Bells, Bells, Bells...

Morning in the monastery:  it starts with a bell.  

Come to think of it, most activities in the monastery start with a bell.  Time to rise:  the bell rings.  Time to pray, eat, study, work, have recreation: the bell rings.

Anyone who has spent time in a monastery knows the bell as at least a background.  

Monastics look upon it as the voice of God.

In the dark silence of our monastery morning, the bell calls.  It may not be all that welcome.  It shatters our darkness and our dreams.  If we don't live in a physical monastery, our bell might be a baby's cry.  Or the insistent bleep of an alarm clock.  And oh, our slumber has been so comfortable.  Go away, we think as we slap at the snooze button; give me just a few more minutes.  Let me have time with this dream.....

But the monastery is not a place for idle dreaming.  There is discipline in monastic life.  I, for one, am drawn to that idea - even while I run from it.  Being by nature an undisciplined person, I long to have schedules imposed upon me.  And I balk whenever they are.  I don't want to be awakened by a bell; I want to indulge myself in dreams.

Monastics, whether nuns or monks, pop out of bed when the bell rings.  Putting aside dreams and throwing off  covers, they think of God immediately.  A sign of the cross, a mental aspiration, a word or two of praise for this new day - these are (ideally) the first things in their minds and hearts.  It helps me to realize that they probably didn't react like this in their first days of monastic life.  It took time and PRACTICE for this to happen, and after many years it may still be a struggle

I don't usually think of God the second I awaken.  I'm sorry to say that I don't automatically think to pray.  So I help myself out a little.  I use reminders.  I put holy pictures where I can see them, and in fact I move them around (because if I have something in the same spot for too long, I stop "seeing it").  I have even resorted to writing the word "PRAY!" on paper and sticking it to my door or mirror.

Now I'm at least at the point where I generally remember to utter a word of praise to God, and / or to make the Sign of the Cross before climbing out of bed (or as I do so).  It is often at that time when I make some kind of "morning offering," committing the day to God.  Sometimes, for me, this is a formal, verbal prayer.  At times it is more spontaneous.  But at least it's a commitment, a beginning.

My own "monastic day" has begun. 

"To You I pray, O Lord; at dawn You hear my voice.."  (Psalm 5:4)

"O Lord my God, teach my heart this day where and how to see You, where and how to find You."  (St. Anselm)

What helps you turn to God as you awaken?  

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.
thecloisteredheart.org    

To continue reading "Our Monastic Day," click this line...

This is a slightly edited post from our archives. It is being linked to Reconciled To You and Theology is a Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.' 

Revisiting The Nights of Many Bells

In some monasteries, the new day begins in the middle of the night. "Not long after midnight," writes Mother Mary Francis PCC, "Sister Sacristan...sets her jaw for what is at once a beautiful and a grim task:  to rouse all the other sleeping nuns.  It is a beautiful task because the sacristan's bell is summoning the community to a midnight tryst with God.  It is a grim business because Poor Clares unfortunately carry their souls about in the same clay casing found on the rest of humanity.  Consequently, though the soul is ready and waiting to go to the choir... the flesh finds the idea not at all stimulating.... Blackness clings to the great, tall windows in the choir, and the huge grille over the altar reaches long fingers of shadow down toward the chanting nuns.... I always feel.. that we are walking down all the avenues of the universe, lighting God's lamps on every corner."  (A Right to Be Merry, pp. 115-118)

Out here in the world, I can't identify with bells that rattle me from sleep in the middle of the ni...

O but wait. O yes. Yes, I can. The nights of many bells were several decades ago for me now, but some of you are reading these very words between two such nights.  We know what it's like.  We're deep into a sound sleep, having finally fallen exhausted into bed, when the baby cries.  Is it time for her to eat again?... oh, it can't be!  We drag to our feet, get the baby, feed her, and now she needs a diaper change.  Three hours later, this sweet voiced little "bell" rings again.  Several months after this, Baby Girl is finally sleeping six hours straight, but her brother has begun having nightmares.  And then there are those times when a virus sweeps through the family....

