Attics and Lilies

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There is a splendid open space off I-24 covered with gorgeous wild flowers each spring. For the last 10 years, I’d exit off the fast pace of the freeway and take a few minutes to soak in that natural beauty. Didn’t make it this year and since I never stopped by in autumn, I wondered how it looked in a different season.


Last week I stopped.

At first, it seemed I missed the exit. Turning around and getting back on the freeway, I tried two other exits and finally went back to the first exit I had tried.

ORANGE.

Everything was orange.

Staring in disbelief at the hundreds of single “attics” the sign read, “Climate controlled extra storage for your overflow.” This beautiful field had been transformed into a place for all our extra JUNK!

Whatever happened to real attics and basements? Do we have so much stuff now that our huge houses can’t contain all our material goods?

The previous week I had spent time trying to find affordable beds so four children wouldn’t have to sleep in the same bed. Some of us combed Salvation Army and Goodwill looking for pots and pans for another family. I couldn’t help but thinking of overflowing rented attics and these people having almost nothing.

Sitting in my car and still in disbelief, I wondered if we have become so materialistic that we build these extra storage houses for things we may forget we have. I know that happens with attics. How much more would it happened with detached attics? I have a dream that all these “extra attics” will be open to the poor and they can come and get what they need. Anything.

Then I thought about the Lilies of the Field.

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.

Looks like our lilies are orange, detached symbols of our stuff and what we’ve become.

Pat Pickett, OblSB

Dressing Room Secrets

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The busy little girls were pumped. I knew them not but couldn’t help but overhear their conversation as it echoed with excitement throughout the stalls for all to hear within the dressing room walls.

In deep concentration I was trying to focus on the lump of items before me. Dressing rooms are sacred ground. Entering them with dreams and visions of how one will look in any given piece of clothing on any given day is often in stark contrast to the reality of what is reflecting back in the dressing room mirror.

They say mirrors don’t lie but there have been many a time when I was certain that the mirror-mirror on the wall was warped. At least that’s what I told myself.

Apparently, the perception gathered about self from those dressing room mirrors begins young. I heard the little voices first hand.

“I think that sort of makes you look fat,” one stated to another in vocal tones resonating that of an eight to ten-year-old.

Moments passed before another little one asked…apparently now doubtful as to whether or not the clothing they’d chosen was worthy of purchase. “Does this make me look fat?”

I just couldn’t help myself. I invited myself into their conversation. “Did you know that if you have a piece of clothing on that doesn’t fit right…that you are not fat…but rather it’s the clothes fault?”

Silence ensued.

I stuck my head out of the dressing room to see three little freckled face girls standing before me in a colorful array of striped watermelon patterned summer jumpers. “We’re going to have a lemonade stand and we thought these would be fun to wear!”

I noted the various body shapes…and heights…but the hearts were all the same sized…big. Nothing was going to sway them from enjoying the process immensely on a hot summer day…except maybe a little self doubt.

I went on. “Yes…it’s true…if something doesn’t fit you quite right…your body is just fine because 'You are fearfully and wonderfully made!'”

The people who make the clothing don’t know what fits you so sometimes they make things smaller and sometimes they make things bigger. You just have to keep trying on different things until you find one that fits you right. It’s not you! Those clothing people just don’t have a clue as to who is going to buy their stuff sometimes!

Soon, their grandma who was hiding out in another stall nearby poked her head out. One eager little girl explained, “Grandma…did you know that if people look fat in some clothes, they really aren’t but it’s the clothes fault?”

Grandma appeared delighted with this line of logic and all because we are not only fearfully and wonderfully made, but His works are wonderful (Psalm 139:14). Amen.

Kathleen Kjolhaug, Oblate Candidate

This blog was first published on Theology in the Trenches, written and maintained by Oblate Candidate Kathleen Kjolhaug. Reposted with permission.

Why Do We Keep Coming?

Dome under the moonlight. Photo by Elise Ugarte

Why do we keep coming?

Somehow you felt a nudge. Something inexplicable. Augustine said it is as if God has placed a salt within us that draws us Godward: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” So many of us are drawn to Saint Benedict’s Monastery. Folks travel hundreds and even thousands of miles to visit, to stay a while, to move closer, or to become oblates. Why? Because we find something here we need and something we have not found elsewhere, something that resonates deep inside of each one of us; something we may have difficulty articulating because it lies so deep within us, so deep that we won’t be able to say what it is until we find it. I think it is God within each of us. God calls each of us and draws us to this place with this community. It is not as if God does not exist everywhere and within everyone of us. But here is a place and a people who listen to God’s call, and heed that call very special and very specific ways. Jesus teaches us “Seek and you shall find.” We have been seekers. I think we keep coming because we have found a kind of home. We keep coming because here we are fed: by the community, the spirituality, the liturgy, spiritual direction, retreats and classes. Maybe we have made a connection with someone else who has also found Saint Benedict’s Monastery. Here, we are fed that we might serve others. So we keep coming.

Charles Preble, OblSB

Breakthrough

Sisters Pat Ostrander (left) and Helenette Baltes,
best friends for over 63 years.

Sister Helenette Baltes and Sister Pat Ostrander have been close friends for over 63 years. Several times I have sat with them to witness their beautiful expression of love, searching and writing poetry. Helenette, though unable to write—at almost 104—is full of poetry and surprises that Pat catches as she sits eagerly waiting—though without pressure—for the lines she hears and records about topics chosen by Helenette. Recently, S. Helenette chose to speak about death. It was July 14. She wrote, in part:

We should not worry about death
Our future lives should be beyond this.
By being with, seen and loved by God
we will feel more than in this life!...
Pat, we know what we’ve had
we still will. What God has put together
can never be separated. You will keep feeling
the fullness of God. Tears now, just thinking of separating
but we must go to God to be together in the next life.
Thank you for so tenderly loving me
Thank you for teaching me to pray in the space
between the Son and the Spirit on Rublev’s icon.
What’s this? I’m falling asleep even now.

