Love and Hate

Did you figure out what's in the photo? It's a close up of a bale of hay. The nuns at the abbey tended the field last spring and summer. They cut the hay, baled it, and are using it for their cattle. The hay brings its stored up nutrients to the cows, who in turn, provide nourishment to the nuns in the form of milk and beef. What are we nourishing our bodies with? We should be filling ourselves with the Bread of Life.

I hate and abhor lying,
But I love Your law.
Psalm 119-163 NKJV

The Beyond Consequences Online Parenting Class I've been taking dealt with lying recently. The statement was made, "Ignore the lie, but don't ignore the child." If you're like me, you're thinking, "Ignore the lie? No way! I don't want my child to grow up to be a liar! It's just plain wrong!" The class teacher, author Heather Forbes, later states that there is an implied thought in that sentence. Add the word temporarily at the beginning, to read, "Temporarily ignore the lie, but don't ignore the child." Forbes further elaborates on this thought.

"But you're saying by this point..., 'But what about the fact that my child is lying? How is he going to know that lying is wrong?' You are absolutely right; lying is wrong and the moral lesson of lying should be taught...it just cannot be taught in the heat of the moment due to the child's fear reactivity. Once the child is calm, and you're calm, perhaps an hour or later in the day, this behavior can be addressed with the child. Yet, in order for the child to absorb and fully understand that lying is wrong, the child has to be out of his fear state. His cognitive thinking pathways have to be clear and open. These pathways are engaged and fully operational only when a child is in a state of love. Remember, stress causes confused and distorted thinking, so the child must be in a calm state in order to be receptive to the rationale of why it is hurtful to lie."

"It is also important to recognize that stress suppresses short-term memory. Lecturing a child about lying during the stress of the moment will have little impact on the child's ability to remember not to lie in the future."
from Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control
by Heather T. Forbes & Bryan Post

In addition, instead of saying, "Don't lie," say, "I need you to always tell the truth." I've been consciously trying to formulate my statements to my children in this positive manner. It's also important to tell them that you can always work things out. You don't want them to think that because they've lied, you will mistrust/hate them forever. When you do come back to address the lie, let your child know you still love them, and you will fairly work out anything that may have to be undone by telling the lie.

The Angel

It was God's grace that I "happened" to take the Beyond Consequences Online Parenting Class right now. Although it's designed to help us more effectively parent children who've experienced trauma, I find it's helping me as I navigate my own trauma of going through a divorce. I also realize that as I live with my pain, I understand my children's pain more vividly.

Lately, I have been anything but an angel. I find myself having great difficulty even speaking civily with my husband. I pray for patience, and yet I so readily fly off the handle. When he leaves, I calm down, see the error of my ways, ask for forgiveness from him and/or the kids, evaluate my behavior and try to learn how to be more polite the next time.

Beyond Consequences teacher, Heather Forbes, talks about the amount of stress we can take before we blow up. She calls it the Window of Stress Tolerance. To illustrate this point, I want you to think of a bucket. It's got some water in the bottom which represents your life. There are a few rocks in there too, collected from the various problems one has. Now, most of us can carry the bucket around without difficulty. Water and a few rocks get added every day, but we know to stop, take some rocks out, pour out some of the water, and go on with our buckets.

Someone who is experiencing/has experienced trauma, has a much different scenario. They have a bucket that is nearly full before they even get out of bed. As soon as they wake up, they know they must lug that heavy bucket around everywhere they go. They are tired of the water sloshing out onto their pant leg all the time. They dread the problems they know will happen today. They always do. The bucket will get too heavy. It always does. They will stand there. Holding on to the bucket with two hands. Crying. Yelling. Frustrated.

Maybe, just maybe, an angel will come along. The angel will gently take the bucket from their grip. The angel will pour out the water onto some flowers, and take the rocks out to line a garden path. The angel will give them a hug, a cup of tea, sit and chat, and then send them on their way with a manageable bucket.



Although I am carrying around my own heavy bucket, I need to be the angel to my children.

Maybe I can even be the angel to myself.

