Growing up in Nebraska, I was always a little jealous of the families who vacationed every summer at Lake Okoboji. It seemed like something people of means and importance did—going to the same place each year because it was so fantastic and familiar, renewing connections made the year before.
I was certainly impressed by the stories I heard. And it was storytelling that took me to Lake Okoboji for the first time in my 59-year-old life for the Okoboji Writers’ and Songwriters’ Retreat.
With countless ideas for creative writing projects, I took my grown-up self, with memories of keeping childhood diaries, attending high school journalism camp, and writing for the Daily Nebraskan in college, to explore the dream of writing a book. In my adult years, I have filled hundreds of journal pages, written nineteen chapters for a potential book, and shared 269 blog post reflections at Being Benedictine. I am SO excited about what I learned at the Okoboji Writer’s Retreat, which will help guide me in my next steps. I will be long impacted by the creativity, gratitude, humor, music, enthusiasm, political discussions, inspiration, spontaneous mentoring, and connections formed at OWR.
We long for the acceptance of home, a place of peace where we can be truly ourselves–seen and heard, loved and believed, held and yet free. Our longing is the existential homesickness that THIS isn’t all there is and that when we get a taste of unconditional acceptance and love, we want more. Our longings are good and holy—it is our Divine inheritance to experience all that it means to feel at home.
Inspired by the lyrics of Homesick, a song by friend Jana West, my annual Advent retreat was titled Homecoming: A SoulFully You Retreat. We explored how the Divine accompanies us, making a home within, and what it means to feel homesick or “at home” with ourselves and others. I offer some of our reflections so you, too, can take part:
“Love is home. Home is both an external dwelling and an internal abode. Home is the place where we belong, our place of acceptance and welcome. There, in this shame and judgment-free embryonic cocoon of love, we practice unconditional acceptance; we learn to relate to ourselves and the world around us.
And home is a soft place for the body to land, a safe place for the soul to fully disrobe. Home is the place where our failures don’t kill, our sins can’t crush, and even when we are at our worst, we’re safe. Home is a place where we are free to take our deepest, fullest, least encumbered breath.
What words or phrases resonate with you? Indeed, our personal experiences of home canbring a spectrum of feelings, from warm and fuzzy to sadness or terror, when we consider what being “at home” means. The ideal is what we seek and long for, both within ourselves and with others.
Last fall, at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, teachers were asked to consider the question: Why are we here? I shared my “WHY” for teaching in The Wonder of Work: A Labor Day Reflection. My motivation during my last year of full-time teaching and, now, as a retreat leader and blog writer is the same—to foster curiosity, wonder, and the love of learning. It is what makes me come alive!
Learning IS the greatest gift of being human. I am encouraged when others are enriched by a retreat experience as we learn about spiritual practices and living soulfully with joy, creativity, curiosity, and wonder. Recently I was affirmed that my WHY makes a difference.Jana, a kindred spirit who I met through Deb, another SoulCollage® facilitator, sent this message to both Deb and me:
“It has been my experience that sometimes a passion or interest I have invested in sharing with others becomes work and can become tiresome. I wonder, is all this effort worth my time? Are people benefiting as I hoped they would? Please save this message for future use — just in case you ever bump into such a pondering with your SoulCollage efforts.
When Deb first introduced this process to me, I was a bit intimidated, but very quickly saw its power and potential to unearth my subconscious and offer my body a voice. This past summer I attended an in-person gathering Deb hosted and created this card. I had an initial reading that day, but it wasn’t until this past December when Jodi encouraged her retreat group to spend time listening to existing cards that I realized this one had much more to offer me. It has been so powerful that I adopted the card as my guiding mantra for 2024.
Remain open like a child. Your inner Sage knows. Return to your roots for support in times of stress. Slow down and go easy so you don’t miss the most important things. OPEN, INTUIT, ROOTED, SLOW.
The day after Christmas, I received a breast cancer diagnosis. I cannot emphasize enough how this card has repeatedly guided and comforted me through the days that followed.
The end of summer typically means it’s back-to-school time, but this SoulFully You summer recap is just the beginning! This is what I do now–I am officially open for business! I have crossed the threshold from being a full-time teacher to a full-time creative–planning and leading retreats, writing more, pursuing creative ventures, and sharing the joy of living fully! I have dreamed of this since becoming a SoulCollage® facilitator in 2012. I was honored to be a part of the following SoulFully You activities this summer:
Echo Collective–The Power of Story
The ECHO Collective project (I wrote about it in April) celebrated its conclusion, with participants putting the final touches on their weaved tapestries. After creating a SoulCollage® card expressing an aspect of their personal story, a pattern was sketched to create their tapestry design. Then the weaving began! It was a sense of accomplishment for participants to go through this reflective and creative process.
