The Contemplative Cottage

O break my heart; but break it as a field
Is by the plough up-broken for the corn;
O break it as the buds, by green leaf seated,
Are, to unloose the golden blossom, torn;
Love would I offer unto Love’s great Master,
Set free the odor, break the alabaster.

O break my heart; break it victorious God,
That life’s eternal well may flash abroad;
O let it break as when the captive trees,
Breaking cold bonds, regain their liberties;
And as thought’s sacred grove to life is springing,
Be joys, like birds, their hope, Thy victory singing.
–Thomas Toke Lynch (1818-1871)

The Benedictine Latin motto, ora et labora, means pray and work.

In contrast to the later religious orders which were often called active  for their focus on ministry beyond the Order’s walls,  monasticism placed daily psalmic prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours, as the cornerstone of the monk’s life. Interspersed between these short times of communal prayer were periods of labor. These monks were not inactive, and many Benedictine monasteries became centers of education and scholarship, but they chose to focus their practice on a rhythm of life delineated by the walls of the community and time itself.

I’m Benedictine in my heart of hearts. The balance of Benedict’s Rule, trying to integrate these two ways of life into one resonates.

The more I reflect on it, the more I realize that prayer and work are one in the same pursuit, each providing the necessary balance to the other.

Without prayer, work becomes an idol. It ceases to have a deeper purpose than financial gain, affirmation, or simply a way to pass the time. Prayer connects work to a larger tapestry and at times, opens the laborer to glimpse the larger vision of the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer can refresh labor that is simply wearisome, but it is not only refreshment. Prayer is also the door to motivation for work. Recently, I’ve found that my work has suffered because I was not listening in prayer–I was only using it for good feelings, a shallow peace, and to shore up my own sense of self as a prayerful person and a good Christian.

When prayer becomes too complacent, labor acts as the balance. Work gives feet to prayer, makes it live and breathe rather than remain a good idea, a romantic pursuit, a performance mask for approval, or safe harbor of peaceful feelings.  Benedictines believe that if prayer is dry, empty or lifeless, then it’s not the prayer practice that is the trouble, but the labor surrounding it.

Eugene Peterson describes the prayer that is done “on our knees” as the precursor to prayer. Prayer for him actually begins when we stand up and start working. It is not that prayer-on-our-knees is unimportant, but that it must be woven into the fabric of our lives of labor–whatever the work is before us in this moment.

The desert fathers, those early pre-Benedictines of the 4th and 5th centuries, tell a story to describe the relationship between prayer and work. Abba Anthony was dealing with acedia, a listless apathy and boredom that was affecting his life. He asked for help and the Lord gave him a vision of a monk working (these monks wove baskets for a living) and then taking time to pray, then going back to working, then praying. Abba Anthony realized that the healing for his acedia was live into a rhythm of prayer and work.

This all sounds beautiful in writing. But the lived practice of ora et labora is both the easiest thing of all and the hardest. It is easy because it is simply saying to whatever is before you right now: “You are my work,” and then do it alternating with prayer, until the sun goes down. It is hardest because the work may require more of us than we believe we have to give.

For me, the work before me is my dissertation and living in the solitude of this labor when so many around me have families. When I refuse to do the work before me, I go out looking for whatever I can to get me out of the solitude and into a sense of belonging. In the end, I do not pray or work when I’m resisting the work before me.

Others may have work that calls them into daily, constant relationship–such as raising children. The idealized image of the monk in silence and solitude praying seems worlds apart from family life with little ones. But the monk in solitude has no better chance of praying than a mother with toddlers. The challenges are simply different.

Prayer itself is an intimate response to the Spirit. Solitude or community, work or rest, silence or noise, these are simply contexts in which we find ourselves, through which the Spirit uniquely speaks to us, and from which we respond. What matters is whether we bring whatever our labor is into prayer, and bring prayer into our labor. When the labor or the prayer is hard, exhausting, painful, or lonely, when we wonder if there was a better or easier path we could have taken, this is when it is critical to embrace the rhythm.

With Abba Anthony, today (and tomorrow and on), I will weave my dissertation basket, pray, and then weave some more.  Writing this blog post has been my prayer this morning.

And as the Spirit weaves in me, I will look for the Advent of Christ born in this work.

But even if I do not yet see, I will continue to weave. And pray. And weave.

In my prayer today, I pray for you, dear readers, as you weave your work. Would you pray for me?