Parents, no matter how much we love our little ones, carry our souls about in the same clay casing found on the rest of humanity.  Our hearts want to rush to the baby, want to comfort a scared five year old.  But our flesh does not find crawling from a warm bed stimulating.

On we walk, however.  Out of bed we climb.  We sacrifice comfort to the summons of the night bells.  We are the ones God has put in charge of lighting lamps of love with our tenderness.  If God has placed little Michael in my life and my home and my heart, then little Michael's cry serves as a bell.  Even at midnight.

May we be given grace to hear the goodness in the bells.




This is a repost from our archives. It is linked to Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.'

Painting: Christian Krohg, Mother and Child

© theCloisteredHeart.org

Revisiting Bells

A monastery bell is ironically consistent about one particular thing.  It always calls for change.  Time to stop one activity and begin another.  The sections of a monastic day are spoken into being by the bells.  

Part of me hungers for such bells.  I almost crave the insistent rhythms of their voices.  Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady bells that would insure my prayer and rest; bells that would regulate and balance the pieces of my life.

"Just as soon as we are familiar with one set of daily bells ringing," wrote one of you, "another set replaces them."  Don't we know the truth of this.  Seasons come and go, bringing school bells and wake-up alarms, church bells and wedding bells, baby cries and phones and stovetop buzzer "bells."  They change with every passing year.

Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady?  No.  Out here, it's just not that way.

Throughout my day, bells of "things that must be done" ring out to me.  The calls to prayer, however, are not automatic.  I must find ways to ring them for myself.

Notes stuck to a mirror, a watch alarm, a phone beep....  I have to make my own reminders. 

When it comes to prayer, I must ring my own bells.



For personal reflection:

- What "bells" call to me on a regular basis in this season of my life?  A wake-up alarm? A baby's cries? Monks and nuns look upon the bell as the voice of God in their daily lives. What happens if I look at my various "bells" as God calling me to do His will at any given moment?

- Do I use any particular things as reminders to pray throughout the day?




This is a repost from our archives. It is linked to Reconciled To You and Theology Is A Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.'  

Text not in quotes © N Shuman.
thecloisteredheart.org       

Revisiting Bells

Most activities in the physical monastery start with a bell. Time to rise:  the bell rings. Time to pray:  the bell rings. The sections of a monastic day are spoken into being by the bells.  

Part of me hungers for such bells. I almost crave the insistent rhythms of their voices. Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady bells that would insure my prayer and rest; bells that would regulate and balance the pieces of my life.

Out here in the world, my "bells" are unpredictable. I cannot count on their sameness from week to week. "Just as soon as we are familiar with one set of daily bells ringing," wrote one of you, "another replaces them." 

Don't we know the truth of this. Seasons come and go, calling us to answer school bells and wake-up bells, church bells and wedding bells, baby cries and doorbells and phone bells and stovetop buzzers. They change with every passing year.

Predictable, reliable, steady?  No. Out here, things cannot be that way.

Calls to prayer, too, are far from automatic. I must find ways to ring the "prayer bells" for myself.  Notes stuck to a mirror, a watch alarm, a phone beep. I have to make my own reminders. 

When it comes to prayer, I must ring my own bells.


(this is edited from earlier posts in our archives)

© 2015 Nancy Shuman
thecloisteredheart.org    
 
Anonymous painting, 1877, in US public domain due to age

A Bell and an Open Vein

One facet of monastic life that looks greener on the other side of the fence (to me) is the call to prayer.  The bell rings, it's prayer time, and there's no putting it off.  No opening a newspaper, no checking the morning news, no doing 'just this one thing' before settling down to pray.

I don't know about you, but if I do just one thing before giving God a few minutes, all too often one thing turns into ten, and before I know it, 'things' have crowded out prayer altogether.  Again.

