Hospice in Lent: Beryl's Spring Newsletter

 

 

  Spring 2022

Though this newsletter is a year late, I’ve thought of you often and planned to connect earlier. I tried several times but could not summon the will to continue. I’d run short of inspiration.

 When asked how I’m doing, I say, “great” but does the ability to smile equate with feeling great?

 My husband Bill, who was diagnosed with terminal interstitial lung disease three years ago, was recently admitted to hospice.  Lent is almost over. It’s been a time when the cross has intersected with our lives.

I’ve been practicing Lectio Divina: meditating on the daily gospel readings that take us with Jesus on his final journey to Jerusalem. He knows he will suffer a horrendous death when he arrives, yet he never turns back, never ceases to minister to those who crowd around him seeking hope and healing.

Helplessness besets me as I watch Bill struggle to breathe and know I cannot help him. I want to deny what lies ahead, just as the disciples tried to do with Jesus. Death in Jerusalem could not possibly lie in wait for him they insisted.

In her book The Grace in Dying, Kathleen D. Singh: quotes Dr. Kubler-Ross as saying “death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.”

On reading the above words, I was struck with the knowledge that Bill and I have, in this experience of hospice, the opportunity to achieve spiritual transcendence. Now, rather than fear I feel hope and gratitude that we have this time to prepare for separation.

I hope all goes well with you. That you and your loved ones have negotiated Covid with courage, and that you greet Easter with joy.

Fondly,

Beryl

PS My email account has grown unwieldy again. So that I might keep friends in a separate account, please change my email address from:  bsbissell@icloud.com to bsbissell@boreal.org.

Year 2020—Trial and Transformation

For the past ten years, I have received daily inspiration and nourishment from Give Us This Day, a monthly publication produced by St. John’s Abbey Press.

Give Us This Day, provides a daily fest of inspiring stories, art, and writing of extraordinary women and men across the ages.

Today’s reading: When things Collapse: Trust in the Lord Forever, tackles this time of political unrest, racial violence, social restriction, and hardship. It reminds us that these conditions are not terrible visitations to be endured, lamented, or feared, but benefits we do not yet understand.

In a culture based on instant gratification and individual rights, we see a surge of rebellion against measures meant to protect us – as if we are severely deprived. We find it hard to think of limitations as benefits. We forget that even in times of suffering and anguish, blessings can be found if we open ourselves to see them. The laughter of children, the changing of the seasons, the tiny chickee that visits the window feeder. There are good books in which to travel, visits to make via Zoom, heroic essential services workers, good and generous neighbors who reach out to help and comfort others.

When I find it hard to trust in the eventual resolution to conflict and fear, I remember the Canticle of Habakkuk which is recited every Friday morning during the liturgical prayer of Lauds – a canticle that metaphorically blows my mind. Habakkuk’s world teetered on the edge of disaster. Invading armies, the looming destruction of Solomon’s Temple, the deportation of the Jews to Babylonia.

Yet Habakkuk prays: “For even though the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit grow on our vines, even though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no harvest, even though flocks vanish from the folds and stalls stand empty of cattle, yet I will rejoice in the Lord and exult in God my savior. And so, might we.

Author update: During Advent, the loveliest of all liturgical seasons, a time of hope and gifting, I am offering free, from December 8-12, 2020, the newly published second edition of The Scent of God in eBook. The story of the search for divine love that led me into a cloister as a teen, and the unraveling of that vocation fifteen ears later when I met and fell in love with a priest was praised as “a deeply moving tale of a woman torn between her love for God and her love for one of his emissaries” by Publishers Weekly. 

Click here to get one for yourself or for a friend.

book jacket

 I think you will be glad you did. Meanwhile, make like Habakkuk and rejoice in God our savior. Blessed holidays to each of you.

A Jolt of Radiance

This weekend, my husband Bill and I drove north to visit my daughter Francesca’s grave on the Northshore of Lake Superior where we’d moved soon after we married. She’d died 19 years earlier when she was twenty-four. We’d buried her ashes an on a knoll on our property overlooking Lake Superior where we’d moved in 1998. I could visit her grave every day and view it from our kitchen and dining room windows.

