Judith Valente's Blog: Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter - Posts Tagged "psalms"

I write today from the Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Mexico, secluded beneath lush green mountains alongside the Pecos River. For the past few days, I’ve enjoyed the privilege of leading a retreat for the monastery’s lay associates. Surrounded by the Pecos Mountains and rolling prairie of the high desert, filled with pinon, cherry, and apricot trees, it is easy to feel yourself an infinitesimal part of a far greater narrative. Yesterday at morning prayer, the words of Psalm 8 seemed particularly appropriate:
When I see the heavens, the work of your fingers
The moon and the stars which you arranged
What are we humans that you should keep us in mind
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic your name through all the earth …

Here at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the main sounds at night are those made by the crickets, a few hooting owls, or the lone wail of a coyote in the distance. People come from all over the country to this lovely adobe monastery seeking a respite from the chaos of everyday life. As a recovering workaholic myself, I understand why so many of us find it hard to go somewhere to simply rest and recharge, and engage in what my Italian ancestors called la dolce fa niente, the sweet do-nothing.

Thomas Merton once described the contemplative life as being “fully active, fully aware, and fully alive.” As Americans, we get the fully active part. We’re not so adept at being fully aware or fully alive. The Europeans have us beat on that. Most Europeans will be returning home from taking their four-week annual vacation during August. By contrast, only about 19 percent of Americans take their full measure of vacation time – usually just a week or two for most workers. On average, Americans work about 1,835 each year, more hours than in 1977 when there was far less automation. Workaholism is a particularly American disease.

In his Rule for monastics, St. Benedict set down a schedule that divided the day equally between prayer, work, study and rest. He understood that leisure is essential. I would go so far as to say leisure is holy.

Even though my time at Our Lady of Guadalupe was a kind of “working respite,” I will return home today refreshed and relaxed, with a greater appreciation for the things that most sustain me: prayer and quiet reflection, and time with the people I love. Is there a place like the abbey where you, too, can come away for a while and rest? If you haven’t already taken your full vacation, is it something you can begin planning today?

Sometimes it’s important to take the wise counsel of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland: Don’t just do something, stand there.

I think I just discovered the most peaceful place in America. It is a monastery tucked within the rolling hills of northwest Missouri. Here, the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration make their home. The only sound in the open field where the monastery stands is the whir of wind through trees, and an occasional thrum of a cricket. Stepping inside the monastery offers a profound encounter with silence. The sign, in colored glass, that greets visitors says, “Peace.”

I stopped in Clyde, Missouri, en route to guiding a retreat at Conception Abbey, a men’s Benedictine monastery just down the road. The visit couldn’t have come at a better time. Throughout the six-hour drive from my home in Illinois to Missouri, I listened to NPR on the car radio, feeling increasing despair. A “mystery” neurological disease has been attacking children. It was revealed that Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s fingers had been chopped off during the torture he endured before his death. How better to prevent a journalist from writing negative stories?

Then there was the caravan of families with children fleeing the violence in central America marching toward our southern border to seek asylum, along with the U.S. President’s threats amid cheering crowds to call out the Army to stop them.
(All of this talk about protecting the sovereignty of the U.S. is interesting since we snatched the state of Texas from Mexico and showed no respect for Indian tribal boundaries in our country’s early drive westward. But hey, that’s history, this is now).

I prayed at noon with the sisters in their magnificent chapel filled with ornate wooden prayer stalls, vibrant mosaics and life-size statues. (If this were Europe, busloads of tourists would be arriving daily to see the admire the beautiful architecture and art work in this chapel, as well as the Basilica at Conception Abbey down the road). The sisters support themselves by making communion hosts (including a gluten-free host they patented), as well as handmade soaps, balms and lotions, and a variety of artifacts. But make no mistake: prayer is their main work.

Sitting beside the sisters, listening to them sing the words of the Psalms at Mid-day Prayer, I recalled something the spiritual writer Thomas Merton wrote in his journal after his first visit to the Abbey of Gethsemani, “Now I know what has been holding the world together and keeping it from cracking into pieces. It is the prayers of this monastery and others.”

My friend Brother Paul Quenon of Gethsemani Abbey recently published a memoir of his 60-plus years in monastic life. Its subtitle is, “In Praise of the Useless Life.” It’s easy to dismiss monastic life as a hopeless throwback to the past. And yes, by the world’s standards dedicating one’s life to prayer can seem like a useless, even lazy endeavor compared to building bridges, developing a new treatment for cancer, educating the young, or piloting a rocket to the moon.

I applaud the sisters at Clyde and other monastics for their chosen work: sending prayer into the cosmos for our increasingly fragmented world. In previous times, the connotation of being a sister of “perpetual adoration” meant someone from the monastery was present at all hours of the day to pray before the Blessed Sacrament – the Eucharist -- which Catholics believe represents the presence of Christ. I was impressed by something Sister Dawn Annette Mills, the general prioress of the Clyde monastery, said about how the sisters now interpret “perpetual adoration.”

It is not just a 24-hour prayer program, she said, but a way of life. “Each sister is called to be a perpetual adorer … to recognize Christ present in every moment of every day, in each encounter and experience. In that awareness, every moment becomes an experience of adoring perpetually the Christ that is before us.”

I left the sisters in Clyde with renewed hope. Hope that good is at work even in these stressful times. Can each of us this week become “a perpetual adorer,” recognizing Christ in every moment, encounter and experience?