Campus has been lovely this time of year and seeing it gradually change since snow was on the ground has prompted a lot of reflection on the use of plant imagery in describing spiritual growth. Previously I had been encouraging myself when I felt sorry that I wouldn't see the campus fully blossomed out by summer by thinking alternatively it won't see my fully blossoming out either. That is something I'll take with me and will be effected elsewhere. And yesterday when I was chatting with one of the monks about leaving, I felt particularly encouraged by some kind of interpretation I formed about his relationship to space that is nice to have. It reminded me that my spiritual life is rooted (a good plant metaphor) in God and not "place" which goes a little against all the thinking of monastic stability in the cell that I've been doing - except that my thinking has been more in terms of metaphor and the comfort and stability in the self that cell-stability enables. In those terms, I carry my rootedness with me everywhere I go and being here has just been good fertilizer, which is a nice image too to describe my feelings for this place. Rich soil, ploughed, even sown, but fruit yet to come.

Today I took a walk after morning prayer. Not a lot to do until we pick up the moving truck this afternoon. Things are packed - including suitcases - and we did a heavy amount of cleaning on Saturday, so not much to do there either. We'll pick up some replacement oven burner dishes at the hardware store while we're in town so I can clean the stovetop tonight. Load up the truck tomorrow - it took around 2 hours last time with 2 guys helping us with the big stuff, so we're guessing it'll take us twice as long. We have an elevator here, though, which will make things easier.

I picked up the most recent issue of "Poetry" last week and found a new writer I want to read and this feels like a fortuitous discovery in that there may be more to find here than I bargained for in picking up this issue (ie, could she be someone I work on for my dissertation, if I stick to theology/arts stuff??). Anyway, these last two weeks are perfectly expressed in this "I've learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being." I don't know if I can say "I've learned to value" yet but I love considering the possibility. I think I've had a few "failed" conversations these past two weeks as I've tried to come to terms with the big upheaval coming and my desire to thank people for the part they've had in my life here. Our commencement speaker yesterday encouraged the graduates to thank faculty who have made a difference in their lives and I tried to do that a couple times with professors I've had tremendous respect for and learned a great deal from but it never comes across as heartfelt as I feel (at least, so I assume). That's okay - walking today I remembered a friend's observation about my exercising "gentle disciple" with myself (and "disciplined gentleness" with others) and I chided myself thinking it could be even more gentler as we transition to new living quarters and circumstances. It's easy to use transitions like this to make radical declarations about the "new life" that is suddenly possible to see formed as an immediate break between the old and new, which always optimistically means making resolutions like "I will no longer drink coffee!" But I think especially while I'm under the stress of change, I need to let myself do what I need to in order to make the change as happy as possible. That means giving myself permission to drink coffee, etc. as needed - same with Winston - to give him the space to do what he needs in order not to get unduly stressed. He's been planning all the route this morning and looking at the satellite pictures online of exits and intersections so that he will recognize where to go and see how easy it is to navigate through some of the more complicated parts of the trip's itinerary and I realized that he was doing it because he doesn't like it when I get stressed out driving and he can't give me directions quickly enough to act on. So, I will need to be careful not to get too irritated about that - if we have to turn around somewhere, that's fine!

Good commencement yesterday. The church looked beautiful. I'll post a picture here - Winston was in the balcony and got a good view of the banners that have been up since Easter. The monks will hang red ones for Pentecost. Oops! The picture doesn't want to load so I'll try a different time. Profound sense during the ceremony itself of how lucky I have been and how much in awe I've been that they actually have "let me do" this degree. I was the only monastic studies student this year and I thought wow! anybody could come here and get a MA degree and study all this great stuff - it's all open to the public, so to speak. You don't have to be a monk to do it. I can hardly believe it! How lucky I am!

It is a beautiful day and the grounds crews are out in force, cutting the grass and planting flowers so that campus looks lovely tomorrow. I think tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful as well. I took a long walk this morning, after having gotten up early for my last Saturday morning prayer here. The day seems extra-long because of that early get-up. I've already taken an hour + walk, packed multiple boxes, cleaned in the apartment, read some Brothers Karamazov, and done two loads of laundry. Whew! But it's getting down to the wire, after having so long felt we had so much time ahead of us. Tomorrow is pretty much a lost cause because of graduation and all the activities during the day. Monday we'll pick up the moving truck, load it Tues, and leave Wed, so we are really needing to get stuff done today and it is nice to have the time to do it!

Just finished my last class here and am headed out for a walk but thought I'd post some pictures I took earlier this spring, so you can see how beautiful my walks are:

This is a photo of two recent gifts: a beautiful orchid which I hope to keep alive during the impending move and two pottery bowls which I'm now using for fruit. I think they make a pretty display on the wood table and though this picture makes things look bright and cheerful, it is actually rather gloomy this Sunday morning.

We watched "My Man Godfrey" last night and then slept in this morning. It will be a rest day for me since I start comps early tomorrow morning (as soon as my topics are emailed to me!). The week will be consumed by that so it is good that I finished a paper due Wednesday yesterday. It was on a story from Palladius' Lausiac History, which I find I really, really like. It may be THE text I use for my dissertation work. Since we had a guest in class earlier this semester who referred to falling in love with a text, I've been thinking about my favorites and which direction I may go in and I think this text may be it. For one, its anecdotes are a little more fully developed than the apophthegmata and that may appeal to the part of me that loves novels. The stories are like perfect little perfectly-realized stories that have their own narrative arc and perhaps if I see the apophthegmata as little bits of poetry, then these stories are like little novels. Anyway, that's a little too much rhapsodizing about them. I did enjoy this paper but found it challenging that the professor asked for only 8-10 pages. It is hard sometimes for me to be concise and stick to the professor's rubric when I want to go off on interesting tangents. But having all that interesting stuff occur to me makes me think there's room to explore further and I hope I can do that in the next few years.

I suppose resting today means knitting a little, reading a little, napping a little. I'd like to take a walk but it's misty and wet out and there's even chance of a wet snow which the radio this morning said could be between 2-4 inches. The website forecast doesn't say that much and since it'll be wet it'll probably melt fairly quickly and not stick much at all anyway. Yesterday was very warm - people were out on the lakes fishing and canoeing and on the lakeshore sunbathing. Quite a difference today, but Winston says that's what happens when cold fronts pass. In any case, we'll be warm and cozy inside.

