Working with Kathleen Norris

Kathleen Norris is someone I've always wanted to meet, and last month I had a chance not only to meet her but to work with her.


I had met her over a year ago at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota where we both were attending a program. A casual remark about an idea I had for a retreat that explored how writing can help us focus on our experiences in order to recognize what's significant about ordinary life resulted in her offering to come and be the featured speaker. It's meant a year's worth of e-mail exchanges with Kathleen's very congenial and unbelievably well-organized agent, Kathryn Barcos at the Steven Barclay agency in order to find dates and make all the other necessary arrangements that needed to be attended to in advance.

The retreat, titled "Writing as a Spiritual Practice: A Retreat With Kathleen Norris," took place the weekend of October 23-25 at New Melleray Abbey, south of Dubuque.

Kathleen used her own poetry and that of other poets (including Mark Van Doren, Anne Porter, Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov and others) to illustrate how writing helps us contemplate "both emptiness and fullness, absence and presence". In sharing her own insights about the contemplative, prayerful dimension of poetry and other forms of creative writing, she emphasized that "we write until we start to think." Or in other words, the very act of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) helps us discover what is inside us needing to find expression. But she cautioned us to be honest about what we are trying to say because writing can tell us the truth about ourselves - but only if we're willing to cooperate. Otherwise our writing can end up being a chance for us literally to lie to ourselves.

Throughout the weekend she provided us with opportunities to try out her ideas and suggestions by doing some writing of our own, She gave us three specific exercises to jump start what she was talking about.

The first was to write our own spiritual autobiography in 200 words or less - no mean feat for those of us who tend to get carried away when attempting to express ourselves. Kathleen pointed out that usually we use many more words than are needed and that any good writer needs to keep going back to get rid of the excess. Or in her words we need to be willing to "kill our little darlings" - most of whom tend to be adjectives.

Our second exercise, which was to write a short psalm about something ordinary, gave us a chance to look for "the beauty in the ordinary task." Kathleen said that it's not always helpful to try talking about holiness and beauty in abstract terms, but rather to write simply about daily life using concrete images. So here's my attempt at creating a Psalm about sorting laundry.

" Monday Morning" by Andrew Wyeth

Praise the Lord
for this wicker basket filled with laundry
to be sorted and put away.

Rejoice and be glad
because of clean towels
that know the contour of our bodies
and the texture of our skin.

Give thanks for underwear
that proclaims how wondrously we are made -
how marvelous and strange the mysteries
of maleness and femaleness.

Sing joyfully for the lovely symmetry of folded handkerchiefs,
and the patience of pillowcases
waiting quietly all day for the nighttime,
and yes, even for this -
the loneliness of a sock without its mate.

For our last exercise, Kathleen read a poem that ended with the line "Have I wasted my life?" and another whose last line was "This is what I have wanted." Our assignment was to write two poems of our own using those same lines.

"Two Trees in that Field" by Anne Garton

The wind lurches through the fields
And clutches at cornstalks that have been left behind
Rattling their dry bones.
The sky is the color of an owl's feather.
Trees have dropped their leaves,
And all day long
Pinecones have been making their little leaps of faith
As if to say pay attention to this -
Pay attention.
Have I wasted my Life?

*****

Long after dusk has swept away the afternoon
A full moon climbs up through the darkness
Spilling clarity from her chalice of light.
This is what I have wanted.

The other speaker at the retreat was Fr. Brendan Freeman, Abbot of New Melleray and a poet in his own right, who shared some of his writing as well as his thoughts about how poetry and other forms of creative writing can help us be more aware of the spiritual dimension of life.

Father Brendan said many of us find that using "God-talk" isn't necessarily the best way to write about spiritual things. He added that it's not the words we use to talk about God, but rather the words we use to describe our day to day experiences that speak most eloquently of the luminous realm of the spirit.

I'm not very good at writing poetry but I am drawn to what words can do. They're powerful tools not only for communicating with others, but also for helping us discover who we are. That's one of the things writing does. It helps us listen to ourselves and hopefully learn something important from what we're hearing.

A Monastic Funeral

Yesterday afternoon Mother Columba Guare, Mississippi Abbey’s first Abbess, died after a difficult illness. She was buried this morning. There was no undertaker, no embalming, no cosmetic prettiness, no satin lined casket and heavy vault to cover it, no artificial grass to disguise the mound of dirt at the burial site. Instead once Mother Columba had been pronounced dead, her sisters who had lovingly cared for her these past 14 days as she lay dying, proceeded to prepare her body for burial. They dressed her in the monastic habit and laid her on a simple wooden bier at the foot of the altar in the Abbey church where she had prayed day and night for over 40 years.

Those of us who stood to whisper our silent prayers at the side of the bier looked down at a face that had not been tampered with by a skilled mortician in order to create the illusion of health and vigor. There was no artificial glow on her cheeks. Instead her face was drawn and completely colorless. She did not look like she was sleeping peacefully. She looked like she was dead. The customs that surround a Cistercian death and burial can seem unusually severe to those whose attitudes and experiences have been formed by our own death-denying culture. In spite of a near-obsessive fascination with the blood, gore and graphic violence that pervades so much of what masquerades as entertainment these days, most people remain painfully unable to deal with the reality of death when faced with the need to confront it. But Cistercians have a completely different approach. And what else would you expect from people who take seriously St. Benedict’s admonishment about “keeping death daily before your eyes?”

