My Bible

This week a friend engaged me in an online conversation about an art exhibit at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh by an artist who explores sacred objects. The artist, Jeffrey Vallance, has made reliquaries in which he's enshrined decidedly non-sacred objects (a bone from a grocery store chicken he named Blinky). He's also made The Vallance Bible, which runs to 28 pages, leather-bound and, for $50, includes a sweat cloth, a piece of silk he's worn close to his skin while exercising. The sweat cloth is a take on relics like St. Veronica's veil. The legend has it that she wiped the face of Jesus with a veil while he was on his way to the cross and it left the image of his face on the veil. Saints and mystics are also said to give off particular scents-- for example the scent of roses-- and he was drawing on that tradition.

The quotation from his bible was sort of a "God created the big bang" story, well written, succinct and, well, fine. The show doesn't seem very interesting and its tone is ironic and flippant in a way that doesn't hold my attention. The appropriate response seems to be "Ah, how clever;" not "Wow, that moves me;" or "Wow, I never thought of it that way before." I do like the territory it is covering, and the fact that the Warhol Museum is using it as an opportunity to get people out into the city to see great sacred art in some of the local churches.

Our discussion did catch me at a time I've been thinking about bibles. With the recent completion of The Saint John's Bible, a monumental, 13-year project to hand-write and hand-illuminate the Bible on vellum, and the completion of my third volume on the art, The Art of The Saint John's Bible, I was struck again by my own history with bibles.

I've always had (well, since junior high) a sort of "working bible" that is paperback and kind of ratty. For years and years it was a New International Version that I got when I attended an Intervarsity Christian convention at the University of Illinois as a sophomore in college. This was one of those stadium deals with thousands of college kids and lots of speakers and a convention hall of freebies that culminated in a keynote by Billy Graham. Over the years, the cover (which promoted the convention) faded, but I continued to use that as my bible. I never had tabs on the pages to find the various books (that's just cheating) or put it in a fancy leather carrying case. The back cover came off, then the front. I had other bibles, but they weren't as comfortable for me-- I always reached for that one.

When I started taking classes at Saint John's School of Theology, I needed a Catholic translation-- the New American Bible (NAB) or the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The press I did freelance work for used the NAB, so I got a nice red paperback copy. I got to know its language and more than that-- its verse numbers and paper thickness and the lie of the print on the page. It's hard for me to explain what it means to get comfortable with a bible.

The Saint John's Bible uses the NRSV, so I needed another working bible, to move around in more easily while doing research. One of my husband's daughters had left a copy on a shelf, so I started using that one. The back cover was already missing and it is marked in places with brackets around verses. I like to read the passages and imagine what lesson brought her to that place and what she might have made of it. It now has post-it notes sticking out of various places. I think part of its particular appeal is that it is not new.

For me, the Bible is both a sacred and everyday item. I never get tired of going to it and welcome every opportunity to read and experience that text. When I am going to away to write, it is the first book I pack, though I wouldn't say I exactly "use" it in my writing. And I certainly don't read the Bible every day (as I should as a Benedictine Oblate).

New Translation of the Mass

Dante Gabriel Rossetti:
The Damsel of the Sanct Grael

I arrived in Central Minnesota and began interacting with the monks of Saint John's Abbey back in 2005-06. In the spring of 2006, Bishop Donald Trautman gave a lecture on the proposed new English translation of the Roman Missal, a translation that changed again here and there as it made its way to approval in 2009 and was implemented in its final form for the first time today.

Bishop Trautman, and most of the monks at St. John's, as strong advocates of the Vatican II Church, have been greatly dismayed by the new translation. (For a good article on Bishop Trautman's critique, click here.) It is an attempt to translate the Latin text more literally, and one of the arguments for this is that it unifies the text with other translations throughout the world. They all begin in Latin and, if they are faithful to the Latin, should have more in common with each other. It is a great aspiration of the Mass that one can worship anywhere in the world with the same prayers and texts.

The English translation that was done in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (and never meant to be permanent), was done according to the prinicple of "dynamic equivalents." In other words, it used language that people in the pews would be familiar with rather than obscure Latin terms. So we get in the Creed the phrase "one in being with the father" rather than "consubstantial with the father." Since full participation of the people in the pews was the objective of having Mass in the vernacular, the translators went for clarity and, perhaps, simplicity. Father Godfrey Diekmann of Saint John's Abbey was an important part of the original International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) working on that translation.

In the decades that followed, ICEL worked further on the texts and submitted a "final" translation. There are various opinions about what this group came up with (finished in 2000 and published in 2002), but in the end (although approved by the bishops) it was rejected by Rome. Among other things, there was an attempt in this translation to use more gender inclusive language. Given the Roman Catholic Church's fear of anything that might lead to women's ordination, including removing some of the male pronouns for God in favor of gender neutral pronouns in the Mass, these suggestions were resisted. In the end, ICEL was directed to prepare a translation not by "dynamic equivalency" but as literally as possible, even preserving where possible the word order from Latin.

Today was the first day we used the new prayers and responses in Mass. From my perspective, the "people's parts" don't seem terribly changed. It is not difficult or onerous to respond when the priest says, "The Lord be with you" with the words "and with your spirit" instead of "and also with you." There are a few more "holy"s here and there. The prayer used for the Penitential Act, much like the former Act of Contrition prayer, now includes beating one's breast as we say "my fault, my fault, my  most grievous fault." But there are two alternatives to this prayer and I don't see us continuing with the current one for very long. (It will become, I predict, an occasional occurence, much like the prayer I knew as the Act of Contrition was at Mass before today.)

In all, the only thing that bugged me was the word "chalice" instead of "cup" in the Eucharistic Prayer. As we reenact the Lord's Supper, we hear that Jesus first took the bread, gave it to his disciples and said, "Do this in memory of me." Then Jesus took "a chalice," and repeated the direction. Hmmm. This part of the prayer comes directly from Scripture, and I know of no translation of the New Testament that says Jesus took a chalice at the Last Supper. For me, it changes the scene-- from a vision of Jesus in the upper room with his disciples celebrating that fateful meal, to King Arthur in search of the holy grail, that most famous of chalices thought to be the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper possessed of magic powers. We certainly don't want to go there, do we? I will say that I felt very conscious, for the first time in a long time, on that gold cup in the priest's hands, and the fact that it was gold and a chalice.

The words are not very different, but there was a big fight and many years of argument before we got here. For many, it is a question of the direction of the church. Do we want to go in the holy grail direction? Or do we want to go in the ceramic cup of wine and a single loaf of bread direction? I don't in the end understand the primacy of Latin. In scholarship and in liturgy, it seems to me healthy that the imaginative moment of the liturgy has gone to the early church (as in the 1st-3rd century church) more than the Middle Ages church. I don't think it's merely a matter of aesthetics, but I'm also not going to protest the changes.