Sisters of Mercy—Self and Spirit: The Power of Images
I spent a special Saturday morning in June with retired Sisters of Mercy in Omaha leading a SoulCollage retreat called Self and Spirit: The Power of Images. Several years ago, I met Cheryl Poulin, Pastoral Care Coordinator with the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, when her cousin Macrina Wiederkehr (one of my favorite Benedictine authors and sheroes) introduced us at St. Benedict Center. Each month, Poulin plans creative activities for the sisters, who have had long careers in teaching and nursing. I was touched to witness their joy when they connected with special images and when their collages came together so beautifully.
Exploring Your Wild Woman: A Full Moon SoulFully You Retreat
In July, several whimsical, wonderful, and wise women attended Exploring Your Wild Woman: A Full Moon SoulFully You Retreat at St. Benedict Center Schuyler, NE. Inspiring songs, poetry, soul talk, plus SoulCollage and an awesome full moon was a good reminder that wild woman is one who listens deeply and who “carries the medicine for all things. She carries stories and dreams and words and songs and signs and symbols.”
Abbey of the Arts, Monk in the World Guest Post
Finally, I am delighted to share that my Monk in the World reflection was shared as an Abbey of the Arts guest post.
“Choosing a word to focus on each year has become a nourishing, soulful ritual. I love participating in an ancient practice of contemplation recommended by Christine Valters Painter: “This tradition (for desert mothers and fathers) of asking for a word was a way of seeking something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime…A word was meant to be wrestled with and slowly grown into.
I savor the word, that more so chooses me, throughout the year—it brings great joy when in perfect synchronicity, it appears over and again in what I read, hear, and see. I trust that the word, as it settles in my heart, will be a guiding light for months to come—challenging, inspiring, and transforming me.
My 2024 word of the year, FULLY, is a throwback to ten years ago when I birthed and named my first website and creative venture, SoulFully You.” Read more here.
For more information about SoulFully You retreats, see upcoming retreats held at St. Benedict Center. If you are interested in having a retreat or workshop created for your organization, church, or special interest group, contact me here. Possible retreat themes listed here.
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 greatnesslike 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.”
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.
Choosing a word of the year can be a prayerful intention as well as creative expression. There is nothing magical about one word over another, but I find the process insightful and revealing—both spiritually comforting and challenging. I worked with the idea of doorways and thresholds for several weeks after realizing how many cards in my SoulCollage® collection had images of doors on them.
“Doors are places for pausing, of finding your key, of knocking, of asking for entry. Thresholds carry us from one place to another – usually from outside to inside or the other way around. They are symbols of our inner movements…. I believe that our lives are about crossing one threshold after another. Thresholds are challenging places to be because there is no map. There is no ten-step plan for how to move through this space. We feel disoriented there and impatient in having to wait.”
Christine Valters Paintner
I thought about selecting a word like welcome or becoming, or simply doorway or threshold. The images resonated, but the words were not quite right. I considered what it feels like to stand on the threshold of the unknown, to step through the doorway of uncertainty. The moment of crossing over can require courage, honesty, a surrendering, a willingness to be transformed.
“Our uncertainty is the doorway into mystery, the doorway into surrender, the path to God that Jesus called “faith.” -Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder
Extending hospitality to guests, as St. Benedict instructed in The Rule, can be practiced towards the uncertainty that life brings, the times when we can no longer control our circumstances and we must surrender our expectations. We can extend hospitality towards all that is mystery and trust that we will be transformed in the process. We may not know what we are walking into, but we can grow into acceptance of whatever comes.
“We need to honor what is on both sides of the doorway: to celebrate the whole of our lives, the self we are leaving behind as well as the self toward which we are going.”
The threshold moment requires an acceptance of what has been, what is, and what possibilities may come. The threshold moment, if we wish to honor each moment as life-giving and transformational, forces us to see our truth, the truth of our desires, and the truth of our circumstances.
“If you are interested in transformation, no element is more important than developing a love of truth. As we learn to accept what is real in the present moment, we are more able to accept whatever arises in us, because we know that it is not the whole of us… When we are willing to be with the whole truth—whatever it is –we have more inner resources available to deal with whatever we are facing.” –The Wisdom of the Enneagram, Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson.
And this brings me to my 2021 word of the year: TRUTH.
During Advent, we wait in darkness for the light of Christmas Day. We circle around the Advent wreath, igniting another candle each week.
Advent is about longing for the God that breaks into time and space as a baby in a manger. Advent is about cultivating patience and not rushing to the Incarnation. Advent is the ultimate “vorfreude”, anticipating the joy of God becoming one of us, that God in his humanity has shared with us his divinity.
“God became human so that his divine life might flow into us and free us from our mortality and impermanence…to fulfill the deepest longings for transformation and the healing of lives.”
