————— My good friend Sister Dawn Annette Mills —————
This week began with a visit to friends in Tucson, Arizona. I had lived in Tucson for seven years. It’s a place I didn’t want to leave when time came for life’s next adventure.. After lecturing a few days in Phoenix, on Sunday afternoon I drove to Tucson to stay at a Benedictine Monastery where I frequently joined in community prayer over the years I lived here.
The twenty women who make up this monastic community value a lifestyle which is counter-cultural. Each day is lived at a slow, reflective pace. There is great awareness for small details which results in a mindful way of living. This mindfulness was evident in conversations at meals about ordinary things in our midst: the fragrance of orange blossoms, the prism caused by sunlight which fills the chapel at an earlier hour, and the specialness of each person who visited even briefly. The lives of these women are marked by four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience and stability. Poverty invites one to live in a simple way without attachment to things; chastity orients one to live with hospitality to others rather than in commitment to one other; obedience is surrendering one’s desires to listening and responding first to the needs of others; and stability is making one’s home in the monastery rather than moving at one’s choosing in the larger world.
In a culture which defines itself by the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, values which cluster around the theme of individuality and personal choice as primary guiding principles, life in this simple monastery invites us to consider that one’s heart is fulfilled most not by doing what makes one happy in the moment but in giving up one’s freedom for the sake of others.
The women who live in the monastery are strong, courageous, and brave in ways that our culture cannot understand. While cynics view this way of life for women as subjugation and co-dependence, in fact there is a balance and a sense of fulfillment among the women of this community rarely found in the world. They aren’t distracted by pursuits for power, success, multi-tasking or prestige. Rather, respecting the uniqueness of each person who is part of the community, these women live in the awareness of beauty and joy within and around them.
My visit to this monastery is far too short – just three days. But the time here is a living reminder of what it means to walk along life’s journey with simplicity and reverence, savoring the beauty and joy life has to offer.
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