to pile things on my plate, to add mischief and misery to a life that is pretty well blessed. I work hard, I volunteer, I read, I write, I do art, I decorate for Christmas, I spend a lot of time with my family …and I sometimes get all of it tangled up into a big ball of nonsense.

The humility comes in the recognition that I can simply let it go. I do not have to struggle with the knots and the tangles.

Walking up the wet, brick steps and seeing the potted herbs by the door and the fat black-and-white cats lolling on the porch, I know that “it” is not as complicated as I sometimes believe.

Serenity – there is the sound of cars in the far distance. The way you can hear them hum along a road through the winter air. And yet the trees, standing stark and still in the yard bring me back from humming automobiles to a place of serenity. If I choose to see and hear, I can look at a crimson oak leaf stick to the slate and form a picture perfect outline of a life lived out to its full extent. I can hear a faint plop of an old rain drop fall finally from the eave onto the ground next to the church. I can hear the sound of my own breath, quietly in my mouth. I can stop. Fully. And even though I am hurtling through the atmosphere thousands of miles an hour while spinning at a rapid rate, I feel a stillness that can be felt anywhere. If I just choose.

Again, the humility because I do not have to judge my inability to do this in the hustle of my daily life. I’m just grateful that I can find it anywhere.

Gratitude – I think there is something about serenity and humility that leads me naturally to gratitude. And vice versa. Gratitude brings me to the center of stillness because I cannot be grateful and agitated at the same time. Maybe come can. God bless them. I, however, have to forego the agitation in order to be thankful for what I have and what abundance my life is made of.

Rhythm – natural rhythms are not easy to hear, to feel and to live by. I have set myself up to live by the clock, by mealtimes, by “oh-my-god-its-11-oclock-I-have-to-go-to-sleep” and other fairy tales.

Yet, when I take the time out, and simplify my life, I find that even I – complicated I – can tune into natural rhythms feeling tired and feeling energized, feeling hungry, feeling full in ways that are sustainable and intimate. Taking the time, to set aside the ‘other stuff’ and rest awhile, I find that there is an easy intimacy with myself. There really isn’t a lot of judgment or chaos. I can feel the chill in the air, I can feel a laugh start deep in my abdomen, I can yearn for the touch of my husbands hand on my cheek. And I can recognize these as parts of me. And my rhythm.

Love. Another story. Being written, being told, being born. Not the pink hearts and candy kind. But the stuff of life and death. And its big. Another story.

My Retreat Place

Last year I went up into Georgia to a Cistercian Monastery for a week long retreat. They were quiet, I was fairly quiet. It was an incredible week, and I've been back a few times since.

In fact, I'm going up again on November 30. When I'm up there I get to do some writing, talking and general palling around with Fr. James Behrens. He used to be a Parish Priest in New Jersey. Then about 10 years ago he decided to join the monastery. I have no idea why.

Fr. James does many things -- he works in the Bonsai garden, he is a huge part of the Christmas shipping frenzy, he works as in the Retreat House, he takes pictures, and he writes. In addition to his Monkly duties of round-the-clock prayer. He has a great affinity for Bob Dylan and we agree on almost all things political.

Here is an essay he recently wrote and it won an award from the Catholic Press Association. Not hard to see why.

Tinker And Augustine

FATHER JAMES S. BEHRENS, OCSO, Commentary

Published: November 9, 2006

There is a window in this room where I write, and it offers a generous view of the sky. Last week I was here and paused for a moment and looked at the sky. It was beautiful. The sun, which I could not see, was setting in the west, and the sky was a brilliant blaze of orange, brown and red. There were clouds that seemed like huge brushes in that they rose high, spreading colors in vast and marvelous patterns. The cross on our water tower was part of the scene.

I got up and picked up my camera and walked over to the window and took some pictures. They came out quite well, even though I did not adjust the camera to any special settings. I noticed movement in the distance, below me and near the garage. It was Augustine, taking his customary early evening stroll. He was too far away to photograph so I watched him, occasionally looking again at the sky and its beauty far above us both.

Tinky, short for Tinker Bell, is a cat whose usual night residence is the garage. Some days she gets locked out and lounges in front of the garage door. Augustine saw her and reached down and picked her up and cradled her in his right arm. He used his left hand to reach into his pocket for the key to the garage door. It looked as if he lowered his head and talked to Tinky, perhaps chiding her for being locked out again. He opened the door and let Tinky slip out of his arm, shut the door and then proceeded on his way. The scene was surely a simple one, but something about it moved me deeply and made me think about a lot of things.

Cats do not know that they are lost or locked out of a place where they are safe. I suppose that there is some sort of “cat awareness” as to their being out of place and in need of help—a few meows, though, is the best they can manage as far as a language of the lost. It is a good stroke of fortune when a passerby notices the plight of a small and lost creature and lifts it up and gently carries it to safety.

The sky was gorgeous that early evening. Many would rightfully say that such beauty is a gift from God, though others would look at the same sky and marvel at the wonders of nature, leaving God’s palate out of the picture. Either way, the sky offers its beauty to those who appreciate it.

And what about the picking up of a locked-out cat?

As a species, we humans are lost and seemingly locked out of a place that is warm and safe, a place that is secured from violence. Stranded as we are in a dark and strange place, we are prone to strike out violently in ways that seem far from any redemptive solution. Whatever progress there is toward peace seems to be far outpaced by a deeper need to ensure terror. Whatever peace might be, a reading of the activity of any day in any part of the world places peace at a very low realm in human priorities. Its promise is devoured over and over again.

It seems that we are left with taking life one step at a time, walking as we do through a small space in life. In Augustine’s case, he reached down and helped a creature that had no resources to help herself. And so he was kind.

I do not think we have the resources, either, to find that safe place.

But I believe in the kindness of God, who seemingly hides behind the beauty of late summer sky, or perhaps adorns himself in the colors of the setting sun. We will never know for sure—until he comes again and reaches down and picks us up in his arms and carries us to a better place. I believe he will come.

Meanwhile, a monk takes pity and helps one who is lost.

I do not know why the sky is so beautiful—and why it does not last forever. I have a picture, and it will fade in time. But there will always be colors and brilliance.

I like to think that the simple gesture of Augustine is as lasting and as important as the panorama of sky and color. After all, Jesus told us to keep an eye on the simple and seemingly unnoticed. Great things, he said, live as hidden in the simple and the lowly. It is all any of us have to watch for and to attend—till the time that God reaches down and helps us rise.

What or who is God? I do not know of any special settings to find and keep him.

The sky is silent in its beauty. The cross atop our water tower has never uttered a word. If God is far, perhaps his voice is close—like all the light we can ever know, or when a man bends down and picks up a Tinker who is lost.

Father James Stephen Behrens, OCSO, is a monk at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers. He is the author of “Grace Is Everywhere: Reflections of an Aspiring Monk,” which is available at the monastery Web store at www.trappist.net.

You can read the article online at: http://www.georgiabulletin.org/local/2006/11/09/augustine/