Bruno Barnhart, RIP

One of the gems of the Benedictine family are the Camaldolese monks - they live together in community, but retain a solitary lifestyle more reminiscent of the Desert Fathers and Mothers than a typical Benedictine monastery.   Along the beautiful California coastline near Big Sur is New Camaldoli Hermitage, home to a small number of resident Camaldolese monks and a thriving Oblate program (non-resident lay monastics).

This past weekend, one of the resident monks of New Camaldoli, Father Bruno Barnhart, entered into eternal rest.  While his is not a household name, Barnhart has written some interesting books on the revival of the ancient wisdom tradition within Christianity.

  
Barnhart's death coincided with the First Sunday of Advent, and the following passage from one of his books is appropriate for the season:

"Our temple, and all the temples, are gone forever from the world.  Now from within, from the center, the world itself is illumined as temple.... The music of the King sounds, beyond the ears' hearing, throughout this temple that is Christ.  The one Child, the Son, has come into his fullness at the center of the world, and the world that exists in him is now illumined and glorified in him." (From p, 208 of "Second Simplicity: The Inner Shape of Christianity").

A Prayer for Fall

The colors of the fall season this year have been particularly beautiful at times here in Western Iowa, as can be seen from a couple of pictures I took this past week at my congregation, St. Luke, this past week. 

 

 

 

In my daily prayer book ("For All the Saints", published by the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau - probably the closest thing Lutherans have to a monastic breviary), there was a beautiful prayer yesterday for the fall season from Wilhelm Loehe, a 19th century German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was instrumental in establishing churches in America, as well as restoring elements of our Catholic heritage to our Lutheran tradition:

 

"Blessed be the Lord! He hath done wonderful things, and blessed is His Holy Name, Who, now, that the summer is past, has brought me in joy to behold the blessed autumn days. Lord, I am not worthy of all Thy goodness and mercy which Thou hast again showered upon me.  Most humbly and heartily I beseech Thee, O Loving Father, turn away all dangerous storms and infectious diseases, and so bless me in my participation in Thy bounty, that with health of body, peace of mind, and a good conscience, I may thankfully enjoy Thy gifts, and use what Thou hast given me unto Thy glory and the promotion of my fellowman's happiness, and unceasingly bring to Thee acceptable fruits of my life.  In these days of the ingathering of the vintage, let me rejoice in Him, Who alone truly treads the wine press, the beloved Redeemer, Jesus Christ, With the fading and falling leaf, cause me to remember my mortality, and to prepare while it is yet time for a blessed end; to leave this inconstant, passing world with joy, whenever it so pleases Three; and to enter Thy glory, there, with angels and all the company of the elect, to evermore laud, praise, and thank Thee for all thy benefits. Amen."

 

St. Benedict's Day and the Cistercian Tradition

The Church remembers St. Benedict each year on July 11, and it is important to remember that the Benedictine order is not the only group that follows the Rule of St. Benedict.  This past year, I've had the chance to visit two Trappist monasteries, New Melleray in Iowa, and Gethsemani in Kentucky. 

(Abbey of Gethsemani, June 2015)

Trappists are formally known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO) - the Cistercians are Benedictine reformers whose history dates back to the Eleventh Century, and the Trappists represent a reform group within the Cistercian tradition.  Despite their different charisms, each order continues to represent a faithful way of living according to the Rule of St. Benedict. The living reality of Benedictine life, as reflected in the Cistercian Order, was noted by a modern Trappist monk, Michael Casey, OCSO:

"The Cistercian Patrimony is not a matter of lifeless stones, but a living reality incarnate in the lives and labors of innumerable brothers and sisters and expressed explicitly by a substantial body of doctrine developed by Cistercian authors of all centuries.  We inherit from the past not only buildings and artifacts, not only a lifestyle that many romantically believe has changed little from the Middle Ages, but a tradition of life communicated in a thousand humble ways from one generation to the next.  Beneath the Cistercian reality lays a network of beliefs, values and core practices that embody the energy of the charism.  The heart of the Cistercian Patrimony is a philosophy of life as validly applied to the twenty-first century as to the twelfth"

(Quoted at p. 20 of Come and See: The Monastic Way for Today by Brendan Freeman, OCSO).

How Long, O Lord

I was planning on breaking my blogging silence with a reflection and summary of my time spent at the conference of the International Thomas Merton Society a couple of weeks ago (which included a day trip to the Abbey of Gethsemani).  I'm still planning on doing that, but in light of this week's events, that seems unimportant right now. 

I have nothing to add to the many fine reflections offered these past few days, either regarding the tragic nature of the death of nine people at Emanuel AME in Charleston, or the racism that motivated their killing.  This one hits particularly close to home since the shooter was a member of an ELCA congregation, and two of those killed graduated from the ELCA seminary in South Carolina, and I have friends who knew them. 