We often ask what disciplines will help us to live more contemplatively or prayerfully. The following quote is some of the most profound wisdom on the topic of spiritual disciplines I’ve ever read. It is by an anonymous 14th century spiritual director and author, most known for his (or her) book The Cloud of Unknowing.  The Cloud author also wrote a letter of spiritual direction in response to questions about contemplative living, The Assessment of Inward Stirrings, from which this quote is taken:

You are well aware yourself that neither silence nor speaking, extraordinary fasting nor ordinary diet, solitary living nor company–none of these in themselves, nor all of them, are the true end of our desire. But they are to some people, though not all, true means which help to the end, as long as they are used lawfully and with discernment; otherwise they are more a hindrance than a help. Hence I do not intend to counsel you here simply to speak or to be silent, simply to fast or to eat, simply to live in company or alone. And why? Because perfection does not lie in any of these…

When then you see that all these things can be both good and evil in their use, I beg you to leave them both alone; that is the easiest thing to do if you wish to be humble. And leave off this detailed introspection and searching of your mind to find out which is better. Rather do this: Set them both aside, one here and one there, and choose for yourself something which is hidden between them. When once you have this third thing, it will permit you to take up and to leave aside either of the other two in freedom of spirit, at your own good pleasure, without incurring any fault.

And now you ask what this third thing is. I shall tell you what I understand it to be: It is God.

For him you must be silent, if you are to be silent; for him you must speak, if you are to speak; for him you must fast, if you are to fast; for him you must eat, if you are to eat; for him your must be solitary if you are to be solitary; for him you must be in company if you are to be in company; and so for all the rest, whatever they be. For silence is not God, nor is speaking God; fasting is not God, nor is eating God; being alone is not God, nor is company God, nor yet any one of every such pair of contraries. He is hid between them; and he cannot be found by any work of your soul, but only by the love of your heart. He cannot be known by reason. He cannot be thought, grasped, or searched out by the understanding. But he can be loved and chosen by the true and loving desire of your heart. Choose him then, and you are silent in speaking and speaking in silence; fasting in eating and eating in fasting, and so with all the rest.

Art by Louise LeBourgeois

In the past two posts, I’ve written about sacred space as a reminder of God’s presence, and as a call to prayer.

Beyond having a set-apart area–a beautiful corner–another option for creating prayer space is a lectio table.

A lectio table is prayer in action, in the very midst of walking-around life, and can appear in a moment. All it takes is paying attention. The act of praying is in the act of crafting it and reflecting upon it.

It can change every day. It can be part of the beautiful corner, or it can be on the kitchen counter or dining room table or any other place where prayer is happening. Last Christmas, I created a lectio tree in place of having a Christmas tree.

Over the years, I’ve collected hundreds of found objects from a 160 year old piece of hand-cut marble from St John’s Monastery to a yellow ducky with blond hair (a gift from my friend Amy).

Each has a story. Each can represent a prayer. Sometimes I choose them with a specific prayer in mind; sometimes, I create the arrangement with no pre-planning. Sometimes, when I’m out walking, I find something beautiful, like a feather butterfly. I placed it on my candle-holder when I got home, and it shone in the sunlight, inspiring prayer for the rest of that day.

Another time, I was in a busy Boston train station, tired and aching to be home, when I found a perfect sprig of baby’s breath in my path–unnoticed and unwanted by the hundreds of commuters around me. It became a prayer of gratitude for beauty in the midst of the evening commute. No table, just an object held in my hand as the train whizzed along the track.

Once the objects are selected and arranged, I allow the four movements of lectio divina–reading, meditating, praying, contemplating–to shape how I reflect on the lectio table arrangement and allow prayer to happen organically. Sometimes, I’m surprised ast what the Holy Spirit nudges me to pray about, stimulated by one of the objects or how they are in relationship to each other.

Practice: Wander your house and choose objects and/or take a walk and let nature provide you with items. Choose a place on a counter or table and arrange the objects–follow your intuition. Then using the movements of lectio divina, consider the arrangement. How is the Holy Spirit calling you to pray?

In honor of hearing Eugene Peterson speak at Seattle Pacific University Thursday evening, today’s florilegium quote is from his book, The Contemplative Pastor:

What does it mean to be a pastor? If no one asked me to do anything, what would I do?…

I can be a pastor who prays. I want to cultivate my relationship with God. I want all life to be intimate–sometimes consciously, sometime unconsciously–with the God who made, directs, and loves me. And I want to waken others to the nature and centrality of prayer. I want to be a person in this community to whom others can come without hesitation, without wonder if it is appropriate, to get direction in prayer and praying. I want to do the original work of being in deepening conversation with the God who reveals himself to me and addresses me by name. I don’t want to dispense mimeographed (!) handouts that describe God’s business; I want to witness out of my own experience. I don’t want to live as a parasite on the first-hand spiritual life of others, but to be personally involved with all my senses, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

I know it takes time to develop a life of prayer; set-aside, disciplined, deliberate time. It isn’t accomplished on the run, nor by offering prayers from a pulpit or at a hospital bedside. I know I can’t be busy and pray at the same time. I can be active and pray; I can work and pray; but I cannot be busy and pray. I cannot be inwardly rushed, distracted or dispersed. In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego. Usually, for that to happen there must be a deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day, a disciplined detachment from the insatiable self.