Of course, there are important reasons why some of us need to squeeze prayer into a 'To-Go-Box' from the minute we get out of bed.  Babies need feeding, we're late for work, kids need to be gotten off to school... but these are not the things that take up my personal time, not anymore.  Even when I have a busy day ahead, I can usually grab at least a few minutes to NOT turn on morning news and NOT check e-mail and to instead give that little chunk of time to God.  But do I?  

I will just say this:  it's a struggle.

Sometimes I long for the discipline of a bell.  I long for the accountability of those who will notice if I'm not in my choir stall.  Oh, I know my mind might wander if I were in fact standing there, breviary open before me and my mind still half asleep.  But at least I'd BE there.  I would be praising God, and giving Him a chance to whisper...  something... to my sleepy heart.

I often compare the first prayer of morning to a time when I received an i.v.  During preparation for the birth of my second child, I was given an i.v. of saline.  Asking why this was necessary, I was told that it was in case I needed medication administered quickly at any time during the birth.  The doctor wanted to have an open vein, ready to receive help on a moment's notice.

Years later, the memory of that came back to me as I pondered the grace of morning prayer.  If I pray, even briefly, early in the morning, I am in effect opening the vein.  Once I've begun conversation with God, prayers on-the-go are somehow easier throughout the day.  I believe inspirations from God are more easily 'heard' as well.

Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise.  

"Live on in Me, as I do in you.  No more than a branch can bear fruit of itself apart from the vine can you bear fruit apart from Me.  I am the Vine, you are the branches.  He who lives in me, and I in him, will produce abundantly, for apart from Me you can do nothing."  (John 15:4-5) 

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

(this is a slightly edited re-post from our archives) 

Click here to comment in the Parlor 

My Bells

A monastery bell is ironically consistent about one thing.  It always calls for change.  Time to stop one activity and begin another.  The sections of a monastic day are spoken into being by the bells.   

Part of me hungers for such bells.  I find myself craving the insistent rhythms of their voices.  Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady bells that would insure my prayer and rest; bells that would regulate and balance the pieces of my life. 

"Just as soon as we are familiar with one set of daily bells ringing," wrote one of you in the Parlor, "another set replaces them."  

Don't we know the truth of this.  Seasons come and go, bringing school bells and wake-up alarms, church bells and wedding bells, baby cries and phones and stovetop buzzers.  They change with every passing year.

Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady?  Not really.  Out here in the midst of the world, it's not that way.

Bells of "things that must be done" ring out; day by day and year by year they ring.   

They change.  Consistently, they change.  

To answer the legitimate call of God, I must hear, and I must respond.  I am called to do as God asks, in every season of my life.  

Another friend commenting in the "Parlor" had this to say awhile ago:  "If it's 9:00 and I want to pray the mid-morning prayer and as soon as I sit down my daughter needs me for something, then it's God's will that I not pray at that time or stop praying when half finished or whatever.  I may want/need that time because I crave the peace and rest or I desire to worship God.  However, God may want my obedience to my vocation as a wife and mom right now over my prayer.   I figure that if I'm able to pray certain hours of the day, then that's what God wants.   If my family needs me for something else at that time, then that's what I'm supposed to be doing.  I don't try to make up for it or squeeze it in later.   I just move on and try again at the next scheduled prayer time...."

These are words from one who has learned to live in harmony with the bells.   

(Portions of this post were taken from our archives)

Text not in quotes © 2014 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

Painting of bell:  Bernhard Stange Das Abendläuten, in US public domain due to age

Painting of family:  Von Bornin perhe 



click here to leave comments in The Parlor    

Opportunity Rings

"As I begin various activities, I can enter the choir stall by offering my actions to God and imploring His aid.  'O you who fear the Lord, praise Him in the places where you are now.  Change of place does not affect any drawing nearer to God, but wherever you may be, God will come to you.' (Gregory of Nyssa)."

Reading the above quote, I ask myself:  "where can God come to me?"

The answer:  wherever I may be.