So, I have no words of my own to add. I would simply note that during times like these, the focus on the Psalms within Benedictine spirituality has given me these words (from Psalm 13) to ponder when I think about the state of our country:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?  Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The Living Reality of the Cross

I did not intend to take a break from blogging during Lent, but that is what ended up happening.  After Easter, I will be spending more time at Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, where I am being trained to become a spiritual director.  After that, hopefully I will be able to resume blogging on at least a semi-regular basis.

In the meantime, on this Good Friday, it occurs to me how the cross was not a one-time event, buried deep within human history. When 21 Coptic Christians were beheaded this year, the cross was a living reality.  When 147 people were massacred at a college in Kenya this week, the cross was a living reality.  When millions were being exterminated in the 20th century in Germany, Eastern Europe, and Russia, the cross was a living reality.

Perhaps the most profound statement about the living reality of the cross was not from a Christian theologian, but from a Jewish boy who survived the Nazi holocaust.  In his book, Night, Elie Wiesel recounted the following occurrence from his childhood experience in a concentration camp:   

Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“For God’s sake, where is God?”
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
“Where is He?  This is where – hanging here from this gallows…”

Direction in a Directionally-Challenged World

Many people express feelings of being "directionally challenged" these days.  Geographically speaking, we have more and more ways than ever to keep us heading in the right direction - Google maps on our phones/ipads/laptops, GPS in our cars, etc.  No Google map or GPS system can tell us where our life is headed, though.  For most of us, anyway, God will not appear to us in a burning bush (like Moses) or in a vision (like Paul) to tell us where to go.  But, that does not mean that God is not with us, accompanying us on our journeys, speaking to us in a still, small voice.        

 

In a few weeks, we will begin the season of Lent.  Our Lenten practices and rituals do not get us closer to God, but help us to become more attuned to the presence of God, who is always with us.  During Lent, many congregations will explore some practices which can help us to sense the presence of God, and in the newly-established Spirituality Network in our Synod, some of us are becoming trained spiritual directors (people who help others pay attention to the presence of God in their life). (As I have written about previously, I am being trained in spiritual direction by Benedictines in Yankton, South Dakota: http://benedictinelutheran.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-unconditional-surrender-to.html).

 

However, there will still inevitably be times when we feel God's absence more than God's presence.  In those times, we can pray, and a prayer like this one is particularly appropriate when we are feeling a little (or a lot) directionally challenged in our life:

 

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (Thomas Merton).  

Longing for God

Last week, I was able to spend approximately 36 hours at New Melleray Abbey, a Trappist monastery just outside of Dubuque, Iowa ( http://benedictinelutheran.blogspot.com/2013/10/is-this-heaven-no-its-iowa.html).  I plan on writing more about the experience in an upcoming article, but in the meantime, I thought I would share what happened to me this morning.

Whenever I return from a retreat like my time at New Melleray, I find myself motivated to pray the daily prayer offices more regularly, set aside more time for contemplative prayer, read more Scripture and devotional writings, etc. Then, after about a week or so, I fall away from that new-found enthusiasm, and those kinds of practices fall by the wayside.  I don't get up early enough in the morning to do those things before work, I'm too busy or tired at night before going to bed - I always come up with a reason for falling away.

This morning, I awoke early enough that I didn't have an excuse, so I dug out "For All the Saints" (Lutheran book of daily prayers and readings) as well as the new Psalter that I picked up at New Melleray - they use the "Grail Psalter", which is a rather beautiful, poetic translation of the Psalms.  After coming back home, when I do pray, I've been trying to follow along with the monks' schedule for praying the Psalms, so that I am still praying with them in a sense, even at a distance of around 300 miles.

This morning, as I picked up the Psalter, it fell open to Psalm 62 (which is normally Psalm 63 in most Bible translations - the Grail Psalter is based on the Greek Septuagint, where many of the Psalms are numbered differently). In this Psalter, the title of the Psalm is called "Longing for God".

That phrase struck me this morning as being significant, but I couldn't figure out why.  I had not looked yet at the New Melleray's schedule of psalms that were to be prayed during Lauds (Morning Prayer) this morning, but I hoped that Psalm 62 was one of them.  But what were the chances of that?  Three Psalms are prayed by the monks during Lauds, and there are 150 Psalms, so if my math was correct, I figured I had a 1-in-50 chance. 

So, when I looked at New Melleray's schedule for praying the Psalms, I was delighted to see that Psalm 62 was on the list for this morning! The first few verses of the Psalm go like this:

O God, you are my God, for you I long;
for you my soul is thirsting,
My body pines for you
like a dry, weary land without water.
So I gaze on you in the sanctuary
to see your strength and your glory.

I think the phrase "Longing for God" seemed significant this morning because in between the times when my prayer life is rejuvenated by such things as going on retreats, I am thirsty -  thirsty for the kind of water that only God can provide.