NOTE: One of the more striking protests about the new language, though more about the integrity of the process than the actual end product, came from Father Anthony Ruff, OSB, a monk at Saint John's Abbey. Click here to read his open letter to the bishops published in America Magazine last February.
 

All Saints Sans Priest

The All Saints Day Vigil Prayer Service at the Sisters' cemetery on 10/31/11

Yesterday, the Feast of All Saints, was a holy day of obligation according to the Roman Catholic Church. For me, it was a good excuse to go to the 5 p.m. Mass with the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict. Mass was a bit more well-attended than usual. Although "day of obligation" is basically a guarantee that college students will not come to Mass, there were still a good number, and a large number of the Sunday crowd. We started in the Gathering Place. The worship aids were printed and well prepared, the schola was in its best finery and also well prepared. The one thing we were lacking was a priest.

The priest, who had e-mailed earlier in the day to confirm he was on the schedule, never arrived. After frantic phone calls and some shifting of readers, one of the Sisters put on a simple white robe to preside over the Liturgy of the Word. We began our procession with the Litany of the Saints. The music was lovely. The readings were also wonderful-- that great cloud of witnesses in Revelation, the Beatitudes during which we reflected on those who have gone to their rest after so much service to the world.

There was a lot to reflect on this year. Yesterday afternoon Sister Giovanni Bieniek died at the age of 101. She was the 19th Sister to die from that community this year. Last week there were two funerals. One of my reasons for attending was to have some time to reflect on Sisters Suzanne and Rosemary, who I have been missing. Looking around, many of the Sisters looked tired. Some of them looked sad, strained, annoyed about the priest situation. The Sister who was presiding was very gracious and asked us to reflect on our solidarity with the many communities that, because of an increasing priest shortage, are not able to have daily Mass or even weekly Mass.

One man attending got up and went to complain when the presider read the Gospel. "Only a priest can read the gospel!" he told the Sister in the Gathering Place. "What are we supposed to do? We don't have a priest or a deacon," she answered. I would like to answer: Are we to be denied the Word as well? Sister Helene had already prepared a reflection on the Beatitudes, which she gave. Were we to have the reflection without the reading? He stormed out before the closing hymn, which is a shame, because the hymn, by Sister Delores Dufner, was a beauty, as was the organ postlude she had prepared.

I did not hear any criticism of the priest. One Sister said, "I'm worried about him. He did confirm, so maybe something happened to him. Maybe he fell or got in an accident."

There is also, however, always the spectre of a day when there will not be priests to come over from Saint John's Abbey for daily Mass. Last year, the College of Saint Benedict, a Catholic women's college that shares the campus with the Sisters of Saint Benedict's Monastery and has joint classes with the men of Saint John's University (SJU) five miles away, lost its regular priest for the campus Mass. This is a diocesan appointment, and the bishop said he would not appoint anyone. He said the college students have ample opportunities: the two Saint Joseph parish Masses (and one Saturday) less than a block from campus, the Sisters' Sunday Mass, the SJU student Mass at 9 p.m. He has a point, but it's a Catholic college. There was talk of trying to recruit a retired priest from another region. Having been at a Mass last Spring at the far end of the diocese, where a retired priest had driven the two hours to preside at morning Mass for a cluster of churches, I had a suspicion those retired priests are otherwise fully engaged.

The obvious solution is to ordain women and married men. I wrote a blog entry about a year ago about attending the Roman Catholic Women Priest Mass at St. John's Episcopal Church in St. Cloud. The congregation, The Church of the First Apostle Mary Magdalene, meets at 1:30 p.m. every second Sunday of the month. I removed that post when it was co-opted by the conservative author of another website in an effort to discredit the Sisters (for whom I was working then as communications director). It didn't work, removing the post, because he just found a cached version to link to his site. It did point out to me the "third rail' nature of this issue.

That someone could be offended by a woman acting as "gospeler" truly shocks me. I really would have liked for us to share some unconsecrated bread, passing it to each other through the pews, as an alternative. Instead, the students who had processed in with the bread and wine in the hope that the priest would arrive, simply carried it back to the sacristy afterward, untouched.

It was a lovely liturgy, and liturgy is something the Sisters do very well. And we were all prepared. We were all present. God and the Holy Spirit were in our midst, and we, the assembly, were the Body of Christ. The only thing we were missing was a priest.

Watermelon and Paul's Letters

I've spent the last ten days, and really the ten before it, being mostly overwhelmed. Starting a new job, making food, finishing up a large volunteer project -- but most of my energy has gone into working through the New Testament letters as part of the Art of The Saint John's Bible, volume 3 project. Coming face to face with passages in Paul's letters has thrown me for a real loop, and I can't even really explain it now, though every day I understand it a bit more.

My evangelical history with these passages, my graduate work on Paul where I was encouraged to radically re-envision Paul's role and words, and my ongoing attempts to really embrace and incorporate Catholic theology, all collided and have left me feeling somewhat disoriented. I've always found Paul daunting but a bit thrilling, too. However, I've felt free to think and reflect on Paul myself, with no real consequences. Writing for a general audience about the letters is something else again. My daily task is to go page by page, letter by letter, and write something that gives context to the highlighted passages. But I also need to consider the whole of what has been emphasized in the text treatments and, in some ways, try to figure out the intention, not so much of Paul as of the Committee on Illumination and Text that put together the plan for The Saint John's Bible.

I'm almost there, and after more erasing and restarting than in any other part of this project, I will have a draft of Letters today and can move on to, gulp, Revelation! In many ways, however, Revelation is easier. There are several full-page illuminations with lots to discuss, and the overall message is fairly simple and clear!

I have been wanting to share one more garden delight. When harvesting before the early frost, I came across this one, perfect, beautiful watermelon! I planted just as many watermelon plants as pumpkins, but after early vining, I couldn't find them in the mass of squash plants. So I was thrilled to pull this guy out of the field.

Last week when Steve and I were both home for lunch, I cut it open. Watermelon! Pink-fleshed and incredibly juicy, it was slightly sweet but not too sweet, and had seeds just like in the old days before genetic modification bred them out. The knife slicing through flesh and rind is always so satisfying in watermelon.

It made me very happy to eat the little guy.  

Labor Day

tomato sauce

Last night it was comforter weather, with the temperature dropping down to the low 40s. I'm hoping a frost won't come for a few more weeks, but I'm ready if it comes early. Today was one of those gorgeous days in the 70s with fluffy white clouds sailing through the sky.

