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Being Benedictine

Living SoulFully as an Oblate of St. Benedict

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Jodi Blazek Gehr

SoulCollage® Facilitator, Benedictine Oblate of Christ the King Priory, Retreat Leader at St. Benedict Center, Blogger at Being Benedictine and SoulFully You, Teacher, Mother, Wife, Friend, Lover of learning, reading, creativity and spirituality.

A Heart Expanded by The Unspeakable Sweetness of Love: World Oblate Congress 2023

The Benedictine spirit is characterized by “a heart expanded by the unspeakable sweetness of love.” Pope Francis addressed the 5th World Congress of Benedictine Oblates in a private audience on September 15, 2023, as reported by Vatican News. The Congress theme, “Moving forward: Living the Wisdom of the Rule,” is an opportunity for Oblates, lay associates of a Benedictine monastery, to learn about their calling as monks in the world.

I participated in the 2017 Congress in Rome, attending the General Audience of Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Square. I reflected, “We were delighted to be seated on the platform, very near where the Holy Father was also seated. His message on the Eucharist was followed with a welcome for visiting groups with a special mention of Benedictine Oblates. For many oblates, this was one of the most magical moments of the week.” Indeed, it was very special.

But I can only imagine that a private audience with Pope Francis has left oblates still pinching themselves. Jaime Williams, Oblate from Christ the King Priory where I also belong, shared he cannot find the words to describe the experience (although he has promised a guest post when the words begin to flow.) Jaime shared photos of the program with the words of Pope Francis’ message, of which I will comment.

Jaime Williams, Oblate of Christ the King Priory, Schuyler NE, in the background (blue shirt) as Pope Francis greets Abbot Primate Gregory Polan.

The Holy Father spoke to three aspects of this “expansion of heart”: the search for God, enthusiasm for the Gospel, and hospitality. “The Benedictine life is marked first of all by a continual search for God, for His will and for the wonders He works,” the Pope said. He emphasized the importance of practicing contemplation with the practice of Lectio Divina, as well as contemplation of creation, the challenges of daily life, the experience of work as prayer, and especially through other people.

Like the monks,” he said, “who make the places where they live fruitful and mark their days with industriousness, you also are called in this way to transform your everyday settings, wherever you live, by acting as a leaven in the dough, with skill and responsibility, and at the same time with gentleness and compassion.”

Finally, Pope Francis reflected on the characteristic of “hospitality,” noting that Benedict instructed monks to receive guests at the monastery as they would receive Jesus Himself. As Oblates our “wider monastery is the world, the city, and the workplace, for it is there that you are called to be models of welcome with regard to whoever knocks at your door, and models in preferential love for the poor.”

Pope Francis captures what being Benedictine means to me. It is not about interpreting the literal words in the gospel, but how I take its timeless message into my daily life—in my work, family, relationships, community, environment, and more. The words of Franciscan monk, Richard Rohr, resonate with me, “I’m convinced that one of the only reasons Roman Catholicism has lasted is because we have these satellites of freedom on the edge of the inside—religious communities of Benedictines, Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, and many more.” It is the connection with my favorite monks, our monastery, and Benedictine spirituality, a 1600-year-old tradition, that has sustained my search for God, my desire to learn from the ancient texts and rituals, and to practice hospitality as a monk in the world.

Read more about the 2017 World Congress: The Future Is The Spirit’s Work

Jaime William’s 2023 World Congress reflections.

© Jodi Blazek Gehr, Being Benedictine Blogger

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The Divine Presence is Everywhere

September 2023 Lectio Divina and Oblate Reflections

Lectio Divina—Chapters 19 and 20, Rule of St. Benedict

Book Discussion—The Oblate Life, edited by Gervase Holdaway, OSB, 2008

Being Benedictine is to believe that the Divine Presence is everywhere, as the opening of Chapter 19 in the Rule of St. Benedict states.

“We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and “that in every place the eyes of the Lord are watching the good and the wicked” (Proverbs 15:3). But beyond the least doubt we should believe this to be especially true when we celebrate the divine office.”

Chapter 19, The Rule of St. Benedict

What is the Divine Office?

The Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours or Opus Dei, the “Work of God”, is a daily prayer of psalms, readings, hymns, and prayers. Traditionally during a week, with prayers seven times a day, all 150 Psalms are recited by monks. The Psalms are prayers that Jesus and his disciples recited as part of the Jewish liturgy expressing the depth of human experience and emotion from joy, anger, thanks, praise, suffering, sorrow, contrition, petition, and more.

Continue reading “The Divine Presence is Everywhere” →
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The Wonder of Work: A Labor Day Reflection

This Labor Day, a day of rest after starting my 27th year of teaching, is an opportunity to reflect on the first four weeks of the 2023-2024 school year. Our first week back to school, sans students, is solely intended for teacher professional development, meetings, reconnecting with coworkers, and planning for new classes. 

At our LSE Staff Back to School Day, teachers were asked to consider what Knight Pride means, and what makes Lincoln Southeast High School uniquely LSE. My response, in a word, is tradition. Celebrating and learning from our history helps shape who we are. Carrying a strong tradition into each new year, adapting to new challenges, and balancing empathy with high expectations capture our essence. We have cultivated close relationships in each of our departments creating a smaller community, a school family, within the larger community of Lincoln. This is #knightpride!

*The Knight is our mascot. Pride is an acronym we use to encourage positive behaviors and values in the classroom. PRIDE stands for Personal Responsibility, Respect, Integrity, Determination, and Excellence. 

Why are we here? 

Remembering our purpose can be helpful when teaching day-to-day gets challenging. The purpose of my work, believing that learning is the greatest gift of being human, is what makes me come alive. Fostering curiosity, wonder, and the love of learning with co-teachers and students is my motivator. 

How do we show our passion and purpose?  

In The Monastic Way, September 2023 issue, Joan Chittister writes, “Good work is work that develops us as we develop it.” Modeling curiosity and wonder by committing to my own learning shows students that learning is a purposeful, lifelong endeavor. Each year, I commit to creating lessons that inspire curiosity while also communicating the connections between what we are learning and the value to my students’ lives. Students must understand their why.

What outcomes do we desire? 

Relationships with former students are the greatest reward from my years of teaching. Seeing these young adults share their Knight Pride as LSE alumni at school events and as contributing members of their community is a great joy. I wish for all my students—that their life is better because of what they learn; that they have aha moments now and, in their future; that they build career and life skills; and that they become lifelong learners. Joan Chittister shares, “Work is the gift we give to the world. That’s why it’s so important that what we do for a living has value, not simply for ourselves but for the world at-large.”

Continue reading “The Wonder of Work: A Labor Day Reflection” →
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Poems Come Out of Wonder

After canceling everything on my calendar this weekend (between a teacher work week and our first week with students….yes, eye twitching and back-to-school dreams are real), I revisited a poem and a SoulCollage® card I created on The Grandeur of God: Living Life with Wonder and Awe retreat. I gave myself permission to hunker down, pull back from social activities, and center myself in silence and solitude for my 27th year of teaching.

I love this poem from a book called Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets.

“Majestic” (Celebrating Maya Angelou)

Rise
into the wonder
of daybreak.

Be a rainbow in the cloud.
Be a free bird on the back of the night wind.
Shine on, honey!

Walk with joy in your golden feet
over crystal seas
and purpled mountains.

Know your beauty
is a thunder
your precious heart unsalable.

Be brave,
Like a new seed bursting
with extraordinary promise.

Shine on, honey!
Know you
are phenomenal.

            --Kwame Alexander
Poem of the Week: Majestic, Tewksbury Public Library

“I am one who” reflection: 

I am one who is surrounded by beauty and love. 
I am one who finds beauty in nature and all that glitters. 
I am on a journey of peace, serenity, and wholeness. 
On this journey, I can offer what is special about me to others; but when needed, I can hold my gifts close and tight.
I am one who must never forget to take time to pause; I can take moments for peace, serenity, and beauty that ultimately, is the guide to the Christ-center, the sole/soul purpose of my life.

It is only after taking time to pause, that I am able to celebrate “the wonder of daybreak.”

I will be phenomenal after a weekend of rest.

© Jodi Blazek Gehr, Being Benedictine Blogger

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Is Barbie Being Benedictine?

Barbie is a big deal. The smash-hit movie “Barbie” has reached the coveted billion-dollar mark at the global box office and its director, Greta Gerwig, had the highest-grossing opening weekend ever for a film directed by a woman. Millions of women—from 20 something to 70 something—have donned pink attire with their besties or their daughters—and headed to the theatres for pre-movie selfies and a trip down memory lane.