While life sometimes seems like a continuous wandering in a dry, weary land, longing for God, we are assured by this Psalm that the glory of the Lord is not so far removed from us so as to be out of sight.  At the time this Psalm was written, people went to the sanctuary to see God's strength and glory.  Now, we go to the sacraments - those signs of God's grace and glory which also join us to the cross.  The life-giving waters of  baptism quench our thirst, and the body and blood of Christ nourishes us during our time in the desert.

Until we meet God face-to-face, we struggle with a continuous longing for God, but we can give thanks that we have been given the means of grace to sustain us on our journeys.

  

Feeling Cold? Try "Hygge"

As I am writing this entry, we are in the midst of the coldest spell we have had this winter in the Northern Plains region of the United States - temperatures have dipped below zero Fahrenheit, and the snow has come. Schools across the region have been canceled.

So, how do we northerners cope with these conditions?  Here in America, we don't cope too well, I'm afraid.  But, back in the country of my ancestors, Denmark, they have "hygge" - a cultural concept that does not translate well into English.  As I was reading about hygge, I immediately thought of parallels to Benedictine spirituality.  Benedictines do not rush things - prayer is done deliberately and intentionally.  Each moment of communication with God is savored.  Similarly, hygge is not to be rushed.  Also, hygge embraces both solitude and community, just as Benedictines engage in times of private prayer and meditation, as well as prayer as a community.

Here are some excerpts from an article about hygge, and what it means: 

"Denmark endures dreary winters with the help of an arcane cultural concept known as "hygge." It's not an easy word for outsiders to pronounce — it sounds sort of like HYU-gah — and it's even harder to translate. Hygge apparently has no direct analogue in English, and related words like "coziness," "togetherness" and "well-being" only cover a fraction of its nebulous definition. Still, in hopes of shedding light on Denmark's world-class happiness, here's a closer look at the hazy nature of hygge.

 

Hygge, originally a Norwegian word for "well-being," first appeared in Danish near the end of the 18th century, according to Denmark's tourism bureau. It has evolved into a big part of Danish life since then, absorbing connotations over time like a semantic snowball. The dark winters of Denmark helped turn hygge from a mere word into a kind of cultural panacea, manifested in various ways to buffer Danes against cold, solitude and stress.

 

"In other languages the word for hygge or coziness is more a physical thing, and hygge is more a mental thing," explains Lotte Hansen, a library science student from Aalborg, Denmark, who's interning at the Museum of Danish America in Elk Horn, Iowa. "It's like a feeling, and it's big at Christmastime. The candles, the food, being with your family."

 

"It's not only Christmas, though," she adds, noting hygge is a pervasive, year-round spirit. "It's like a mood you have. We can see hygge in many things, in many situations."

 

This flexibility of hygge is a major reason why English words like "cozy" don't do it justice. "Coziness relates to physical surroundings — a jersey can be cozy, or a warm bed — whereas hygge has more to do with people's behavior toward each other," writes author Helen Dyrbye in "Xenophobe's Guide to the Danes." "It is the art of creating intimacy: a sense of comradeship, conviviality and contentment rolled into one."

 

Danes don't have a monopoly on these concepts, but they do take pride in their holistic way of looking at them. It's not unlike the American idea of thankfulness around Thanksgiving and Christmas, which refers to a general sense of gratitude as well as the implied presence of family, festivity and homemade food. Yet while holiday cheer doesn't last all year for many Americans — despite its potential health benefits — hygge has become embedded in the Danish consciousness. 

 

"My feeling is that American life is so rushed that we often forget about doing things and creating these events of hygge," says Michele McNabb, librarian for the Museum of Danish America. "Americans vary so much in their family connections and friend networks, but you have to slow down for it. Hygge is not something you can do in a rush."

 

The word is useful as a noun or a verb, McNabb adds — "you can hygge by curling up on the sofa with a good book" — and as an adjective by converting it to "hyggeligt" (HYU-gah-lee). It generally has a social component, but there are wide-ranging interpretations across Denmark, allowing it to describe anything from a person or a building to an abstract ambience or sentiment. And for Danes who travel or move to America, the lack of a clear English translation can feel linguistically limiting.

 

"It's often connected to some social thing, but also a house can be hyggeligt, or different places can be hyggeligt," says Hansen, who came to the U.S. from Denmark just a few months ago. "We use it really often. When I came over here, I had to take a moment to think, 'What word can I use to describe this when I can't use hygge?'"

 

"I think it should be universally adapted," McNabb says. "I'm sure in other cultures there are some things that are similar. I just think the busier our lives get and the more on-call we are 24/7, there's a tendency to overdo things and be overstressed. The concept of carving time out for simple things is very important."

Read more: http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/how-hygge-can-help-you-get-through-winter#ixzz3O9fw0OUH