I was quite anxious last week about my ongoing writing project for The Saint John's Bible. I received the files of the images a few weeks ago and was pulled from volume two, Historical Books, into the final volume, Letters and Revelation. All I had to see was a list of the illumination names: "The Woman and the Dragon" and "The Cosmic Battle," to realize that this would be a challenge. The Book of Revelation.  Hmmm.

Additionally, there are a lot of text treatments in the "Letters" portion of the volume. What I saw on the pages were phrases like "the wages of sin are death," and "Therefore since we are justified by faith." Oh, wow. I was definitely getting out of the territory of King David and Ruth and Solomon and wouldn't have stories to tell so much as, well, theology! Much of which is at the heart of the Reformation!

It stressed me out a bit. Especially since I was feeling so distracted by all this produce. But after spending a few hours Saturday with the texts and Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament, writing an introduction to the Letters portion and getting my pages of files in order, I feel much better. In fact, as I should have known it would, it falls into place quite nicely. And the illuminations in "Letters," namely "Fulfillment of Creation," "At the Last Trumpet"  and the "Harrowing of Hell," well, I can see how these lead up to Revelation. So bring on the eschaton, I'm ready!!

It also freed me up to really focus on cleaning up the garden and working with produce if that's what I wanted to do. Today I dried peppers and with the last big bucket of tomatoes, I made "the gravy," putting them through my food mill and then boiling down the sauce and canning four pints. The kitchen smells fantastic! I've put aside some fresh and some canned produce to take with me to Chicago (squeezing in a visit before the new job starts on the 12th). Also made a great pizza last night with all sorts of veggies piled onto it. Saturday I made a giant Greek pasta salad, and there were enough ingredients to make a simpler version again yesterday. It does feel like the frenzy has past and now, like those clouds, I can float along a little while and settle into life.



zucchini, swiss chard, tomato, onion, feta, garlic, peppers



And for a few weeks, I'll be thinking mostly about the apostles Paul and John and the fulfillment of the vision of God's kingdom. I'll let you know how it goes! 



Sister Suzanne

Tonight I went to a Prayer Vigil at the monastery, which is what they do as a wake. It was the first time I've gone to a wake because I knew it would make me feel good. Everything about knowing Sister Suzanne and thinking about Sister Suzanne makes me feel good.

She turned 99 years old on April 1, and I think we must have known she wouldn't make it to 100 because we celebrated her birthday for weeks. Some friends gave her a Bose stereo, on which she listened to Chant and about which she giggled because she knew how nice it was. Her room was filled with flowers. She still lived upstairs at the monastery until June, when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Then she moved to Saint Scholastica Convent, the home for elderly and infirm Sisters, where she was very excited to meet all her new neighbors. She was curious about everyone and when we last visited, she told me all about the wonderful people there.

I met her when she was 96, and I never expected her to give me so much attention. I didn't see her often, but she knew exactly who I was and was happy to talk to me even for a few minutes. Running into her in the hallway always brightened my day. I did a videotape of her in January, and we talked for over an hour. She was warm, delightful, open and generous to me. And I truly felt I was seeing Christ in her.

Many people felt this way about Sister Suzanne, and many knew her better and longer than I did. One day at Saint Scholastica she had 65 visitors! And she didn't tire of them -- she loved them all. When I saw her at Saint Scholastica the first time, I said, "What did you do to your hair? Did you get a haircut?" She laughed and siad, "No, I'm not wearing my veil!" She pretended that it had been left behind in her room when she was taken to the hospital, but that wasn't true. She just wasn't wearing it anymore.

Sister Suzanne had great joy in life, and knowing that she would die soon, she said, "I'm so happy for me!" She looked forward to meeting her Savior and was at peace about dying. We were the ones who were sad, because we would miss her, but we were also happy for her.

After we talked the last time, I got big hugs and kisses from her. And when I left her room, she said, "You're in my prayers."

I have a complicated history with people praying for me. Most of the time, it seems, they are praying for something specific, and usually not what I want or need. With Sisters, it can sometimes feel cliche. They pray for "the world," for many, many people. I didn't have any requests or special needs at the time. And I know this is what Sister Suzanne says at the end of every visit. But when she said it, it brought tears to my eyes. I was glad, genuinely glad. Because she is close to God, closer than anyone I know. And my life and prayer are both more rich, the possibilities of what life with God means are more real to me, for having known Sister Suzanne. We share a name day, August 11, and I know I will think of her each year on that day. And I will hope to live with more joy and more love because of what she showed me about life.

Here below is the most precious clip from the video interview I did with Sister Suzanne in January.

Abundance and Scarcity

Last Sunday's Gospel reading was on the miracle of the loaves and fishes. I attended the local Mass at Mary Magdalen the First Apostle, a congregation of women and men who meet once a month for Mass presided over by a Roman Catholic Woman Priest. We have our Eucharistic celebration at a local Episcopal church. The homily was given by two women who spoke about seeing things from the point of view of scarcity and abundance.

They used the miracle to demonstrate how acting from a mindset of scarcity, like the apostles in the story, leads one to be less generous, to send people away to find their own food, to hoard what we have. Jesus, however, acted from a perception of abundance, offered the food they had, five loaves and two fish, and with that 5,000 families were fed.

The modern interpretation of this miracle, which strips it of any miraculous qualities, is to say that when the baskets were passed, people in the crowd brought out their own stores of food and offered them to their neighbors. Thus, the food was all there from the beginning, but hidden and protected by people who feared there would not be enough. Although I miss the mirace sense of it, this interpretation is a helpful way to see the story.

This is always a good sermon for me to hear. Especially now, as I'm preparing to go from a full-time job to a part-time job and leave the security of benefits and a salary that is truly more than I need. I feel myself pulling in, even to the point of decreasing some of my charitable giving. You can hide behind the title "simple living," but I did buy more canning jars today (more than I need, in hopes of hoarding more tomatoes) and could certainly keep up my monthly gift to the food shelf.

I also find myself facing my garden this way. It is time to hoard, to put away food for winter, and it is clear that I don't have nearly enough. No green beans! Not enough raspberries for jam! Ruined onions (and by ruined, I just mean I have to actually eat them now). The stingiest zucchini vines on the planet! The drenched and blighted tomatoes are holding on, and I'm willing them to ripen despite two days of terrible storms.

And mostly, I have to tell myself to cut it out. Stop! Because this is actually the time of abundance. I have big bowls of sliced cucumber salad and potato salad in the fridge, a couple huge cabbages, and I've set up my little basket of extra beets,onions and carrots to go into my sister-in-law's cellar storage room. Every few days I go pick two cups of basil and make another small batch of pesto for the freezer-- I want more, am sure someone else nearby has a LOT more than I do and wonder how can I get my hands on some of it-- but really, I need to stop. We are eating glorious food every day, here in August.