If I praise Him in the place where I am now, says St. Gregory, God WILL come to me.  I can draw nearer to Him.  Which means that right here, as I sit plunking away at a keyboard, I can draw near to God.  Looking out my window onto a golden autumn day, watching fallen leaves blow across the grass, gazing at a sky of purest blue, I can offer prayer.  I can praise God as much and as "thoroughly" as if I were sitting in a choir stall.  

And when I get up from my chair, I can continue offering my actions and my prayer.  Mine is a "choir stall" that can go with me to kitchen, car, dentist's office, mall. 

"Opportunities are offered hourly for us to perform with great love seemingly unimportant works.  Gentleness and patience toward others, overcoming our own moods and inclinations, acknowledging within ourselves our own imperfections, and persevering effort to keep ourselves tranquil and at peace:  this faithfulness is greater than we can imagine." (from In the Midst of the World by Sister Joanne Marie Wenzel VHM, Brooklyn Visitation Monastery, 1985, p. 9)

I think I hear, from another part of my house, opportunity knocking.  Like a monastery bell, it calls out to me.  There are desks to be straightened, letters to sort, there's a kitchen in need of help.  Change of place does not affect my drawing nearer to God.

So I shall pick up my choir stall and go scrub a sink.  

Painting: Girl Sweeping, William McGregor Paxton,1912  

One More Thing

Recreation ceases with the ringing of the bell.  I wonder if anyone ever feels she'd like to finish this important conversation, or maybe add just one more teensy thought, before going to her assigned task for the afternoon.

Several days ago, one of our friends referred to a book by Blessed Columba Marmion.  "He mentions the importance of immediately responding to God's will," our friend says "... which will manifest differently for each soul. He talks about the fault of having the attitude of, 'in a minute...I just have to finish this one thing I am doing.'  How often I have said that!!  It really is a mortification to stop something we are engaged in to follow where God is calling us."

It is one of my own primary mortifications.  Or would be, if I graciously accepted it as such.  "I'll be there in a minute," I say (even if not in words) to people and tasks and, yes - all too often to prayer.  "I just need to finish this one more thing."  

I pray to hear and answer (promptly) the legitimate calls of "the bells."  

In the Parlor, we've had a discussion of fasting.  I think it's time for me to start fasting from "one more thing..." 

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

To continue our next monastic day, click this line 

Around the Corner: Lectio

I have now realized that the posts of this Next Monastic Day are (so far) being inspired by things said by you who generously share your lives. I find this enlivening and encouraging and... well, quite wonderful!  To me, it is a precious sign of God working among all of us. 

Something beautiful was shared yesterday. Our friend, who tries to pray the Liturgy of the Hours regularly, said this: "If it's 9:00 and I want to pray the mid-morning prayer and as soon as I sit down my daughter needs me for something, then it's God's will that I not pray at that time or stop praying when half finished or whatever. I may want/need that time because I crave the peace and rest or I desire to worship God. However, God may want my obedience to my vocation as a wife and mom right now over my prayer. I figure that if I'm able to pray certain hours of the day, then that's what God wants. If my family needs me for something else at that time, then that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't try to make up for it or squeeze it in later. I just move on and try again at the next scheduled prayer time...."

I find our friend's perspective extremely important..... particularly as we prepare to look more toward the practice of Lectio Divina.  We want to embrace aspects of the monastic life:  primarily, the total commitment to God that draws every one of us.  For some of us, regular prayer hours are possible, depending on our circumstances.  For others, life brings so many changes in one morning that we can barely keep up with them.  Our hearts can be totally committed to God, but the external circumstances of our lives are likely to be far different from the life of a cloistered nun.  "No incense-scented hermitage awaits me," I wrote some years ago.  "No hidden chamber but the one within. Acceptance of my enclosure must mean acceptance of the clutter, the noise, the interruptions..."  (from cloistered heart book)

We might also recall something from an earlier post entitled "A Seamless Gift."  In that, our friend Rose (mother of a large family) wrote "I remember reading, I think from St. Teresa of Avila, that obedience to one's superior is more meritorious than all the self-imposed mortifications, fastings and prayers.  Then I realized my superior is really my vocation as a wife and mother.  Therefore, my duties and responsibilities of motherhood must come first.  And, done with the right intentions (as St. Francis de Sales says, 'for the greater glory of God'), all my actions are lifted up in prayer." 

