Question:
What is it about you that God delights in?
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Share: #ssjetime #beloved
Transcript of Video:
I think what is so central to our identity as Christians is the fact that we know that we are loved by God, and that our chief identity, our main identity, is that we are beloved children of God. And I think this is crucial to our sense of who we are in the world: that our identity does not depend on external things and people’s approval or on degrees or status or success or possessions or wealth, but our identity is found within. It’s the fact that we are known and loved by God. So our chief identity is as of a beloved child of God.
And I think this makes all the difference for us, because when we have that as the core of our identity, then we’re free to be free in the world, not to have to impress or please or do anything else to earn our identity. We have this secure identity that can never be taken away from us. And as the first letter of John says, “We love because He first loved us.” And I think we become people of love once we know that we have been loved. We become able to forgive once we’ve experienced being forgiven ourselves. We become able to bear with other people when they realize that God has been lovingly patient towards us. So I think it’s crucial to our identity.
Second part of that phrase, “We love because God first loved us.” That second part is the work of prayer. And we need to give ourselves some time and space to take in this love, day by day, and to know ourselves to be loved and to reaffirm that part of our identity. To really make it the core of who we are and allow it to shape how we function in the world.
So how we do that? We do it in prayer. I once said to a group that I was working with in retreat that, “You’ve made so many sacrifices on behalf of the Gospel, but have you ever allowed God to express God’s appreciation to you? Have you ever received God’s thanks for the sacrifices you’ve made?” And for many of us, that’s a strange idea, but to open ourselves to the love that God wants to give to us and wants to affirm in us, day by day, I think is very crucial.
-Br. David Vryhof
]]>Question:
What is the greatest experience of love you’ve ever had?
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Share: #ssjetime #gift
Transcript of Video:
I remember something very touching for me – and probably the greatest instance of love that I’ve ever experienced – was when my grandmother died. And I happened to be there with my mom and my aunt Mary who stayed by her bedside when hospice was called in. And here was the three wonderful women, who had very complex relationships at points in their lives. And right there, in that room, something happened … [long pause] … I saw my aunt Mary and my mom just hold her hand and tell her it was all going to be okay, they loved each other, that not to worry about them. And there was just this amazing wash of just – all of this junk that had happened over time just being released – and it was a very pure moment. And it made me realize that in relationships, where we get hurt by one another, it’s probably actually an indication that love is very, very strong, because you don’t let somebody – I don’t think you let somebody hurt you or you don’t let somebody in so close that you don’t love.
-Br. Jim Woodrum
]]>Question:
How does your love bubble up in response to others today?
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Share: #ssjetime #respond
Transcript of Video:
Love is one of the reasons for our existence, but in order to love, I think we need to start with the truth that is found in the first letter of John: we love because God first loved us. Our love is a response to God’s great love, and we respond to that love with gratitude. Love is something we receive as a gift from God and it should bubble up and cause us then to respond to other people and whatever is going on with that sense of the love of God. That life that we have is, for each of us, our own gift from God, which we are giving to God as a response to his love.
-Br. David Allen
]]>Question:
Do you greet the day with a growl or a yippee?
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Share: #ssjetime #yippee
Transcript of Video:
One of the jobs I have here at the Monastery – and probably my favorite job by far – is I get to take care of the Monastery’s dog, our four-year-old Labradoodle. Her name is Sophie. And Sophie sleeps in my cell. She has a bed at the foot of my bed. And listening to David talk about the alarm clock going off in the room just reminded me of this, and I’m talking about this because I think its love. I have a deep sense that it is. Every morning my alarm clock goes off, and I get out of bed and I reach across to my dresser to turn off my alarm clock. And the moment the alarm clock is turned off, Sophie jumps out of her bed. She bounds out of her bed and she lets out one sharp yip, and it’s like I imagine her saying, “Isn’t this a joy just to get up?” And it’s so spontaneous, it’s so unrehearsed, it’s so dog, and to me it just expresses what I want to believe love is about. It’s just this, like, “Yippee, here I am and here’s my life and isn’t this grand!” And loving, I think, has something to do with that kind of elation at just being. Yeah, so, it’s a great a way to get up in the morning. And sometimes I think, “How can you be so enthusiastic day after day?” You know, it’s always the same.
-Br. Robert L’Esperance
]]>Question:
How are you a lover?
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Share: #ssjetime #identity
Transcript of Video:
What’s your identity? What are you to be about? Why don’t you be a lover: to presume that why God has extended your life into this day, is for the cause of love. To receive God’s love in every way into your being and then to reflect that love outward. Hildegard of Bingen, the great medieval abbess, said we should be mirrors. We should be mirrors, mirroring God’s light and God’s love with great generosity everywhere we go. Love: love is of our essence.
-Br. Curtis Almquist
]]>Question:
Are your expectations too rigid?