When we bought that property in Schroeder two years after we married, we had every intention of living and dying there. It was the home we’d sought all our lives.  A place of beauty, belonging and inspiration where we’d live until we died. With that in mind, we bought several plots in the Schroder Cemetery. We forgot we’d grow old and health issues would require we sell that home and move back to the Twin Cities.

Since we moved, we’ve been able to return to visit only twice.  Since then, health crises and Covid-19 kept us confined to our home. But we continued to talk about a possible trip when Bill got strong enough. This Sunday, the day after the anniversary of Francesca’s death we decided to take the change. It was a beautiful fall day. Bill felt strong enough to take the chance. Portable oxygen gave us confidence to risk the four-hour drive to Schroeder once more. It was one of those crazy, impetuous decisions that drove us to buy a home on the Northshore in the first place. I packed a picnic lunch and off we went.

Francesca’s grave was in surprisingly good shape. No grass or groundcover had crept over the stone marker and we were able to remove those that might. While we were there, we also cleaned up our markers and visited the graves of the friends and neighbors we’d lost. We’d hoped to have time to walk the lake shore but as we had to drive back that evening we decided to take a quick drive up the Cramer Road from the cemetery to check on the fall colors.

We hit peak season on one of the best Fall Color Drives on the North Shore. We didn’t have to drive far to enter the jeweled cathedral that draw so many enthusiasts. We were surprised to find the road to ourselves. Driving through miles of miracles can be overwhelming. The brilliant colors lining the road became even more exquisite within the forest. Evening sunlight filtered through the maples, piercing the leaves, and illuminating the trunks. Oh, the colors, the quiet, the glory we got to view. And all because we’d taken a leap and driven north to visit Francesca’s grave.

With only an iPhone camera to catch the experience, and shooting into the sun, we had to operate blindly.  Amazing what those cameras can do!

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New Edition of The Scent of God

Click here to purchase book 

Originally published by Counterpoint NY in 2006 (Hardcover), and 2007 Paper), Beryl Singleton Bissell’s memoir The Scent of God has just returned to print in a newly designed and revised edition.

Bissell was a teenager, when a powerful religious experience led her into a cloister in pursuit of divine, unconditional love. 

Fifteen years later, her abbess sends her home to Puerto Rico to care for her ailing parents.  While there, she meets and falls in love with Padre Vittorio, a handsome Italian priest/professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

Moving from cloister to tropical island to romantic Italy, the story traverses a landscape of laughter, rage, and tears as Bissell learns that human longing is a but a prelude to life’s most perplexing questions.

A columnist for ten years with the Cook County News Herald, Bissell has been published in The Sun Magazine, The Trenton Times, Lake Superior Magazine, Your Life Magazine and the anthology Surviving Ophelia edited by Cheryl Dellasega, (Perseus Publishing 2001, and The New Writer’s Handbook, edited by Philip Martin, (Carletta Press 2008).  She won the Loft Creative Nonfiction Award in 1997 and received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant in 2000 and an Arrowhead Regional Arts Grant in 2011.

ISBN

978-1-7345539-0-1 (print)

978-1-7345539-1-8     

Story Oak Publications, St. Paul, Minnesota

Biography& Autobiography, Personal Memoirs

  

To Pray with the Trees

 I have always been an early riser, but since Covid-19 made its appearance, I find myself sleeping later than usual. There are no pressing matters to deal with, no visits with family or friends, no sudden ideas for blogs or books. While the days continue to fly by, I have grown restless in confinement. The hermit in me seeks a change of scene, so my day includes an hour long walk outside, in the fresh air.

 Daily walks are for looking, listening, feeling, sensing. I seek especially, the great vault of the sky. It frees me.  The heavy cloak of confinement drops away and I feel complete. Treetops and sky never cease to thrill me.  Especially the tops of those wondrous giants that push ever upward in their search for the sun. It can be dizzying to stand beneath one (or sit or lie) and gaze upward. I love the way the mighty trunks reach for the sky. The way their leaves filter and scatter light. And yes, the way they enlighten and assist me in my search for God.   