In this part of our "next monastic day," the bell has rung for "prayer time."  But what will that be like for each of us..... individually? 

As we prepare to look more deeply into Lectio Divina, I suspect we will have things to share about this.  In the meantime, I've just ordered a book that I suspect will be of help in future "Lectio discussions." I am greatly looking forward to digging into it and living it.  One of our dear "Parlor friends" has just written a review of it, which can be found by clicking on this line to get to the blog My Desert Heart.  

I pray we will continue to hear and answer God's bells, to the glory of our great God.

Click here to continue this Next Monastic Day

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells

A monastery bell is ironically consistent about one particular thing.  It always calls for change.  Time to stop one activity and begin another.  The sections of a monastic day are spoken into being by the bells.  

Part of me hungers for such bells.  I almost crave the insistent rhythms of their voices.  Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady bells that would insure my prayer and rest; bells that would regulate and balance the pieces of my life.

"Just as soon as we are familiar with one set of daily bells ringing," wrote one of you in the Parlor, "another set replaces them."  Don't we know the truth of this.  Seasons come and go, bringing school bells and wake-up alarms, church bells and wedding bells, baby cries and phones and stovetop buzzer "bells."  They change with every passing year.

Predictable, familiar, reliable, steady?  No.  Out here, it's just not that way.

During this monastic day, bells of "things that must be done" ring out to me.   The calls to prayer, however, are not automatic.  I must find ways to ring them for myself.  Notes stuck to a mirror, a watch alarm, a phone beep....  I have to make my own reminders. 

When it comes to prayer, I must ring my own bells.

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org     




 Anyone wishing to share on this is invited to click on this line to do so in The Parlor.  

The Nights of Many Bells

In some monasteries, the new day begins in the middle of the night.  Never having lived this sort of life, I again turn to the experience of one who has done so.  "Not long after midnight," writes Mother Mary Francis PCC, "Sister Sacristan...sets her jaw for what is at once a beautiful and a grim task:  to rouse all the other sleeping nuns.  It is a beautiful task because the sacristan's bell is summoning the community to a midnight tryst with God.  It is a grim business because Poor Clares unfortunately carry their souls about in the same clay casing found on the rest of humanity.  Consequently, though the soul is ready and waiting to go to the choir... the flesh finds the idea not at all stimulating.... Blackness clings to the great, tall windows in the choir, and the huge grille over the altar reaches long fingers of shadow down toward the chanting nuns.... I always feel.. that we are walking down all the avenues of the universe, lighting God's lamps on every corner."  (A Right to Be Merry, pp. 115-118)

Out here in the world, I can't identify with bells that rattle me from sleep in the middle of the ni...

O but wait.  O yes.  I can.  The nights of many bells were several decades ago for me now, but some of you are reading these very words between two such nights.  We know what it's like.  We're deep into a sound sleep, having finally fallen exhausted into bed, when the baby cries.  Is it time for her to eat again?... oh, it can't be!  We drag to our feet, get the baby, feed her, and now she needs a diaper change.  Three hours later, this sweet voiced little "bell" rings again.  Several months after this, Baby Girl is finally sleeping six hours straight, but her brother has begun having nightmares.  And then there are those times when a virus sweeps through the family....

Parents, no matter how much we love our little ones, carry our souls about in the same clay casing found on the rest of humanity.  Our hearts want to rush to the baby, want to comfort a scared five year old.  But our flesh does not find crawling from a warm bed stimulating.

On we walk, however.  Out of bed we climb.  We sacrifice comfort to the summons of the night bells.  We are the ones God has put in charge of lighting lamps of love with our tenderness.  If God has placed little Michael in my life and my home and my heart, then little Michael's cry serves as a bell.  Even at midnight.