Today I am off for a 2-day retreat and getting ready for it this morning has been interesting. I had a big rush to get ready by noon to go with Winston on the first of the legs of his bus trip to do grocery shopping. So, did some school work, reading, picking up mail, packing, washing dishes, etc. in a mad rush this morning, changing my mind (of course!) about my reading multiple times before setting off with him. Then had about an hour here to read - I don't check in until 3:30 - and went to the Co-op to get some food for the 2 days. Here's a little inventory of the food I'm taking: brought some greens and beans from home that I didn't want to spoil in the next 2 days, bought a small bag of spinach, chocolate bar, cashews, a bunch of carrots, package of lemony type wafer cookies, good wild rice bread, 2 bananas, (small!) bag of potato chips, and crackers. I'm sure it will be enough. I think there's a kitchen in the hermitage where I'll be staying but just in case there isn't, I didn't want to bring anything that would suffer lying around 2 days. In terms of books, after enduring Winston's laughing at my small stack of 7-8 books which collected on the table while I thinking about this this morning, I decided on my Bible, a collection of Mary Oliver's poetry I haven't read yet (got it for Christmas), and an anthology of Desert Fathers literature which I have read. I couldn't decide beforehand whether it would be better to take all new reading material or take stuff I could count on being edified by, so I ended up with a little of both. We'll see how it works. I was talking with some schoolmates recently about possessions & ownership and we were talking about how things define us and I was reminded of that conversation while trying to sort this out: who am I now who is going on this retreat? And who is this who who hopes to meet God during these next couple days in a way I haven't made quite the same sort of space for in the past? While at the coffeeshop just now, I read a particularly apt quote from Merton in the intro to the Desert Fathers anthology: "Today, more than ever, we need to recognize that the gift of solitude is not ordered to the acquisition of strange, contemplative powers, but, first of all, to the recovery of one's deep self, and to the renewal of an authenticity which is presently twisted out of shape by the pretentious routines of a disordered togetherness." Wow! Isn't that timely? I know myself well enough to know these 2 days will be a challenge and I think resisting taking that pile of books was a good step forward into that challenge. It is so easy for me to fill time by reading (I was thinking of plunging through all three volumes of the Divine Comedy this weekend which, considering next week is Easter, isn't a bad idea but still...it would consume all my time) and harder to just be quiet and still and think and pray and listen, so I hope I'm able to do those things better after having had this retreat.

Last night cut Winston's hair. Last cut here, he commented, since we do it every 3-4 months. Looked at the calendar and saw we have 6 weeks left. Now that our days are being counted, so to speak, I got up a little earlier than usual and went to morning prayer which I don't usually do on Saturdays. But I'm glad I did. It's a rather cold, gloomy day and it was a good start to the weekend. Campus, not surprisingly, very quiet at that time of morning on a weekend.

"In the Penitential Psalms, Christ recognizes my poverty in His poverty. Merely to see myself in the psalm is a beginning of being healed. For I see myself through His grace. His grace is working; therefore I am on my way to being healed. O the need of that healing! I walk from region to region of my soul and I discover that I am a bombed city. When I meditated on Psalm 6 - "Lord, not in thy fury" - I caught sight of an unexpected patch of green meadow along the creek on our neighbor's land. The green grass under the leafless trees and the pools of water after the storm lifted my heart to God. He is so easy to come to when even grass and water bear witness to His mercy. "I will water my couch with tears." I have written about the frogs singing. Now they sing again. It is another spring. Although I am ruined, I am far better off than I have ever been in my life. My ruin is my fortune."

From Thomas Merton's journals, dated March 3, 1953

I love that phrase "I discover that I am a bombed city" and the conclusion of this excerpt.

Here we are having uncharacteristically warm weather. Nearly 80 yesterday and another 78 projected today. Strange to go so quickly from a wind chill factor to a heat index! There is a funeral mass this morning for one of the monks so we will see the procession to the cemetery later from our apartment windows: always a sobering sight. We are helping a fellow classmate pack up some stuff today - her mother is ill and needs her at home - so will stay busy with that most of the afternoon I think. I have a presentation to give in class next week and will be working on that most of tomorrow. I am starting to feel the "reality" of our move coming so quickly now, as we are helping this friend to pack up. There is certainly a measure of excitement involved, but also a measure of regret. We got an email yesterday from friends who are from this area and they asked what we would miss most and, though Winston could not come up with anything (!), I felt that there was too much for me to list and process yet - I think it will really hit me once we're moved on. But we agreed that I have had the better end of the deal these two years; it's been a really good experience for me. And I'm pleased that Winston will now have a chance to feel more happy about what he's doing and where we are and what's possible for him. In any case, I told him OUR being here together has really been an expression of love on his part because though we had discussed my coming alone and his remaining in CA to work, we decided we didn't want to do that and that was the right decision. In any event, these two years have gone by quickly for us both and we're both excited and scared about moving on.

Though there has been snow falling a couple times this past week, there is something about the sky and air that says that spring will soon be here. I have worn my sandals (with thick socks) a couple days this week, just getting from the Hall to the library or church and been fine, so that's one indication. Today it may get into the 50s!

Here are a couple spring thoughts I ran across during the week:

From Rilke's Stories of God:
"What we experience as spring, God sees as a fleeting little smile passing over the earth. The Earth seems to be remembering something, which then in the summer she tells to everyone; until at last she becomes wiser in the great stillness of autumn, which is how she confides in the lonely. All the springs that you and I have lived through, taken all together, do not add up to one of God's seconds. A spring that is to be noticed by God cannot be confined only to the trees and fields; its power must also enter into human beings. For then it continues to happen, not in time, but rather in eternity, so to speak, and in the presence of God."

From a poem by Rumi:
"Spring is Christ,
raising martyred plants from their shrouds.
Their mouths open in gratitude, wanting to be kissed.
The glow of the rose and the tulip means a lamp
is inside."

We are ending spring break this weekend and I've accomplished enough to feel okay, though I have felt a little stress at the idea of how much I need to know and understand by my comprehensive exams next month. I'm trying not to let it unnerve me and to remind myself that I'm a student and "in process" - I'm SUPPOSED to be learning and I shouldn't feel anxiety about not knowing everything I want to know right now. In fact, I know a great deal more than I think and certainly a heck of a lot more than when I arrived - both in terms of academic material and in terms of my own spiritual life, so whatever happens I'm pleased with the progress I've made here and feel that I am well-equipped for the next phase, whatever that will be. I just got news this morning of my 3rd rejection by a graduate school, so now am awaiting one more before I make the final decision to go to the place that has already accepted me. I am feeling really grateful for that one acceptance!

called "Writing the Mind Alive: The Proprioceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice" --

I was just looking through this book again and liked the things I highlighted and thought I might post them here to remember, along with my little annotations:

"...fear of expression is remarkably common; it stems from the unconscious assumption - really a superstition - that we alter circumstances by expressing or denying thoughts."

[in the context of a workshop setting:]
"There is a difference between acting on and expressing emotions. When, in the course of writing or reading..., an emotion arises - producing laughter or tears, turning skin clammy or hot, a face ashen or red - we discourage any attempt by our students to curb its expression or camouflage its significance out of fear or embarrassment. We urge them instead to allow their emotions full expression. Sometimes students worry that if they start crying, they'll never stop; if they probe their anger, they'll only exacerbate it. But emotions may have to intensify before they subside. It may seem a paradox, but it is nevertheless true, that every emotion is healthy - as long as it is felt in the presence of a calm thinking mind."
[the claim at the end of this statement makes me pause: EVERY emotion is healthy? maybe; I'm not sure about that]

"Over time,...[writing]...helps you develop a sense of negative capability, a trait the poet John Keats described as the capability to exist in 'uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact or reason.'"
[this reminds me of my recent challenge to look at my life's material more in terms of building blocks I'm playing with - i.e., mystery - than a crossword puzzle - i.e., a problem needing to be solved]

"Don't assume that people need to be rescued from their emotions, or comforted by gestures of concern."
[I often do assume this, partially because it makes me uncomfortable when other people are distressed and because I'm not comfortable with my own expressing emotion.]

"The more we reveal ourselves to ourselves, the more we can reveal ourselves to another. The more we reveal ourselves to another, the more fully we are individuated from each other, and the less prone we are to project feelings onto each other."
[I think this is profound. I assume the more we know about others, the more we recognize our common grounds but this statement reminds me that when we discover our differences, we're less apt to presume there's common ground between us which, for me, is often projection rather than reality. Something, for me, to be careful about.]