(photos: my daughter and our dog - June 2009; flowers at the Abbey - July 2009)

Content New Year

I took this photo in the Abbey chapel because I liked how the rays of the late afternoon sun hit the floor. Some areas were completely shrouded in darkness. Other areas gave a hint of what lay beyond the sun's reaches. The light made an arrow of sorts, pointing forward.

My life goes on. Some areas of my life are shrouded in painful sorrow. Others spread out just beyond what I can see. Only the Lord knows what lies ahead for me.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4: 12-13 NIV

One of my goals for 2010 is to be content in any and every situation. Paul writes that the Lord will give me the strength to do this. May I graciously clothe myself with this strength to give Him glory.

By His Stripes

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53: 5 NKJV

The time for me to leave the abbey came. I had loved reading my Bible and studying it. Spending 30 minutes on one verse is a luxury I seldom take. I had walked a lot and spent time talking with my dear friend who was there too.

It's always difficult for me to leave. So I walked the road from the Retreat House to the Chapel one last time. Already late in heading for home, I chastised myself for being so foolish as to walk. 'I should have driven and saved myself some time,' I thought to myself. But there's something about walking that road and thinking as you go.

I entered the vacant chapel and sat in a back pew to pray, thanking God for the time there, asking for safe travel, and readying myself for the patience I would need as I returned home to a busy life.

I studied the shadows on the chapel wall. Usually stripes connote a jail cell or prison garb. Instead, His stripes and His blood deliver us from such a sentence. The bright red window above the crucifix creates a pool of red on the Chapel floor when the morning sun hits it just right. And although I much prefer an empty cross in a church, the juxtaposition of symbols was powerful on this early evening, and I didn't mind it this time.

By His stripes we ARE healed.

The Gift of Time

Being at the abbey gave me time. Time to read and study. Time to compare and study three translations. Time to allow the desire to dig deep really take root.



It gave me time to jot down my thoughts. Time to read and reread, meditate upon verses, study, and write down thoughts that God brought to mind as I studied scripture.

If I could but carve out, daily, that precious gift of unhurried time in my own life back at home.

(The view from the desk in my room at the abbey Retreat House.)

Thus Have They Loved to Wander

Thus saith the Lord unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander,
they have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord doth not accept them;
He will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.

Then said the Lord unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

Jeremiah 14: 10-12 KJV

This cow wandered onto the gravel road that runs through the abbey site. There were other places with better grazing, but he stayed here with two other cows for quite some time.

How often we stray from greener pastures. How different our lives would be if we would but graze where the Lord has provided what we need.

As I read Jeremiah I think that God seems to have turned His back on our country, just as He turned His back on Judah. For my children's sakes, I plead like Abraham, asking God to spare us for the sake of even ten righteous men.

Chant and Time

I'm listening to "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" from the German Requiem by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). It nearly moves me to uncontrollable tears each time I hear it, so beautiful is the writing. So, while I wouldn't want a diet of only Gregorian Chant, I do enjoy listening to the sisters of the abbey sing.

This excerpt from Music of Silence helps me understand why. Author David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, strives to show how to "incorporate the sacred meaning of monastic life into our everyday lives."

Saturated with information but often bereft of meaning, we feel caught in a never-ending swirl of duties and demands, things to finish, things to put right. Yet as we dart anxiously from one activity to the next, we sense that there is more to life than our worldly agendas.

Our uneasiness and our frantic scrambling are caused by our distorted sense of time, which seems to be continually running out. Western culture reinforces this misconception of time as a limited commodity: We are always meeting deadlines; we are always short on time, we are always running out of time.

Chant music, on the other hand, evokes a different relationship to time, one in which time, while precious, isn't scarce. The pure, serene, yet soaring sounds of the chant remind us that there is another way to live in this noisy, distracted world, and this way is not as out of reach as it might seem.

Hay and Humbleness

"Monks, like those who farm or fish according to seasons and tides, are especially attuned to the language nature speaks, and they tend to have a healthy and realistic humility regarding their own control over the events of life."
Kathleen Norris

I was walking down the 3/4 mile road from the retreatants' house to the Abbey Chapel and there they were. Two hay bales on the road, with remnants of a third in the ditch. A closer inspection showed tractor marks in the gravel road, at angles that made it appear someone had tried turning around on the road.