The world around us is overgrown and lovely. The monarch butterflies are in constant ecstacy, hanging and dancing in fused pairs over the prairie. After the last storm, and with the arrival of August, the swimming pond is clearing up and soon we'll have the best swimming of summer. With dragonflies and swallows as companions.

It's a time of abundance. In fact, it is the extra, what we can't possible eat now and what can't be given away, that goes into storage for winter. And yes, the farmers are growing even more than me, will have even more extra, and I can buy it from them at the co-op or the winter market, when it will be so nice to see them. So I have to remind myself to see the abundance, to give instead of hoard, even though it should be the easiest and most obvious thing in the world.

You can bet this cateripiller on my volunteer dill plant knows it is the season of abundance!

Eucharistic Minister

I have been a Eucharistic minister at my church for about a year. It is always a wonderful and moving experience. I was first trained as a Eucharistic minister in Southern Caliornia, by a wonderful woman who took the time to tell us what it was all about. In addition to the reverence factor, and how to shuffle a host back into the dish if someone dropped it, she told us, "Don't deal 'em out like cards. Present the host to the person and look the person in the eye. It is a joy to present the Eucharist to another. Don't be too serious and solemn about it." It is not a matter of distributing a bunch of communion wafers as quickly as possible so we can get out of there, it is a sacramental experience. And we are the ministers of this sacrament.

People do genuinely respond when you present the host to them, and generally they approach with a smile. It is a joyful experience for everyone, from mumbling, awkward teens to mothers and fathers with children on their hips to older people. It is also a full experience of community. Our whole community, most of whom you don't ever see, approach the front of the church for communion. What first surprised me, and now continues to gladden my heart, is the number of older farmers. Their hands are grained with dirt, some of their fingers are misshapen or even, occasionally, missing. The act of them putting out their hands and me placing the communion wafer in their palms is, truly, art.

This morning one of the other Eucharistic ministers was a man whose house was foreclosed on several months ago, after a long battle. He had told us about a recent experience when his car broke down. He was walking home from where he'd had to abandon the car and a man from the parish picked him up. Together, they made arrangements for the car, and then this man drove him home. About a half hour later, the man showed up at the apartment and gave the man whose home had been foreclosed on $300 in cash. Knowing what I do, about how this man has struggled with his own business and his wife has been downsized, I found this story quite affirming. This morning, I watched the man who had given the money receive communion from the man who received that earlier gift, very matter of fact and as it is done each week. It only caught my attention for a moment, then I turned and offered communion to his wife, a woman I used to work with and whom I admire very much.

There are times when you feel the privilege of being part of a community, and this was one.

Installation Day

Sunday the monastery where I work installed a new prioress. I was at my college reunion in Grinnell, Iowa, from Thurs-Sat noon, and drove back to be on duty for the event. When someone asked why I had to go back, I said, "The monastery where I work is having the installation of a new prioress on Sunday." She looked very confused. "What's a prioress?"
Before I could answer, someone said, "It's the piece between the queen and the knight."
"That's right," I said. "She can only move diagonally."

The prioress is the spiritual leader of a Benedictine monastery. The Rite of Installation, celebrated with the Sisters of the monastery, the new prioress's family and me, as the communications director, feeling very lucky to be there, makes clear that the prioress is a representative of Christ for the community.

Much is made of treating everyone as Christ in St. Benedict's Rule and the Benedictine way of life. The motto is expressed in a number of ways: "Greet/Welcome all as Christ," "Love all as Christ," and "Treat all as Christ." This last informs the Benedictine health care system, injecting a dose of humility into what can sometimes be a dehumanizing institution. It is probably the most wonderful thing about the monastery: The love the Sisters have for each other. This love is translated as caring and any manner of expression but also as charity for one another. I always think this is the basis for "seeing Christ" in the other and, more importantly, seeing the other as Christ sees us.

So I think that the prioress has a lucky assignment. She gets to see as Christ, to be Christ to the Sisters. That does not mean she isn't called to challenge them or direct and redirect. But I do believe that real joy is loving others, and she is called to love.

I wrote the blog entry today for the Sisters' blog about the installation. For more about what happens during a Rite of Installation, click here.

National Celebrations

I could not call myself a proper blogger if I didn't make some mention of the big Wills and Kate wedding Friday. I had not planned on watching it, but got sucked into the BBC rebroadcast at about 10 p.m. Friday night. What I found most interesting was the procession by the public down the mall to Buckingham Palace to catch "the balcony scene," as the media kept calling it, as if it were Romeo and Juliet. People moved in an orderly fashion behind a row of Bobbies, until the entire area was filled in. While this slow-moving procession was happening, the BBC coverage kept switching to other places where parties were happening: Kate Middleton's home town, Hyde Park and other parks and places.

I delighted in watching a national day of celebration unfold much more than watching the wedding, although that was nicely done. A friend in Scotland said that she had no interest in the wedding but had ended up going from party to party all day, drinking cheap champagne and mingling with friends. This sense of an international day off to celebrate something as simple as the marriage of a young couple was truly refreshing.

Saturday, in the glow of this lovely experience, I finished making my way through the Historical Books volume of The Saint John's Bible. I've been writing on the illuminations for the third volume of the series: Art of the Saint John's Bible. I finished by writing about two illuminations: "Square Before the Water Gate" in Nehemiah and "Esther" in the book of Esther.

Both Nehemiah and Esther were written after the people of Israel returned from exile. Nehemiah recounts the story of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. At the center of the book, the part related to the illumination, all the people are called together inside the newly constructed walls of Jerusalem and the book of Moses, the book of the Law, is read aloud to them. There are also people on hand to explain what's being read. It's a really unusual means of establishing national identity after Exile: here is our story and the way we have been called to live. Like many before them in the historical books, the first impulse upon hearing the story is to rend their clothing and go into mourning. But, although there are plans for a national day of confession and mourning to come, the priest Ezra declares that this day will be a day of feasting and celebration. Everyone is commanded to have a big party, to celebrate, and so they do.

If you want to read a Biblical princess story, you can't do better than Esther. She is the beautiful virgin, a natural beauty among those who need cosmetics to attract attention. She is a member of the underclass in the Persian Empire, a Jewish orphan (worse than a commoner!), who nonetheless wins the hand of the king. In fact, the king will do anything for her. She saves his life by uncovering an assassination plot and then saves her people from the pompous and evil Haman. What caught my attention, however, was the account of the wedding. "The king loved Esther more than all the other women; of all the virgins she won his favor and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great banquet to all his officials and ministers-- 'Esther's banquet.' He also granted a holiday to the provinces, and gave gifts with royal liberality" (Esther 2:17-18).