Some writing thoughts on this Lenten Saturday, which was snowy at about 8 this morning but is now quite sunny and bright. Some of my Lenten reading this year has been to dig deep into Jane Kenyon's poetry and it's been a lot of fun so far. Not necessarily what I often think a Lenten discipline should be...but it's been good! Starting spring break this weekend. Just vaccuumed the front room and finished a load of laundry. Winston went downstairs to read for a while; we'll probably take a walk later in the afternoon. We watched "Hugo" last night with friends and it was interesting. One of the friends felt there was a good theological message regarding "no extra parts/people" in the universe; everybody has a purpose. That's true, I think. But I found it strange to think we've come to a place in our collective consciousness where machines can be effective metaphors for human existence.* It's interesting alright. I disliked the pace of the movie at first but after it was over, I rather enjoyed it. It really took its time telling the story and the sets and characters were very stylish, too, [although a little flat]. *Regarding the man/machine metaphor, the main character had a dream where he'd turned into a machine and I found that, though helpful in explaining the metaphor explicitly, rather disturbing to see. Anyway, just my thoughts on that. The only other Academy Award winner we saw was "The Descendents" which I found very moving. But to each his own: Winston was not moved by it at all.

The editor of this piece in an anthology of Christian mystics (which is part of my reading list for comps) calls the following "the most captivating expression of Christian self-hatred ever recorded" and begs the reader to keep in mind the context of the author's having discovered a mysticism of joy in his love of Christ that had this type of expression as its opposite. I found it rather shocking and thought it might be worth sharing here for Lenten reading:

By Jacopone da Todi:

Send me illness, O Lord,
I beg of You, out of courtesy!

Hurl down quartian ague, tertian fever,
Chills every day and swollen dropsy!
Give me toothache, headache, and stomach cramps,
Pains in my guts and spasms of choking.
Give me pleuritis and burning eyes,
Let my left side swell with a tumor;
Visit me with a violent case of tuberculosis,
Let me suffer perpetual delirium...

Let my mouth be full of ulcerous sores,
Have me suffer from epilepsy, falling into fire and water,
My whole body utterly broken by illness.
Come blindness, loss of speech and hearing,
Wretchedness, poverty and palsy.
May my stench keep everyone at a distance,
With no one to help me in my misery:
Let them abandon me in the horrible gulch...

Let me be buried in the stomach of a ravenous wolf,
Who will shit the relics in a bramble patch.

Let those who come there, expecting miracles after my death,
Be accompanied by evil spirits,
Feel howling terror, have doomsday visions.
Let anyone who hears the mention of my name shudder
And cross himself to ward off the danger of an ugly encounter.
All this I call down on myself, O Lord, is not adequate vengeance,
For You created me as Your beloved,
And I, ungrateful wretch, put You to death.
***
A little grim, huh? This struck me particularly today because I had a terrible case of strained back muscles last night, so much so that I had to get up in the night and take a hot shower in order to relax them and get some sleep. It was awful! And just the result of having overly stretched earlier in the week, I suppose. Winston reminds me this is what happens as a person grows older...

Today is bright and clear, lots of sun and blue sky. It snowed Thursday night so we have fresher white on the ground again. We are headed into town this afternoon to do some grocery shopping. We are starting a Lenten film fest for Saturday evenings here that will feature films of modern martyrs, so tonight we are watching "Romero." I hope it won't be too disturbing; however, I suppose being disturbed is part of the point. I have about three more in mind for future weekends, but will have to look around for something to fill out the whole season. My Lenten morning reading is Jane Kenyon's work this year and I'm really enjoying it. I am reading both her own poetry, a biography about her, and her prose, and taking the time to take little things from wherever I find them to meditate on during the day. It's been very good so far. For instance, a day or two ago I ran across a description of a transformative spiritual experience she had in the biography and it was so lovely - the gist of it was for her that she "relaxed into existence," having had an experience of sensing the whole of creation and every thing and person's place in it, including her own. I prayed during that day for something of that experience myself. How lovely it sounds to "relax into" one's own existence! Winston and I are reading in the morning Paula Huston's Lenten book on "Simplifying the Soul" and are finding it good so far. It has occasioned some nice morning conversation about the similarities Winston finds between Christianity and his own more philosophical point of view. I'm glad he agreed to read it with me!

Had my first paper due this past week; it was good to be writing again for school and turn in something. With class only once a week, it's hard sometimes to remember I am in school! I have developed my own little routine of reading every morning at the library and that's been good but it often feels as if it's just what I might do anyway, had I the free time.

Slept in until 9 this morning which was quite a treat. I'm usually up at 5:30 and out to morning prayer (and back again) before the sun is even up, but today it was quite glorious to see it shining on the walls through the blinds before even having fully roused myself. Now, I'm still in my pajamas but we do have our weekly communal service and lunch here on Thursdays at 11:30, so I will get myself ready soon for that. I'm "hospitality" today which means I greet people at the doors and hand them the worship aid. I helped a little with making pasta (from scratch) last night for today's lunch, so it will be nice to sample that and see how it turns out. Then, after lunch, Winston and I are heading to the next town over - going on the shuttle - to find a park which has a lake you can walk around. We heard about it last summer from a classmate who went over there daily to walk her dog and I kept thinking I'd like to find it, so we looked on the map and think we know how to find it. So we'll have a good walk and if I remember to take the camera, I'll post a picture here later. There is a coffeeshop in the town, too, so I've persuaded Winston to let us warm up there afterward with a good cup of coffee (& if we take books, even a little "read" which I enjoy so much: of course, we'll talk too). Then, tonight we are going into town for dinner at the Indian restaurant, which will be fun. Just two other people from school are going, so it'll be a small, intimate party. I'm probably not going to be doing much schoolwork today, but that's okay. Worked yesterday and had class all afternoon, though I did get a walk in and a little poetry written. Lots of cards from family to open this morning: that was quite nice! It is a beautiful day - lots of grass showing since the snow has been melting. It's sunny but cold. Good walking weather actually.

My poinsetta has deigned to show off some red this February - just in time for my birthday. I have had this plant for many years (7-8?) and its decidedly green life with me has been in peril several times when I thought it was time to get rid of it (ie. throw it in the garbage: really!) but I've always rather liked it and today it has offered us great joy in showing this red off. I can't understand how it happened except that we were gone for about a month and it only got watered once (maybe twice) in that time and plus, it's been very cold here so maybe it's had a little hibernation/dormancy that I didn't know about. It is right next to the window, so it hasn't had darkness. In any case, I know there's a lesson in this for me.

I just walked to the post office and felt a little bit sad looking out across the walkway from the Hall to the monastic gardens and at how white they are still with snow and thinking that we are on the downhill slope from our very high time being here. I am sorry and just yesterday we were approached about having a new prospective student/couple look at our apartment for next fall; we are certainly on our way out. And yet there is something that is interestingly dynamic about the community (school) here that is a severe contrast to the monastic community that is good to think about and I like how people here are formed in a way to be ready to go out. I think I am ready to move on, as much as I know I'll miss being here. Somehow being in the process of becoming an oblate reassures me that I'll always have some kind of connection to this place and, I hope, the opportunity to return.

In the meantime, I'm staying busy enough not to think about this too much. I slept in a little this morning and just got up in time for morning prayer. Today is the day when they do the blessing of the throats - to ask for protection from "diseases of the throat and all other illness" which I think is a fine way to approach the end of winter. So, the extra sleep did me good. I've been working hard these past few weeks and getting a little overwhelmed, but it is good stuff I'm reading and I enjoy this opportunity to coalesce all the stuff I've been learning and try to formulate it into manageable chunks I can write about for the comprehensive exams (in little over 2 months!).