The older I get, the more insistent the demand to become all God created me to be while I still have time. Yet my efforts must be half hearted because I remain stuck in mediocrity. Instead of glorifying God for having created me, I focus on how I have failed. In a sense, reminding God that he left gaps in my formation.

 “A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.” writes Thomas Merton in Seeds of Contemplation. It glorifies God by being itself. “…by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do.”

A tree does not try to emulate the way another tree glorifies God. A pine does not yearn to be a peach tree, radiant with blossoms and lush with fruit. Trees have it easy. A tree is what it is.

Like trees, we glorify God by being ourselves in a way no other person ever did or will do. While God does not consult a tree when creating it, God does consult us in shaping our own lives. He gives us the freedom to choose how we will live. He works with us within the experiences each day brings. 

When I get frustrated with my mistakes and failings, the trees remind me to stop thinking the work of becoming complete is mine alone. While they and the rest of creation  need do nothing to become themselves, God entrusts us with the responsibility of becoming our true selves. 

I look at the trees and see their sanctity. I look at myself and see a work in progress.

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2020

Beryl's Spring 2020 Newsletter

Dear Reader,

I hope you have been adapting to the world-wide Covid-19 monastic lifestyle. If it were not for the fear and suffering so many are experiencing, I would totally love being back in the cloister. The ceasing of the constant noise in which we live, a quieting of my spirit. Mother Nature might be enjoying a bit of a break as well. Perhaps a bit less pollution relieving the pressure we place on survival. How much longer it will last is the great unknown. Bill’s severely compromised heath might necessitate continual distancing for the unforeseen future.

I've been reading, thinking, journaling, and praying my way through this new world, trying to understand the forces unleashed by the Covid-19 virus. Empty streets, shopping centers, sidewalks, restaurants, and other gathering places testify to the power of this viral force to change lives and lifestyles. While disheartened by the forces of selfishness, anger, and hatred that threaten the world’s healing, I am moved by the huge wellspring of compassion and generosity this pandemic unleashed in the world. Nevertheless, it is difficult to maintain confidence and equanimity when observing the ineptitude and power mongering of those entrusted with our care.

Wall in Moulin sur Ouveze  Provence Italy

As is often the case when confront by paradox, I found light while arranging the books on my “constant-read” shelf. In a small gem titled Calm Surrender by favorite nonfiction author, Kent Nerburn, I resonated with his words.

 “When we reaffirm the goodness that sprouts from the soil underneath walls of hated or indifference, we are practicing a kind of forgiveness. We are saying that hatred and indifference are not worthy of our anger. We are turning away from the great force of animosity, and underscoring, instead, the goodness struggling to find voice in its shadow.”

I trust that you, my dear friends, embrace “the goodness that sprouts beneath the walls of hatred,” and, by doing so, nurture the hope and acts that will heal the world. Many of us might question God’s presence in events like this pandemic, but I choose to believe that God is with us. That God understands our pain. That God suffers with us and, as Julian of Norwich proclaimed during the besieged fourteenth century, that ultimately “all will be good.”

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2020

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune named Beryl as a "Best of 2006 Minnesota Authors." Her book The Scent of God  was a “Notable” Book Sense selection for April 2006. Her second book, A View of the Lake was named a best regional book by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2011

Beryl's Fall 2019 Newsletter

From The Heart Fall 2019

September 07, 2019

Dear Reader

Assisi Heights MN

For much of this past year my world was saturated with words too heavy to write or speak. During that year, loved ones have died and my husband Bill still bears the scars of his encounters with respiratory failure, diabetic crisis and double pneumonia. Though it was spring, I felt muffled in a winter world. I moved through each day in a strange inner silence, capable only of coping with visits to the ICU and weeks of entire days spent in three different hospitals. Bill returned home in such a frail and weakened condition I moved in a vaporous world of uncertainty. Would today be my last with him? Would I be alone tomorrow? Thanks, however, to the effort of a blessed crew of doctors, nurses, and therapists and courageous efforts of his own, he is growing stronger. Buoyed by hope and filled with gratitude, I can now reach for words with which to reconnect with you, to let you know that though I was silent, you were never far from my mind.

