The Book Thief

Last night I finished reading The Book Thief for the 2nd time.  It is indescribable in its loveliness and loneliness.  It begins in my birth year (1939) Nazi Germany.  Death is the narrator and death is remarkably kindhearted as it tenderly carries souls from the bodies of those who have died.  Some of those souls, it was noted, were sitting up inside the person who died and I came to the conclusion that the souls sitting up belonged to someone who was unusually present during life.   I kept thinking, Ah! all this was happening the same year that Life carried my soul to Earth.   If you want a big thrill and just to be entertained, don't read this book.  But if you are willing to have your heart crushed and put back together in the same moment you might find this book therapeutic.  If you would like to live for a while with a fascinating little girl, Liesel Meminger on Himmel Street (which ironically means heaven) you might want to pick up this book and give it your attention.  Liesel: the child who loved words and stole books!  Liesel who embraces the ugliness and beauty of each moment!  Liesel, curious, passionate and fiercely present!  Liesel and Death will be your guides. Liesel's last written words were:

 I have hated the words and

I have loved them,

and I hope I have made them right.

Death's last words were:

I am haunted by humans.

Liesel and Death have provided me with the 'word' I will try to live during the month of May.  Scroll down underneath the picture of the book to see the word.

And the word is, presence.  PRESENCE, which is so beautifully described in the words of Etty Hillesum, who died in Auschwitz in 1943.  These words from her diary portray the kind of presence I would like to offer my community and the larger world.

"I feel as if I were the guardian of a precious slice of life with all the responsibility that entails.  There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze."   This quote is taken from her diaries: An Interrupted Life.

So let's be present to one another during May (and beyond).  Let's do everything in our power to keep the spark of life inside us ablaze, so that when Death comes for us our souls will be sitting up inside us ready to keep on blazing.

A Path of Life

[For those of you new to this blog I have been choosing a WORD each month of 2013

 ~~ a word that I attempt to live throughout the month~~

Although I have already chosen my new word for May, 

I am not quite finished with April's word, grief]

I love the picture above.  For me, it is a path of Holy Mystery~~a path of LIFE!  It is a kind of icon of joy and sorrow, light and darkness, hope and despair, love and grief.  Perhaps I am being too dualistic!  I don't really know if everything has an opposite. I thought a long time about grief.  I don't know what its opposite would be.  I believe all of these gifts (that don't always feel like gifts) will eventually be integrated into our lives.  Maybe it is all part of the Paschal Mystery which many Christians will relate to.  We don't exactly get rid of grief, sorrow, loneliness, despair, darkness.  They will always be part of the mystery of our lives.  And as I mentioned in my last post, they have every right to be a guest at our table.  Hopefully, some kind of integration will eventually take place in our lives and then we will become more at ease with this unwanted guest.  Remember, "Joy and sorrow are sisters; they live in the same house." 

Continued reflections from my book, A Tree Full of Angels, 

 "There's nothing like sorrow to get your attention.  It is almost as though sorrow pulls presence out of you. In the midst of sorrow there's nothing to do but be there and celebrate the hurt.  We celebrate the hurt through holy screams.  Holy screams come from the heart.  They are screams that people often, in their ignorance, try to smother.  Don't let them take your screams away too early.  Holy resignation comes only after holy screams.  Don't let them tell you it's God's will, unless they are saying that life is God's will and freedom is God's will, and you are God's will.  Much of the news you see on television each evening is not God's will.  It is the will of the human race.  It is too comfortable to blame it on God.  

Why blame the One who wills nothing for you except that you be divinized.

We are absent from life far too much.  Sorrow (and grief) make it impossible for us to be absent, and so, blesses us with real presence.  In the midst of our sorrows, distractions fall away, and we are there, raw and open, often confused, always vulnerable, little and great.  In sorrow we are nudged to our depths.  I do not claim to understand the mystery of suffering, but I often meet people who have walked through great sorrow; they seem to wear the face of God.  These are the people at whose feet I yearn to sit.

-taken from A TREE FULL OF ANGELS: seeing the holy in the ordinary - page 35

May you find comfort as you walk the Path of Life.

Singing in the midst of Grief

Cemeteries do not ordinarily make me sad.  Each stone holds a name; and the name is a prayer.  It is the prayer of the person who wore that name on earth.  The name is a memory.  The name holds a  story.  The name is a song.  Cemeteries are meadows full of stories, landscapes full of songs once sung.  Cemeteries are fields of memories.  

When I was a little girl I used to go through our parish cemetery laying flowers on  all the unmarked graves.  It is a treasured memory.  I was honoring the memory of some dear unknown name.  I was celebrating a life that would, perhaps, forever remain a mystery.  As a child I would not have used those words to describe what i was doing, but these are the words that come to me now in my wisdom years.

Holy Grief!  Grief has continued to keep me company during the month of  April.  This grief has held many faces: the loss of loved ones in death, unexpected violence throughout our world, loss of jobs and of hope,  broken relationships, trees splintered into pieces because of lightening.

