The Celtic Monk Musings

With the Fourth of July right around the corner, my thoughts turn to this national holiday marked by hot dogs, cook outs, fireworks and lasagna. Lasagne? Well yes.

Several times durng my childhood my family made their way to East St. Louis, Illinois, where we would spend the holiday weekend with friends, the Sperry’s. Often, their daughter Denise (who was my age) and I would walk into town or make our way to the river’s edge where we’d sit talking while throwing stones into the water. All the while back at the house chairs and tables would be hauled outside for the crowd who’d come for supper. There were bottles of pop in an avalanche of ice which filled a galvanized tub in the backyard. Snacks of chips-n-dip and watermelon abounded as we awaited the slow-cooked lasagne for which Mrs. Sperry(Willie)was famous. It seemed that every year more and more folks found their way to that backyard and the lasagne!

After much laughter and too much food everyone chipped in to get it all cleaned up. We were like a stream of worker ants–from the backyard into the house–so that we could leave for the drum and bugle corps competition that would culminate in a huge fireworks display. The competitors kept marching and fifing as the sun went down and the lights of the stadium came up at such a refined cadence that we hardly realized it was getting dark. The winning corps would celebrate on the field, breaking ranks and hugging one another(this was way before high-5’s became the celebration of choice). Then the fireworks would begin!

I have no idea how many times we made this trek to East St. Louis. Because of the distance, it had to be only those years when the holiday fell making a long weekend.

I don’t know if my parents intenionally tried to create this memory or not. But anything we do with our children or grandchildren, nieces, nephews or young friends repeatedly becomes just that, a memory. What memories are you creating as legacy? Where are the places you go… the foods you eat… the sights, sounds and smells being etched into the minds and hearts of the little ones around you? Is it important to you to make memories?

Let me re-state that: It is important to make memories. Memories can ground us and give us a sense of who we are and what’s important. Memories reveal the things that were important to our parents and grandparents, maybe even great grandparents. Memories are formative … even lasagne memories.

No Fourth of July ever passes that I don’t think about the uniformed drum and bugle corps, the fireworks, and Willie’s lasagne. What memories of the 4th do you have? What do those memories mean to you–or tell you about yourself? What memories will you make this year? I think I’ll make some lasagne. BLESSINGS AND JOY, THE CELTIC MONK

I found the following quote this week and though I’ve already posted it to my Facebook page to share, it continues to haunt me (in a good way).

“In this world, the emerging church needs cybermonks to act as spiritual guides. They blog their stories with image, narrative, and experience. They design websites to provide spiritual resources online. This is not a modern ‘come to us because we have a great worship service…’ it’s a postmodern ‘here are our spiritual resources, feel free to try-before-you-buy.’ The cybermonk is a new missionary calling.”

So much of what I’ve done as THE CELTIC MONK, PEACE RIVER SPIRITUALITY CENTER, and now PRESBYDICTINES and BENEDICTERIANS is just that; a calling to live out the much I’ve been given outside the confines of brick and mortar–most noticably absent, a steeple.

In my blogs I open my spiritual experience warts and all for others to ponder or to use as a mirror. PRSC has been home to a weekly meditation group and compline prayer since August of 2009 in addition to several book groups and the welcome space for spiritual direction visits, and individual retreats. P & D (on Facebook) is where I am currently sharing daily snippets from the Rule of Benedict, which in itself is one of my daily disciplines. Then there are growing areas, like the Twelve Week Introduction to Meditation which folks have signed up for–where installments of teaching and encouragement are delivered to your inbox periodically to help establish (or re-establish) a habit of meditation.

These are all things that in one way or other I did while on a church staff; telling my story in narrative and images in sermons, beginning or participating in a prayer ministry and pastoral care, telling folks about my spritual practices and offering to teach them how to begin. It’s just that now I do these things most often via the internet, www, and skype(or in the living room of PRSC).

The haunting part in putting all this together is recognizing my Call in these many things. The very things that make up the ministry that I’m trying to launch are the things that called me into ministry over 20 years ago. The very things that I offer now through presence and cyberspace, are those things that I offered in some form to each of the congregations I pastored.