Barbie is a big deal. And, yes, even some guys have gone to the movie and enjoyed it! Every major newspaper, magazine, and news organization has weighed in on a variety of Barbie themes from feminism, patriarchy and consumerism to mother-daughter relationships, authenticity, and existentialism. Since I saw Barbie with one of my besties, Katie, a few weeks ago, I have read dozens of commentaries on the film. One’s reaction to the movie, or, for that matter, any cultural, social, or political phenomenon, cannot be separated from our own interests, values, biases, and experiences.

My experience includes fond memories of playing with my Barbie dolls–selecting special clothes my parents told me Mrs. Clause had personally tailored, organizing my wardrobe suitcase and setting up camp with a Barbie drive-camper. My daughter celebrated a Barbie-themed birthday, loved her Pepto-Bismol pink bedroom with Barbie comforter and curtains, and had all the Barbie things, even a lunchbox. Barbie captured the imaginations of little girls, and when they became mothers, their little girls enjoyed them as well.

“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come,” the spirit of Handler, the inventor of Barbie, said to Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, in the film.

I absolutely loved the movie--from the set and costume design (I mean, a life-sized Barbie house!), the special effects, the song selections and dancing, the clever comedy/satire, the Birkenstocks and the many feminist themes that elevated the movie to one for serious discussion. Katie, and I shared laughs and tears, many de-briefing conversations, and a commitment to see the movie again. My one wish–that I can also see it with my daughter someday.

Oh, you know I created more than one! lol….for both myself and my daughter Jessica. You can create your own selfie here. https://www.barbieselfie.ai/step/1-upload/

But, this is what I have been considering: Is Barbie being Benedictine? Yes! I see a few themes in the Barbie movie that provide a glimpse of what it means to be Benedictine.

Barbie considers her death.

Early in the movie, Barbie asks her friends, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” This existential question is the impetus for Barbie’s (s)hero’s journey, one of curiosity, self-discovery, and transformation, depicted in religious literature, myths, and poetry since the beginning of storytelling. When Barbie’s perfect plastic curves are met with the disappointment of flat feet, cellulite, and clumsy accidents, she attempts to restore the status quo. She experiences a “dark night of the soul,” desperate only for life to go back to the way it was (as she lies face down, in humility, pining for untroubled times.)

When faced with our own mortality, we come face-to-face with the certain uncertainty of our lives. When Barbie adventures into the Real World, where events are not contrived, she is faced with the purpose and meaning of her life, eyes opened to embracing both joy and suffering, aging and death.

St. Benedict advises in his Rule, to “Keep death daily before your eyes.” These thoughts of death make Barbie more human, real, authentic—once she realizes her own mortality, she cannot unsee it. Her old life has gone, and a new way must be birthed. Barbie is becoming.

Barbie listens.

In one of the most poignant scenes in the film, Barbie is overwhelmed with the stimuli of the Real World. She pauses to sit down on a bench to consider her next steps. This act of pausing to contemplate is the epitome of being Benedictine.

Continue reading “Is Barbie Being Benedictine?” →
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The Grandeur of God: Care for Creation and for the Vulnerable

I have been enchanted by the poem The Grandeur of God, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, for years. I practiced Lectio Divina, a sacred reading practice, with this poem and wrote about it in God’s Grandeur: Praying with Poetry.

I cannot confess to understanding every word of this Victorian-era sonnet, published nearly 30 years after Hopkins’ death in 1889, but I feel the same passion for the beauty and sacredness of creation “that gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil / Crushed” with which he writes. Hopkins writes with celebratory confidence,

“And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things”

But we know as global temperatures rise, more droughts, storms, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans are impacting both human and animal life. Nature has been used and abused in so many ways. Is it true that “nature is never spent?” Can this earth withstand the heavy burden of “man’s smudge…and smell?” Indeed, we seek comfort in the notion that the sun will always rise as “the brown brink eastward, springs” and always sets as “last lights off the black West went.”

We hope for the future of our planet, but we must be caretakers, not just takers. We must be co-creators with the Divine to ensure the “grandeur of God,” our planet, is full of wonder and awe for future generations.

“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things. All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without we cannot survive.”