I have made huge efforts to be aware.  I have tried, with some success, not to numb my feelings.  I have kept company with many kinds of grief.  Just at the end of March very shortly after my friend, Dottie, died, three of my Sisters in community died.  Even though two of them were elderly and certainly  ready to take leave of this world~~still, three in  such a short time period is shocking beyond words.

Something I have had to look at in the face of these many deaths is how all too often I put my work schedule before  my presence to others.   One of the Sisters who died was Sister Gabriel.  She and I had been trying to get together for tea, for about three years it seems.  Usually it was my schedule that got in the way.  One day, about a month before she died, she said (concerning our efforts to have tea) "Well, I'll be surprised if this event takes place before we meet in the Kingdom."    Little did I realize that was a fairly accurate prediction.   These deaths have spoken volumes to me about the importance of being present to others while there is yet time.

And so as April wends its way into May I leave this month still thinking about the holiness and necessity of integrating the grief with the blossoms, with the singing and the resurrection stories.   Joy and sorrow are sisters; they live in the same house.   Remember the temple that you are and invite grief and gladness to make their home in you.  As we listen to the poetic words of the poet, Gregory Orr. may we learn how to sing through our grief.

Grief will come to you.
Grip and cling all you want,
It makes no difference.

Catastrophe?  It's just waiting to happen.
Loss? You can be certain of it.

Flow and swirl of the world.
Carried along as if by a dark current.

All you can do is keep swimming;
All you can do is keep singing.

~ Gregory Orr ~

LET THERE BE SINGING!

Grief is Love in Person

It is not easy to get a picture of grief

 even with tears streaming down our cheeks

 because that is not the whole story.   

In some small way, are not those tears, tears of love.  

Perhaps grief is Love in Person!

Grief is a little out of focus in my life at the moment;

for this reason I have chosen an out-of- focus dead leaf to depict grief.

But is the leaf really dead?  Or, is there more to that story also?

As Paul Harvey used to say,

...and that's the rest of the story!

It's your story,  too,  so you can decide.

My word for April is GRIEF.  I thought it was going to be tenderness or maybe gentleness because I see so much of that in Pope Francis.  However as things begin to unfold toward the end of March I knew that grief was trying to get my attention. It is difficult to find a picture of grief because almost every image of grief could also be named, LOVE.  Why do we grieve except because we have loved?

It all began when a dear friend from Chicago, Dottie, had to undergo a 7 hour surgery because of an aorta aneurysm.  Her sister assured me that I could give her a call before the surgery.  I intended to call her but I allowed my work to be my priority.  I decided to call her after her  recovery.  She came through the intense surgery and it seemed that all might be well but there were complications and so there will be no recovery in the sense I was imagining.

Dottie was once a member of my Benedictine community in Fort Smith Arkansas and I have wonderful memories.  How odd that her death should be heart-related when she had such a benevolent heart..  Her heart was present wherever and whenever there was need.  She was a visionary woman and a wonderful teacher.  She taught even when she wasn't officially teaching.  She taught by living well.   She was a cancer survivor.  And now the heart!

I have wonderful memories of being in the novitiate together at St. Scholastica.  On summer evenings before the sun set we used to climb out on the roof of the monastery and read to each other.  Our choice of reading material was stuff like, Winnie the Pooh, Huckleberry Finn, The Wind in the Willows, etc.  Being on the roof was illegal by monastery rules but oh, what fun, especially when the sun set and we had to close our books and just be in all that beauty.  And we would laugh!   I can still hear her laugh--surely one of the best laughs ever created!

Another funny memory is when I was visiting in Chicago and we went to see the movie GROUND HOG DAY.   I can hardly recall the story line if there was one, but there was a lot of repetition:  people doing the same thing over and over until they learned from it I guess.  After the movie she went to the window and asked if maybe we could have our money back because the projector got stuck and the same thing kept playing over and over.  Only Dottie!  We laughed so hard about that and for a few years we sent each other Ground Hog Day cards.  I was reminded of that when shortly after her death I was at a cabin  nearby preparing for an upcoming retreat and Lo and Behold I saw a groundhog and wondered if Dorothy was playing a joke on me.

I have decided that grief is like a little person that we need to lovingly invite into our homes.  It seems necessary to welcome grief and have time for it rather than just stay busy to dull the feelings.  One of my problems with grief is that I often live as though I don't have time for it.  I can remain rather numb until eventually I just sort of numb my way back into daily life,  and grief, that child of love, is locked out of my life.  And that's a shame because truly grief is love IN PERSON. -   I have been thinking quite a lot about grief these days.  I need to take a long, slow walk with grief--maybe we even need to start 'dating' ----  We might eventually marry; and that will mean integration is finally taking place.  There are many dwellers in my household and grief has every right to an honored place at the table.  If I allow grief to sit at my table she will discover that she has many sisters and brothers surrounding her.  There is courage and hope, new beginnings, sorrow and joy, delight, forgiveness.  The list is infinite.  But that's all for now!  
                        
To be continued...

Would you mind being borrowed?