For me, it was working with these passages that connected the past to the present. How long has a royal wedding been an occasion for deep celebration. In these times of deep trouble-- wars and natural disasters-- how I long for a day of international celebration. There will be time for mourning and resuming the struggles of life. For a day, let us celebrate who we are and our collective story with hope and joy. Given the response to the Royal Wedding, it seems that many people share this longing.

photo of the crowd on the mall from: http://media.oregonlive.com/oregonian/photo/2011/04/9531399-essay.jpg

Centering Prayer

Yesterday I attended an all-day workshop at Saint Benedict's Monastery's Spirituality Center on centering prayer with Sister Katherine Howard. It is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and because it is Lent, it seemed like a good time to begin this kind of prayer practice.

Centering Prayer is a type of contemplative prayer. It is "apophatic" which means prayer without images. The idea is to simply be in the presence of God, to rest in God's love and experience it, to get beneath the river of ordinary consciousness and allow thoughts and feelings to flow by on the surface while you are deeper, at the center of your being, a place that is occupied by love.

The method is simple. Sit in a chair or on a cushion in a relaxed pose and close your eyes for 20 or 30 minutes. Introduce yourself to the process with a brief prayer-- I have just been affirming my belief that God is present to me and that at my center is God's love, and announcing more or less "here I am" to turn from the cares of the day and be present. The practitioner of centering prayer also takes a word with him/her into the prayer, a word that doesn't necessarily matter in terms of its meaning-- it is not a word to be meditated on or contemplated. The word is "the symbol of our intention to consent to God's loving presence and action within us. The word serves primarily to indicate our consent and at the same time it is a way of letting go 'thoughts' we may have become engaged in."

The word I'm using is "ruah," a Hebrew word for spirit or breath, associated for me with the Creation in Genesis and the breath/spirit of God breathed into humans to animate them. It is the only "object" I have with me behind my eyelids, and I carry it to the back of the space and set it down, turning to gaze inward. As thoughts and feelings and physical sensations come, I let them go. It helps that it is not an English word, or a word I use often. I don't get attached to it.

The point is not to banish thought or have no thoughts-- thoughts are part of being. The point is to detach from them, let them flow at a different level. When I alight on a thought or find myself associating to further thoughts, I turn back to my word, acknowledge it and place it again at the back of the space (it is like a movement in Tai Chi for me right now, like lifting and sweeping, intentionally directing my consciousness), and turn again to the meditation space.

I've often thought this kind of prayer could be good for me, but I've also known it would be challenging. I like insight and thinking and I like words and metaphors. But I also know that I have had exactly two very deep religious prayer experiences, one in high school and one in college. And in both, I entered the prayer completely burdened, overwrought, and with deep longing. And in both-- in very different ways-- the experience that transformed me can only be described as an experience of God's love both in me and perceived in others. In one, an actual deep prayer experience, where an hour seemed only a minute, I was in fact in a cavernous space, a wide and dark space where I actually experienced the sensation of resting in God's love and being actively consoled. The second crept up on me gradually and was unexpected when it arrived-- a joy that lasted for nearly two weeks  -- an answer to months of daily prayer on my knees asking God to help me understand/experience "the joy of the Lord."

My experience, of life and of religion, is often one of stress and burden. I have an over-developed sense of responsibility, and a fear of failure and, worse, being scolded. I don't take criticism very well either! The stakes are always getting raised, although of course it is only I who am doing the raising. And I never detach. I am not even sure I know what that means. I excel and then I crash and take some time off and return, refreshed if not renewed, for another round. I don't think life needs to be experienced that way.

I hope I will have the discipline for this. I know I can only benefit from practicing 20 minutes of letting thoughts glide through my consciousness and letting them go, as I seek to more deeply experience God's love.

For more on Centering Prayer, click here.

Seed Planting

Today is the day to start my seeds. It is 10 degrees and the wind is howling, but spring is predicted to begin with temps in the 50s by mid-week. I imagine in the time before climatologists, people just had to go by the Almanac or habit, ignoring the weather outside and believing spring would come soon.

I've never had much luck starting tomatoes inside, but this year my friend Connie is starting my tomatoes and I'm starting her peppers. I've been reading my seed packets carefully to see what can be planted "as soon as the soil can be worked." I did buy some plastic tarp tunnels to use for early warming of seedlings when I put them outdoors, mostly hoping to protect some from the winds we get out here.

Yesterday, Steve and I took his daughter to the airport for her spring break and then we went to IKEA for a light fixture for the kitchen (which is almost, nearly, not-quite completed) and dinner at the French Meadow Bakery and Cafe. I had black barley risotto with roasted winter vegetables that was wonderful-- exactly the kind of food I want to make from my harvest. We drove back first through rain, then driving snow. We both agreed it was the absolute ugliest time of year-- what snow remained was black with soot and mud, and all that was exposed was dead, dirt patches. You don't notice the fields and woods and prairie and lake; you just feel "highway." Going at 50 miles per hour, you realize how far from even the outer edge of the Twin Cities we are.

It's been a long time since my last entry, and I'm conscious of that. Everything this time of year feels worn and old and we're all just waiting for spring. We're still watching movies at night, but it feels like that's all we do, and so not worth commentary. We don't have much to say to each other, and it feels like the world is just cold and waiting for something.

Ash Wednesday, very late this year, on March 9, was one sign of promise. We now enter The Church's springtime. And as we enter, it's a season of hard boiled eggs and tuna melts, of austerity and focus on God. Next weekend I'm taking an introductory workshop in Centering Prayer, something that has long interested me. I've always enjoyed contemplative prayer, and would like to develop this practice, possibly attending weekend retreats in the future.

Entering spring, at least this far north, is a matter of small acts: putting seeds in little plastic cups with some water and peat, and looking forward.

Death of Sisera

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day with the book of Judges as part of my book project for The Saint John's Bible. Judges chronicles a time for the Israelites between the death of their leader Joshua, who brought them into the Promised Land, and the time of the kings. The goal is for the people to be led directly by Yahweh, but they aren't up to it. The Lord "raises up" judges. They do more than keep the peace among the people; judge are deliverers, leading, directing and offering guidance in battle.