And what they are keeping before their eyes is their utter conviction, born of their deep faith, that death is not an ending but rather an amazing and awesome entry into what life has been leading up to all along. And so the sisters are able to balance their deep sorrow at losing someone who was dear to them, with a genuine sense of joy because they truly believe she has just begun to live.

It is that conviction that comes through in such a profound way all throughout the funeral liturgy, culminating at the gravesite in the burial itself. For the sisters, the procession from the church to the cemetery is one of the most important elements in the funeral liturgy because it symbolizes the passage from this world into the next. And so at the end of the funeral Mass, after the sisters had sung their last song of farewell, Sister Columba’s funeral bier was carried out of the church, preceded by the large white Paschal Candle, a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. The rest of the monastic community fell into the procession, followed by family and friends, each of us having stopped first to take a flower from the large arrangement at the foot of the altar.

To the tolling of the monastery bell, the procession made its solemn way the short distance to the little cemetery surrounded by trees on the side of a hill overlooking one of the Mississippi River’s bluffs. The grave had been dug by hand by teams of sisters working in shifts all yesterday afternoon, and two sturdy planks had been laid across it in order to support the bier until it was time to be lowered into the ground. Following a final blessing, two sisters covered Mother Columba’s body with a white cloth. Then the planks were removed and the pallbearers gently lowered the bier into the ground while one of the sisters sang the Suscipe (Receive me, O lord, as you have promised, that I may live. Do not disappoint me in my hope.)


At the conclusion of the hymn, Mother Nettie stepped forward and dropped a rose into the grave and then one by one the other sisters, followed by the rest of us, stepped to the edge of the grave and did the same thing. Slowly, silently, we each tossed a single flower onto the shrouded figure that lay at the bottom of the grave until it was almost completely covered with roses, dianthus, chrysanthemums, miniature sunflowers, and delphinium. Wiping away tears, but speaking calmly and steadily, Mother Nettie recited a last blessing and Sister Gail, the former Abbess, led us all in final prayers of intercession. We then said the Lord’s prayer and joined the sisters in singing the Salve, the beautiful hymn to Mary that is sung each night in the monastery. Then Sister Nettie took a shovel, scooped up a generous portion of dirt and cast it into the open grave. As the rest of us took our turns with shovel and spade, the enormity of what we were experiencing could not be ignored or denied. Death, like birth, is one of the most profound of all realities. And as I stood watching Columba’s grave fill back up with the soil the sisters had so painstakingly dug up yesterday, I kept thinking about the words of the Hymn we had sung during Communion: “Now the green blade rises from the buried grain….”

For those who believe that Columba’s death is after all simply another birth into another life, she is like a seed that has been planted deep in the soil, to rise again like a green and living blade of wheat.

Why I go to monasteries (Trisha)

Busy, frazzled people sometimes go to monasteries to get away from the craziness of the world for a little while. It gives them a chance to pull out of the fast lane, and slow down so they can emerge feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to face the rat race again. But I go for a different reason. It’s not to escape the burdens and pressures of life, but rather to look for insights into how to deal with them. It’s not to expect to be given the answers to questions that will probably always perplex and bewilder me, but rather to be touched and inspired by what happens when I ponder the immense moreness of life and what it means to live in a world filled with so many mysteries to ponder. A monastery isn’t a place to hide from reality. It’s where I go to find out more about it. And as far as I’m concerned the most important thing about going to a monastery is leaving it to go home again – because that’s where I’m can put into practice what the monastic tradition has to teach me about approaching life with reverence and authenticity.

I’ve spent years searching for something I can believe in about God. I haven’t found it in the churches I’ve attended or in what doctrines and dogmas insist I believe and do in order to be a person of faith. But the wisdom, insights and experiences that flow from Benedictine and Cistercian monasticism has had a profound impact on me. Monks and nuns don’t just talk about what they believe, they show us how to live as if it really matters. They’ve found that a rich interior life guides the way they live exteriorly and so they make it a practice to look closely at what’s going on around and inside them. They get to know the truth of who they really are - as opposed to who they might like to fool everyone else into thinking they are. So they’re comfortable being themselves – prepared to confront their demons, able to accept their imperfections as well as their strengths, mindful of the consequences of their actions and willing to work at trying to change behaviors that ought to be changed. They tend to be emotionally literate people who recognize that feelings are messages that tell us about ourselves.

The wisdom of their life is reflected in values and behaviors that are dramatically different from those of our culture. For one thing, monastic people recognize the importance of slowing down and paying attention to what their lived experiences can tell them instead of darting about on the surface of life. They pay attention to the clues their ordinary lives reveal about what’s sacred and they respond with gratitude and mindfulness. They pay attention to the dignity and worth of others and they respond with respect, compassion and love. They pay attention to the blessed gift of creation and they respond by using resources wisely and in moderation. They are good people living good lives. And they can teach us how to be good people so we can live good lives too, which is why I go to monasteries. It’s because I have so much to learn there.