I have been enjoying May Sarton's "Journal of a Solitude," especially her comments about art/poetry. Though she wrote so many novels and focuses quite a bit on that, her poetry seems to be a vital part of her writing life and I found her observation that if she were on a desert island, she would not write novels anymore (she needs the community of readers to validate that activity for her somehow) but that she would write poetry (it's more for internal discovery) particularly poignant. I think that's one of the reasons why continuing to write poetry is so important to me and I'm very pleased to have written/finished two this past month, per my little resolution to give myself space to pursue that in the midst of all this hectic, deep reading for comps. I was going to write a little bit about my resolutions here and I don't think I have yet so maybe I'll come out with them a little as time goes by so I can see where I am and how they're likely to pan out. One thing I've determined, apart from being an out-and-out "resolution," is to continue to reduce the waste we produce, with a particular eye this year on our food. So, hardly any more packaging is coming in for my eating. I am buying more in bulk and in containers that can be recycled. The only exceptions, which I am taking slower steps to make changes toward, are bread and soy milk. I have purposed to make bread in our bread maker more consistently this year, since I can buy the ingredients in bulk, but have not yet made the deliberate space and time to do it regularly yet, so am still accruing my portion of bread bags, of which we accrue a horrible lot! And, regarding soy milk, I find I really enjoy my morning coffee with soy milk. I tried this past week on various mornings to do without entirely and to do without soy milk in the coffee, neither of which were quite as enjoyable as my usual cup, so I will have to see how I can reduce that without too much pain. I had to laugh at myself (while confessing to Winston) the evolution of my coffee-reduction plan: 1) I said I will save lattes for just weekends, 2) well, I will let myself have one midweek (Wednesday) just to tie me over from weekend to weekend, 3) well, how about every other day - that's a reduction to 3 1/2 days a week on average, 4) how about weekends, plus Tues and Thurs, since that's only a little over 1/2 the days a week on average?, to 5) how about just no latte once a week? I realize it's not that big a deal but it's funny to see how my mind works and really, tries to "get away" with something. It's not that drinking coffee is BAD per se; it's just that we go through a lot of soy milk and I hate to be throwing away that many cartons - if we can reduce some of it, I'd feel better. It helps to think about all the people in the world that this kind of waste hurts.

As my birthday approaches, I am doing a little bit of self-examination and finding that I have changed a lot here. Just yesterday I had the curious experience of dissociation from my thoughts that I hadn't had before and it was entirely spontaneous. I was feeling bad about something and I just had this immediate response of treating my feelings as if they were not me but just journeying with me for a little while. It was very interesting and I think the result of a lot of thinking and praying that I hadn't noticed might produce something like this.

Received my first acceptance into a doctoral program and it threw me for a loop because I hadn't expected it so early and I hadn't expected to be given a good scholarship, too. I had asked God to show me if this school was the right one by just admitting that it might not be affordable unless I got this kind of scholarship and the fact that I did, and as the chances were a bit slim, I think this may be God's way of confirming that direction. I don't know yet. I'm still praying a lot about it.

Finished Barbara Pym's "Quartet in Autumn" last night. Definitely not my favorite. Very slow-going and I couldn't really like any of the characters. Am reading Abhishiktananda's "Prayer" in the mornings, which is pretty good. Short chapters, deep, interesting resonances with Hinduism in relation to how one understands God and one's connection with God. I found especially interesting a note that he includes on a Upanishad that sounds exactly like something I read in Isaac the Syrian and Pseudo-Macarius! I am on for bringing a reading to our little weekly prayer meetings next week and was perusing some of Gertrude of Helfta this morning: such poetic imagery and lovely metaphor developed of the dryness of a twig and bearing fruit and all of that. But I think I would stumble over her continual use of "viscera" and "dulcet" (!) and that kind of vocabulary might be distracting. Instead, I decided to stick with the first half of Psalm 40. That will be a little "safer."

Winston and I attempted a walk on the frozen lake earlier this week but we felt a little uneasy, despite the fact that fish huts are still out on the surface. The temperatures had been a little warmer and so the surface was a little slushy and we could see down to the ice, so it wasn't as "white" as usual - the darker spots across the surface felt too much as if water were just below. Later we found out there was a warning out to not walk on the lake for a while, so I'm glad we didn't stay out there too long and that nothing bad happened. Still, the huts are out and we've spoken with one of the resident monks who said there's such a lot of ice that it takes a long time to unfreeze. Still, being uneasy doesn't make for a happy walk, so we headed up to the road to the bridge where we like to walk. It has been warmer, so that I've been doing more of that this week and I think it's been good for my overall health. But today is white: sky foggy, ground snowy, although we see lots of dead grass where big patches of snow has melted. The fog even obscures some of the trees across the way from where I sit, looking out at the cemetery. It's hanging low today.

I posted this without remembering to mention: it's Simone Weil's birthday! She would have been 101 today! Happy birthday, Simone! I will fish out some of her poetry to read later in the day in celebration. Two heros of the faith for me this week: Thomas Merton on January 31.

Nearly a week and a half into my comps preparation and things are going well. I've been diligent about spending most of the weekday mornings here at the library and today I discovered a nugget in my reading which made me think of posting something here and also of developing a good daily practice of looking for and sharing something here. So, for today, from John Cassian's Institutes: "it is very clear that disturbing urges are not always aroused in us by other people's faults. Rather, we are to blame - we who have stored up within ourselves the causes of our offenses and the seeds of our vices that, when the rain shower of temptation drenches our mind, at once break forth into buds and fruits." Whew...that's a lovely image, isn't it?

The semester has begun well. I am taking one class on Wednesday afternoons and it is THE class basically I came here to take, so I am very pleased to have it as my culminating course. It is taught by my advisor and this is my third class with her, so I've grown very accustomed to what she expects and I like the balance of scholarship & spirituality that she not only permeates the class time with but also our reading and writings. It is good stuff. Our good friend here has moved down the road, so we are missing her presence in the Hall, but we hope to have dinner with her this week and catch up a little. There is a new student though I've gotten to know a little who is a Lutheran pastor. Her husband is involved in responding to a call now in South Dakota while she's here for a year working and preparing for some kind of work or job the church may be able to offer her. Since I was recently thinking about what becoming Catholic would mean for me, it is somehow very helpful to have a Lutheran friend, especially a woman and a pastor to remind me of my past decade of experience in the Lutheran church and to be reminded, too, to not be too anxious to switch denominations, since I don't know yet what the future holds for me in terms of church involvement and where we'll be and what will be available. It seems funny to feel that we are committed to going to a local church and even walking there if possible, but that is a commitment that is growing more firm, especially since here I have a 5 minute walk. I am getting very spoiled by that accessibility and ease. We just ended observance of a week of prayer for church unity which, also, was an interesting enterprise in light of recent pondering. When we prayed for our Lutheran friends, I felt very much an affinity for them, as if the things commonly associated with Lutheranism, such as a love for Scripture, do in fact describe me - and something, too, in our understanding of grace and even works, though this is complicated for me and I've learned, being here, that the Lutherans and Catholics agree to some extent in their theology about grace but I'm still trying to understand especially the role of asceticism, associated with monastic life and common Christian life, as a response to God's grace at work in our lives.