Conscious of the rapid passage of time and my approaching 80th birthday, I wake each morning with a renewed sense of wonder at the gift of life. Bill is still with me and gratitude floods the entire day. I feel an added sense of responsibility to use this time well.

“We must trust in the small light we are given and to value the light we can shed into the lives of those around us . . . We live in a world alive with holy moments. We need only take the time to bring these moments into the light,” writes Kent Wilburn in his lovely little book Small Graces. I first encountered his writings in 1998 when we moved to Lake Superior’s North Shore. In an environment live with miracles, his quiet reflective words mirrored my desire to live a spiritual life and that is how I’ve tried to live most of my life. To remain open to the light present in every moment. To welcome each day as the miracle it is.

Our small book club is thriving. Together we delight in discovering the creative world within us. It has renewed my love of writing. While I have still not finished with The Glass Chrysalis, I’ve been working on bringing The Scent of God, which had gone out of print, back to life. I’d hoped to announce the publication of the new edition in this newsletter but life intervened and its rebirth has been delayed. It includes a wonderful new cover, beautiful interior design, the addition of an Introduction and an updated afterword. It should be ready early this fall. I shall keep you informed.

Meanwhile, may you be strong, may you be happy, may you be healthy. May you live your life with gladness. (Prayer of Loving Kindness)

The Other Mothers Under the Cross

The Romans erected three crosses on Golgotha the day Jesus of Nazareth was put to death. The middle cross bore the savior, and the other crosses bore thieves or criminals -- depending on the translation you read. All four Gospels narrate this event.

Though Luke mentions women who stood weeping at a distance, and John tells us that women, including Jesus’ mother Mary, stood weeping under Jesus’ cross, none of the Gospels mentions the other women who might have wept on Golgotha that day or in the potter’s field when Judas took his life.

The mothers not mentioned in the Gospels confront me as we approach the end of this Lenten season, and have done so since Sept. 18, 2001, when I became one of them. I now find myself standing with Mary, the sorrowing mother of the innocent victim, as well as with the mothers of the guilty. I do not know the role my daughter played in her death, nor have the police or medical examiner been able to determine how and why she died. There are, of course, several different possibilities -- none of which belong in the life of a funny, generous and loving but troubled young woman, the child who wept with me over the losses thousands of women experienced on Sept. 11, 2001, and whose violent death a week later united me with them.


Before Francesca died, I’d empathized with women who must bear the burden of unknowing, those whose children’s deaths remain unresolved. I also grieved for those who had no doubt, who knew their children died as victims of murder or war or suicide. I knew that they too had loved their children no matter what identity those children wore to death. I participated in their sorrow from a distance. Until Sept. 18, I had not considered that other mothers might have stood with Mary on Golgotha, or in the potter’s field, grieving their shattered children on the day Jesus died. I now know that when those three crosses cast their shadows across the horizons of the earth, they united all of us who mourn.

©Beryl Singleton Bissell

Adapted from an article published in the New Catholic Reporter, 2006

What Ashes?

Photo by Kathleen Gray-Anderson

Ash Wednesday has come and gone: ash free. I was stunned this morning when reminded that I'd forgotten, stunned at how easily I can neglect certain religious rituals when at one time, as a cloistered nun, my life was anchored by such observances. My spiritual practice now focuses on meditation, Lectio Divina, and the effort to live mindfully. And while I am filled with gratitude for the profligate bounty of a divine creator and the freedom to choose how I will live, I miss the years I spent as a nun. Especially when Lent creeps in quietly, and ashes no longer thunder.  

It's been a slow slide away from ritual since I left religious life. Had it happened more swiftly, I might have clung more tightly to it. I wonder if this is only emotional nostalgia for the innocence of youth or a reminder that how I live and what I believe in is my responsibility -- a much harder, dry and emotionless effort.