Anselm Grün, A Time of Fulfillment
The Advent wreath symbolizes the coming of the birth of Jesus, the light of Christmas drawing near and the anticipation of the Christ-light breaking into our life and world. With each passing week, the candle represents our hope that light will dispel the darkness.
So it is with us. We circle around the same issues, questions, and problems in our lives, struggling with the dark and light within us and around us. And we pray that God breaks in, that the light will prevail.
Spending time creating collages during the Christmas season is prayer for me. Consider some creative possibilities with Sanctuary, an free online retreat.
“When we come to understand that everything in our world, including its darker aspects, derives from God, we begin to realize that much of what we perceive as “bad” is, from the divine perspective, simply another piece of the sacred whole…that which appears as darkness to us may very well be the beacon to our redemption.”
Niles Elliot Goldstein, God at the Edge
The beauty of the Advent season is recognizing and honoring this darkness in ourselves, in others and in the world. This darkness that we prefer to deny, flee from or quickly fix is actually the beginning of something new and hopeful happening in ourselves. The darkness can bring a great light. “We see the darkness and we forget even darkness is light to God.” (Deidra Riggs, Every Little Thing)
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Isaiah 9:2) A collage creation during Christmas season.
The expectant and hopeful waiting in Advent when Jesus is in the womb, where possibility of new birth is upon us in the waiting and tender honing of our patience, is where we must begin. We begin in the womb.
Consider creating a SoulCollage® card or journaling with the following questions:
So what is it that needs to be birthed within us? In our world?
How do we accept and forgive the darkness in our selves and others while nurturing and encouraging the positive?
What can we bring out of darkness and into the light?
What gives us the strength to wait in patience, to trust that our circling around will bring us into the light?
“I am one who” is a prompt to begin to speak from and about the images that intuitively come together. Using all three of the collage creations on this post, I write:
I am one who walks through rough and rocky terrain. I am one who dances gracefully in the light. I am one who casts shadows. I am one who gets stuck. I am one who circles around and around, sometimes feeling a little lost.
I trudge reluctantly… or tread carefully… or move forward faithfully. I am one who, with open arms, embraces both dark and light: in myself, in others, in my world. I see the light and the darkness, the gold and the shadows, the smooth and the rough. I go through all…the white sand, the gold dust, the smooth and rocky, the hard and broken, the shadowy or the illuminated, the gray, the light, the dark.
I am one who is filled with hope. I pray. I am one who feels hopeless too. Eyes open, door ajar, I glimpse the light. I am one who closes my eyes, sometimes trusting and at times in denial. I dance the dance of light and darkness.
I stretch out my arms in surrender to the moments, layers, phases, experiences that are light and darkness intermingled; Darkness that seems like it will never pass and pure, unadulterated light that never ends. I am one who believes that the Christ-child covers both light and dark, in me and in the world.
I hope, I pray that I hold the two in balance; honoring both, recognizing both, knowing I am both, knowing others are both. I surrender to rebirth, to a new way of being and seeing and accepting. I am one who holds together the dark and the light.
“…the light shines in the darkness,and the darkness has not overcome it.The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1-1:5
May the darkness of Advent, the light of Christmas, and the new insights of Epiphany be with you. By holding the sufferings and joys of our life together, may we come to see Christ in new ways.
Mother Mary finds her way into many of my collage creations, but it is the story and image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that I am especially drawn to. On December 12, the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated.
“Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.”
Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego on Mount Tepayac, 1531
On the site of an ancient shrine to the Aztec mother goddess, near Mexico City on Tepeyac Hill, a young Christian Indian named Juan Diego had a vision of a young Indian woman. Speaking in his native tongue, she directed him to tell the bishop to construct a church on the hill. The bishop dismissed the story, but the young maiden appeared yet again to Diego identifying herself as the Mother of God. She instructed him to gather roses that grew at her feet, during the winter no less, and take them to the bishop. When Diego opened his coat, a colorful impression of Our Lady, with dark skin, was imprinted on the fabric.
This story has been told for five hundred years, standing as an “image of divine compassion for a demoralized people. Speaking to Juan Diego in his own language, she presented herself in terms of compassion and solidarity, not power and domination.” (Blessed Among Us, December 12, 2020) The image of Our Lady attracts millions of pilgrims each year at the basilica in Mexico City, one of the world’s most visited sacred sights.
Recently I gathered with some friends for a much-needed retreat, a “pause between labor contractions”—a metaphor that resonated with us. In such troubling times, we came together to be creative, soulful, compassionate listeners—to take, literally and prayerfully, a breath from the labor of a divisive political environment and necessary pandemic adjustments. Jana, Deb, Patsy, Sara, Julie, and I brought open hearts to celebrate a weekend filled with blessings—a full moon, the beauty of the woods, the insightful practice of SoulCollage® and the celebration of All Saints Day.
Being Benedictine 