Sunday Stuff

~ Went to my home church today.  We were honoring graduates, so I got some nice hugs. 

~ The gospel text today is the story of the "sinful" woman in Luke who weeps and kisses Jesus' feet as she anoints them with oil and wipes them with her hair.  (During Lent, I preached on the version of this story that appears in John's gospel.) Four reasons why I love my church: (1) In her introductory remarks, one of our pastors made the point that whenever Jesus interacts with a woman, something significant is going on, and since this story of his interaction with a woman is told in in all four gospels, we are talking major significance.  (2) I can characterize her remarks as "introductory" because today the sermon was a congregational group discussion rather than a pastoral homily.  (3) One of the folks who spoke up said that she thinks that Jesus and this woman must have had a previous encounter, and always wonders about that back story.  (Great sermon topic there.)(Or discussion topic.)  (4)  Instead of the usual focus on forgiveness that this story generates, our emphasis this morning was on Jesus' extension of inclusion in community. All good stuff, all hallmarks of our church.

~ One of Josh's high school teachers and his wife have recently joined our church, and so I pulled him aside to talk to tell him about Josh.  As it turned out, he knew that Josh had died, but not how.  The strangest thing: after a conversation like that, I always think: OK, all done; he'll be back tonight.

~ I am trying to create an account so that I can sign up to re-take my Exegesis exam.  The length of confirmation time is not bolstering my confidence in the PC(USA) capability for online registration.

~ I am also trying to get my passport application finished.  I realized last week that I can't just dash up to Algonquin to scatter ashes because my passport is no longer valid.

~ My hair is much shorter and browner than it was at my graduation a week ago.

~ I am going to another graduation today, that of the Jewish school at which I once taught.  In fact, I taught all of the seniors who were there then in both 8th and 9th grade, so I know them well.   There will be some screeching.  "Ms. Craig!  Ms. Craig!  Are you a rabbi yet?!"  Well, no ~ there is this little matter of YOUR language . . .       .

~ My father is quite ill.  My family's dynamics are challenging at their best, but I will probably plunge into the middle of them later this week.

~ Another good thing about my church: our summer lay preachers series.  (How I got started in the pulpit!)  A friend sent me his first sermon draft ever a few hours ago.  I must be at a new place, if people are sending me drafts to critique.

~ My imaginary walk has gotten me to Nauset Beach.  Another scene of high school adventures.  I could never stand up on a surfboard, so maybe misadventures is the more appropriate term.

Zen Prayer Room at Villa Maria (PA) ~ Daily Photos 11 and 12

If you wander around in the back, looking for the sheep and goats and cows, eventually you stumble upon a tiny cottage with an extravagant herb garden out front.  Inside, on the ground floor, an art room, a small library on herbal remedies, and beautifully displayed objects ~ baskets and gords and photos~ from the past.  Upstairs (via ladder):

Villa Maria Retreat Center (PA): Chapel Tour

I spent the first two days of this week at a workshop for spiritual directors held on the richly diverse 700+ acre home of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary in western Pennsylvania. A brief tour of the Magnificat Chapel:

The woodcarving of Mary, made by Cleveland sculptors, stands in the narthex, facing the chapel.

Fiber wall hangings behind the gathering space were made by one of the Sisters.

The cross looks like a jewel, with its silver, gold, and red enamel, and twelve bells symbolizing, according to a guidebook, the noise and celebrational sound of apostles.

Three sacramental oils are displayed on a side wall; green is the oil of catechumens.

The windows create amazing patterns of light across the chapel early and late in the day.

I had mixed feelings about the workshop itself, but I love the Sisters' chapel.  Later: photos of their very different (!) Zen prayer room .

Giving the Friday Five a Try ~

MomPriest over at the RevGals offers up this Friday Five:

For this Friday Five, let's ponder the various ways we work out (or not), physically, spiritually, and/or psychologically:

1.  Do you work out, physically, spiritually, or psychologically?  (I'll let you define what that might mean to you.) 

Physically ~ I walk 3-4 miles almost every day, and I've started trying to go to the gym every other day.  I have to set the Nautilus weights at something like 10 pounds.

Spiritually ~ I listen to Pray As You Go most mornings, I spend a lot of my walking time in prayer, I keep a journal,  I see my spiritual director every month, and I try to do the Examen at night.

Psychologically ~ My entire life is a psychological workout.

2. Are you more inclined to join a gym or a book club?

I seem to have joined the gym (it's month-to-month.) Several of my friends formed a book club while I was off at seminary and I went once, but it didn't go so well for me.  I might try it next month, when they're discussing The Help.

3. Are you more inclined to read self-help books like Gail Sheehy's Passages or spiritual books like Richard Rohr or Theresa of Avila? And if so, what is your favorite? 

I do skim through self-help books, usually standing in a bookstore aisle.  I have shelf upon shelf of spiritual books, but I'm not sure that I have a favorite.  Maybe Thomas Merton, maybe Mary Oliver (whose poetry books I categorize as spiritual).