-Hildegard of Bingen
Continue reading “The Grandeur of God: Care for Creation and for the Vulnerable” →
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Wonder Begins in the Present Moment

Our being is often crowded out by our doing. Each day we are summoned to be creators of the present moment. Artists know the value of white space. Sometimes what isn’t there enables us to see what is.

Macrina Weiderkehr

In art and design, white space, also called negative space, is the area of a page without images or text. It is the space between lines, margins, graphics, and other design elements. Without white space a reader would be terribly distracted, having difficulty understanding the message or determining what is most important to see.

So, too, with our lives. Our moments can be filled with distractions, both in our thinking and in the many daily responsibilities we have. Macrina Wiederkehr, Benedictine sister, suggests that we are the creators of our present moment. We must, as the artists of our life, create our own white space—perhaps in simply being rather than doing, taking moments of silence to pause between activities, or practicing creativity or contemplation. It is when we create white space in our lives that we see differently, appreciating the wonder of an ordinary day.  

Recently I guided a retreat called “The Grandeur of God: Living Life with Wonder and Awe.” Taking a retreat, time away from ordinary life, can be the “white space” that one needs to relax, rejuvenate, and refocus. When we look at our life as a means to an end, something to endure until things get better, we steal opportunities to live a life with wonder and awe.

It is not always possible to leave our homes, families, or places of employment, but science and religion unequivocally agree on the importance of creating white space in our daily life to experience wonder and awe. Experiences of awe, what C.S. Lewis calls “golden moments,” can reduce stress, loneliness, and physical distress, and bring one a sense of expanded time, perspective, and connection.

Continue reading “Wonder Begins in the Present Moment” →
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The way and the truth and the life

July 2023 Lectio Divina and Oblate Reflections

Sources: 

Lectio Divina—I am the way and the truth and the life, John 14:1-12

Book Discussion—The Oblate Life, edited by Gervase Holdaway, OSB, 2008

Disclaimer:

I cannot claim to have captured all of the wisdom shared in our monthly oblate discussions or that I represent all oblates in attendance. The group discussion is a starting point for this reflection, but it is my interpretation of what I heard and what resonated with me. There could easily be as many different blog posts or reflections as oblates. Each of us comes to Lectio from our personal experience of God at that moment and we receive what we need in that moment as well. The beauty of Lectio Divina is that the reading, insights, and discussion may fall differently on each of our hearts. How blessed we are that there are “many dwelling places” (John 14:2)” and we are all invited to “listen with the ear of the heart.” (RB Prologue)

“Just as the word ‘oblate’ comes from a root word denoting the offering of a gift, each oblate’s life is an offering to God and a gift to the Benedictine community, which is enriched by the oblate’s presence and prayer…. A Benedictine way is not to be harsh or burdensome but is offered to those who seek God and the sweetness of God’s voice.”

The Oblate Life

Do not let your hearts be troubled

The opening verse of John 14:1-12 implies that we can let or NOT let our hearts be troubled. We have agency–we can choose or not to follow the way Jesus shares with his disciples. This way, having faith in God, will relieve us of our troubles. 

“In my Father’s house, there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” Jesus asks. As a personal offer, he tells them “I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” 

Continue reading “The way and the truth and the life” →
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The Awe of Moral Beauty: The Story of Regina & Achim

Life is difficult. The first three words in M. Scott Peck’s classic The Road Less Traveled, which I read in my early twenties, left me feeling both comforted and troubled. Oh, thank God, I’m not the only one going through hard things; this is normal…but oh my God, is life really this hard? As I “grew up”, I learned that despite the challenges of life there are plenty of opportunities to practice gratitude and seek joy and wonder.

I am inspired, and filled with awe, by those who meet challenges and overcome obstacles with resilience, courage, kindness, and positivity. In Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, author Dacher Keltner outlines eight wonders of life that bring us a sense of awe and wonder. Music, nature, spiritual practices, and more influence us, but “we are most likely to feel awe when moved by moral beauty…in fact, it was other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming” that inspire us most.

This leads me to the story of Regina and Achim—I am inspired by them both. Regina met the challenge of a life-threatening illness with humor, positivity, faith, and courage. Achim showed selfless kindness and generosity by becoming Regina’s lifeline.

Continue reading “The Awe of Moral Beauty: The Story of Regina & Achim” →
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