We've had a lot of communal goings-on here lately and I am feeling in need of some deep sleep. Some of this reading on my own feels very overwhelming. It's not like a class for which week by week I feel I accomplish something. I'm very much on my own and have to be disciplined about things and strategize, since I don't think I can physically reread all 30 books on the comps lists by the middle/end of April when comps happen this year. So I'm resigned to reviewing as much as I can and enjoying it as much as I can. Last week I read a big heavy secondary literature tome that was fairly dense. It was the first time through and fortunately, for me, a book we're using in my class this spring, so that was good but this week I'm onto primary stuff and enjoying that, perhaps even more. It's somewhat like extending my own morning devotional reading time since it's often material I might read then anyway. In any case, alongside the monastic studies stuff, I'm reading entries in a little Christian mysticism anthology that is on the spirituality reading list, which I'm enjoying but am finding that I can't read a lot of it at once. For one thing, the entries are fairly short but the editor has usually chosen three texts to go with each author and I find reading too much ends up fragmenting my attention and concentration and I don't get that much out of it.

On other reading fronts, I'm enjoying Jane Kenyon's "Let Evening Come" and Thomas Merton's "No Man is an Island" and Barbara Pym's "Excellent Women." The last I actually just finished last night and it was particularly enjoyable this read through because its protagonist is really so likeable. And such a good role model. I had never noticed before how often she replies to complaints made by another character with some kind of polite, diversionary tactic so that she never validates the other's negativity or enters into gossip or anything, but often tries to soften the other's negativity. And her explicit references to early Christian community in the context of sharing a home with unbelievers was really charming - she never felt unabashed about "saying a word" as the vicar described it. And, in fact, I was thinking that would make a really good writing project - to look at the ways that Barbara Pym's novels are forms of Christian witness, in themselves, as they in fact "say a word" here and there about how Christians should behave in the world.

It's almost 11. It's very icy out. I have to walk very gingerly out from the Hall to the library and back. Today I may leave a little early and go the long way back for lunch, in order to get a little exercise. I am feeling the effects of being too house-bound lately!

Wow: 2 posts in one day. I've got 6 minutes before heading to bed and just thought I'd crow a little online that my 5th of 6 applications just got submitted. Only one left by the 15th! Yeah! It's so interesting to do this process because I tweak things with every application and refine my goals and interests and that's been good, but I can't help wondering which one will be the ONE: the one that actually gets me accepted and that I, in turn, accept. This is an interesting time.

Also, I'm totally getting unfocused from schoolwork which, considering how much I still have to do, is dangerous. Today I've been making a list of what to pack - how to minimize clothing needed, etc. since we'll be gone so long and need to launder things anyway. Which books!? That's a big one. Should I only take one and plan on "acquiring" anything new I need to read while vacationing? That sounds fun but then, which one? I've been holding off on reading "Poetry in Person," so that'll probably be it. But I've also been telling myself that there are two books that if I could get them read during Christmas break, next semester would be a breeze: the Varieties of Religious Experience and Virgins of God - both of which look really dense and will take quite a while next semester. But, should I only take what will be "fun?" In that case, I really want to take Vladimir Lossky's "Vision of God" which I started to get into for one of my final papers and decided it needed some time of its own. I like the idea of being minimal about this and slowing down and savoring a single book for a whole month: wouldn't that be something? Well, we'll see how it turns out.

In any case, I'm just thrilled to have 5 out of 6 apps done. Now, only 2 papers to finish this week (due Wed by midnight and the other on the 22nd but I have to consider it done before we leave), plus classes tomorrow and Wednesday. It's fine. I can do it!

We have not had snow for a while but it's been so cold that the lake(s) is (are) totally frozen and people have been skating on them. This morning as I came back from morning prayer, things felt exceptional: for starters, it's actually fairly warm, around 35, and damp and foggy - feels a little like northern CA. And there out on the lake, a couple people skating early this morning. It's quite a sight. Last year we got so much snow, the lake was never this cleared off and smooth and beautiful, so there was never an opportunity to skate, although many people set out onto the lake surface to ice-fish and I even took a couple romps across it myself to the chapel yonder and that did mean having to tromp through a foot (at least) of snow, which was fine, but this year is really neat to see. I don't think we'll have a chance before we leave for the holidays to give skating a try ourselves, but it looks awfully inviting.

Yesterday read in the morning a neat essay of Simone Weil's about the value of studies and the attention it creates - perfect timing as I'm getting all this work done here. Finished my Rule of Benedict paper yesterday afternoon (which is due today), but still have quite a bit to do. But it's all good. And I like that I don't feel so overwhelmed that I'm not sleeping regularly, walking, going to prayer, etc. Even had time to bake cupcakes yesterday before mass for a classmate's birthday, so things can't be all that bad. Well...I just sneaked onto the computer between Winston's stock stuff while my water was getting put to a boil on the stove, so I'd better go. Classes this morning and this afternoon. Mass midday. A couple hours in the office. A walk in the afternoon. Not bad, really.

Just finished a book about Merton in Alaska and the conferences and letters he wrote there. It was good and reminded me how much I'd like to visit Alaska someday and to maybe reread John McPhee's "Coming into the Country," which also made me want to visit Alaska - maybe we even live there. Here are some choice Merton passages:

"You have sufficient grace to solve all your problems in the ordinary human way; that is to say, to deal with them, not to be without them. You have to work at it all the time, but you do have the solution. So rejoice; you have nothing to worry about, but you do have some work to do."

Isn't that wonderfully comforting? Especially the juxtaposition of comfort and encouragement. You can do it, but boy do you have work to do. I can totally identify. I also really liked his explanation about what the point of spiritual formation is all about - about learning to experience Christ "as the disciples did." That's pretty powerful and reminds me that the things that can become routine and formulaic to me, like Bible-reading, can be opportunities to learn to be in God's presence and open to that experience of the risen Christ. This is certainly why the method of Benedictine/monastic lectio divina can be so effective as a way of learning this. I need to do more of that, rather than my usual lectio continuo! Merton also uses the Emmaus episode to illustrate this learning to experience Christ, when he says that problems in our lives become "so big that they [or we] don't see Jesus walking with them [or us]. This is the ordinary state of life, that the problems are more important than Christ." Wow! I think that's been true of my "ordinary state of life" recently as I've been discerning what to do next; this is a good reminder to me that there are more important things (not just the consciousness of, but the attending to, Christ in my life) and that regardless of what happens, Christ is with me and empowering me to change and become more of the self he's designed me to be.

Here's another, longer good quote: "It is precisely here [the realizatin of God's utter unfailing eternal mercy] we come close to a kind of center of Christian experience, a center from which we can understand everything else. This is the center to which everything else must go just like the spokes go to the center of a wheel. If we do not keep the center in mind and if we do not live in this center, everything then becomes a rat race. What leads you into this center is a life of prayer. At this center you will experience the love and mercy of God for yourself and find your true identity as a person to whom God has been merciful and continues to be merciful. What leads up to this discovery is self-knowledge. I must find myself. I must solve my identity crisis, if I have one, then find myself as one loved by God, as chosen by God, and visited and overwhelmed by God's mercy which I now experience as totally in terms of God's mercy."