The bales had not been there when we walked back from Sext (Midday Prayer). But they were there a few hours later, and there they stayed until at least mid-morning the next day.

When I first saw them, along with the road sign "SLOW DOWN," I thought of a funny caption. "Yes, even nuns make mistakes." But, at Vespers (Evening Prayer), I watched the sisters diligently chanting the Psalms, and thought of how at least one of the nuns in front of me knew about the hay in the road, and knew the bales needed to be moved. I scanned the nuns on each side of the chapel, each one looking as calm as the next. The sister who was responsible for moving the bales didn't skip Vespers to work on the hay. She knew that it would get done in due time. Her job now was to worship God. She had a "healthy and realistic humility" regarding her control over the events in her life.

That's one of the lessons I am always reminded of at the Abbey: slow down and keep your priorities in order. Don't put off praising God because of the errant hay bales of life.

The Imitation of Christ - Part 10

Excerpts from The Imitation of Christ - Thomas a Kempis
Book 1 Chapter 10
Of the Danger of Superfluity of Words

Avoid as far as thou canst the tumult of men; for talk concerning worldy things, though it be innocently undertaken, is a hindrance, so quickly are we led captive and defiled by vanity.

Therefore must we watch and pray that time pass not idly away. If it be right and desirable for thee to speak, speak things which are to edification.

Nevertheless, devout conversation on spiritual things helpeth not a little to spiritual progress, most of all where those of kindred mind and spirit find their ground of fellowship in God.

How I am convicted of harsh words uttered from my lips. Even this day. And how very, very thankful I am for friends of "kindred mind and spirit" with whom I can fellowship.

(Photo of nuns at St. Walburga Abbey. I have visited here, and never fail to come away a changed person. This photo originally appeared in an article from the Ft. Collins, Colorado, newspaper. I found it on this blog and am borrowing (?) it.

Ora et Labora-Part 4

Lately I've been writing about a Benedictine Abbey I've been privileged to visit for personal retreats. So, just who was Benedict?

Benedict was born in Italy around 480. A Benedictine nun who wrote Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, states,

"He went to school in Rome when the Empire was in a state of material prosperity but moral decline... He decided that life lived in that fashion was not the fullness of life at all. He left Rome and went to a rural area south of the city to contemplate the meaning of life, to simplify its demands, and to refashion his own attitudes and life-style.

"It wasn't long until he was sought after by multitudes of other people who were also uneasy with the secular climate of the day but unsure as well of what ought to be its spiritual character. Out of this came what we know today as Western monasticism, the pursuit of the spiritual life in community, rather than in the secluded cells of the solitaries, which was the form of religious life that had been prevalent in the deserts of Egypt and in the East... As time passed, Benedictine monasteries became the anchor points and centerpieces of whole villages in Europe. From the monastics... the people learned to live and to work and to pray. As a result, the Benedictine Order has often been credited with having saved Western Europe after the barbarian invasions, and Benedict himself was named the patron of Europe."

From this brief history of Benedict and his time, I see many parallels to today's Christian agrarian movement. America is certainly in a state of seemingly material prosperity, coupled with extreme moral decline. Many agrarians are pursuing a spiritual life in community. Sometimes the community is an actual geographic place where several like-minded families settle to farm and worship. Sometimes it is a community that exists in cyberspace. Nonetheless, people are leaving the secluded cells of the solitaries to become part of this new spiritual community. These secluded cells range from cubicles in corporate America to postage stamp sized suburban backyards fenced in by six foot tall privacy fences. Some folks are instead tangling with barbed wire fences and modest farmhouses situated on a few acres they can call their own.

While an agrarian lifestyle doesn't work for everyone, I am impressed with the ingenuity, hard work, honest convictions, desire to please God, and committment to providing for future generations that I see in the agrarian blogs I read. My maternal grandfather passed down to me a love of gardening and an appreciation of God's creation. If I never get my farm, may I pass along to my children the desire to pursue a more agrarian lifestyle.

Ora et Labora-Part 3

I got to go to the Abbey again last week with a dear friend.

I started keeping a journal of Abbey visits when I went two years ago. Some of the same words crop up in my thoughts from visit to visit: peaceful, calm, serene, worshipful, simplicity, sense of purpose.