One of the judges is Deborah, and although I'd heard of her, I didn't really know her story. Deborah is a judge who leads the people with her military leader Barak (who insists that she go with him into battle) against the forces of the great military man Sisera. The Lord throws Sisera's troops into panic, and they are routed by the Israelites. All of Sisera's men are killed, but he escapes and flees to the tent of Jael, the wife of one of his allies. However, Jael, after luring Sisera into her tent, drives a tent stake through his head and into the ground while he is sleeping. This is a double humiliation for Sisera, whose forces are routed by a woman (Deborah) and who then is killed by a woman (Jael). To see the illumination on the SJB web page, click here.

What drew me to the passage, though, was the fact that it is told first as a narrative in Judges 4 and then, in chapter 5, as a poem/song.

The Song of Deborah is a classic ballad telling the story of triumph in battle. The opening suggests the purpose of the song is to retell the story: "When locks are long in Israel, when the people offer themselves willingly-- bless the Lord." In the times of prosperity to come, when your hair has grown long, remember how the Lord delivered you from your enemy Sisera. Later it will directly instruct people to retell the tale to all people and throughout time. Then the poem tells the story of three women.

It first recounts the sorry state of the Israelites in the time before Deborah arose, when "caravans ceased, and travelers kept to the byways," a time of "new gods," "plunder" and "war in the gates." After much praise of  Deborah, the narrative turns on the short verse: "then down to the gates/marched the people of the Lord," followed by a list of the peoples.

"Then loud beat the horses' hoofs/ with the galloping, galloping of his steeds." After the poetic telling of that "most blessed of women" Jael, and her dreaded tent spike, the poem makes its most interesting move.

It moves to a distant scene and introduces a third woman. "Out of the window she peered, / the mother of Sisera gazed through the lattice. 'Why is his chariot so long in coming? / Why tarry the hoofbeats of the chariots?'"

Isn't that great? This mother and "her wisest ladies" imagine the soldiers of Israel "deviding  the spoil" and taking "a girl or two for every man." It's a really unusual and striking move, from an unabashed celebration of victory in battle to the women left behind, now at the mercy of the victors.

In this writing project, I find it tricky to figure out how to present what I'm reading. I do not read the Historical Books as actual, literal history. These books are more akin to the Greek histories and tragedies, or perhaps the "histories" (and often the tragedies) of Shakespeare. They are literary and, although as a Christian I believe in their ability to tell me about God's relationship to humanity, I do not of course find the battle scenes or violence instructive of how "the people of God" should behave. Let us concentrate more on the opening of this and so many stories in Judges: "The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord... So the Lord sold them into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan." This opening phrase will be repeated again at the opening of chapter 6, after we are told "And the land had rest for forty years."  Ultimately, the story of violence is the story of disobedience, the people's inability to follow God.

In the end, what I'm really enjoying is the stories. After my first weekend of writing, I really kept my amazement that the story of the movement into Canaan begins with two Israelites hidden and protected by the prostitute Rahab, who is later spared when Jericho is destroyed. What a strange and wonderful opening to this "history." And this week, I have the great Song of Deborah to take with me into the week, a wonderful poem that seems to speak across the centuries, of a warrior woman, a treacherous queen and the mother of a warrior on top of Mt. Tabor, realizing her son will not return from battle.

Image: Death of Sisera, Donald Jackson, ©2010, The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholilc Edition, ©1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

On the Edge of a Diocese on the Edge

On this first Sunday of Advent, we went to Mass at the tiny, half-empty church in Menahga, Minnesota. We were spending our first overnight visit to the Kluesners' log cabin, built by Paul Kluesner here on the farm and moved up and assembled on a lake near Wadena.

There are two choices of Sunday Masses nearby: the 9 a.m. in Park Rapids and the 10:30 a.m. in Menagha. We chose the later Mass, for obvious reasons. Menahga's Assumption Church is at the farthest northern edge of the St. Cloud diocese, a full two hours from where we live. It is one of three churches in a "cluster," including St. Frederick Catholic Church in Verndale and St. Hubert Catholic Church in Bluegrass. St. Frederick have a Mass on Saturday at 6 p.m. and St. Hubert's Msas is at 8:30 a.m. every Sunday. Until recently, the cluster was served by a young priest, but he has taken a break to discern his vocation, questioning, it seems, his commitment to celibacy. I'll tell you one thing-- it would be a very difficult thing indeed to be alone on this edge of Wadena County.

We were uncertain who would be presiding at Mass, so I was excited and very pleased when I turned and recognized Father Eberhard Schefers ready to process down the short aisle. This was a treat I thought I might not have a chance to experience: Mass with Fr. Eb.

Fr. Eb lives in St. Joseph, where he moved a little over a year ago when he retired from parish ministry. He then agreed to participate in a process at the monastery to consider and plan for the future of on-campus ministry at the monastery in the face of declining numbers of Sisters. He is a kind, quiet man, one of the priests of a certain generation who spent his whole life in faithful service wherever he was sent, to the people of Minnesota.

When he registered that I was in the pews, he smiled, and he offered me the Eucharist with a smile and by name. Things like this make me so happy, and remind me of the privilege of living where I do, working where I do, at this moment in history.

The night before, our discussion had turned naturally to the question of what will happen to the church as the numbers of clergy decline. What would be a good solution? Married clergy? Women ordained? The four of us agreed that both would be positive developments, with in fact a more immediate support of women clergy. Bringing a family seems more complicated somehow, although plenty of churches have not only made this work, but benefited from the blessing of having a minister who was married and had children. There are, in fact, already married priests in the Roman Catholic Church (widowers and converts).

At stake here, ultimately, is the accessibility of the sacraments. But even now, we can see the extraordinary situation unfolding-- not just for our parishioners. Here is retired Fr. Eb Schefers, who had told us at our final committee meeting in August that he hasn't really been to more than a few Masses in St. Joseph, because very weekend he's been called upon to give Masses in other parts of the diocese.

What does that mean exactly? Well, that morning it meant a two hour drive, about 125 miles, to celebrate a Mass for about 80 people, in a church that was neat and serviceable, with minimal aesthetics and an organ better suited to a living room. Fr. Eb, beting who he is, gave a wonderful homily, drawing on the readings and telling two engaging anecdotes that the congregation responded to audibly.

After church, we invited him to join us for brunch back at the cabin. Unfortunately, he couldn't come. He had to hit the road because he had another Mass, at 3:30 p.m. in Clearwater, Minnesota, 20 miles to the East of St. Cloud, at a nursing home.

Bless his soul, Fr. Eb Schefers. We will not see his like again.

My Winter Project

I'm getting ready to embark on a writing project, the third volume of Art of The Saint John's Bible. I finished writing the second volume almost three years ago, so it was with some trepidation that I picked up the massive Historical Books, the sixth of seven volumes of The Saint John's Bible to be published and one of two volumes that will be covered in this book. [It's confusing, I know. The Saint John's Bible is being published in seven volumes. My book is in three volumes, covering a set of them as they are are released.]