As I was walking yesterday I was thinking about this and thinking that it's so easy for me to hold onto the false god of my own singularity, when my true singularity is a God-given blessing and something I can live into because God wants that of me. I think I am learning to let go of the false one and I think what helps is just the realization that what I naturally tend to do is an attempt to create something that God wants to give me freely, an attempt maybe not fend for myself and not "bother" God about it too much. But it is nice to be reminded that this is a reality and one that God wants me to realize in my life and be grateful for and to see it as something that really binds me to everybody else, rather than sets me apart. It's really a paradox: it preserves my own unique being in Christ but I share that being unique with everybody else in Christ because we all have our identities - precisely in Christ. I've been thinking in this direction mostly because of my recent greater understanding of my personality type and how my behavior reinforces the things I ostensibly don't want - lack of community, etc. And because I was recently challenged to think about what I've considered the necessity of community in my life; the challenge was to think more in terms of my writing coming from a solid life of prayer. I've considered lately that my best experience (learning) here has been to become a person of prayer. Not just with the monks at regular times in the day, which has certainly been part of it, but more as a person who lives prayerfully, in the presence of God in all things. That's an important thing I'll leave here with, I think.

That's it for now. Time for a piece of leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast! And then down to work!

Here's an addition from later in the day: I forgot to mention that Winston and I watched a really interesting movie this past week. It's one directed by Clint Eastwood and recently came out, called "Hereafter." It is about three different characters who either experience loss, a near death experience, or some other kind of psychic experience, and though I find some of that paranormal stuff disturbing, this movie handled it very well and I found the whole of it thought-provoking and absorbing. We really didn't know where the movie was going most of the time and the ending was a surprise and good. Matt Damon plays the psychic and he has really become, I think, a superb actor. But one of the most stunning things about the movie, in fact which enabled me to watch it twice, once with classmates and once again with Winston, was the opening sequence of a tsunami. I found the filming of that astonishing and helpful, in a way, having lived somewhere where the threat of a tsunami was real. It was good to see the reality of what happens and to wonder repeatedly: how ever did they film such a thing? Of course it was all computer-generated but it was stupendous. I think one of the reasons why the movie gripped me so much is that I'm spending a lot of time on a paper project now on Isaac the Syrian and the correlation of Scripture with icons and the general idea is that somehow Scripture and icons open oneself up to the spiritual reality of the world around you and that seemed to be the main point of the movie: people's very real experiences of the spiritual world (however defined) which made them live in the world a different way - for some it terrified them, fascinated them, wanted to make them find out more about it. For most of them, it had a real impact on their lives and I think that's a good message for people, in general. I hope people who see this movie won't be too engrossed in thinking about all the wacky things out there that people claim about the "hereafter" but if it does make them wonder at some point and think in the direction of God, that's a good thing. And if it at least makes them reconsider what they're doing now in light of the significance of a spiritual reality that is greater than themselves, that's a good thing too, although I'm careful here not to get too anti-here with this, although I suppose with St. Paul that's a biblical attitude. Isaac the Syrian is very much pro-here but all of it, the experience of others and creation and the Bible, all point to the reality of Christ's presence here and now and always, which I suppose goes along a little with what I've written above earlier this morning. Anyway, back to work...

I ran into one of the monks earlier today who said we've gotten between 8 and 10 inches of snow in his opinion. The forecast was for much less, so we are surprised. I spent most of the morning getting all my ducks in a row regarding my recommendations requests for professors here and a friend back home. I think most of it is taken care of now. One of the professors asked for a resume, too, so I quickly updated mine this afternoon, adding to it considerably per her questions about my past. There is really nothing quite so humbly as seeing your recent life documented in a mere two pages. But it was a good exercise, too, because it really confirms the direction in which I'm going and I was surprised that I hardly had to change my "goals" or "objectives" part from when I last used the resume for my application to school here. That was interesting to learn. Things have not changed quite so considerably as I thought.

It's been lovely today with the snow falling. I did manage to get out to the library for a while and that through rather deep drifts, but otherwise I've enjoyed seeing it come quietly, slowly down. It's quite nice for us to have so many windows from which to look out upon the world. A friend and I went down to the lake, too, and we could not see across at all. I slipped and fell as we approached the lake - the gradual hillside was so slippery. We could see that the lake edges are beginning to freeze. Now I feel restless, having done all this computer stuff today. I don't feel like doing much schoolwork (though I should) or cleaning or crocheting. I am halfway through laundry, so that may keep me for the next little bit before dinner and prayer and our Saturday night movie. Tonight is "Afterlife," a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. I hadn't heard of it; I hope it's good. Winston picked out some Jean Arthur movies - Only Angels Have Wings & The Talk of the Town - for his birthday. We will watch at least one of them on Monday. Today he's feel a little like our dinner out last night wasn't good for him. He's been resting quite a bit.

I was looking back through past entries here and realized that I haven't posted many pictures. I was going to take a picture of the snow - so much of it suddenly - but looking back, it wasn't that long ago when there were a ton of snow pictures on this site. I suppose I should have taken more between last winter and now. Oh well.

I am enjoying Merton's Alaska Journal. It has really made me want to go to Alaska someday. I'm also reading Greene's "The Heart of the Matter." Having just finished "A Burnt-Out Case" I'm seeing some interesting parallels, particularly in the "love" interest in each book. "A Burnt-Out Case" was interesting to read, this last time, because of its monastic community. I don't know exactly what group they were but quite a few were priests and they were some kind of mission community in Africa and provided an oasis for the protagonist who was escaping European notoriety. It was interesting to read the interchange between the main character and the priests and brothers in community. I'm not exactly sure why but there was something interesting going on with Greene's ideas about "professional" holy men and the proverbial lady-killer, which so many of his main characters are depicted as being.

It is very windy and sunny today. A good day to be indoors with a good book. I have been reading and napping all afternoon and feeling generally low-energy. We do have two soups in the refrigerator: lentil chili and pumpkin soup, so I should probably just warm myself up a bowl and get some energy perking again. But I think I'm starting to feel all the stuff I need to get done this month and it feels like a lot. I'm sure I'll get it done but there is a lot of side stuff that feels important, too, and I'm trying to make room for it, too. I was emailing recently a grad from here who is in his 2nd year of doctoral work and he said most of his classmates did not come straight from an MA as he did, so if things don't work out next year for me, I'm not going to despair and it almost seems easier to put off all this application stuff until I'm completely done with what I'm doing here. It is so invasive! I'm trying to be really easy on myself about what extra stuff I can possibly do this semester and next and not overextend myself. But, generally, my entanglements would not seem that extensive to anybody else but since they can seem so to me, I'm trying to pay attention to that. I read an interesting book recently (from Winston's collection) about learning to be more attentive and taking time doing things, giving one's attention fully to one thing at a time and I can see what a hard time I have doing that. It's very interesting. I've also been reading some personality-type books so that I can learn more about what my strengths/weaknesses are and it's actually proving pretty helpful. Especially in terms of my thinking about what to do next. It's interesting to know that my personality type is the type that likes to learn - that's certainly accurate - but the person with this personality type also tends to stay in the head a lot, so in counterbalancing all that, I'm starting (coincident with colder weather, unfortunately) to make a more concerted effort to walk regularly. Doing some kind of exercise or manual labor is recommended for people with my personality type: good to know. Another thing that was revelatory: my "root sin" is not pride, which I would have thought - what with all that accumulating knowledge, you would think I'd tend to look down on people that don't have it - but it's really avarice. Wow! That was a blow! Avarice? Yes, and now I can see it. My personality type is secretive, acquisitive, does not give, always observing and ready to form an opinion based on such observations, but not too comfortable divulging much. That sounds pretty familiar. So I'm trying to be more giving and look at my life and see where I'm especially greedy. I think I can tell a little bit of a difference already, just because I've grown more aware of the possibility that my behavior is avaricious. But we'll see in the long-term. I have a classmate who is a therapist and is thinking of getting certified with some of this personality type counseling/workshop stuff and that's how it came to my attention. She thinks it can be helpful for people who get so hung up on spiritual problems that can be spiritual, but which can also just be personality issues. I think there's an interesting connection between the two.

