The Fast...

Without music
I feel overwhelmed -
like thirsty grass
yielding
to merciless August heat.
The absence of strings and voices
Reveals some empty place
inside me -
a dark, dank crawl space
where challenging questions
lie in wait.
If I could just return
to the rushing, mystical beauty
of music
I would not have to “face the music”
in my restless soul.

Vicki Ix, OSB
Lent, 2012

In the days before disappointment...

I wish I could remember my first sin – the first conscious awareness that my freedom could be misused and create blocks to the intimacy I shared with GOD. I guess it doesn’t really matter because when I made my first “confession” in second grade, I remember very clearly I had a list! Some kids were nervous about not having enough sins and asked to borrow a few as we waited on line. I had plenty to share! I was a scrupulous little kid – always sorry for something.

I believe there was a time before I disappointed God – a state of wholeness undefiled by guilt like that enjoyed by Adam and Eve before their “fall". As they hid from God in that garden, overwhelmed by shame, I know that the sight of me - utterly devoid of illusion, artifice, and rationalization -cannot be sustained for longer than it takes to do an examination of conscience. To be seen as God sees me would be too overwhelming. I might have to shift that beatific gaze with some diversionary tactics or even suggest that it’s all God’s fault anyway for making me so selfish and stubborn. I might also have to accept that I am loved so deeply that none of my tragic flaws will cause us to really part company. I might just have to embrace the God who is in this with me until we arrive back at that place we started out – that garden where we walked together in the days before disappointment, in the hour called delight.

Blessings and Lenten love,

- Sister Vicki

The gift of sleep...

When I was little I used to wonder why God created day and night. Usually, that question would rise to the surface at this time of year when the days are long, but never quite long enough. Long after supper, my brother and I would still be outside running barefoot in the grass. As the light slowly faded, we’d chase fireflies just becoming visible and hope that my mother wouldn’t look at the clock. It seemed all wrong to go to bed as the light was still fading. Days like that should never end.

As children we resist sleep. When we’re grown up, we wonder why we ever railed against the rest we needed so badly. Sleep becomes a salvation – a resting place where we lay our burdens down for the night. The days are still long now - long with work, worry and anxiety. When evening comes, sometimes it’s all we can do to keep our eyes open until our head hits the pillow. We exhaust ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually.

Some of us want to sleep but can't or our sleep is disturbed. Sleeping "aids" are prescribed more than ever for those whose thoughts feel unrelenting. We are sold the product of the "perfect night's sleep" if we buy the right mattress system. Sleep disorders - diagnosed through a "study" - reveal that an alarming number of adults have been deprived of healthy sleep for years! Many have been functioning at full tilt while inwardly battling a profound and consistent exhaustion. Little or no REM sleep has physiological consequences. Now, thanks to good diagnostic tools and portable technologies, these empty sleepers can know true rest - deep sleep that reconstitutes body and soul.

Still...we long for the sleep of childhood. We long to be so physically tired that thoughts, worries and regrets have no room to settle. We long - somewhere deep inside - for our mother's soft bedtime voice, for her arms to rock us, her lips to gently kiss forehead or face. This love - though physically distant - remains real through grace. Our last prayer at night can summon its power. "You give my heart more joy than all their grain and wine. I sleep secure at night, you keep me in your care (Psalm 4:8-9)." We need to pray for peace, for good rest, for abiding love though the darkness of night.

God knew well the burdens of our humanity long before that first sunset and longed even then to restore our weary hearts. God placed hope into the blueprint of the cosmos with that first morning. And with each morning God’s mercies are new. This God who never “sleeps nor slumbers”, cradles us in loving arms through the night, and wakes us to a new day fresh with the dew of possibility – a day in which to live and love again – another day to praise God’s holy name for the steadfast love that never ceases to renew the face of the earth.

Blessings and love to you,

- Sister Vicki

Saturday Morning Prayer,1970

It was you I heard that morning -
a bird singing early
in the days between spring rain

and summer heat.
I wanted to rise with the sun,
smell the sweetness of the morning,
walk with you

in the dew-soaked grasses.
I wanted to dig in the soil,
scatter seed,
pat the earth with the palm of my hand
and share in the mystery of your life.
But I was a child in nightclothes
kicking off the blanket,
stretching in wonder
at the gift

of a brand new day.

Vicki Ix, OSB

"In the name of the Farmer..."

