Yes, the daily is still with us, but it is not so daily now. It is unique and marvelous.
Of course we still get up in the morning, attend Morning Prayer, breakfast, get off to work, come home, attend to other responsiblities at the monastery, attend Evening Prayer, go to dinner, and end the day with whatever activities are on for that evening.
But, this week the daily has taken on a special "movement" in the spring/summer "symphony"...the calla lilies have bloomed.
Beauty is everywhere, which I'm sure is no news to you!
This week I found it in our gardens (thank you to my friend, Charlotte)
and along a seam between the grass and one of our asphalt roads.
I hope you're having enough of a combination of sunshine and rain to make your grounds beautiful, too. Our guests, and there are quite the number in the summer, enjoy our land so much. And we enjoy meeting them, too!
If you read the last post you know that we were on retreat last week and I can "report" that it was a very fine week. The weather cooperated so there were lots of opportunitites to be outdoors.
I did, however, do a 180 the second day. I decided to change the book I was reading. I went to Ilia Delio's The Emergent Christ which is quite the challenge, but full of great "food for thought."
The first chapter attempts to get readers on the same page as she: understanding the latest science and theology of evolution/the universe, especially from a spiritual perspective. I taught high school physics for 20-some years and I admit that it was a stretch for me to stay with the vocabulary, both theologically and from the quantum world. From chapter 2 on it got simplier and she, probably on purpose, repeats in various ways, her message, using different examples and wording...as any good teacher does, trying to find THE way that each student will understand a concept.
The final chapter on God is her culmination of the ideas and how the concept of god fits in. Very fine.
If you try it, don't be discouraged....take it in small bites and when you get spinning, stop and take a break! It'll be better the next time you pick it up.
Retreat week brings more time with nature as we all walk around the grounds and down to Glinodo and the lake much more than usual.
This scene we will not see, however, as the photo was taken10 days ago or so and since then they have grown and grown and changed and changed and are now gone! What a fun time watching them, half-hidden at the bottom of a bush in one of our gardens.
During retreat this year I've decided to go back and re-read a book from one of my favorite writers, Cistercian Michael Casey from Tarrawarra Abbey in Australia. He is a retreat leader and lecturer all over the world, on spirituality, especially monastic life, and has even been to our place.
Here is an excerpt from his book, Stranger to the City, that I'll be browsing through this week.
"Visitors occasionally remark on the sacredness that pervades a monastsery, how it evokes in them a spiritual awareness that is normally latent. In the different ambiance conversions occur, not because of anything that was said or heard, but simply because in stepping outside their familiar world, they are confronted with a different side of themselves. Like travelers in a foreign country they find themselves responding to events in a way that would surprise those who know them at home. For many today, especially those who are unchurched or impatient with institutionalized religion, a monastery can become thier spiritual home."