In addition, this time I was struck by the contrasts present at the Abbey:

Work and Prayer
Same and Unique
Order and Freedom


It seems that the very things that one would mistakenly think would constrict the sisters, actually serve to free them. One might think that work and prayer would interfere with one another, but the two together form a perfect balance and serve to enhance each other.

The sisters may look similar when wearing their habits. But, because of their "uniform," you don't notice who is skinny, who is heavier, who has new clothes, etc. You look at their faces, where you see joy instead of stress.

They have the same schedule every weekday, but it appears to free them instead of restrict them. They are more in tune with the seasons because of their farm work. They all have such a sense of purpose, not just for their own community, but for all of those who come to the Abbey for retreats.


Two years ago I wrote in my Abbey journal:
The Abbey creates a haven for me--a place I love to be. A place that nurtures. A place that comforts you the minute you walk in. A place that comforts you when you merely think about it. A place that you think of when you're away. A place that you want to return to. A place that makes you want to be more like the sisters: purposeful, reverent, unhurried, loving, diligent.

As I reflect on this, I realize that my duty is to create a similar haven for my family in our home. It's a tall order, but it should be what drives my decision making, my every action, my daily prayer.

Lord, help me to make a haven for my family in our home.

Ora et Labora Part 2

In a recent post I wrote about my visit to a Benedictine Abbey to help the sisters pull weeds. Most of the visit included work, so I gained insights quite different from when I normally go there for personal renewal and prayer.

Benefits of 'Pray and Work'
First, the concept of pray and work is quite powerful when repeated throughout the day. During our before-lunch weed pulling, I was "on a roll" and didn't want to stop. If I had been doing this on my own, and didn't have a scheduled prayer service looming, I would have kept yanking those weeds. Invariably, I would have gone on too long, and missed any prayer time if I were calling the shots. Instead, we all stopped and gathered in the chapel for the service. We then refueled ourselves over lunch before going back to the weeds. Our afternoon session of pulling was quite profitable. We found whole patches of weeds and pulled many more than we had in the morning. The time of prayer, fueling our bodies, and visiting over lunch, all gave us renewed vigor to attack the task at hand.

Time Management
Second, knowing that you have a limited time changes your outlook on your work. You work harder and smarter during the time you DO have. You don't waste the time.

Take Time to Listen and Talk
Third, I noticed that the sisters were able to make you feel like they had all the time in the world to talk while we worked. Although they are very purposeful in their work, they don't rush around in a frenzy, ignoring people who visit the Abbey.

The sisters have the ability to work hard, set aside time to pray and praise God, and give people their time. What a wonderful combination of traits that we would do well to emulate.

I just read this Bible verse, and decided it applied to the sisters, too.

In everything that [Hezekiah] undertook in the service of God's temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.
2 Chronicles 31: 21

(I got the above photo from the Abbey website. It really is beautiful there!)

Ora et Labora

Pray and work.

St. Benedict coined this phrase as a motto of sorts when establishing his religious order. Ora et Labora was one of the first sayings the kids and I learned when we started Latin.

This photo shows a Benedictine Abbey in northern Colorado, near the Wyoming border. I went once with a group of women from my old church, and then two more times for a private retreat. I took my Bible, a hymnal, a journal, and some good walking shoes. I attended the services and spent time alone in prayer, singing, and reading. Going there is always such a boost to my mental and spiritual state.

A few Saturdays ago, I went again. This time I got to do more Labora than Ora. The sisters are trying to eradicate a noxious weed [Toadflax], and had a "Weed and Pray" day. A handful of us pulled weeds, attended the Sext service right before lunch and weeded some more.

While pulling the weeds I got to thinking. Toadflax was brought to this country as an ornamental plant. Unfortunately, it soon spread to the wild and began overtaking native plants. Isn't this just like sin? It creeps into our lives, sometimes even disguised as something pretty, but it quickly overtakes us and forces its way into all areas of our lives, pushing out necessary things.

The sisters and their helpers must pull each weed one by one in order to keep it from spreading to the hay field. After about a dozen years of diligent work they hope to have it gone from their land.

Are we as willing to diligently purge sin from our lives, weed by weed?