The final volume of The Saint John's Bible, Revelation and Letters, will be available to me in summer 2011, with a reproduction volume scheduled for Spring 2012. The hope is for my book to be released at the same time.

This morning I sat down with Historical Books and a pad of Post-its to start marking the artwork throughout the book. My book will basically go illumination to illumination, laying out the Biblical context and describing and annotating the artwork.

I started writing these books basically a week after I took a full-time job as an editor at Liturgical Press four years ago. Alongside writing the volumes, I was also copy editing other projects, and one of the best of these was being able to edit all of the revised Old Testament commentaries for the Little Rock Scripture Study. I love the Bible but had never spent so much time, book by book, with the Old Testament. It was a great crash course, and I learned a lot. I also just really enjoyed the stories and the richness of the books.

One of the most reassuring and pleasing aspects of this morning's exercise with the Post-its was realizing how much fun it will be to spend time once again with the books of the Old Testament. As I paged through, not reading, I felt renewed excitement about these stories of good and bad kings, and warmed by the thought of spending time with those Israelites in exile as they wrote and read their own history. That is the lens through which I see Historical Books: not as accurate history so much as the story a people told themselves when trying to explain how they could have lost the land God gave to them.

As a Christian, there's also the genealogy of Jesus unfolding, the continuing story of God choosing the least likely of his servants and the great promises of God for restoration of the kingdom.

The leaves are off the trees, a cold wind is blowing, and I'm looking forward to a lovely winter project.

Nun Conference

I was in Ferdinand at a conference on Vocations. It was five days long, which is a really long time to be at a conference. It went at a nun's pace, which meant the breaks were long for those who needed to recharge or take naps, and there was free time and lots and lots of hospitality. Three social receptions, two of which included fudge from Gethsemani, Thomas Merton's Trappist monastery down the road in Kentucky. The monks there sent seven boxes of fudge, mostly with bourbon but some without, along with two Trappistine Sisters who visited on their way from their monastery in Virginia to the conference in Indiana.

I hope that someday I will give a full account of the world I'm experiencing now, the world of nuns at the beginning of the 21st century. Right now I feel self-conscious about it, because I am an official representative of a monastery, and because I am conscious of their image and the image they want to use to portray themselves.

At the conference, and most of the time, of course, it is clear that most nuns today are old, first generation American women. In the Midwest, they are mostly the daughters of German and some Irish immigrants. They are mostly the daughters of farm families.

On the final night, there was a Eucharist just for the 25 of us at the conference, so we wouldn't have to worry about getting to Sunday Mass on the day we were traveling. After the Eucharist, there was a party with all the Sisters at Ferdinand. The younger Sisters were all out, except for a few who live and work at the monastery. Most of their younger Sisters work in parishes and schools in Louisville or Evansville or even farther away.

Four Sisters have a combo: upright bass, guitar, electric piano and drums. When they play liturgical music (without drums), they call themselvesStillpoint. When they play at parties, they are The Combo. They had a large repertoire. Much to the chagrin of the three Redemptorist priests from Ireland, they played "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," "Toura Loura Loura" and "Danny Boy," though Father Dan did sing along. They also played a Schottische. Of course, the chicken dance and hokey pokey. Some Sisters got out and danced as well to a few polkas. There was one line dance. Sisters danced at everything they played.

Then, during what seemed like a break, the pianist played a tinkling little number that sounded like something you'd hear from a music box.

That is when Sister Catherine got up and danced. She turned 73 during the conference, and she is the prioress at the Trappistine monastery. Her young colleague had asked during a presentation, "Could you tell us what this Facebook is?" The 10 Trappistines make cheese as a community one day a week, just enough to cover their expenses, although there is demand for more. They want to figure out how to attract more women to their way of life, and I'm not sure what they made of the conference. They did determine they need a web site, and probably it was not realistic to think a Sister would be able to make one using the copy of Dreamweaver they bought for the community.

Sister Catherine danced by herself, spinning and moving lightly across the floor. Her hands moved like butterflies, like birds. She was out there about three whole minutes, while we all watched. After the number was over, we all clapped, and she graciously bowed.

Not all Sisters are the same, and not all monasteries or orders are the same. There is great variety, that goes overlooked in the stereotypes and generalizations. They are vibrant and they are in possession of a culture, which they are practicing in these days, despite all the rapid change going on around them and even in their communities, and that in another generation will be gone.

Good Friday, The Suffering Servant and The Saint John's Bible

Today, Good Friday, I awoke thinking about the passage in Isaiah commonly called "The Suffering Servant." It is a long passage, so here is just an excerpt:

He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement
that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.

We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
the guilt of us all.

For the full passage, Isaiah 52:13-53:12, which is the first reading for liturgy today, click here.
 
When I think about this passage, I always think of the illumination in The Saint John's Bible that accompanies it, by Donald Jackson (above).
 

I first saw it in a slide presentation at Saint John's University, and immediately when it was flashed on the screen, I thought-- that's the Door of No Return! The abstract bars that hold in the suffering servant looked to me so much like the door of no return in Accra, Ghana, the door through which slaves passed to board ships for America.

 

The image of the suffering servant in this illumination is based on starvation victims in Africa, not slaves, but for me, slavery is an apt association with this story. In fact, Holy Week has had me thinking about slavery and the general mistreatment of Africans and African-Americans in this country. After hearing the Passion story last Sunday, all I could think about was lynching. And what a horrible time it must have been to live in a country where lynching was going on regularly. Innocent people hung from trees by angry mobs. I am worried about the potential for violence, politically-motivated and racist violence, in our current society. But nothing can really compare to those decades of violence in the mid-20th century, in America and abroad.
 
There is still much suffering by innocents-- victims of terrorism, ongoing slave trade and mistreatment of children throughout the world.
 
That is a heavy burden we place on our God.

Merging Monasteries

This week I've been working on a big story at the monastery. On Saturday, the Sisters of Saint Benedict's Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, voted at their Chapter meeting to accept a request from Saint Bede Monastery in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to merge. Saint Bede Monastery will close down, and its 29 members will join Saint Benedict's Monastery.

This is the kind of thing where, given the nature of Chapter, you don't even work on the press release until the vote is taken. No assumptions, although it was fairly clear even in November that Sisters were behind this idea. I had two discussions wiht the prioress about it beforehand, so I had notes and knew what might happen if the vote was affirmative. Monday morning I began work on the press release, with input from the two prioresses. By late Monday afternoon, I was able to call the St. Cloud Times and The Visitor, the diocesan paper for St. Cloud, and tell them that the next morning I would be sending out a press release. It was a great day, doing what I most love, which is writing. This assignment was particularly gratifying because I crafted quotes and also was dealing with a delicate, sensitive situation.