This week as I read and re-read the quote above it kept coming back to me as something familiar. I realize now that it came back to me as an echo of God. All that I’m doing is not so new… it’s who I was created to be–and what God created me to do. This New Missionary Calling as The Celtic Cyber-Monk…is merely the same calling in a new vehicle.

What are the recurring themes in your life? What are you invited to do today, that you did 10, 20 or 30 or more years ago? Do you believe those invitations or circumstances to be coincidences? If you pause with them for a moment, perhaps you’ll learn as I did, that they are really the echo of God’s call on your life from long, long ago.

I’m encouraged by the grace of this new insight. I hope as you spend some time in the weeks ahead listening for the echo of God’s call on your life, that you’ll be encouraged too; encouraged to continue where God has and is still calling you. BLESSINGS AND JOY, THE CELTIC MONK

P.S. I included the photo of the whale, since she reminds me that creatures can travel great distances navigating storms and negotiating relationships with the echo as their only communication tool. 🙂

Since the 25th of April, I’ve flown 7,200 miles and spent 20 nights sleeping somewhere other than my own bed. I had great conversations with old friends, saw my grand-daughter dance in her first ballet recital, read Scripture in my niece’s wedding, attended a 50th wedding anniversary party of an aunt and uncle, saw another niece’s firstborn, and visited with many relatives who I haven’t seen for 20 or more years.

While the date for each of these events was out of my control, I did choose to attend each and every one. I knew as I made my airline reservations last January that the schedule would be grueling. I under-estimated the necessary ‘recovery time’ in between each opportunity. Oh my, I’m not 25 anymore!

Now I know this never happens to you, but I’ve been home for almost 48 hours and I’m just now beginning to catch up to myself, to catch a glimpse of the me I know best; the self I live with 24/7; the self that dearly wanted to go to all those places and do all those things, but who did not count the costs; the self who would like nothing better right now than to sleep for the next 10 days…

This is not the first time that really good things like those delineated above have drawn me away from what is necessary and life-giving to my very being. Nor is it the first time I’ve allowed the pace of life to out-pace what is ultimetely in my best interest. Come on, you know what I’m talking about.

I knew that things were askew within, when on the last leg of my last flight home I found a modicum of peace sitting at a busy airport waiting for my plane. Then, that things within me were awry was confirmed when the lady next to me on the plane said she’d like to come to church…and I told her to come the next week because it would be better!

So how do we learn the discipline of making choices? Who teaches us the spiritual practice of discernment~of deciding what is necessary and what is not~or the steps to choosing what is beneficial to us rather than harmful? And perhaps even more importantly, are there folks that we allow to speak into our lives, to hold us accountable, or who we allow to ask the hard questions?

I’ve begun catching up to my spirit, if only insofar as recognizing that we parted company somewhere on that third trip in five weeks. I’m writing this blog tonight as a ‘note to self’ that being too busy even with good things is detrimental to my well being ~ physical and spiritual.

So now my spirit and I are going to spend some quality time together; a little reading, a little silence, a little manual labor to get my mind, soul and body back in sync. My hope is that The Spirit will use this record of my folly to keep someone else from stumbling along this path. We don’t all have to make the same mistakes to learn a better way.

My fourth grade teacher used to often say: “A word to the wise” which she taught her students was a que for the class to respond: “is sufficient” So I leave you with this: “A word to the wise…” PEACE AND JOY TO YOU, THE CELTIC MONK

Arrived yesterday at the Humphries Terminaal, MSP airport. Friend/colleague John was on the ground and had rented a car… Peggy and John V would soon be landing then we’d together make our way the 75 miles west to St. Johns Abbey/University/ Guest House. It’s a once a year reunion for us (the week after Easter) when sometimes up to nine of us gather to share the continuing stories of our lives and ministries since being ordained (’93-’94)

This year it’s a double-reunion for me as I’m able to make an extra trip up to St. John’s– where in early July I’ll take my final vows as a Benedictine Oblate. But today, for the first time it feels as though my two communities…are merging. Gathered with these folks in this location – I’m able to talk about being “Presby-dictine” a called, ordained Presbyterian clergywoman and a Benedictine Oblate learning to incorporate the Rule of Benedict into my everyday life. I am sharing the ways in which this place and these people [Benedictines] speak to me… and why I have chosen the unusual (not unheard of) path of seeking to become affiliated with a Benedictine community while maintaining my ordination firmly.