This morning I pondered psalm 51. "Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offence. Create a clean heart for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me." 

Yes. I long for this clean heart, not a new heart freshly molded by God, but the heart God has given me. A heart willing to be cleansed and made steadfast. A heart not built on emotion and youthful longing, but on reflection and the ongoing effort to remain true to myself and to God.

Thomas Merton and the Eye of a photographer

In my last post I spoke of Thomas Merton's skill as a photographer and of his admonition to a friend, who was busily snapping photos of the woods in which they walked: "Stop looking and begin seeing."

He gave himself to others in the same way, approached them without expectation. He saw them. He did not try to interpret, alter, or improve them, but allowed them to be themselves. In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander he wrote of an experience he had during one of his first excursions outside the monastery into Louisville, KY. I love the final lines.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Stop Looking and begin seeing

Thomas Merton, besides being the revered spiritual writer who lofted the contemplative monastic life into public consciousness, was also a photographer. He photographed whatever crossed his path that drew him, he allowed each thing its own voice. While in the woods with a young photographer, he noted the speed with which the young man approached things. He told him to stop looking and to begin seeing. "Seeing is being open and receptive to what comes to the eyes; your vision total and not targeted." Song for Nobody, A memory Vision of Thomas Merton by Ron Seitz

Seeking to live in awareness

I've been away so long you might think I've fallen into Alice's rabbit hole. Unable to multi task, I've had to devote most of my time to working on The Glass Chrysalis. I hope this brief blog will renew my efforts to find room for God.

I read the following this morning and it moved me—presenting such a lovely synthesis  of what it means to live in awareness. God has given us he power to see with "such intense clarity." We have only to take the time to really look.

“Tree scrutiny . . . I stand apart and look; looking I respect almost to the point of love. But what I hope to be loving is God; not because he ‘made’ the tree, but because he gives me the power to see it with such intensity and clarity.”  -- Philip Toynbee “Part of a Journey”

Tree image by Prescott

Beryl's Summer 2015 Newsletter

Thanks to an abundance of rain, cool weather, and overcast skies the roadsides are blanketed with more color than I've ever seen before. Daisy’s, sweet clover, Birdseye trefoil, wild roses, hawkweed, fireweed, lupines in swaths or dancing together in the breeze. If you like walking, the scent can be quite intoxicating. If you're allergic, best to view from inside a car.

 Perhaps it is all this beauty, or maybe just the fact that I've finally finished the sequel to the Scent of God, that prompts me to take a break from single-minded focus to finish the book. Even as I fervidly worked on the manuscript and condensed each chapter into a few sentences for an expanded table of contents, you hovered behind the scenes, reminding me that I have a beautiful family, wonderful friends, and lovely acquaintances with whom I haven’t connected in close to six months.

It’s a paradox—humorous but sad—that as our lives grows shorter, time keeps picking up speed. I am no longer young enough to think I have a lot of living ahead of me. I’d like the sequel to be published while I'm still around, not posthumously. I no longer multitask, or rush from one activity to another. Now I view with mouth agape at all some people are able to accomplish. I wonder if they've made a pact with their alter ego (perhaps they have more than one) so that while one focuses on a single project, the other flits about picking up the slack and dreaming up a zillion other things to accomplish Now!

I've just returned from a ten-day silent retreat at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville that focused entirely on the now: living each moment fully aware. Yet there is such a contradiction in the way we use that word “Now.” Not in its meaning, but as western culture defines it: Do it now! Such pressure does not allow for much awareness.

In answer to your many questions asking when the sequel to the Scent of God will be available, all I can say is “I'm working on it.” Have a blessed summer, one with just enough rain and heat to make it spectacular.

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2015.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune named Beryl as a "Best of 2006 Minnesota Authors." Her book The Scent of God  was a “Notable” Book Sense selection for April 2006. Her second book, A View of the Lake was released in May 2011 and named a best regional book by the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Spirited Woman Award and updates

Now that the Scent of God is on Kindle, a great sense of relief pervades my writing life. The first two days it was downloaded 2, 997 times. Granted they were downloaded free, but hey, I'm not worrying. The main purpose was to share the story with as many people as I can reach. Now this nice little kudo.