Tuesday I sent it out, and got two calls from local radio stations asking how to pronounce "St. Bede." (It is the same as "bead.") I also got a call from a reporter in Eau Claire who ran the story.

This morning the story was on the front page of the St. Cloud Times, above the fold. I just love to say that: above the fold. In the world of communicators, "good placement." And he used the quotes I'd written-- used most of the press release, actually, in addition to a few other facts I provided him. He cut out some of our jargon, but hey, ok. The press release, in other words, is working for both our internal and external audiences. A large number of Sisters have told me how good it is, how well it is written, and how happy they were to read it. Both prioresses are pleased. I've had calls today from The Visitor saying the story is being moved to the Minneapolis office and will appear in both the diocesan and archdiocesan papers, and from a t.v. station in Eau Claire.

In the end the real work of these two communities coming together has just begun, but this week was a good week. Talk to me in six months when I'm putting together a photo directory for 300 Sisters!

To read the press release, click here.

photo: Sisters from Saint Benedict's Monastery visit with Sisters from Saint Bede in January.

Church Banners

Yesterday, March 19, was the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Joseph the carpenter is the patron saint of our parish here in St. Joseph. Steve was really excited about the feast, and got up and went to early Mass. He was disappointed that it wasn't a bigger deal in the parish. Afterward he saw the liturgist and said that he would be happy to make a banner of St. Joseph, in the woodblock style of our parish logo, which he also designed, for use on the feast. The liturgist, David, said: "Will it have words on it?" He doesn't like words on visual displays.

When Steve told me about this, it reminded me of my sister, and of our transition from the Catholic Church to an Assembly of God church when I was 12 and she was 10. When we switched churches, I think it was the visual change that was the most overwhelming for us. Instead of priests, we had a pastor in a business suit. Instead of pews, we had chairs that stacked for removal from the school classroom where we met once the service was over. The classroom was really two, with an accordion room divider opened up to make room for us on Sunday mornings. No more stained glass, incense, wood, candles, altar-- not even a crucifix. The tools of our pastor's trade were an overhead projector for the song texts and writing notes with a Sharpie during the sermon and a podium from which he preached.

There was no question for us that God was there. God was present in our prayer and in our singing, in the prophecy and tongues that were now a regular part of the service, in the love of the people for one another. But it was sort of like the Whos of Whoville after the grinch came. My sister and I, at least, missed the tree.

I was surprised when my sister went to our pastor and asked if it would be OK for her to make some felt banners. I knew this was "a Catholic thing." In our 1970s Catholic parish church we'd pitched in to make many banners: wheat and grapes, giant suns and sunbeams, Holy Spirit doves plunging into flames. And I was even more glad that our pastor said yes.

My sister made banners for the major liturgical occasions: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and for everyday. They were strung over the podium, making it look much more like a lectern, or hung from the track where the accordion door ran. I loved seeing them, and also recognized it was a profound gesture of love toward us. Pastor Stroud and that congregation cared a lot for my sister and me, the only teenagers in our small congregation. He wanted us to feel at home.

The Assemblies of God, I would learn over time, are particularly spare when it comes to religious imagery. They don't have overtly religious ornamentation in their churches. I don't think ours was unusual, even though we didn't have a permanent building. 

Felt banners were very much a cultural phenomenon in the 1970s Catholic Church. As I've learned more about Vatican II, I realize what a dramatic shift occurred very quickly in terms of church architecture and design. For the parishioners of St. Irenaeus in Park Forest who had attended in the 1950s, our church must have looked spare indeed. And into that space the folky Catholics of the Vatican II era brought large felt banners, a whole new age of liturgical design and art. And we, who only knew that, took it with us in our hearts. 

images: top left is Steve's logo for St. Joseph Church, St. Joseph, Minn. Would make a nice banner, wouldn't it?  At right is a recent example of a First Communion banner, which seems to be a common project for 2nd graders. If you'd like to see some really professional felt banners by liturgical artist James Mellick, click here.

Lent and Eggs

For me, hard-boiled eggs have always been a big part of Lent. They are the obvious sign of Easter, when we'd make our way through the two or three dozen we'd dyed and decorated, but I also associate them with the six weeks before. I suppose it has its roots in my mother's worries that we wouldn't have anything "meatless" when the time came. Although we always had plenty of options-- we could count on the treat of frozen fish sticks, macaroni and cheese or tuna noodle casserole on Fridays-- these were the days when there were no vegetarians (or at least no one we knew). It seemed an enormous challenge to cook without meat, even just one day a week. We had to be fortified with proteins of other sorts or we might just collapse.

So it was we ate extra peanut butter (on celery sticks, on crackers) and there were suddenly soft-boiled eggs at breakfast and hard-boiled eggs in our lunches, if no egg salad sandwiches were available. I'm not a big egg person, and still kind of use them at brunches to balance the effects that the maple syrup and gluten will have on me later in the day if I don't eat something real along with it. I don't think to boil up eggs or make egg salad. This has changed a bit since we now have chickens on the farm and a steady supply of lovely, brown, organic eggs. They just aren't on my radar.

This is why I've been delighted that Steve has started hard-boiling eggs. It seemed to begin right after Ash Wednesday, the bowl of eggs appearing in the fridge. This morning when I went down for breakfast there was another batch on a towel, as if recently gathered during an Easter egg hunt. Their color reminds me of the eggs we died the year I was at the Collegeville Institute. There was a Czech family there who shared with us their tradition of decorating eggs by boiling them in a pot with onion skins. If you're interested, I've embedded a video that shows you how to do it below. And of course, they're just about perfect food. Portable, substantial, and more or less good for you. Egg salad on toast is perhaps my favorite sandwich, with a little dill, scallions and relish mixed in especially.

Steve also (strongly) encouraged me to give up chocolate for Lent. Unfortunately, the first week of Lent coincided with a really bad bout of perimenopausal PMS, and chocolate is basically medicinal for that condition. But Steve is kind and he had said right up front that a cup of hot chocolate wouldn't count. I made it through with only one real lapse. Yesterday, we had a good talk about the second week of Lent and its challenges, basically the feeling that you've kind of done it, you get the point, and what would it matter if you had chocolate (or x, y, z) now. The rationalization stage. So I'm finding that, although I'm not big on "giving up things" for Lent, I am finding the shared experience of it kind of interesting and worthwhile. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy the eggs.