Already this time feels integrative to me. A time of making whole what are two different parts of my journey. Making whole… making holy. It’s not always easy for me to explain to members of the frozen chosen why this extra-denominational relationship is important. Especially when some Presbyterians find such a thing akin to fraternizing with the enemy. “Didn’t we leave that all behind us in the Reformation?”

You must remember that I came from Catholic roots in my family of origin. Only after coasting as an Easter and Christimas Catholic for several years in my late teens and 20’s did I make the break quite pointedly by being re-baptized as an adult in an evangelical church, before finding the Presbyterian Church. After that, it still took decades for me begin to wonder, if I’d not thrown out the ‘baby with the bathwater’ … to wonder if there weren’t some things from the faith tradition of my youth that spoke deeply to my soul still. And more than wonder–to beging to look for that which I experienced as missing.

So here I am in these decidely Catholic environs having invited my favorite Presbyterians to retreat here with me and the symbolism of it all, when being here in this place with these folks begins to feel as though it is crashing in and the spiritual experience which I’ve only till now carried inside of me–uniting my Presbyterian and Benedictine paths becomes more than words and ideas within me. The hope that integration of these two traditions can become peaceably one on my journey IS REAL as my friends have willingly traveled here from the places and communities which they serve and do ministry.

I only now realize how important to me this integration process is; and I realize it’s more really than some kind of blending of traditions, it’s incarnational. It’s these two spiritual identities being born in me and my being able to live them and believe them and hold them in tension in my life and ministry in a way that is whole and holy; then to offer the best of each–and there is much good in each–to others in ways that are life giving and soul satisfying to them as well. A lot of learning in the first 24 hours here.

You may be someone who struggles with the idea of acceptance, respect or support for a faith tradition that contradicts some of what you believe or that your church or denomination teaches. Maybe you had a bad experience with someone from another faith group and have never recovered from it. My intent is not to offend your religious sensibilities. Yet there must be a way, as a starting point, for those of us who call ourselves Christians to break through some of the divisions and ugliness that has marred our witness and testimony these 2,000 years and to take seriously Jesus’ prayer: Father, make them one, as You and I are one.

As a starting point it might be good to consider those “other” Christians with whom we disagree(whoever they are for you) and to find some piece of their theology or spiritual practice that you can embrace. Make the effort. Do some online investigating of their tradition. Open the dialogue. It won’t hurt. (maybe our pride) In some ways, that’s exactly what I’m doing. But in my reality its more of a divine design, rather than a choice. This ecumenical healing that I’m asking you to consider as an option–is incarnate in me–not a choice–a calling. It resides in the very fabric of who I am body, mind and spirit.

Nothing of eternal significance would be lost if all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, would choose to honor one another, embrace one another, differences and all. In fact, we might even put something of eternal significance in motion. To God be the Glory. BLESSINGS AND JOY FROM ST. JOHN’S ABBEY ~ THE CELTIC MONK

For the past year-and-a-half, I’ve led a meditation group each Tuesday evening at Peace River Spirituality Center. We gather and listen to a short homily received electronically from the World Community of Christian Meditation. Next we spend 30 minutes together in silence. We close each evening with Compline,the same order of service prayed each night at The Abbey of Gethsemani. Our whole evening is just over an hour — my favorite hour of the week.

In the fall, I was able to offer a six week class on meditation at First Presbyterian Church of Naples. Because folks there had a wide-spread of experience in meditation, we began with half an hour of teaching which I prepared to bring us to some common understandings of meditation as Christian prayer. It was there, in the give and take of the teaching time, that someone first asked me if I ever use words to pray. A very fair question.

Surely I write prayers for liturgy most weeks — the prayer of adoration to begin the service, a prayer of confession we’ll offer in unison, words of assurance and the prayers of the people; the benediction is prayer as well. But these are corporate prayers. But when I take personal time apart for prayer, just as during Tuesday’s group, my prayers have become prayers of silent presence.