Still doing quite a bit of emailing of people in programs at schools I'm interested in but no firm conclusions. There does seem to be ahead a time when I may have to feel grief for letting theology go, in returning to literature. But I think what I've learned here has been extraordinary and I sometimes cannot believe how much I've learned in a year and a half. We talk a lot about formation here and I think my time here has been deeply formative. I think its impact will have repercussions in my life for a long time to come. It's really hard to overestimate it. I've had time to evaluate past misconceptions and to think critically about monasticism (for one) and about spiritual life. To develop some prayer practices that will go with me when I leave - and just some ways of looking at the world. I still think there are some troubling aspects of Christianity and the church that I was looking to monasticism to solve and I've come to think it's not quite the full solution. And I feel a greater sense of mission maybe as I "return" to the world, in a sense, having this community life that I've had here and feeling that there maybe are ways to make changes - being fully attentive to the impact behaviors here have on the rest of the world - and to be attentive, too, to the gifts God gives us and, particularly for me, to learn not to disdain them. With this, I'm thinking particularly about writing and about other "art" forms that seem to have little to say to the world's needs but then I think of Seattle Pacific's MFA program motto, from Dostoevsky: Beauty will save the world. On the face of it, I don't like that although I adore Dostoevsky. I always think immediately: no, Christ will save the world. But I think there's something fundamental in the attitude that allows a person to claim that saying that I need to grapple with further, too. Keeping in mind, too, the way that the world is hurting and being ready to give up things when it's necessary. As you can see, this is still a convoluted process for me but being here has given me the space to start to sort it out.

Well, it's almost time for Evening Prayer. With the time change, it's already growing dark as I look out to the southwest and see the sun pretty much already beyond the treeline. On Sundays, evening prayer is early: 5. Then, dinner of soup of either kind. Yesterday I took pictures of my dinner, which I'll post later. It was so colorful: pumpkin soup in a blue bowl and I've started using regularly our nice silverware and I am particularly fond of the soup spoons in that set. They almost look like baby spoons - they are so cute - and I wanted to share how cute they are. I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning in here: vaccuuming and dusting, etc. Getting things put in their place. In the morning, I went to the annual craft fair here which was a lot of fun. I found a few Christmas things. It feels early but it's not really. There's a talk later tonight I may go to. Tomorrow communal dinner; chili leftovers. I can't think of much else happening this week that would be worth passing along.

Our Saturday night movie was a documentary on a Dane who wanted to donate his old, run-down castle to the Moscow Patriarchate in order to have it made into a monastery. It was only an hour and half and detailed that 5 year process. We liked it. We've done a bunch of foreign films in a row, so it's time for something American - maybe a romantic comedy - next week.

Here is the Seamus Heaney poem I promised to post in my last entry here at the journal:

And then there was St. Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into a network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
*
And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Doe he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labour and not to seek reward,' he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.


It was fun to hear that in Heaney's voice. Here we are having a sunny Saturday. It's quiet. We had our Halloween party last night and I went incognito in long raincoat and hat pulled down over my face and sunglasses and scarf. I won an award: most mysterious. Next week there is a craft sale here. We enjoyed going to it last year, so I'm happy it's happening again. The semester is going really quickly but actually over half my assignments are nearly under my belt, so I can start really focusing on my last papers for each class: for Rule of Benedict, I'm writing on a section from his chapter on tools for good works about personal relations; for Spirituality, I'm writing on a figure from the early desert tradition: Amma Syncletica; and for Eastern Christianity, I'm writing on the use of Scripture in Isaac of Syria's schema of spiritual experience and focusing on his use of metaphor, too, and reflecting a little on the need for metaphor in language and language's inherently symbolic nature. This latter is probably my most fun project. I'm reading a lot of Isaac's homilies and I really like them. They are full of sea imagery which is probably resonating with me since I miss the ocean.

There will be lots of services early next week for Halloween and All Saints and all of that. It was very beautiful and meaningful last year, so I hope the same of this year's stuff. Winston is headed into town today and I'm going to spend the day with Isaac and maybe putter around cleaning up a little, too. I was out early this morning to retrieve mail from the post office (I'm the Saturday person to do so) and the sun was just coming up and it was beautifully clear and slightly cold. We are really descending gradually (and surely) into winter weather. I don't know when our first snow is expected, if it is at all yet, but we've definitely moved a notch down in our temperatures, as is regular for this latter part of October.

I am working hard getting application materials together for doctoral program deadlines in December. I've already got letters of reference lined up. I just have to tighten up my statement of purpose and try to make it specific to each program and decide on a writing sample, which for some programs will be easy. For others, I need to dig out my old papers and see if they're worth sending. I may just have to rewrite something more recent. All of this feels like having an extra class this semester. It's taking a lot of time thinking, planning, writing, networking, etc. I wish I'd thought about that and taken only two courses but oh well, here I am. The next month and a half will be really, really busy. But of course, there's light at the end of the tunnel. And though there is a lot of pressure (self-inflicted) to get in somewhere next fall, not doing so isn't the end of the world. In fact, I was emailing a former student here who's into his second year of doctoral work and he said most of his classmates did not come straight from a Master's. He's really more of the exception. That was surprising to me, but made me feel that it wouldn't be so bad to take a year off and just work again and earn some money before going back. But there is definitely another part of me that wants to get right to it.

For today’s class I’ve been reading Chapter Three in the Rule of Benedict and been surprised that this summoning of brothers for counsel can be applied to my own process of discernment this fall. It just came to me sitting in the library, trying to understand this process of listening to one another to arrive at a decision and, especially, the desire not to have one’s own will insisted upon but to listen well to others and to make a decision that is good for the whole. The abbot – the one in the charge – is especially charged with listening, pondering, judging and not being committed to his own idea of what should be decided. There is emphasis put on listening to even the “least” and “youngest” of the members, because who knows whom God will use to bring the group to making a wise decision? In my own case, I am learning to listen to all my voices, even the ones that I haven’t wanted to let it on the decision-making about future studies. Probably my “abbot” is my rational faculty and it is certainly more like the Master’s than Benedict’s in most cases, especially in this taking counsel together for the good of a community. One friend has said to me, after listening to me worry about this, that maybe my writing self needs an “advocate” and that word has stuck with me. I think he was right. I should be letting something speak for that part of me and not be too abrupt in my ideas about how my life should go. Winston is always getting after me for my use (overuse?) of the word “should.” It seems to reveal an ideal that I want to live up to but also a tendency to ignore reality. “What is real?” another friend has encouraged me to ask. Not just about my life but my expectations and my ability to accept the consequences of decisions, even when they mean the loss of something I have previously thought important. Every intention to commit to something entails the closing off of alternatives. It seems a simple concept, but it is certainly also one I’m struggling with. And how does humility enter into all this? Benedict writes that the brothers should “express their opinions with all humility, and not presume to defend their own views obstinately” (RB 3:4). How does one do that? Again, with no expectation that one’s opinion is correct and should be listened and adhered to? How can I engage this process of listening and pondering and judging and simultaneously humbly offering opinions about what’s best, standing up for these parts of myself that should be heard and yet not insistent that they be right. Maybe they aren’t. Maybe this talking and listening though is key. If at least the voices are heard and attended to, there is a sense that I can better accept that even when they don’t result in a decision being made in their favor, at least they’ve been acknowledged, not suppressed.