Holy Saturday has always been one of my favorite days of the Easter Triduum.  For me, it is more silent than Good Friday.  Good Friday is a noisy day.  As I walk with Jesus on the journey to the cross I can hardly bear it.  I feel so  crowded, all the jostling and the pushing, the cruelty, the cries of hate, the tears of sorrow.  Violence is always difficult and when a good person is being condemned unjustly it is more heartbreaking than I know how to describe.  I am relieved when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus come for his body and lay it in the tomb.  It was a borrowed tomb, one in which no one had yet been laid.

Holy Saturday is a day of waiting.  Not much is happening.The Beloved is in the tomb.  Sorrow has taken away our words and we are very silent, so silent. The silence is deep.  Every Holy Saturday I go to my Holy Week file and take out a meditation.  I read it again and again. This reflection is from Living Faith (Creative Communications for the Parish)  and it was written by James Adams.  Because I find it so moving I take the liberty of sharing it with you here.

I had no grave of my own.  My body was laid in somebody else's tomb.  Was it fitting that I be buried in a borrowed tomb?  Yes!  I was always borrowing things.  I borrowed a crib in Bethlehem to be born.  I borrowed Peter's boat to preach from.  I borrowed a donkey to ride on when I came to Jerusalem.  I borrowed bread and wine to make my body move and my blood to flow in history.  I borrowed thorns, wood and nails to redeem the universe.  Why should my burial be any different?

I will go on borrowing things until the end of time, until I have borrowed them all and made them holy.

I will also borrow you.  You will be my tongue and my throat, parched.  You will be my hands and feet, nailed.  You will be my head, thorned.  You will be my side lanced.  You will be my body stripped.  You will be my corpse, buried.  And when the borrowing is over, you will be my sisters and my brothers, risen and unspeakably happy.         -James E. Adams

So let's allow the Holy One, Source of our Life, Source of all Life
to borrow us.  Remember, we are being borrowed together.  We'll all be there!  

On the eve of Good Friday I always go to our empty chapel
and just sit before all that is gone. Holy Thursday adornments have been taken away.
No altar cloth.  Not a candle in sight.
The tabernacle door is empty and open resembling an empty tomb.
In spite of the tremendous absence that I feel
there is also an incredible presence.
Now I know why; it is because I've been borrowed.
Now I am the temple of Christ's presence
You are too!

HAVE A DEEP, SILENT HOLY SATURDAY
AND A JOYOUS EASTER!

What More Can I Say?

WHAT MORE CAN I SAY?

"I had found living so dear I wanted to do it full time." 

quote taken from THE BARN AT THE END OF THE WORLD 

by Mary Rose O’Reilly       

What more can I say,  indeed!  You are a temple of God; the Spirit of God dwells in you!  Pray with your whole being.  Use your hands and arms and feet and knees, mind and heart.  Your entire body can be a living prayer.  I know that everything in the world is not perfect.  I know about the pain, the violence, the wars, the scandals.  I know about death. Still, in the midst of our wounds we are invited to celebrate life.  In the midst of everything that is wrong with our world, let's celebrate what is right.

The Glory of God is a person fully alive, St. Irenaeus writes.  If he had that figured out in the 2nd century maybe we should give it our best.

         

Hands that Bless and Anoint

I love to be in our monastic chapel in the early morning hours when it is still dark. I watch the saints in our stained-glass windows as they slowly return to us with the first rays of  morning light.  This appearance and disappearance of the saints has intrigued me since my days as a novice.  At dusk they melt into the night.  When dawn arrives, slowly they reappear: this wonderful cloud of witnesses that surround us through the hours of our prayer day!

Unfortunately, their faces are somewhat saccharine and entirely too Caucasian for my taste.    Even so I have chosen to allow these saints to anoint me through the hours of the day.  It is their HANDS that bless me.  There are times I pray the windows much like I would journey through the stations of the cross.  I fix my gaze upon their hands and reflect upon the potential of my own hands.

I see hands raised in blessing, clasped in prayer, hands holding sacred books,  writing quills, olive branches and lilies, hands holding musical instruments, lamps and flasks of oil, hands held out in petition or raised in joy.  HERE IS MY CLOUD OF WITNESSES WHOSE HANDS HELD OUT IN BLESSING ANOINT ME THROUGH THE HOURS OF THE DAY!

However, I have another Cloud of Witnesses that bless me throughout the day.  These are my Sisters, my praying community, who meet me in chapel, in the dining room, in the recreation room, in the garden, in various places of work, Ora et Labora -- work and pray!  (and PLAY)  Our hands are sacramental; they are extensions of our hearts.

I have begun to watch the hands of my Sisters and sometimes I imagine their faces and hands in the stained-glass windows.  Here is my flesh and blood CLOUD OF WITNESSES whose fidelity to the monastic way of life inspire me, as together we listen with the ear of the heart.  We listen each day to the call that won't go away: the call to seek God in ordinary life.

You may wish to go back to my last week's post and bless your own hands as you continue this day of service to your family and to humankind. Remember: your hands are an extension of your heart. Everything you touch can blossom with love.