For me silent prayer is a two-step of faith. My prayer without words acknowledges in a profound way that God already knows — so it’s a prayer of trust. But it’s also a prayer submission acknowledging that God’s way in my life is better than any way I might try to negotiate, maneuver or suggest. Silent prayers keep me from trying to yank the control of life from God’s hands. Trust and submission.

Trust and submission are not words common to our culture, so praying this way is counter-intuitive to much of who we’ve become. Over the past year there have been times when I’ve wondered if the silent path was enough even as I persisted in it. (Or perhaps compelled is a better word — I’ve felt compelled into the very real presence of God through these times of silence).

The Rule of Benedict calls these small struggles or movements of spirit that lead us on a new path the conversion of life. While acknowledging an initial conversion into the Christian life, Benedict calls his followers to seek continual conversion day-by-day even moment-by-moment. It’s the accumulaiton of these moments Benedict writes, in which spiritual transformation occurs.

But if all I do is sit in silence before God, no words, no images, no wants, no laundry list… how do I know if it’s working, or if I’m simply fooling myself? Could this be a grand pious delusion, and not faithful prayer at all? I’ve wondered those very things. There have been moments when I’ve wondered if I should be leading folks to consider silence as their prayer.

And then weeks such as this one happen, when God answers my prayers that were without words. As situations and circumstances unfolded around me–I knew it was God’s hand working out the deepest desires of my heart. I only slowly put together that prayer happened not in my words of petition, but in the silence of my obedience. And now I was watching God answer in my life and in the lives of those around me–prayers prayed without words. It’s an odd and a wonderful experience to realize “that’s an answer to prayer” – when the prayer was never formed in my mind or on my lips — only in silent trust and submission to the One who loves me.

I’ll be the first to admit that silent meditation is not everyone’s cup of tea! Even with a desire to pray this way, sometimes it’s a struggle. I’ve depended on words for so long [see GOSPEL OF JOHN DEVOTIONAL on my website] and in hoping to convince God of how things should turn out. But my two-step of trust and submission to His will is making subtle changes in so many areas of my life. And I have been graced with the courage to continue on this silent path.

How’s your prayer life? If you’d like to try a different way, drop me an email. I’d be happy to share how you might begin on the silent journey. BLESSINGS AND JOY! THE CELTIC MONK

My husband is a pharmacist. He’s practiced long enough that he can look at most pills and within a few seconds tell you what it is, the strengths its available in, what its used for and many known side effects.

He also is diligent about his continuing education and has, over the years, picked up on the nuances of the ‘name brand’ vs ‘generic’ battles. He fills many of our personal prescriptions with generics. For only a very few drugs does he go the extra mile to fill with name brands.

While making a presentation to a community group–he fielded questions about the differences between specific drugs. He knows which generics are manufactured in the same factory… only going into a different bottle at the end of the line – and which ones are perhaps made somewhere else and perhaps not as identical as they could be. It always amazes folks to hear about such things.

Yet in daily practice, he finds that some folks will pay sometimes 100% more for a name brand, rather than the generic (even those made in the same factory). Some folks have even gone so far as telling him that they’d tried the generic and it didn’t work as well… or they experienced a side effect–even though he knew they were identical. Their response was not to the medication–but to the name.

What’s in a name? It’s interesting to observe among my friends as we become “parents of grown children who give birth.” What to call us now? Grandma? Grandmother? Nana? Grammie? There are likely others, but those top the list. My mom has accepted GG in lieu of great-grandma as I’ve taken her place in the family as Grammie. As a child we called my paternal grandmother “Doody Grandma” – a word she repeated as she bounced babies on her knee. “Doody, doody, doody, doody.” Long after we were bouncing size, she was still Doody Grandma. That is until my older brother began attending the high school where she worked. He only called her Doody Grandma once and was intstructed that at school, he was to call her Katie. 🙂

What’s in a name. This July I’ll take my final vows as a Benedictine Oblate. I started down this path at first unknowingly; but in the last 10 years quite intentionally. Since 2009 I’ve been an Oblate Candidate to St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN, where I’ll make my final oblation, God willing.

