Mary and the critters....

One of the hardest things for a native Californian to deal with is the lack of sun right now. The sun isnt supposed to be out until Tuesday at the earliest. Today the wind was blowing and people are walking around in the pre-winter coat coat. Coats are such a big deal back here and for good reason. My little ol' Navy sweatshirt was ok today but the wind it was a blowing out here. I now have a fleece lined raincoat and a winter squall jacket.

I am excited at the seasons changing. The trees that are losing their leaves are in a similar state of transistion to myself. As each leaf falls off, it is similar to one more thing that I am being asked to let go of. Today, the asst. superior said, "Even change that we create for ourselves is hard and those letting goes are the hardest as we purposely chose to do this. We are being proactive and not passive and the change that we sometimes choose for ourselves is more intense than the change that others could/would choose for us"

I have been thinking more and more about letting go and being open. Each morning in the dining hall, as sisters slurp down coffee and cereal and toast, I sit at a table that faces out into the garden. From this table, as I too slurp my coffee and chow down on toast, I can see statue of the Mary with her arms open. Sometimes, Mary is taken advantage of by squirrels as she is used as a launching post so they can jump onto the bird feeders. Other times, a squirrel will sit there with his/her big furry tail and it looks like Mary has a Daniel Boone Raccoon hat. What strikes me as being important in this stage of the journey is that Mary is in a position of being open. OPEN. Open to change. Open to new ideas. Open to possibility. Mary was placed in a tough place and she said, "yes" despite everything and everyone against her. Her willingness to be open is encouraging and inspiring. Open. Being open leaves one vulnerable to things but it also creates a space for newness and possibilities that couldnt come in if we were closed off. As a sister said, "Well, mary really did the hard work for us. What we are called to do isnt that bad." The sister who said this is one of my favorites as her dry sense of humor is similar to mine.

Soon I will go off to chapel to sit in silence for 15 minutes before the night service of compline starts. While in the chapel lately, I have been opening a closed hand, over and over. If I'm constantly holding onto the past and my community and my old life, then I will never be able to have space for the new opportunities coming my way. I am reminded that God has a bigger imagination than I do. That's the absolute truth. Who would ever have imagined 5 years ago that I would be turning 30 years old in a monastic community? Who would ever have imagined that I'd have 3 years and 10 months of sobriety? Who would ever have guessed I'd be an Episcopalian? Anyway, being open is what I'm going to be.

Prayers and love,
Monk_1975