Where there is no beauty, put beauty, and you will find beauty. –Francis of Assisi, adapted.

One of the books I read when I began to explore church and faith more seriously I found on my dad’s shelf. It now has an honored place with others that I “borrowed” from my parents. I love the fact it has the quintessential good book smell, my dad’s signature on the flyleaf, and his underlinings through-out.

Ernst Benz begins the discussion of Eastern Orthodoxy not with doctrines but with the role and understanding of icons. At the time I first read it, there was no internet (hard to imagine now), so I still remember how some of the concepts made no visual sense to me, never having been in an Orthodox church.  But the message was clear: images played an important part in the Orthodox life of prayer. This I understood.

Living in Germany at the time, I was aesthetically and spiritually formed by the medieval cathedrals with their murals and statues, hidden side altars and chapels. As one of my professors at St John’s put it, churches need secret space and shadows for those times when the soul is called into solitude with God, even in the midst of community. I loved those nooks and cranies of sacred space, the life and color of the images, and the warmth of the candlelight.

Benz’ book offered me two things that have stayed with me. The first is that images reminding us of sacred presence are important. In the violent iconoclast controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries, icons were burned and the Orthodox church nearly went through a tidal shift in its manner of prayer. But theologians of the day called upon Colossians 1:15 where Jesus is called the image (ikonen) of the Living God, his own humanity as a way for our participation with the Trinity.

Icons are not idols, which demand worship for themselves, but windows for humanity to be drawn into the Kingdom through prayer and remembrance. Idols stop the gaze; icons direct the gaze through and beyond themselves to the Ever-Presence of God.

The second idea Benz offered me was the importance of dedicating a specific area of the home to God’s presence.

In the Orthodox tradition, this is called the Beautiful Corner, usually on the eastern side of the house.

Coupled with my love of the secret side chapels in the enormous cathedrals, Benz’ book encouraged me to create a beautiful corner in my bedroom. My parents, bless them, bought me a little table, white eyelet lace cloth to cover it, and some red, green and purple fabric for the church seasons.  On it I placed various images of the cross, Jesus, Mary, and found-objects from nature. Over the years, I’ve collected many different items and frequently change it depending on the liturgical season or what I’m praying about.

The first real icon of my collection I found when I was 14, the day before leaving Germany for the Pacific Northwest.  Mary icons often find their way into the corner because of God’s call to her to birth the Christ–a call I believe each Christian receives and responds through grace in some wonderful and mysterious way. As a woman, I appreciate her witness.

While a beautiful corner sounds peaceful and lovely, I’ve found that it can be a place of conviction and a call to repentance as well. Sometimes, the last place I’ve wanted to be near is a reminder of God’s presence. As I willfully choose to go my own way and ignore the still small voice, the temptation is to simply take back the space and live forgetful of the sacred.

One particularly difficult season a few years ago, I did just that. I took all the icons and images down and tossed them in a box. I thought, out of sight, out of mind.

I told God, “Enough. I’m through.”

For awhile, I went my way and God let me alone. But then slowly, I realized God was still there, still whispering. I may be able to remove the reminders, but God could not be put in storage. Slowly I took things out of the box and said a small yes again to God’s unrelenting love.

What I meant as tantrum, God used to remind me that his presence is more than my small ideas and certainly beyond my control (Thank God!).

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
 if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
 if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. –Psalm 139:7-12

Practice: Is there a special place, a beautiful corner, that reminds you and your family of God’s loving presence? If not, where would you put it? What would you put there?

If you have a beautiful corner, how long has it been since you changed it? Sometimes what becomes familiar is easily forgotten. I invite you to spend some time rearranging and praying.

If you are going through a season where God is “in storage,” I invite you to wander your house and find one object that calls your heart and thoughts to prayer (photos of little ones always does it for me). Put the object in a prominent location, and slowly, as you feel led, add other reminders to pray or say “thank you”–maybe a leaf from a particularly glorious fall tree, a cross, a verse of scripture that tugs at your memory. Over time, items will be added and you will have a beautiful corner for prayer.

Get young people involved–I think they have a wonderful, playful sense of what makes sacred space beautiful.