What's Wrong With Millenials?

What’s wrong with millennials? NOTHING! That’s what I think anyway.

The topic is on my mind because I was raised to paroxysms of anger recently when I read an article, presumably not written by a millennial, which took the line of how could they possibly turn out okay if older generations didn’t pass on their values and faith. Now, I have nothing against passing on faith and values, if they’re good ones. As a baby boomer myself, I know I exhibit certain baby boomer characteristics, like being confident in the rightness of my own opinions, so I tend think I have a lot of good ideas to share with people both older and younger than myself. What I really disliked about the tone of this article was the way it suggested that people of the writer’s generation had been entrusted with some blueprint of faith and morality and that all the rest of us would be lacking if they didn’t brainwash us into being exactly the same. It was millennials who came in for the full force her concern, but baby boomers and generation X-ers were also implicitly found wanting.

In response, I would like to say this: I work with a millennial who is one of the most sensitive, caring women I know. She and her generation-X parents seem to have managed quite well. I live next door to a college composed of nearly 2,000 millennials. I never cease to wonder at their sense of social justice, their concern for those who are marginalized by society and the stream of volunteer projects they undertake to make a difference. I recently read about a 15-year-old Muslim girl who has started to fast for peace and now has a whole group of people fasting with her. 

This is what I think. Age has nothing to do with goodness. There are wonderful seniors, baby boomers, generation X-ers and millennials, and there are nasty ones, too, in all those groups. Instead of trying to prove that whatever age group we are in is somehow better than the others, I believe people who want to live in a world that rates justice and integrity highly should seek one another out, regardless of age, because together we can make a better world for all generations and the generations to come.


Karen Rose, OSB                                                                    April 26, 2019

Waiting for Silence

Silence is on my mind right now. We are approaching the holiest time of the year, the Triduum. This is the period stretching from the evening of Holy Thursday to the evening of Easter Sunday. It's three days but it's also one day, symbolizing the Paschal Mystery, an arch that begins with death and ends with life.




At the monastery, apart from services, we keep silence for most of the Triduum. The silence begins this evening, Holy Thursday, after the Mass of the Lord's supper; it continues until after Mass on Easter Sunday, which we celebrate at dawn on Easter morning.


The silence is a time for inner reflection, a time to spend with God and the mysery and wonder of  Christ's passion, death and resurrection. I'm waiting for it in a state of nervous anticipation. I love this communal silence but I also find it quite daunting. This isn't because I don't like keeping silence. I do, but there is something a bit scary about standing on the edge of silence and waiting to dive in. It's like jumping off a cliff into a deep, dark pool. I don't know how deep the water is; I don't know what I'm going to find in the darkness of the silence. I know God will be there, but what does that mean? What will I hear in this silence where there's just me and God? WilI want to hear what I hear? Will I be called call to something difficult or challenging?




At this time (10 a.m. on Holy Thursday) , I simply pray that I'll be ready for whatever awaits me in the silence.


Karen Rose, OSB                                                                     April 18, 2019

What I Don't Believe

“If I had a God whom I could understand, I would never hold Him to be God.” Meister Eckhart

I find it’s easy to fall into shorthand ways of talking about God and the divine. I think this stems from the desire to make God manageable, containable, understandable. I also think I do myself a disservice when I allow this to happen. Every time I describe God in terms of something that I know, I make God smaller than God is. If I keep making God smaller, then I deny myself the possibility of becoming part of God’s greatness.

Here follow things I do not believe:

1. I do not believe that God is something separate from me or from creation. God is creation. God is in me, sustaining me right now.
2. I do not believe God has a plan. Plans are linear, they move from point A to B to C. God is not constrained by points or goals or targets.
3. I do not believe suffering is a mistake on God’s part. Although I don’t understand it, I accept that it is a part of the world as it is created. My task is to find where God is in it.
4. I do not believe that God prefers me, my family, my country or anything else particularly associated with me to other people and their connections. God doesn’t have to single me out. God loves each one of us infinitely, including people who are much nastier than I am.
5. I don’t believe I have to name God to know God. God is not bound by any theories or rules that I, or anyone else, makes up. God transcends everything and is simultaneously in everything. People can be aware of that without being conscious that they are aware.
6. I do not believe that the afterlife will be like a large family reunion. I don’t know what happens after we die. I just trust.
7. I do not believe I need to know anything about God. I need only to trust enough to allow myself to be open to falling into a Mystery I can’t understand. I hope that God will do the rest.