Today, the Feast of the Presentation, the universal Church celebrates “consecrated life.” [It will be explicitly named in prayer this Sunday.] Implicit is the lifting up of religious life in its many forms: apostolic, cloistered, monastic [which for us means contemplation and action]. I am usually eager to wave the vocation “flag” on this day and link the offering of so many lives to GOD with the offering of Jesus at the temple. Perhaps it is age, wisdom or just a more earthy sense of the mystery of vocation, but I am someplace else today. I am thinking that GOD calls every woman and man to fullness of life in Christ. By baptism our journey is inextricably linked to his. Though dormant throughout much of life, the grace of our baptism is always with us - one reason I believe infant baptism to be so important. This grace lies fallow like a seed in the cold ground awaiting the warmth of the sun. Then, as we encounter the living GOD somewhere in our journey – in human love, in the depths of grief or the beauty of Earth – the seed splits open and we are on our way. [One lovely thing about seeds is that they know exactly what to do after that. Grace knows, too. Grace is the love that carries us forward as we learn to listen to the Word.] Once the process kicks in, it remains a matter of adequate water and the passing of time. We are the ones who have to water the seed of faith in us. We need to embrace Scripture in some way, make time to be with GOD as we do with other important relationships, and we need to attach our solitary selves to a community of believers. It’s either very simple or, at times, a serious struggle to live the God-life. But because we have consecrated our lives to GOD, GOD will show us the way. So today, when I should be coming out with catchy vocation slogans, I am focused on the great mystery of GOD’s call in every life – the beauty and wonder of it. And, I am praying for every person who has not yet felt the sun’s rays through the soil of human life. The sun is always there. And GOD, the farmer, will not rest until we all begin to sprout shoots and bear good fruit. The harvest is too important. It is the very reign of GOD in every human heart.

Blessings and love to you all…
- Sister Vicki

Living now what is to come...

The second reading today caught my heart – my imagination. St. Paul is writing to the people of Corinth but his passion around the Second Coming feels very specific to our monastic life.

I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out.
From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those weeping as not weeping,
those rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those buying as not owning,
those using the world as not using it fully.
For the world in its present form is passing away.

We who follow the Rule of Benedict do believe that the world is “passing away.” God’s reign, God’s kingdom is breaking through. Because we want to live ready for his coming, we don't take a marriage partner. We embrace celibate loving – love that is for all. Celibacy frees us to focus on the “bigger picture” of salvation and point to the love that is more than any human expression in time. Because we believe that Christ comes now - in each day, in each moment, in each breath – we practice eternal peace. We accept what is – the joy, the pain, the beauty, wonder and mystery of the human heart – and we trust that it all belongs in our personal or collective story. Because our real treasure is the love of Christ, we hold everything here in common. No thing must preoccupy us – tempt us from the singular joy of believing we are precious.

We love the world in all its fractured, terrible beauty but we recognize that it is not our true home. We have set our sights on Zion – the New Jerusalem – the beauty of God’s face. Until we get there, we keep on – together. We gather to pray, to eat, and to share the everyday sweetness of life lived in the Presence. We live aware of grace - how God’s love shapes us gently but firmly into something more wonderful than the sum of our parts. We live with urgency – Christ is here among us. We can let the world, as we have each known it, "pass away." No longer defined by what we did there, we delight in what we are becoming here – the Body of Christ. Hands, hearts, eyes of love for the world – we pray to be a sign that God is near, God cares, God comes and God is making all things new.

Blessing and love to you all...

- Sister Vicki

Your Kingdom coming...

There are moments here when the reign of God seems to burst in – shake us from the stupor of “to do” lists, worry and dis-ease and remind us that the Kingdom is, in fact, among us. Those moments are priceless. They make life really real – even for just a few moments. We had such an in-breaking here on Sunday afternoon when a gentle woman went from “stranger” to “sister”. I felt it. I saw it in the faces of my sisters gathered in our circle. I heard it in the joyful voices parting in harmony.

As I sat next to our newest member, I had the sense that this great step in her faith journey was allowing something to be perceived in ours – a taste of resurrection, a dawning of some new grace. Perhaps, as one sister said, days like this remind us all of why we came to the monastery and why we remain. I believe that to be true because days like this one confront us with the reality of God’s love for us. It’s literally right in our faces as we open the door to welcome the seeker into our midst. Maybe, it is this love – unending, enveloping and certain – that we feel when we gain a new sister. The risen Christ becomes especially tangible in the welcome of a novice - incarnate. In this presence there is deep is joy, lasting peace. This presence is the love that flows between us and among us – especially in the unbridled hope that wraps the gift of a new vocation. I felt it – felt something stirring in our hearts – what Benedict calls, “the inexpressible delight of love (RB Prologue, 49).” This is a taste of heaven here – our glimpse of what waits for us eternally - this same joy, this mysterious peace. Yes, the reign of God is begun among us. It is here – now – in the threshold places, in the beginning and end of things, in the love and the loss felt with equal measure. It is breaking through all that distracts us from loving or intends to be the true measure of our usefulness. Listen…learn…love. It is really that simple. Dear sister, child of God, welcome to your life with us in Christ.

[Read more about Sister Mary Frances at http://www.osbva.org/.]

Blessings and love to you all...

- Sister Vicki