This weekend we heard Seamus Heaney read and I so enjoyed his reading of “Saint Kevin and the Blackbird” that I want to print it here but I forgot my book. I will have to add that to the journal tomorrow. It was a beautiful day and Winston even enjoyed the outing. The next night we went to hear a scholar who is working on a book about Robert Lax and he read some of Lax’s poetry. Winston did not really care for it. It reminded him a little of his dislike of Bartok’s music, which I thought revealed well where he was coming from. In any case, it’s been a poetryful week so far. We’ll see how it ends. Today is my last day of classes, then I have four days to study for the GRE which I am taking next week. I hope all of that will go well. I haven’t put as much time into it as I should have (so far), but I don’t really feel that anxious about it. It’s just one of those things I’ve got to do. I wish I had this feeling about everything I do!

This morning feels like an important milestone in my academic career: I am now proud owner of my very own study carrel at the library. I didn't even think such an option was open to the likes of me, but I'm here so often that one of the librarians asked this morning if I didn't want one and I jumped at the chance. Now I can leave stuff here and not cart books back and forth from the Hall, I can retreat into a dedicated quiet space when it's too loud out here, and there's good lighting in the space. It's small though: I can reach from my seat at the desk the two walls with my outstretched arms, but I can't do so between the door and the far wall, so it's a little deeper than it is wide. There is a shelf over the desk and a pair of bookends, so I can store stuff up there and of course the desk is itself big, crossing the whole end of the cubicle. I am delighted! But the librarian did say she hoped they'd continue to see me out and about in the librarian, not always cooped up in there and I have to admit that this morning it was hard to shut the door on the beautiful, sunny morning that can be enjoyed out the library. (The carrel has no windows.) But just for the sheer novelty of it, I felt I had to go in and enjoy my private space. I've got about twenty minutes now before a meeting with my advisor. I'm also meeting with the other professor in my concentration today. I hope to get some solid ground under my feet concerning applications, recommendations for them, and papers for this term - both of these people (my advisor and the other professor) are teachers of mine this semester. Oh, and I have my own key for the carrel, too - I suppose you may have assumed that given my description but I want to claim it: yes, I have my own key! It really feels like having my own office.

Last night we went to the other campus to watch a movie on the Camino de Santiago. It was great and really fortified for the thought I've had for a while that I would like to do that when I'm 40. We'll see...

Nice day today: typically fallish and now 'tis the time. Trees are changing color rapidly and beautifully. First assignments are coming up next week. I'm helping out with homecoming for a little bit tomorrow and then my Eastern Christianity class is taking a field trip Sunday to a liturgy in the city at a Russian Orthodox church; should be a lot of fun.

Overheard walking to the library this morning, two undergrads talking: "Scientists have proved the...[origins?] of life. But they've never proven love." What kind of conversation were they having that prompted that statement? And should I be a little sexist and say, naturally it was women talking? I can't really imagine a young man saying that to another young man - but maybe the presence of another woman nearby didn't inhibit these women and it would men. Anyway, it somehow gave me a lift on this cold, windy morning, the first I'm wearing a scarf! Technically, it's still summer. What's going on?

Totally exhausting weekend here but I'm looking forward to getting into school tomorrow and re-regulating somehow. I've been pushing some of my comps reading into the semester and trying on weekends to do it and it's heavy stuff: mostly in spirituality since I'm not taking many classes and it gets to me. Had a couple good cries over myself today but cathartic in a way and I got a chance to talk with a good friend here to probe a little deeper into what is going on with all of this. It's good though, of course. And I'll just get this out there because I don't know where this is going either...I'm attending the school's RCIA class this year. I've started this before and not got very far and these past few weeks during which it's been advertised, I felt the Spirit telling me to go and so I did, being really honest with myself and others that I'm tentative about the whole thing and there's a reason why it's been 16 years that I've been back and forth about all this Catholic stuff. It's interesting, too, that this is coming just now while I'm taking a class on Orthodoxy because really I'm more attracted theologically there, but after those first few weeks in class covering all the tension and exclusivity held by both Catholic and Orthodox churches, I couldn't help but feel let down about the whole religion thing in general. Maybe best not to belong anywhere but that, of course, doesn't feel quite right either. And so, most recently, thinking, "it's a human institution on some level; it's bound to have problems." Not sure that's good enough and this may just be part of my habit to join the church I'm currently attending. I know for sure that other Catholic churches out there will not resemble a bit the experience (that is wonderful beyond belief, really) I have here, so have to remind myself about that repeatedly but we'll see.

Weather is beginning to turn fall-like. Today was very overcast and it rained this morning. I got up for Morning Prayer and it was nice to get over to church for that in the (it felt like) early morning, cold and quiet. Church was splendid - the organists here are really gifted and they are trying out some of the new music for the liturgy and I like it though some of the language that's been changed I object to (I'm not alone by any means about that). I'm looking forward to starting up spiritual direction again. I really need to get some vocational stuff straightened out and to start looking at some patterns or habits that could be mended. My good friend here was so nice to remind me that a lot of this just has to be regarded as exploratory and with a good amount of humor and curiosity, and less of the usual condemnation and negativity that I associate with things. It's so nice to get other people's points of view, sometimes!

I haven't had much time to read extra stuff lately but I am enjoying a collection of Wendell Berry poems that I haven't read before. He is such a good stylist. But I object to some of his more political themes. I'm sure it's good that some poetry is political, but I can't say that I like it that much. But he has a special, and important, axe to grind. For my spirituality class, I've chosen to read Gregory of Nyssa's "Life of Moses" for my first paper. So far, it's good, as is to be expected. I still have some Rule of Benedict homework to do tonight (or tomorrow before class): comparing a verse of the prologue with some of his sources. Shouldn't be all that hard, except it's all in Latin and we're supposed to just guess at some of the variations and imitations and exclusions, which is somewhat possible to do but I'm not confident of myself. It's not a big deal though, so I won't spend too much time on it. My verse is only a sentence, after all. I can't think of much else that's going on. I'm just feeling really tired. I had wanted to watch a Miss Marple mystery on PBS this afternoon but I forgot all about it amidst all these minor crises. I think the weather may be part of this fatigue, too. Anyway, I hope I'll shrug it off soon. Maybe after a good night's sleep!

After spending some time thinking about asceticism lately, in the form of a poem of my own, I ran across this this morning: Wendell Berry's "Two Questions." I offer it in the context of my own continuing to try to puzzle this out, especially in light of this morning's first lesson from Isaiah, that God's thoughts are not our own. Probably a strict analogy between our being offended and God's is not quite accurate but I'll offer the poem anyway. Had a good homily this morning on God's surplus in the gospel parable about the workers who worked different periods of the workday and yet were paid the same. We're too prone to try to account for everything, experiencing as we do too much need. In any case...

If you provided a marriage feast
and the thankless guests crowded
at the table, gobbling the food
without tasting it, and shoving
one another away, so that some ate
too much and some ate nothing,
would you not be offended?

Or if, seated at your bountiful table,
your guests picked and finicked
over the food, eating only a little,
refusing the wine and the dessert,
claiming that to fill their bellies
and rejoice would impair their souls,
would you not be offended?

Hanging out on Labor Day


My first chocolate cake in over a year!