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Share: #ssjetime #authentic
Transcript of Video:
I think if most people are like me, we have this expectation of love: maybe something that’s given to us, maybe we want to emulate our parents, or maybe we want to emulate somebody on TV. And I think we go out searching for this certain love and have this expectation of what this love is. And, in actuality, love actually happens to us. It’s something that we can’t expect. It’s nothing that – whatever our plans are – love is actually going to wipe that out. It kind of happens to us, and then all of a sudden we realize we’re in it. I think we realize what a façade the other stuff was and just kind of give up and let it happen. It’s kind of like a load that’s lifted off of your shoulders, to realize that you’ve been looking into something that you can’t obtain, but yet God, who can do all things, has actually given to you as a gift. And it’s just like, “Oh, this is what this is. This is so much more authentic,” and you just run with it. But it’s a relief to realize the gift that you’ve been given, and to be able to be authentically yourself and not live to another expectation of what love is. Maybe that word – we strive – I think a lot of us strive to attain a certain amount of love, like it’s something that we can possess, that we can buy, or that we’re given. But there’s actually nothing that we can attain. It’s all pure gift and it happens. It just happens. It’s a mystery.
-Br. Jim Woodrum
]]>Question:
How might you love someone you may not necessarily like?
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Share: #ssjetime #love
Transcript of Video:
Someone suggested to me that – as perhaps some Brothers have – that we need to make time to love or make time for love. I immediately felt a bit confused by that. I can understand “Time to work,” “Time to play…” “… to pray.” And “Time to love.” Ok, so where does that fit into the agenda? And what does that look like? And I think, of course, “God is love.” We are enveloped in God’s love all the time, and I think –certainly true for me – I’m largely unconscious of that most of the time. And that “Time to pray,” for example, is an invitation to become conscious of that love, and to try to call our attention back to that many times throughout the day.
Loving others: that’s also what we are commanded to, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to love God. They’re Commandments, and that often strikes me as something that is overlooked. We are commanded to love God. We are commanded to love one another. We don’t have to like it. So what that looks like for me, oftentimes, is that I have to do some intentional things to show love.
-Br. John Braught
]]>Question:
Book yourself a play date.
What did you do?
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Share: #ssjetime #create
Transcript of Video:
I often find that I get to play in the monastic life when I’m meditating on Scripture, because I find there’s a playfulness to the poetry, to the images, to everything that’s there. My favorite play image is actually the Creation of the world. In Genesis there are two accounts. There’s a story of God by fiat or by word, creating things in this very magisterial kind of way. But it’s followed by a second line in which I find God is in the cosmic sandbox if you will. There’s the ground with the moisture rising up below and beginnings of vegetation, and God playing with the red earth, making the first “earth being.” I can see God delighting in it – delighting in it like a small child in the sandbox, having created something that they’ve never made before.
In a recent retreat that we had, our community retreat, Br. Luke, invited us to play and passed on to us some homemade clay. I’ve had a wonderful time playing and being the Creator God by creating an earth being out of clay and then breathing into it the breath of life. Perhaps that’s an image for your Lent as well: to play. To allow yourself to be molded as clay. But also to play, yourself, as the creator God.
-Br. Jonathan Maury
]]>Question:
What has surprised and delighted you most recently?
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Share: #ssjetime #adventure
Transcript of Video:
I think a little bit of the playfulness of God is actually coming to learn about your own creation. In other words, getting in touch with who God created you to be: in that there’s just, kind of, this adventure of discovery. And Father Benson actually told the little story – I think in the Instructions on the Religious Life, where he talks about, you know, here God is like the adult: God is like the momma sitting there, who knows all of this stuff already that the toddler is amazed at. But yet the toddler is coming up with a ball and bringing it to the mother’s lap and go, “Look, a ball!” And the mother is sitting there going, “Oh, how wonderful,” and is just delighting in the fact that the toddler loves the ball. And so Father Benson’s message was that, I think, God delights in us being delighted, just like a mother who is sitting there, delighting in the fact that her baby loves the ball.
-Br. Jim Woodrum
]]>Question:
What activities take you outside of yourself?
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Share: #ssjetime #soaked
Transcript of Video:
One retreat day, I was out at Mount Auburn Cemetery and I got caught in a thunderstorm. And initially I hunkered down under a big tree trying to stay dry and then realized: there’s no way I’m going to get home and not get wet so – let’s just go! So I went to the – there’s the tower on the hill in the cemetery, so I went there and went up the tower. And it was this great day: there was all this succession of thunderstorms. And so I got there, and it was clear, and another one came, and I got to watch the downpour – and it was glorious.
Now I was in this tower, and so this song came to mind about: “You are my tower of refuge, my stronghold.” And I really felt it, being in this storm there, and I wanted to stay there. I just wanted to stay there. But I also realized I was due to be back in church to pray, so I left. And then it was so amazing to go through the cemetery and get really soaked as I went back to the Monastery. And there was thunder and lighting, and there were huge puddles on the way back going along Auburn Street, which I splashed in, and it was really delightful, and I loved it.
It was a turning point for me, such that now my Brothers know that if there’s a thunderstorm, I’m likely to go out in it, because I find that in that sense of play, I really connect with God in a deep way. And it’s one of the ways that I can let loose. I can be very stoic and serious, and the Brothers noticed, too, that when I started doing this, there was a difference. So I’ve tried to keep this going and now look for opportunities to play – which I find comes with precipitation. I can also get lost in snow shoveling or ice picking. There’s something in that that also really captures my attention.
And so going out in the middle of snow or rain, that’s where a part of my child comes out, and I can play. And so I look for opportunities like that where I can.
-Br. Luke Ditewig
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