The process toward becoming an Oblate is one of candidacy during which I’ve reflected on the Rule of Benedict, the vows, disciplines and practices of community members, and have written short papers for the Fr. Kwatera, Oblate Director. I’ve been in quarterly contact with Fr. Kwatera and have attended the annual Oblate retreat weeks. But even before I began the process I’d immersed myself in many Benedictine practices and rituals, because they seemed second nature to me.

As the time draws near, I notice how my ministry practice as a Presbyterian clergywoman is being influenced and shaped by my Benedictine formation. No one would ever insinuate a contemplative bent to the Reformed Tradition 😉 yet that is how I am spiritually fed and what I’m most passionate about living and sharing. Though my Presbyterian ordination is precious to me, and the Presbyerterian Church is my denomination of choice, I realize I’m practicing my faith in a way that might more accurately be described as PRESBY-DICTINE… or BENE-TERIAN. What’s in a name?

This hybrid is an accurate description of me spiritually. It’s a faithful represen-tation of both what I beleive, what is meaningful to me and how I choose to practice my spiritual life. Likely there are purists from both traditions who will cringe at my very audacity! Yet the name describes the Reformed Tradition which has brought much meaning to my theological understanding and the Benedictines, who have shared with me the contemplative tradition which feeds my soul.

As part of my final oblation at St. John’s in July, I’ll be invited to take a new name. Names of mothers and fathers in the Benedictine tradition will be among those from which I’m encouraged to choose. In preparation I’ll be reading about these pioneers of the Benedictine tradition to listen for some call into my life. If you have any ideas, I’d welcome them.

I am reminded that there is One Name, that calls into each of our lives no matter if we’re Benedictine, Lutheran, Catholic, Episcopalian or Presbyterian. One, that is the pioneer of our faith. One Name we stand under from the moment of our Baptism that forms us and calls us and seeks to shape our lives. And as we consider all the naming opportunites of our lives,One who sacrificed all, that we might live. My hope and prayer as we consider this cacophany of names, is that we might be brought to a moment of refelction and recollection of the One who’s called us as His own. May we seek to live fully into being His disciple. JOY AND PEACE TO YOU THIS LORD’S DAY. THE CELTIC MONK

For Lent of 2010, my discipline was to rise early in the morning and make my way through the Gospel of John. My purpose was two fold as I hoped it would be both a spiritual practice, and that what I’d commit to paper would become a devotional on the Gospel of John that others could use.

During the past year, my faithful friend Connie, took my early morning scribble notes and entered them into the computer. I went back over the material to add and edit — format and add prayers. Then it was off to ‘real’ editing. It’s been a labor of love on so many levels. But how to publish it – that became the question.

As time became short, electronic publishing seemed the best option. So below, please find the reading for today. If you’d like to get a full week of daily readings and reflections, you can go to the link for the Peace River Spirituality website: If you click on THE GOSPEL OF JOHN on the prayer page, seven daily readings in Word format will open.

So that I don’t deluge anyone with email they don’t want — each week, I’ll blog just one daily entry and give the link for the next seven days. I’ll also be posting a link on Facebook for the following weeks worth of readings. Small steps and small doses.

Perhaps that’s a good model for the season of Lent; to take small faithful steps in small doses; giving God a bit more of our time or talent day by day for His glory. If you haven’t already chosen a devotional or something to help you deepen your awareness of this time leading up to Holy Week and Easter… I invite you to participate with us in THE GOSPEL OF JOHN according to the celtic monk. Here’s the first installment.

Thursday, March 10th John 1:6-14
6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

I love words. I love reading them, writing them, thinking of how to string them together, even editing them when I get it all wrong. I’m more than fascinated, perhaps mesmerized, by the concept of a Living Word. A Word that holds so much meaning, that it can’t be limited or contoured to fit; a Word that is always perfect in season and out; leading, guiding, directing—correcting the wayward, lighting the path for those in darkness. There is but One Word that will not lead astray, never coerce. There is but One Living Word simple, pure and stark and inviting. It is the Word that came into being by the will of God and whose other Name is Jesus.

Prayer: Living Word, live in me today so that others may read my life and be led to You.

May God bless each small step of your journey! PEACE AND JOY, THE CELTIC MONK