“At first,” says S. Pat, “she didn’t warm up to my suggestion that, being right-brained, she had poetic wisdom within her. But gradually Helenette liked the experience of the quiet, contemplative discovery of a poem developing within her and she would come to my room to suggest a topic—sometimes humorous like ‘Piggly Wiggly’ or liturgical like ‘Easter or ‘Pentecost’ or topics like ‘Gratitude’ or—as she did on July 14—‘death,’ although she added, ‘but you’ll have to pull it out of me! That’s the way it is with me: God does everything for me. I really don’t need many words. My heart and my breath praise Him. Amen. That’s it!’”

Both Pat and Helenette realize that “a faithful friend is a treasure.” They have known it all their lives, but now it has reached a different level, a different quality, with poetry. Sister Monica Mai, too, has always experienced S. Helenette as a wisdom figure within her life, as far back as their walking to school, day after day—Helenette as a music teacher and Monica as a senior in high school. They walked across the bridge, feeling so comfortable with one another, no need for words! And Sister Marlene Schwinghammer, dean at Saint Scholastica Convent, with tears in her eyes, attests to the supreme value of what she has experienced in S. Pat and S. Helenette’s presence: “I can see that many of our older sisters would profit from this process of culling and recording the poetry and/or the wisdom gained over their 89, 94 or 104 years of abundant life. How can we continue what you have started?”

Renée Domeier, OSB

Parades

St. Joseph Independence Day parade. Photo by Nancy Bauer

Parades…when I watch them…I cry. While standing on main as the parade passes by, tears fall. They have for many a year now.

It’s just a day after the 4th of July, and friend sent a video of this very thing. A neighborhood out east had gathered. If I recollect correct like, the lineup totaled one fire truck, three pick-ups, one corvette, a tractor, a jeep, two convertibles, seven bunched up motorcycles, one hitched wagon loaded with kids, and a bicycle built for one. Did I mention one golf cart and a four-wheeler wheeling through? An American flag or two waved alongside each as if greeting those viewing from the sidelines. How many were on the sidelines? Precisely six people were perched curbside. I cried as I watched it moments ago. As I write, tears are streaming and my nose is trying desperately to keep pace.

Growing up I recall walking on down to main for the parade. It was a whole two blocks from our house but to a little kid, that was half way around the world. The whole town came out to camp out. We cheered; we waved. And every so oft if you were lucky, hands would take hold of one piece of candy tossed your way. Fun it was.

My tears began falling at such gatherings some thirty years back as I stood along main with my own kids. I remember looking on as my little ones stood watching…mesmerized that such an event was taking place before their very eyes. It lasted mere minutes as the homemade floats were sandwiched between the hometown squad car and fire truck.

As it passed by, I cried…and apparently to this day…I still cry at small town parades.

Perhaps it touches deep because the only possible purpose for such an event is to make other people happy. Certainly grown-ups have other things to do than drive a decorated flatbed down main...circle back home only to dismantle any décor upon it. It no doubt takes hours to plan and purchase candy for little hopefuls. As best I can tell…it’s all because big people want to make this world a little happier, a little brighter, a little more hope-filled than it was before everyone marched down main.

Funny thing is…big parades don’t make me cry. Perhaps hearts are worn on sleeves in small towns, and we all feel them beating. They beat with the desire to inspire. They beat with the hope of tomorrow that maybe a little one looking on will remember that they were important enough to celebrate.

Just maybe I cry because time’s passing by and sooner than later the ones standing along the sidelines will be driving those pick-ups for the next generation of little eyes looking on. And so it goes…

If we think this is grand, I wonder what’s in store. As we leave this world…the parade of saints that will be lined up to greet us will be downright joy-filled.

“Oh when the saints…go marching in…Oh when the saint go marching in…Oh how I want to be in that number…When the saints go marching in.”

So goes the song and so goes the future and the hope we have in Christ Jesus. Like parades passing by, time marches on. May we be in tune so we will be ready to greet those who are waiting for us…and in turn greet those for whom we will be waiting.

“For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory…forever…Amen” (Matt. 6:13).

Kathleen Kjolhaug, Oblate Candidate

This blog was first published on Theology in the Trenches, written and maintained by Oblate Candidate Kathleen Kjolhaug. Reposted with permission.

24/7

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Recently, I participated in an evening of prayer and reflection with 16 college women and 10 sisters. The title of the retreat was Finding Love in Yourself. The reflection leader was a woman from the College of Saint Benedict. During one reflection, she led us through an exercise of relaxing our bodies and clearing our minds. I noticed that a sacred silence filled the room. It was a silence that spoke of love, love of God and love of self. She reminded us of how important it is to love ourselves all the time and to make this point clearer, she said, “You are with yourself 24/7,” adding, “Be kind to yourself, be gentle in how you respond to yourself even when you make a mistake.” She then guided us through a writing exercise, inviting us to write a love letter to ourselves. We were to name our qualities along with areas of growth or change we need to make in our life to become a more loving woman. It was to be a letter filled with respect for who we are in the image of God. I came away from the retreat renewed. I was experiencing deeper peace within myself and the woman I am growing into each day. Every day as I spend time in lectio, I experience the love of God, remembering that God’s love never ends.

If you would like more information about Saint Benedict’s Monastery, please contact Sister Lisa Rose at lrose@csbsju.edu.

Lisa Rose, OSB