We are an Easter People

Have you ever received an Easter card proclaiming “We are an Easter People?”

In an article in the April 11-24, 2014 edition of The National Catholic Reporter, Peg Ekerdt wrote of having received such a card from “a mother of 13, grandmother of more, who was living with an advanced stage of breast cancer . . . Barb wanted all whom she loved to know that the power of faith transforms even death.” These words say more the traditional Happy Easter messages that do little save to remind us to dye the eggs, buy the chocolate bunnies, and perhaps . . . maybe . . . attend church to celebrate faith.

Who are these Easter people? Easter people probably don’t think of themselves as such. They might or might not be Christians. For that matter, they might not even believe in God. But Easter people surround us. They reveal themselves by the way they care for and love one another, the way they live with honor and honesty and work to make their bit of the earth a better place to live. They are the ones who share what they have with those needier than themselves, who celebrate the good that surrounds them, they are the ones who greet adversity with courage and yet continue to hope. Keep your eyes open for these “Easter People,” you might discover that you are one of them.

Peace and every good blessing,
Beryl

Precious Children Home Fundrise Film

Two dear friends brought reality to this dream of a home for orphans of AIDS in Nshupu Tanzania. They need our help to enlarge this dream.
http://www.preciousorphanage.com/

Small things and gratitude

January 13.2014

On this beautiful day—a day of golden sun and gentle breezes with the sky cloudless and the ocean tranquil—I think of you, my friends. So often, I’ve wanted to start this letter and just as often I’ve put it off. But today’s exultation makes it necessary to write to share this joy with you. Oh sure, you might be thinking. You’re down there in Florida and we’re locked here in icy, sub-zero temperatures; of course you’re happy. This morning, I came across the following words written by Chiara Lubich (1920-2008) which might explain why I write to tell you about something as simple as a beautiful day and why it reminds me to reach out to connect with you.

“Your neighbor is another you . . . When neighbors cry, you must cry with them, and when they laugh, laugh with them . . . Love whoever appears to you in the present moment of your life. You will discover within yourself an energy and strength you didn’t know you had.”

These words struck me because you’ve appeared to me in this present moment, and with this letter, I’ve breached distance and joined you. Perhaps in reading my greeting, your heart will lift like mine does when I hear from you. When we experience something wonderful, our immediate impulse is to share it. You wake your husband in the middle of the night to witness the northern lights. You call your friend in Colorado to tell them about Ann Patchett’s newest book. You invite a neighbor to the symphony because they are fans of the classic guitar and Pepe Romero is performing in concert. We share these moments hoping that person will experience something wonderful as well.

Besides this beautiful day, I want to tell you that my precious husband has been granted a new lease on life because of advances in cardiac care, which tops my list of things to be grateful for.  I celebrate the small condo in Florida where we can escape the bitter cold and I retain the use of my hands. I’m thrilled that my agent’s talented assistant, Daniel, helped me obtain a reversion of electronic publishing rights to The Scent of God. These rights will enable me to make The Scent of God available in e-book version. Meanwhile, primarily because of your belief and support, I continue to work on the sequel to The Scent of God. Scent took ten years to write and, at the snail-like but steady pace I’m working, the sequel might take just as long. I hope you will hang in there with me and spread the word when The Scent of God makes it onto Kindle and all the other e-book platforms out there. I will certainly let you know when both milestones (the e-book and the publication of the sequel )are accomplished.

Thank you for the joy I get when I think of you. Thank you for your letters, your e-mails, and all the ways you share  your lives with me. Thank you for the encouragement and strength with which you surround me. May your lives be similarly blessed.

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2014

Camarillo Fire births Phoenix

Camarillo Phoenix photo by Terry deWolfe

Several days after the recent devastating Camarillo Fire, a friend spotted this miraculous flower. As you can see, the land surrounding this plant is totally scorched. Despite the annihilation, from somewhere within the earth this lovely flower emerged and gives testimony to the miracle of transformation and rebirth tucked within every death.