 

          Karen Rose, OSB

Wanting Nothing

There was a period for several years before I found the monastery when more and more insistently I found that I wanted nothing. I don’t mean that I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted, but that I actively wanted not to have anything. I didn’t want to be burdened by possessions because I felt that having things weighed me down and kept me from God. Things demand attention and maintenance and I wanted to be rid of that to make more room for God in my life.

Mistakenly, as I now know, I thought everything would be taken from me when I entered the monastery. I thought my life would become simpler, that by not owning anything personally, the detachment that I sought would be handed to me on a plate and I wouldn’t have to think about possessions anymore.

It doesn’t work like that. First of all, if you live in the monastery, you are given the necessities like shelter, food, warmth and clothes. Once you realize you will have these things, you start to have opinions about them and you start to feel that your room is your little kingdom. At least, that’s how I felt. Secondly, although if you buy something like a book, you’ve bought it out of the communal money pot, it doesn’t feel any less that it’s my book. Thirdly (this was the biggest blow to the dispossession dream), you discover that, as a member of the monastery, you bear a moral responsibility for how the community makes and spends its income. Thus, the problem of having things was doubled, not diminished. Ever since I came here, I have had to bother not only about my personal relationship with possessions, but the communal dimension as well.

Initially, I was also thrown by the fact that we lived rather comfortably in the monastery. Then I realized that things aren’t being run for my benefit. I may have wanted to struggle with living more spartanly, but some sisters need a special diet or have conditions that mean they feel the cold, so places have to be warmer than maybe I would choose. This was a good lesson for me in that I let go of the pride of wanting to be a martyr and instead became grateful that all these things were available to me.

At a deeper level, I have also started to understand that wanting to have nothing was not really about the possessions themselves. Just letting go and being grateful meant I didn’t angst about their absence or presence. I find now that I can take pleasure in things, but my happiness isn’t dependent on them. A new chair might be nice, but it’s not essential. If I get the new chair, I can enjoy it, but if it’s removed, then it doesn’t disturb me. I’ve discovered that I only want the necessities of life, because the non-necessities are not essential to my inner peace.

 

 Karen Rose, OSB                                                                         April 5, 2019

 

 

 

Ebb and Flow

The tide comes in and the tide goes out. That’s the nature of the sea. It’s also a good metaphor for the way I live my faith.

As I look back over the years, I can trace a constancy of commitment to my search for God. On the inside, that has remained consistent; however, it doesn’t always look the same from the outside. The sea of faith is always there and I’m always somewhere on it, trying to set a course for home (God), but there’s also the push or pull of the tide which changes the way I steer and navigate.

When I entered the monastery, it was with the expectation that now I’d found the absolutely right way to take the quickest route to God. It was quite unsettling as it slowly dawned on me that I was still at sea and my faith and its expression would still ebb and flow.

At first, I was very diligent (and somewhat self-righteous) about having a perfect attendance at community prayers and Mass. I was so sure the Benedictine way was right for me; I wanted to be a good nun and make the most of this newly-found straight course.

Imagine the consternation when the boat started to leak and the seas became unpredictable! I found that, helpful as community prayer can be, it started to feel as if it was taking the place of personal prayer and that God, as a living, active presence in my life, was drifting further away.

Having spent ten years as a professed sister, I’ve become comfortable with the realization that I can’t sit back and think I’ve found the perfect way and will never have to make any adjustments again. A lifelong commitment to seeking God means a willingness to keep reflecting, working out what’s best at this point in my journey. Right now, I’m not at community prayers quite as often as I once was, though I recognize that part of choosing the monastic path means participating in community prayer. When I am there, I am fully present. I’m happy about that because it’s a way of prioritizing quality over mere quantity.

Paying attention to my own needs and listening to where I hear the Spirit call me has also made me less critical of others and more willing to trust my sisters. If someone isn’t at prayer, I work from the assumption that she has a good reason, not that she can’t be bothered. This seems to me a good lesson about living in community: I don’t always know best and I don’t always know what’s happening in someone else’s life. What I do know is that I’m part of a community of women in which each and every one has committed herself to the Benedictine, monastic path and that is enough to merit my trust and respect.

