Prayers

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SACRED SPACE & BARE TREES
By Robin Veronesi

For many years I scarcely noticed the trees in winter. They appeared dull and ugly.

Recently, I find myself drawn to their bare beauty. Stripped of all foliage, the trees stand exposed, transparent, reaching skyward. Arresting in their simplicity.

Now, don’t misunderstand, I’m looking forward to spring as much as everyone else. But while there is still a little bit of winter to endure, why not benefit from what this season has to teach us?

Winter weather drives us indoors. Life is a bit slower this time of year. Perhaps what we refer to as “cabin fever” is merely withdrawal from a more insidious condition in the world today.

Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB, calls this condition “hurry sickness,” in her book Song of the Seed. I’ll demonstrate her point this way:

IfItypewithoutspacesyou’llnoticethissentenceishardtoread.

Just as the spaces in between words make them easier to understand, “It is the spaces in between that help us understand life. But, you see, some of us keep forgetting to press the space bar,” says Sr. Wiederkehr, who lives at St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith, Ark.

The symptoms of hurry sickness are spiritual as well as physical. “The fact is that it is our souls, not our bodies, that are tired,” says Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, in Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. She lives at Mt. St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Penn.

The antidote to hurry sickness is sanctuary, which means “sacred space.” Sr. Chittister, Sr. Wiederkehr and others live by the Rule of St. Benedict, a 6th century Abbot of Monte Cassino in Italy. Rule in this sense is not a set of laws, but rather a way of life. This way of life is needed more than ever in our high-tech, fast-paced world.

In fact, BBC TV aired a series called The Monastery in 2005. For 40 days and nights, TV cameras recorded five ordinary men who came to live the monastic life at the Worth Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Sussex, England. The show attracted 3 million viewers and hundreds of people came on retreat to the abbey after the show aired.

Based on the life-changing experiences of the men on the TV show, Fr. Christopher Jamison, Abbot of Worth, wrote Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life.


The first step toward creating sanctuary, according to St. Benedict, is silence. “The ability to sit still, in silence, with nothing else except the silence really does frighten many people, and rightly so,” says Abbot Jamison. “When they spend time in solitude and silence, people inevitably have to wrestle with their own demons.”

Try it, just for five minutes – no television, no iPod, no book, no computer, no cell phone. On the website www.findingsanctuary.org, Abbot Jamison provides these tips to keep your mind focused:

1. Find a quiet place free from distraction

2. Sit with your limbs uncrossed and with a straight back, hands in your lap

3. Simply breathe at regular speed but breathe deeply and relax

4. Close your eyes and think of a beautiful scene from the natural world

5. Take a simple phrase and repeat it continuously in time with your breathing

He suggests using one of following traditional prayers as the simple phrase to repeat:

• Come and illumine my darkness
• Be still and know that I am God
• God be in my head and in my understanding
• Come Holy Spirit and inflame my heart
• Come Lord Jesus

The monastic practice of lectio divina (LEX-see-o dee-VEE-nah), weds silence and meditation with scripture. Lectio divina means “divine reading.” The website www.laybenedictines.org and Wiederkehr’s book Song of the Seed provide guidance on this form of prayer.

“Benedict and the first monks were lay people. His wisdom is again being discovered by lay people today, inspiring us to root our lives in God, listen with openness to his Word, and recognize our calling to serve one another in love,” say the Lay Benedictines’ on their website.
“And so Benedict calls all of us to mindfulness. No life is to be so busy that there is no time to take stock of it. No day is to be so full of business that the gospel dare not intrude. No schedule is to be so tight that there is no room for reflection on whether what is being done is worth doing at all,” says Sr. Chittister.

May we have the courage to expose our stripped down souls, bare as the winter trees, to silence. In stillness, reaching toward God, we become the embodiment of sacred space.


Sunrise

Hard it is, in this wintertime
to rise early and grasp first light’s color.
Traversing fields and fence-rows
to achieve the scene,
a panoramic view reveals reward.
See the branches reaching toward the effort
with a wave of welcome,
the brightness of this day
a gift to receive and keep.

from Well Seasoned Living: Winter
A Guided Journal for Increasing Your Enjoyment of Everyday Life by Vicki Kessler

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