It's Been A Year

It's Christmastime once again and the New Year will soon be upon us as an arbitrary marker of the passage of time, commemorating the beginning of another calendar year. This is the time of year when photo collages of the past year begin showing up in social media, lists are made, and new resolutions for self-improvement are dreamed up, all within the context of reflecting on the past, ushering the "new" and doing away with the "old."

The latest Facebook gimmick is the "It's Been a Great Year!" photo collage where the social media giant selectively pulls photos from a person's timeline and weaves together a story of said person's year. This is not a bad thing and it is, in fact, fun to go back and reminisce over everything that has happened in the past calendar year. However, I find it to be a bit overly-simplistic, and unrepresentative of the complexity of life. In fact, I even get uncomfortable with the title, "It's Been a Great Year!" because it implies that my year was, "of an extent, amount, or intensity considerably above the normal or average," according to the dictionary definition of the word, "great."

For those of us not celebrating amazing milestones, or who perhaps had difficulties in the past twelve months, perhaps this use of hyperbole is uncomfortable and even inappropriate. Maybe it's enough to say, "hey, that happened!" or "it's been another year!" and maybe that's okay. I feel like we are so often concerned with telling everyone how "great" or "fantastic" our lives are, that we gloss over what makes each of us human. We all experience joy/suffering, happiness/sadness, triumph/defeat in our lives. It's not always an equal balance, and sometimes the bad outweighs the good, but it's all there in between the photos that we share with the rest of the world.

As I get older and as I try to understand my own interpersonal relationships, I am beginning to see that my constant stream of photos, tweets, and status updates dedicated to enshrining the good in my life, actually distances me from other people. I get to tell my story to a group of friends but I can omit the bad stuff and I become a one dimensional character. This is what leads to depression, anxiety, and addiction. Human beings need fellowship and community that is based on everything that comes with our humanity, both bad and good. We are attracted to one another because of the good things, but it's the difficulties that bind us together and give depth to our shared experience.

As I look back over the past twelve months, I am grateful to have lived it. I am grateful for good friends and family, for self-awareness, for everything that I have that I do not deserve, for the ability to live my life one day at a time, and for the grace of God that I get to keep on going. It's been a year.

Lessons From My Retreat

A view of the Abbey Church from the West. I spent a week praying the Divine Office and living with the monks of Gethsemani Abbey.

Somebody recently asked me, "what do you do when you go on those retreats at those monasteries?" This post is a response to that question.

What I learned
This week, like all retreat weeks, has given me a great deal about which to think. There are four important themes that seemed to resurface throughout my time at Gethsemani Abbey, and about which I have thought a great deal: Silence, Prayer, Alertness or Vigilance, and Wonder. Each of these themes represent areas of improvement needed in my own life, and I hope to carry these into my day-to-day actions.

Silence
The monks, in general, keep a silent life. There is some talking from time to time, but much of the day is spent in silence. We live in a very noisy world filled with constant distraction. All too often we become swept up in two or three tasks (or more!) at once, each pulling us in a different direction and fighting for our attention. Television, radio, cellphones, concerns about work, concerns about family, driving, etc. The list of distractions is endless. Therefore it is of the utmost importance to carve out some silent time each day, whether it is prayer, meditation, or something as simple as not listening to the radio while doing the dishes, or going for a walk without headphones. These moments of silence ground us in the here and now and allow us to just be. In a noise-filled world, silence is a precious commodity and one doesn't have to be a monk to understand its relevance and transformative power.

Constant Prayer
The monks pray formally seven times per day in church. Beyond that, by keeping silence, even in the midst of manual labor, a monk's mind and heart are open to prayer. Monastic life is really a life of constant prayer, even in the midst of daily activities. Most of us don't have that luxury, but I believe we can adapt this to our own lives outside of the monastic enclosure. Even a simple check-in a few times per day is a great help to our own sanctity. Something as simple as waking up and thanking God for another day, remember His graces over lunch, and spending a few minutes reflecting on the day (both the good and bad) and giving thanks for making it to evening before going to sleep, will go a long way toward enabling us to live lives filled with grace. Additionally, the more one prays, the more one is eager to pray. It is this desire that drives a person forward on a spiritual, contemplative life, and compels us to ache for holiness.

Alertness or Vigilance
The monks are vigilant. So much so, they have an office at 3 AM called "Vigils" where they wake up in the middle of the night to keep watch for the Lord. During my week at the monastery, many of the Gospel readings focused on the idea of alertness or watchfulness. Jesus tells his disciples, "Be vigilant at all times," (Lk 21:36) and "Be watchful! Be alert!" (Mk 14:33). We never know when the end will come - of our own lives or of the world - it's going to happen at some point. Jesus wants us to live grace filled lives that always keep one eye focused on eternity.

Now, most of us are not going to wake up at 3 AM to "keep watch," and I'm pretty sure we don't need to stock up on food, water, and guns with some kind of certainty that the end is nigh - "You do not know when the lord of the house is coming..." (Mk 14:35). I do however think our lives can be a constant vigil by doing our best to live dutifully, follow the Gospel teachings, love one another, do good, and constantly strive for self-improvement with the grace of God. I don't know about anyone else, but I've got a lot of unfinished business that I need to take care of before I can punch the clock on this life. I just hope I have enough time. Jesus warns us, "Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkeness and the anxieties of daily life..." (Lk 21:34). Ouch. That's basically my life in one sentence. St. John tells us, "if we say 'we have fellowship with him' while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth" (1 Jn 1:6). Once again, busted. How can I go on living a life, doing bad things but saying that I'm sorry? My inner and outer self must change so that they are in one accord. My alertness to the Gospel and my conversion of heart must align with my whole self. This is definitely where I struggle the most.

Wonder
On Friday of the week, we were singing the office of Terce (7:30 AM) on an overcast morning, when all of the sudden the sun burst through the clouds and illuminated the church with brilliant light. At that moment I looked across the choir and one of the monks' eyes lit up and an awestruck look swept across his face. This man, in his late fifties/early sixties, has probably seen this happen before, but he was so moved by the moment! We all might lead better lives if we opened ourselves up to the realization of something greater than ourselves. "You have given me a short span of days, my life is nothing in your sight. A mere breath, the man who stood so firm, a mere shadow, the man passing by..." (Ps 38 6-7). Thomas Merton declares that we should start with "the realization of our nothingness and helplessness in the presence of God." Faced with this, why should I be anxious and worry? I am not even a blip on the cosmic radar! I am nothing! However, rather than this being an invitation to stop caring, I find it freeing and life affirming. To me, this is a call to trust the Lord and to be reverent and childlike in my love and respect for His creation. What is the point of anxiety or worry when God will take care of me and show me the path if I am vigilant, silent, and in constant communication with Him?

On my last day in the monastery I was walking through the woods on a path when a thought came to mind and I realized "my life is like this path!" I could see where I was going immediately, I generally knew what direction I was headed, but I couldn't see the twists and turns beyond the trees that lie ahead. If I stopped and looked, I could see a faint glimmer of the path, but it was never fully revealed until I was there. And when I was "there" I still had more unknown ahead of me. And so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that I was on the path. All week long I struggled with myself, the meaning of my retreat, the meaning of life, tried to pray as hard as possible (that never works), and it was a simple walk in the woods that opened my eyes.

Friends, I am happy to be on this path of life and I am grateful for each day and to find joy in unexpected places. Thank you if you made it this far with me!

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." - Albert Camus