May we be given grace to hear the goodness in the bells.

To continue "our next monastic day," click here

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved. thecloisteredheart.org      

The Bell Again

Work continues in the monastery this morning.  Just as Sister Anne pours cheese sauce for dinner and Sister Jeanne explains the Order's history to a postulant, the bell rings. 

Sauce is covered swiftly with a cloth, a book is closed, and Sisters quickly gather in the chapel.  They seem to have sprung suddenly from everywhere, yet they come in silence.  Only the swish of habits and the muffled sounds of  footsteps can be heard.

The nuns enter easily into prayer, for they have never really left it.

The bell has signaled communal prayer again.  Nuns align themselves in an orderly fashion, in places assigned to them.  The transition from scrubbing to praying is seamless, as they bow to the One Who is their reason for being.  In the midst of a world swarming with those who do not know that God is the Reason for everything, the Sisters stand and proclaim this Truth.  They sing with all their hearts to Him; they chant and offer praise.

As we look around in our own world day by day, we may not find many who know that God is the Reason for being.  We may not live surrounded by others praising Him.

In this world where Jesus is not loved (for the most part), adored, thanked, glorified - we can be His praisers.

Think of it!

It's possible that in the office where you work, or in a grocery line, or in a dentist's waiting room, YOU could be the only person praying at any given time.  To think of this one thing has been a revolutionary idea for me. 

I can adore Our Lord wherever I may be!  I can sing to Him inwardly.  I can love Him in the cloister of my heart, in the very midst of a world where He is not loved. 

I may not go to a chapel in late morning.  But in the midst of daily duties, I can offer praise.

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org    

To continue reading "Our Monastic Day," click this line

It Starts With a Bell

Morning in the monastery:  it starts with a bell.  

Come to think of it, most activities in the monastery start with a bell.  Time to rise:  the bell rings.  Time to pray, eat, study, work, have recreation: the bell rings.

Anyone who has spent time in a monastery knows the bell as at least a background.  Monastics look upon it as the voice of God.

In the dark silence of our monastery morning, the bell calls.  It may not be all that welcome.  It shatters our darkness and our dreams.  If we don't live in a physical monastery, our bell might be a baby's cry.  Or the insistent bleep of an alarm clock.  And oh, our slumber has been so comfortable.  Go away, we think as we slap at the snooze button; give me just a few more minutes.  Let me have time with this enchanting dream.....

But the monastery is not a place for idle dreaming.  There is discipline in monastic life.  I, for one, am drawn to that idea - even while I run from it in terror.  Being by nature an undisciplined person, I long to have schedules imposed upon me.  And I balk whenever they are.  I don't want to be awakened by a bell; I want to indulge myself in dreams.

Monastics, whether nuns or monks, pop out of bed when the bell rings.  And:  they "pop" with a prayer.  Putting aside their dreams and throwing off their covers, they think of God immediately.  A sign of the cross, a mental aspiration, a word or two of praise for this new day - these are (ideally) the first things in their minds and hearts.  It helps me to realize that they probably didn't react like this in their first days of monastic life.  It took time and PRACTICE for this to happen, and after many years it may still be a struggle

I don't usually think of God the second I awaken.  I'm sorry to say that I don't automatically think to pray.  So I help myself out a little.  I use reminders.  I put holy pictures where I can see them, and in fact I move them around (because if I have something in the same spot for too long, I stop "seeing it").  I have even resorted to writing the word "PRAY!" on paper and sticking it to my door or mirror.

Now I'm at least at the point where I generally remember to utter a word of praise to God, and / or to make the Sign of the Cross before climbing out of bed (or as I do so).  It is often at that time when I make some kind of "morning offering," committing the day to God.  Sometimes, for me, this is a formal, verbal prayer.  At times it is more spontaneous.  But at least it's a commitment, a beginning.

My own "monastic day" has begun.