We witness such miracles all the time yet so often they arrive unnoticed and unheralded. This flower reminds me to open myself to such witnesses of hope.

"If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything." -- Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

A Reflection on Kenosis

A number of my readers have asked for further elucidation on the spiritual term "Kenosis. To assist, I have received permission from  the director of the Episcopal House of Prayer to republish his reflections on the event. -- Beryl

 A reflection from the Kenosis retreat, 2013 from Ward Bauman

 "True knowledge of God is that which is known by unknowing."  (Cloud of Unknowing)

 　

  One of the primary practices of all spiritual work is detachment,  the learned behavior of "letting go" and not clinging. This is  primarily true of wisdom, that is, spiritual knowledge.

 The great paradox is that we cannot find it by grasping it. In other  words, going to another conference, reading another book, or  hearing another teaching will not ultimately be the knowledge that  we seek and need.

　

This is perhaps one of the hardest lessons of the spiritual life. We in the West do not get it. It is so antithetical to everything we've learned. But this is core to coming to spiritual truth. It also points to the heart of our spiritual malady, pride. True wisdom comes only through true humility. Here the crack in our armory creates an entrance for the divine light.

　

Jesus said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is the beginning and foundation to all spiritual work.

　

The Chinese philosopher, Chuang-tzu said:

Consider a window; it is just

a hole in the wall, but because of it

the whole room is filled with light.

Thus, when the mind is open

and free of its own thoughts,

life unfolds effortlessly,

and the whole world is filled with light.

(The Second Book of the Tao, Stephen Mitchell)

　

When our hearts are open and free of constructs, we become channels for spiritual light. When we are unburdened with cumbersome and restricting ideas, something new can emerge. When we are emptied of self-focus, we can begin to see the bigger picture. This, then, becomes the practice of prayer; in self-emptying we become free and receptive for "true knowledge."　

The House of Prayer and a Kenosis Retreat

”Pilgrims are persons in motion – passing through territories not their own – seeking something we might call completion (or perhaps the word “clarity’ will do as well), a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way.” -- Richard Niebuhr

I've just returned from a territory not my own:. A Kenosis (or self-emptying) retreat at the Episcopal House of Prayer on St. John’s University campus in Collegeville, MN. The House of Prayer is an exquisite retreat house of wood and stone, with Gothic windows, quiet spaces, an oratory with a soaring tiered scallop of panels reaching toward the light. There were twelve retreatants and a retreat master--the Director of the House of Prayer:  gentle, erudite, and compassionate Reverend Ward Bauman, who with his brother Lynn Bauman and Cynthia Bourgeault worked to translate The Luminous Gospels: Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Philip. Bauman is also the author of Sacred Food for Soulful Living, a cookbook of recipes from the House of Prayer kitchen who, besides guiding us and leading all the meditation sessions, also prepared our every meal which was the most delicious vegetarian food I've ever eaten.

House of Prayer Dormitory section

I entered the retreat, determined that I was going to “make it” this time. I’d empty myself and travel into the fullness of God’s presence. So intent was I on making this retreat the “retreat of all retreats” that I got caught up in trying to force self-emptying even though I knew that all meditation requires is the willingness to participate. . . that the action is God’s. Confronted with myself as full of myself, I was miserable.  Perhaps I wasn't meant to achieve divine union, I thought, but if this was so, why the more than 50 years of yearning and search for this grace? Why the desire if God did not mean than I take this journey?

There’s nothing quite like smashing into oneself. It’s a humbling and grace-filled encounter with darkness which brought me to the point where all I could do was accept where I was at and be grateful I was anywhere at all. It wasn't until the final two days of this intense silent retreat that I found myself willing to be where I was, as I was, and in that acceptance I fell into God. For a time, at least. As Niebuhr says, Pilgrims are persons in motion, seeking a completion to which only the spirit’s compass points the way. The spirit is always at work even when we’re off track, leading us gently back to where we belong.