Changes Come

I'm watching The Abbey at the moment. This three part doco is about five women who spend five weeks at an enclosed Benedectine monastery, Jamberoo Abbey in New South Wales.

I kept thinking as I was watching it (I've got one episode to go), "How will these women be able to cope if they go into something like this, such a discipline, without the love behind it to fuel it?" you know? Sort of like an arranged marriage, getting married to someone you don't love. Or like getting out of bed every night for months on end in the middle of the night to feed a Tamagotchi instead of a baby. Or like being a Fundamentalist Christian ;)

And so I admired these women for doing what they were doing. And at the same time I was surprised and gratified anew at the beauty and grace of God. S/he's just everywhere, taking us now, taking us on. Pretty cool.

So much about that sort of life appeals to me, you know? Not that there is any sort of a calling there, even without the 4.30 am vespers (is it vespers? I can't remember). No thanks, very much. But it's funny how things change; where once I may have looked askance at a bunch of Benedictine nuns, these days I see the way they are living their lives as something of quite rare beauty. The ritual, the turning aside to prayer seven times a day, the structure, the silence, the craftwork, the gardening. The mindfulness, a life spent praying without ceasing. The work. The rhythm.

Till the day they die. Wow.

I once used to wonder how that sort of a life would have any kind of value to God. And yet I couldn't help imagining as I was watching it how God must be particularly fond of this bunch of women. So much of their lives resonate with me; I see so much of my own life in theirs, too, though our lives are so very different.

And I think I am beginning to understand a little the topsy turvy nature of things, the first being last, the hidden being of great value, the things that we have been squeezed into thinking are important are actually the things that kill, the spirit that we think is gonna kill us (and who does) bringing life.

All topsy turvy.