"To You I pray, O Lord; at dawn You hear my voice.."  (Psalm 5:4)

"O Lord my God, teach my heart this day where and how to see You, where and how to find You."  (St. Anselm)

What helps you turn to God as you awaken?  

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org    

To continue reading "Our Monastic Day," click this line....

Listening for the Bells

Monastery bells ring out at regular times throughout the day, and often in the night.  Each peal is a call signaling that it's time to pray, eat, work, meet....

In my life, too, I have "bells."  I admit that I both love and dread them.  Sometimes I think I'd find them more agreeable if they rang forth with monastic regularity, and I could know I must show up for dinner at noon and prayer at 1:00 and back to my work at 2:00.  But no; the bells calling me are usually unpredictable.  They rrrbrbrring forth from the phone, call with a baby's cry, clang in a doorbell.  

Today, in a moment of hassle (of the sort that can feel overwhelming), I decided to make peace with the bells. I think this decision came with a ring of inspiration.  I was overworked, overtired, with too much to do in too few minutes and no energy left to do it with.  

And it hit me.  With a "DONG," it hit me.  I realized that I was scrubbing and gift-wrapping and preparing and rushing and being interrupted because there are people I love who would prefer a clean house to a dirty one.  And because a little one has a birthday.  And because there are family members and friends visiting, in two different batches, over the next week.  And because I have the incredible gift of a family.  My goodness - how blessed am I!!

Yesterday I wrote about counting my blessings.  Today I counted them clang-by-clang.  I had already been thinking of writing about monastery bells, so today I was aware of every sweet chime.

God asks of me what He asks of those in physical monasteries..... obedience to the "bells."  Loving attention to the responsibilities of my life.  What an opportunity for thanksgiving this could be.   "Thank You, Lord, for Linus's birthday.... thank you that he was born."  And if the phone rings as I'm gift-wrapping?  "Thank You for the friend who's calling."  Oh... the friend has a need?  I can pray for that as I mop the floor...

Again, it may sound "simple."  But I've found that the most "do-able" things to help my life of prayer are often just that.   

For prayer and reflection:

"Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe."  (St. Therese of Lisieux)

"The way we came to understand love was that He laid down His life for us; we too must lay down our lives for our brothers.... little children, let us love in deed and in truth and not merely talk about it."  (1 John 3:16 & 18) 

(public domain photo)

This post was re-posted by THE FEMININE GIFT 

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman. 
thecloisteredheart.org    

the first bell

When “the cloistered heart” first occurred to me in the mid 1980s, it was nothing more than a phrase. 

Today, thinking over all that has developed in these years, I’m surprised to suddenly feel inspired to “think BACKWARD.”  Back to the earliest monastery I envisioned:  one not constructed (yet) of analogy, but simply an imaginary building made of weathered stone.  This “monastery” was deep in a forest, trees shrouding it so its walls could barely be seen.  My initial impression was of green, the dark dark green of flora huddled together.  Moss and vines crept up the building’s walls.  Trees were evergreens, maples, birches.   Smells were cedar and pine, and freshly dug moist earth.  A clean whiff of lavender might be coming from the garden .  And incense; certainly there was incense, curling out through chapel windows.  I knew the walls inside would be permeated with incense and the scent of beeswax candles, smells that had seeped for decades into plaster and wood.  

Sounds of leaves rustling in a gentle breeze…  twitters and caws from above... a distant rustle of deer in the underbrush.  And suddenly, a bell.  From a tower high above, the peal of a bell;  its voice deep and throaty.  It did not shatter the silence; it enhanced it.  Somehow this bell belonged here, its tolls as natural to the scene as a dove’s coo.  Inside the walls, the gentle rustle of soft shoes shuffling, a swish of habits, the quiet of souls who’ve learned to gather in silence.  And then the song.  Chant... rising, falling, sweeping, soothing, celebrating.  I listened from outside and felt that hint of longing.  That first drawing, wooing, cloistered heart longing…

In the midst of my busy life, I heard the bell call.

Text not in quotes © 2011 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
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