Bank Balance

Act 1

I got a call from a friend I met in Durham in August, who asked me if I've read Barbara Brown Taylor's book Leaving Church.  "You have to read it - I just know you have to read it," she said, with so much conviction in her voice that I knew I would find a copy of the book.

Finding a copy wasn't hard, because our Monday group at church had read it during the past year, and copies were in the library.  I resisted reading it back when our church group was discussing it, because I was "neck deep in alligators" (as they say), and didn't want to read "swamp draining instructions." But now the time felt right, and so I began reading this most unsettling book.

Act 2

I haven't been up to the Monastery for a long, long time (almost a year).  Health concerns kept me in Boise during the winter and spring - thank goodness I could talk with my Spiritual Director via telephone!  But I missed the deep peace - the extended time for prayer - how God would speak through the liturgy and in nature in ways so powerful that it would take my breath away - the way conversations with the Sisters would clarify vocational issues that seemed unsolvable this side of the Camas Prairie, but would come into clear focus as I descended White Bird Hill into Grangeville.  Many a church drama was resolved through the wisdom of listening to a perspective steeped in prayerful reflection.  Benedictine women have done some remarkable work with leadership paradigms, and at almost ever visit I borrow a copy of a book (not available in print anymore) that addresses issues of women in leadership of communities.  This book acts like a prism that brings into focus different aspects of leadership - always keeping me on the edge of a new revelation.  I made arrangements to go up to the Monastery for retreat as I normally do in October, shaking my head as I looked at my calendar and wondered how in the world everything would fit into this finite space of my work life!  I wondered if perhaps I needed to give up the "luxury" of time in contemplative silence...

Act 3

"My quest to serve God in the church had exhausted my spiritual savings.  My dedication to being good had cost me a fortune in being whole.  My desire to do all things well had kept me from doing the one thing within my power to do, which was to discover what it meant to be fully human."  Barbara Brown Taylor, in Leaving Church (p127)

Ouch!

A quick check of my spiritual bank account showed a fairly serious level of red ink.  Knowing that I cannot give what I do not have, I will retreat to the Monastery to pray - and remember why I do what I do, and who does it with me.  It will be a quick trip (up Tuesday and back on Thursday), but it will be more than enough.

It is always enough.

Not willing to stay overdrawn,
Kim