FBC family, after a year of anticipation and planning, it’s hard to believe my sabbatical is just five weeks away. I continue to pray that each of you will find your own souls refreshed in surprising ways this summer.
As a reminder, this Sunday in worship we begin a 5-week series of messages—The Powerful Pause: Reclaiming Your Soul Through Sabbath—intended to help all of us become more attuned to the holy rhythms of advance and retreat…stepping in and stepping back…breathing out and breathing in. I hope you’ll join us.
It’s a joy to continue sharing with you some of the plans coming together for my upcoming renewal leave. A few weeks ago, I told of the planned pilgrimage to Iona in June—my first visit to that ancient, beautiful “thin place.”
Today I want to share another favorite spot—a place so breathtakingly beautiful, I’ve returned three times in ten years and will travel there again in July, this time bringing my dear husband with me.
Monastery of Christ in the Desert
Seventy-five miles north of Santa Fe is a high desert canyon so ancient and primordial, one expects to see pterodactyls flying overhead instead of hawks. Just off US route 84, a narrow, thirteen-mile dirt and gravel road follows the path of the Chama River. As you drive, you can see elk grazing beside the riverbank far below,and beavers as big as bear cubs dragging sticks from the woods to their dams in the deep-green water.
At the end of the dirt road, nestled at the foot of a towering mesa, is Monastery of Christ in the Desert, where some twenty-five Catholic monks from a dozen countriesseek to be in union with God and each other. In the way of Jesus and St. Benedict, the brothers share their lives with one another and with the guests who come to pray and work alongside them. Hospitality is deeply embedded in Benedictine practice.
The brothers (and guests) gather in the adobe chapel seven times a day for prayer, starting with Vigils at 4:00 a.m. and ending with Compline each evening at 7:30. They pray the book of Psalms each week, then start over again. And I do mean all the psalms—even the “cursing” ones that call for God’s wrath on the psalmist’s enemies. I can report that “Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks” feels slightly less appalling when set to Gregorian Chant.
Along with prayer, the brothers work several hours each day and invite their guests to join them. During past visits I have pulled weeds in the cemetery, hauled big rocks in a wheelbarrow, and worked in the “holy hops” field. (The monks used to brew and sell their own beer, called Monk’s Ale. "Brewed with care and prayer” it said on the label.)
The silent beauty of the Chama River Canyon, the simple rhythm of worship and work at the monastery, and the generous hospitality of the Benedictine brothers makes Monastery of Christ in the Desert a “soul space” for me.
What feeds your soul?
So, friends, where does your spirit come alive?
Take time to name it for yourself.
Have you ventured there lately? If not, why not?
You don’t have to flee to the desert, you know. As I write these words, a brilliant redbud tree outside our dining room window is aflame with color and beauty. From this “burning bush” God is waving at me.
The poet Mary Oliver celebrated her soul space in these beautiful words:
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
Friends, what makes your soul come alive? Name it. Nourish it. Your soul is worth the effort.
In the Great Love,
