Sara Jo Emmerich, 2009 and 2011 Volunteer in Community Participant – Spiraling In and Out

Back to Being a Prairie Fairy

(Originally posted: July 31, 2011)

For the next week I have returned to Holy Wisdom Monastery to participate in their Volunteer in Community (VIC) program. I was a part of their program for seven weeks in 2009 as part of my seminary field education requirement, and now I’m back for a short week as a means to recoup from my last year of seminary, a year of stressful (though amazing) internships and jobs, and three and a half years of the “what ifs” of graduate student life.

And I’m really grateful to be back. While one of my internships and one of my jobs placed me right in the path of Benedictine prayer and spirituality in Washington, DC, it still was not the same. There is a difference between squeezing in some centering prayer on a Monday night as part of my job, and waking up, walking through the prairie, opening up my prayer book with other women, and having the first words out of my mouth be singing the beginning of a psalm. And then returning at noon. And returning after working in the prairie. And, at times, returning again before nightfall. There is no “squeezing in” prayer or meditation. The main focus of the Benedictine life is prayer–work, study, leisure, and hospitality (the other practices of a Benedictine life) are considered to be extensions of sung prayers that organize and order the day.

Having the integration between the various parts of the day keeps me grounded in a way that DC life does not always provide. After I work on the land to restore the environment around the monastery, I cannot help but see the creation themes pop up in the psalms that have been sung throughout centuries by both Judaic and Christian communities. Sharing the experience with other VICs who are also in their 20s and 30s, and sharing it with the sisters who have spent decades and half a century living out this life is also a very inspiring. We are reminded that we cannot do this alone, but together.

I’m looking forward to what the week will bring.  Lots of mosquito bites, I’m sure. Some falling asleep at prayer, no doubt. Snippets of drama that come with any community life, of course. But lots of fun, laughter, growth, and rest that we all need to “tune up” our lives from time to time.

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For the entire collection of Sara’s reflections on her experience as a returning Volunteer in Community, go to Spiraling In and Out.

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Unless a seed dies…

(Originally posted: August 3, 2011)

So here I am–hot, sweaty, slightly dehydrated, with dirt under my nails and an odd rash appearing on my arm. And I’m loving it!  While the days have been a lot hotter than expected, we have done a lot of restoration work in the prairie, weeded, pruned, and picked in the garden and surrounding orchards, and lobbed off a fair amount of prairie wood brush.

This afternoon a naturalist who started the monastery’s restoration project came to give us a tour. We picked various seeds both for replanting and also for sharing with other restoration projects around the area.  While we were walking waist deep through the tall grass to find the seed, I couldn’t help but think of the main theme for our spirituality sessions: resilience. Even as we walked through the sea of blue grass and shoulder high blossoms, flattening out a path behind us so that we could get to the batch of flowers in the middle of the field, I knew that the same  grass would pop back up after the first rain. There is a resilency to the prairie that we learn from seeing a seed go from a young plant, stretch up to the sky, flower, return to multiple seeds, spread through the prairie, and start again. In one of the Apostle Paul’s letters, he speaks of the importance of us also dying as seed  (or to our egos as often translated for 21st century spirituality) in order to grow to new life and produce new seed that will spread.  Seeing the very practical base of his analogy reminds me of the importance of letting that fiesty ego die at times in order to grow into a stronger self based on love and faith.

As I prepare for a year long chaplaincy, seeing this connection between our own lives and the life of the world around us helps me know that we as human beings are not that unique. We just like to hang onto our false selves and our egos a little longer than other species, and learning to let go becomes a very key struggle. But that struggle is key to the new lives that we grow into, and the new strength and resliency that we have after overcoming trauma. I know that I’ll miss walking through the prairie to have this daily reminder once I return to DC–but at least for now I can continue removing invasive species, pruning away erring branches, weeding out the garden, and collecting a seed stock that will see me through the future years.

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To read Sara’s first post about being a returning Volunteer in Community, go to Spiraling In and Out.

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Centering in the movement

(Originally posted: August 6, 2011)

Here it is–my last day at Holy Wisdom Monastery and with the Benedictine Women of Madison. This morning we had our last morning walk between Oak House (where us volunteers are housed) to the monastery, admiring the black eye susans and the cup flowers along the way. Everything, from our last centering prayer and our last morning prayer times, to floating the rubber duckies in the baptismal font, seemed a little surreal since it felt as if we would be doing the same thing once again tomorrow.

The last few days have been filled with spreading prairie seed around the grounds, landscaping around the retreat houses, weeding the garden, and harvesting vegtables. And between our work, our prayers, our community meals, and the bonfire last night, we all talked about new ways that Christianity is growing in this new century. Community is starting to become where the power and the authority now lies, and more and more people are starting to look for ways to simplify their lives, grow their own food for the community, and work for others rather than for themselves. While many of these values were popular in the 60s and 70s, they are starting to develop a communal and social spin that is more of our grandparents’ generation rather than our parents’ generation

But there is a shift taking place. As Sister Lynne, the director of our volunteer program noted, everything now feels up in the air and we are still looking to see how everything will land. And while the organization of churches, communities, and values start to swirl, the Benedictine prayers will, still, continue–centering prayer, morning prayer, noon prayer, evening prayer, centering prayer, compline–and repeat.

Sara receiving a blessing from Sister Mary David, prioress

Many scholars note that Judaism and Christianity undergo major reformations every 500 years that radically alter the way power and authority are distributed. The first shift for the Christian Church, in the 500s and 600s, was when Benedict lived and when western monasticism took root. Now, as we are undergoing our next 500 year shift in the 21st century, it is the monastic rhythm that can keep us centered as everything alters and changes to better respond to how people are seeking God in the world. There is no one with more history of helping people adjust to communal life than St. Benedict, so churches of all denominations are starting to turn to his guidance once again.

And Benedictine history can give us real roots. It is exciting to see how new ideas and movements are starting to buzz in faith communities, but even the new buzzing can cause some anxiety with the prospect of change. If anything, the regularity of prayer, of spiritual discipline, can keep us grounded and rooted so that we don’t lose sight of the real center as everything starts to grow.

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To read all three of Sara’s posts about her experience as a returning Volunteer in Community, go to Spiraling In and Out.

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