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Seeking Silence
One of the little lessons I remember from my years of taking private lessons to play the alto saxophone is that music comprises both sound and silence. In many ways, the silence provides the setting, the foundation, from which the melodies and harmonies arise and take their shape in our ears’ memories. The famous opening…
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Arranging All Things
The chapter’s title, “At What Hours Should the Brothers Take Their Meals?”, led me to believe I would be reading my way through a thicket of details, with little to find worthy of adapting to my daily life. And the truth is that much of this section does concern itself with the timing and frequency…
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A Rule for Living
In recent weeks, Anne, my wife, and I have met with our pastor, the Rev. Ron Drury, and another member of our parish to discuss adapting the model constitution for congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to our congregation, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, Nebraska. This project will update the current…
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Finding Balance
Benedictine spirituality is well known for its delight in balance. The famous dictum, “Ora et labora,” captures in three words the search for balance between prayer and work. The traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, when adapted for oblates, become sufficiency, stability, and obedience. This balances the ideals of the religious life with the…
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Avoiding Pride
I am basically a shy person, an introvert, so it’s always been a little puzzling to me that I made the decision almost twenty-four years ago to attend seminary and to prepare for a vocation that would place me in front of crowds and call me to speak in public. As I followed that calling,…
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Homo orans
In recent weeks, my thoughts occasionally dwell on my vocation as a pastor. It’s been fifteen years since I served as a parish pastor, and in some ways, I am not the same person I was in 1994. But on the other hand, the man I am today is one in continuity with the man…
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The Ear of My Heart
This morning I read further in Thomas Merton’s Bread in the Wilderness. He writes about the experience of encountering Christ in the praying of the Psalms. I’ve found it to be a meeting that changes me little by little, like the gentle waters of a stream slowly wearing away the rough edges of a rock…
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“The Same Journey”
In his slender volume, Bread in the Wilderness, Thomas Merton works out his theology of the Psalms, explaining their power and mystery as the song- and prayer-book of God’s people, both in Israel and in the Church. His writing is compact and nuanced, not so much because of highly technical language, but because of the…
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Before and Above
One of my friends in college, Mustafah, was a student from Iran who had come to the United States to study. He was “trapped” in this country when the Shah was deposed and the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran in 1979. Because he was cut off from family, he depended upon aid from…
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Chores and Charity
When I attended the retreat at the Benedictine Mission House in Schuyler, Neb., last year, I, along with my fellow retreatants, ate midday and evening meals with monks in the monastery. The meals were served “family-style,” with one of the monks cooking and another serving the food. When I look back on the experience, I’m…