 

Karen Rose, OSB

Inside Community

Before I entered the monastery and lived in community, I thought I knew what it would be like. I’d lived a life where trying to nurture my inner self and my relationship with God was always significant. I thought living in community would be like that, but more intense, and surrounded by people who were all doing the same thing, which would make it easier.

As I approach the tenth anniversary of profession, I realize that it took me awhile to understand that the living in community itself was at the heart of the monastic experience. It’s the place where you are honed and being honed isn’t always comfortable. I learned that you can feel really drawn to the Rule of Benedict, that you can nurture your spirituality through Benedict’s wisdom and that you can adapt Benedictine principles to your way of life and your working situation, all of which is very worthwhile, but the full monastic experience, as envisaged by Benedict, is incomplete if you don’t live it out in community.

Living in community is a 24/7 commitment. I soon realized that although we are all seeking God, we don’t all start at the same point; we have different family and life experiences and different interests and different approaches to the world. In other words, we are all individuals. We wouldn’t necessarily choose the others to be our life-companions, yet we have to make things work. I believe it’s this endeavor to persevere and create a loving, monastic community, in the face of not-very-good odds, which is a primary witness to the Gospel value of loving our neighbors, whoever they are. We live in close proximity to one another, we have to make decisions about our future together, all in a context of trying to reconcile women who may be very different. Unlike in a marriage, where there is one other person, there are scores of us and we didn’t choose one another; God chose us.

We don’t always manage to do things in an ideal way. Living inside community means I had to let go of the notion that a monastery is a place of peace, where nothing ruffles the tranquility. I learned that the surface may be placid and exude calm when you pay a short visit, but underneath it’s a very real life where we have to deal with conflict and difference and accept that we are not always very good at it. I think, though, it’s the fact that we’re not always very good at it that makes it worthwhile. It’s a real challenge to have to live with others, to disagree and yet know that in order to fulfill our calling we somehow have to rise again, after every knock, and make it work.

 

Karen Rose, OSB                                                                          March 22, 2019

 

Inside the Job

I have the best team of workers anyone could wish for. There are 11 of us (some full-time, most part-time) who work directly in the mission advancement department and several others who provide help with specific projects. Most are sisters, plus two employees and a volunteer. No one is perfect and I’m not claiming we never make mistakes, but I know that each and every one always strives to do her best. Each has her own area of expertise and I have complete confidence in their dedication and ability to do a great job. This makes my job as director much easier than it would be if I had to keep checking up on whether things were getting done.

So, given that I’m freed to think about the bigger picture, what do I do? I have certain basic tasks, connecting with donors, doing some writing (e.g. this blog), going to meetings, dealing with queries, liaising with the press, reporting back to our leadership, etc. Beyond that, there is the strategic stuff. I’m not particularly target-driven or goal-oriented. I tend to be a person who seizes ideas and opportunities as they occur and runs with them. I love it when things succeed, but I’m aware that if you try new things they won’t all work out and I’m comfortable taking the risk. It has to be a calculated risk and the probability fairly that high that things will go well, but I believe it’s important not miss opportunities because of excessive caution. Okay, there’s my management strategy in a nutshell.

How does all this fit with my monastic life? Being a sister is a whole person commitment. It’s not on the cards to say that Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., the monastic journey is suspended. So how does that look in a busy work environment?  And believe me, it is busy. We are not floating around all day on a reflective cloud, taking the odd phone call and typing the odd letter.

I think the answer to the question is “love.” Love is at the heart of the Gospel and the heart of the Rule of Benedict. In the workplace, this means that underpinning all our work is love for one another, for the community whom we serve and represent to the world, and for the people with whom we connect. We pray for those who ask for our prayers with love and concern. We love our donors, not because they give us money, but because they are neighbors and friends crossing our path right now; they are the people to whom God is giving us the opportunity to show Christ’s face. We put out our social media posts in the loving hope that something we say is going to inspire someone or help them get through the day.

To do our job effectively and authentically, we have to see one another not just as co-workers. We share one another’s joys and sorrows. We are people with a common purpose. At the root of that purpose is sharing a message of love to the world. It would be a hollow message if we didn’t show genuine love and concern for one another, the sisters in our community and the people whom we seek to serve.

Karen Rose, OSB