Today is a retreat day. It is not yet dawn, and as I sit with darkness all around, I hear the rain. I am grateful that the house is warm and that I do not have to drive today. However, I know many others are not warm, and many others must drive, and I pray for their well being. I plan to cook, do some housekeeping, maybe wrap some presents, and have dinner with friends. At this time of year and at this time of my life, these simple acts seem just a little more sacred.
As I continue my journey to become a Benedictine oblate, I am coming to believe that this world is a monastery - a place where we come to profess and live out our vows. Oblation means offering and here in the monastery of the world, we each bring ourselves and whatever gifts we have been given. Of course, at the end of this tumultuous year, I cannot fool myself into thinking everyone is aware of the sacredness of this life and time. Our temple-world may become even more desecrated in 2017. Or perhaps as the world lights candles over the next few days and nights, the light will dawn in enough hearts so that the trend towards destruction will slow. Yesterday, I reminded the small group that gathered with me that God has faith in us. Lola, who is recovering from an illness and time in rehab, told me that she will remember that faith. That is the faith that Jesus had - the faith that comes from God that allows us to face what we need to face and be transformed by it. That is the faith that can move mountains and even a human heart. That is the faith that gives a frail elder just enough stamina to accept my invitation to walk with me down the hall, celebrate communion once more, and hear the good news that she is loved.
Each age has its own tasks. For most of us now, our monasteries have no walls except the silence our meditation gathers to the center of our lives, and this is enough - it is more than enough. Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things: amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely, knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.
The Light Inside the Dark - Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life by John Tarrant as found in The Almanac for the Soul, Marv and Nancy Hiles
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