4. Are you a loyal fan of a sports team?  or do you join the bandwagon when the local team is winning?  And if so, which one?

I have no knowledge whatever of sports teams.

5. Or do you lean more toward having a favorite theologian/spiritual writer or self-help author and if so, who?

In addition to those listed above, I'm pretty big on Miroslav Volf these days.

Bonus: What was the last play-off series you watched and did your team win?

Probably my daughter's high school soccer tournament, which would have been 5.5 years ago.  They didn't get very far. 

Stained Glass (Daily Photo 10)

Window Detail, Villa Maria Retreat Center Chapel (PA)

I'm over at Quantum Theology today.

A Conversation II: Augustinians

Here we go!  Below you'll find the first guest post written by Michelle of Quantum Theology, in which she provides a great deal of information about Augustinian friars, about whom I previously knew next to nothing:

Before all else, I want to say thank you to Robin for this invitation to visit her blog, and that I'm very excited about her guesting at my space!  Robin and I met (epistolary if not literally) several years ago, through the RevGalBlogPals webring we both belong to.  We share an interest in Ignatian spirituality — Robin is a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition and we have have both made St.  Ignatius' Spritual Exercises, Robin in everyday life with an extraordinarily gifted and experienced Jesuit director, while I spent 30-days wrapped in silence at the Jesuit retreat house in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  

Recently, both of us have been reading Into the Silent Land, a small, wonderful book about deepening a practice of Christian contemplation.  I'm drawn to the rich mix of the mystic, the academic and the pragmatic that the author, Martin Laird, OSA, stirs up for us.  

Speaking of the author, the first question Robin asked me is about the author.  Martin Laird is an Augustinian friar, and since I regularly join the Augustinian community at my parish to pray the Litugy of the Hours (aka the Divine Office), Robin wonders: what makes an Augustinian?

The OSA stands for Ordo Sancti Augustini (Order of Saint Augustine in Latin; this is the Roman Catholic communion after all).  And while the order traces its roots to St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430), the foundations of the modern order date to the 13th century.  The Augustinians are one of the major orders in the Church, in company with the Franciscans, Benedictines, Dominicans, and of, course, the Jesuits, founded by St. Ignatius.

The Augustinian friars are monastics who live out the evangelical counsels —  poverty, chastity and obedience — but are not enclosed in their monasteries like the Trappists that Thomas Merton belonged to or the Carthusians of Into Great Silence, but venture forth to minister. Villanova University, just down the road from me, was founded by the Augustinians, and education is a major apostolate for them.  (And for the science geeks among us, Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, was an Augustinian monk.)

Perhaps more relevant to venturing into The Silent Land, the Augustinians value their life in community, in balance with a serious attention to the interior life.   The rule requires that there be places that the monks can go and give their full undisturbed attention to prayer.  They seek explicitly to encounter God in Holy Scripture.  For me, watching this balance between community life and the interior life and prayer in common and individual prayer play out has been formative in my own spiritual life.  And spending all that time with people who are seeking God in His Word is in all likelihood what drew me to Ignatian spirituality.

In the mornings, the move from bustle and banter to a full and focussed attention on prayer never ceases to amaze me. The praying of the Hours may be required by the Rule of the order, but it is an office of love for these men.  I've been praying the Hours with the Augustinians for 20 years, and through that, they have had the forming of me.  When I made the Exercises, I had a very hard time laying down the Office, and even as the contemplations of the Passion grew more intense, clung to it.  When I washed up in my director's office at the end of the 3rd week it became clear that Hours were not something I said, even in the midst of the taut exhaustion of those final meditations, but prayed from the depths of my heart.  The psalms are in my bones, put there by two generations of Augustinians.

I'm not an Augustinian, so I can't really say what it is like to be one, but from where I sit, I might say that they are men who have a serious interior life, are grounded in scripture and who live out a life of service, drinking from those two fonts.  So I'm not surprised to find an Augustinian writing a book about the contemplative Christian life!

(Image: St. Augustine as painted by Botticelli in 1480, here.)

A Conversation: Into the Silent Land

Some weeks ago, Michelle of Quantum Theology and I discovered that we had both been reading the same book, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird, O.S.A.  It wasn't too long before we decided to try out a series of guest posts about our reading at one another's blogs.

Michelle and I "met" through some combination, now blurred in memory (mine at least) of our mutual RevGals participation, experiences of family loss, and love for Ignatian spirituality.  I'm not sure exactly how this will turn out, but I hope you'll all enjoy the effort.  Michelle is a Catholic who's also involved in Augustinian community life (which I'm hoping she'll explain), a chemistry professor who writes a column on prayer for her local Catholic paper, and a wife and mom of teenage boys who teaches contemplative classroom practice.

We're also hoping that our author, a professor of religious studies and philosophy at Villanova University, will put in an appearance.  What fun! ~ to explore a writer's work through conversation with a good friend, and then to hear his response to ours!

Welcome, Michelle!

P.S. Jan over at Yearning for God is also reading and blogging about this book!