Online Edition February 2018

Raven’s Bread

Food for Those in Solitude

The shortest month of the year lasts forever. In Febru-ary, in the depth of winter, time stands still. The days are slowly lengthening and the dark receding, but winter per-sists unabated. Time hangs heavy as we wait for the spring that seems so immensely far off. This winter in Maine is harsh, with unrelenting cold and buffeting storms. True, we have days and even a week or more at a time without a storm. But then we’re hit with another nor’easter, a major storm that dumps a foot of snow or more. In between, the days are cold and gloomy. Snow piles grow ever larger. As the mounds get higher, shoveling the walkway gets harder and harder. We run out of places to put the snow and finally hire a backhoe to move the piles around and make some room in the drive-way. Worst of all, there is no bare ground anywhere, and so I feel disconnected from the earth. My psyche craves the greenery of spring, my feet are craving bare earth, and all I find is snow and ice. I feel as though I am standing still. I’m oppressed by the weather, tired from too many projects that seem never to come to completion, fatigued by demands on time, tal-ents, and energy. I can’t summon any enthusiasm for prayer or lectio. Everything is stale; nothing appeals. Lent begins late in the month. Normally it’s one of my favorite seasons, a time of life, renewal, and hope. Since my first year as a Catholic, Lent has meant not a season of guilt and misery, but a wonderful time of deepening and rebirth. This winter, life and hope seem to have migrated south, gone with the robins and the wild geese. Perhaps it is fatigue, perhaps it is anxiety about change, or perhaps it is the weather. For whatever reason, I seem to be paralyzed, unable to do more than exist from day to day. Prayer and lectio are boring; my relationship with God appears remote. I can think of so many things I should be doing, so many initiatives I should take. But can I actually get myself going on them? No. The more I dally and delay, the worse the paralysis feels and the more distant God seems to be. I continue to pray, continue to practice lectio, continue my normal routine. Yet, dejection and melancholy persist, and I teeter at time on the verge

of despair—despair of many things but most of all myself. After all, it’s not God who is to blame for my inertia, is it? Then one day for lectio I reread the parable of the Phar-isee and the publican in Luke 18. I read aloud the familiar words and, for the first time, hear this phrase, spoken of the publican, that public disgrace: “standing far off.” Standing far off! “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Lk 18:13). Always before, I had focused on the last part of that verse, but that morning three words pierced my heart: standing far off. What else had I been doing for the entire month of February but standing far off? Far off from God, far off from myself, far off from engagement with life. God’s response? “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified” (Lk 18:14). Reading this, my heart opened, and I wept. I was indeed standing far off, and yet God, who knows me well, said, “It’s okay.” It still doesn’t feel very good, and it continues to make my life challeng-ing, but as far as God is concerned, it’s okay. Standing far off may not feel comfortable, but God understands and remains close to me in infinite compassion. Though I stand far off, God does not…….. Perhaps we are all like this. Perhaps we are all lost, alienated, standing far off from ourselves and from God. Perhaps we all must work at coming close. Perhaps inti-macy, even with ourselves, never comes easily. I call up-on my faith, reminding myself of God’s past actions and constant loving presence. I know God is with me, stand-ing close by, even though I do not always feel that loving peacefulness. Standing far off, I remain in the desert this February. I call upon the living One, and remind myself that God is always standing close at hand.

Excerpted from Seasons in my Garden, Meditations from a Hermitage

By Sister Elizabeth Wagner, Hermit (A Raven’s Bread Reader)

Raven’s Bread is a quarterly newsletter (FEB-MAY-AUG-NOV) for hermits and those interested in solitary life published by Paul and Karen Fredette. It affirms and encourages people living in solitude. As a collabora-tive effort, it is written for and by hermits themselves, delivered by postal mail or email. Please send your writ-ten contributions, address changes, and subscription donations to: pkfredette@frontier.com or Raven’s Bread Ministries, 18065 NC 209 Hwy., Hot Springs, NC 28743 or via PayPal at our website.* Our phone number is: 828 622 3750. An annual donation is appreciated, each giving according to their means. Please send payment in US dol-lars (PayPal converts foreign currency to US dollars). Anything extra goes into a fund to insure that all who want Raven’s Bread can receive it. Raven’s Bread derives it’s name from the experience of the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 17: 1-6, where a raven sent by God nourished him during his months of solitude at the Wadi Cherith (The Cutting Place). *Our website is: http://www.ravensbreadministries.com; our email: pkfredette@frontier.com and the Blog for Lovers of Solitude: www.ravensbreadministries.com/blog.

With our grateful love,

Karen & Paul

2 Online Edition Raven’s Bread

In the still dark of the night, we hear the tree limbs crack in the bitter weather. It is almost too cold to snow but the white flakes keep falling and the predicted one-to-two inches becomes three, four, five …. We check the thermometer on the deck and our hearts plummet with the mercury down into the single digits. The moaning wind tells us that the chill-factor is be-low zero. We quickly draw the insulated draperies across the glass doors to the deck. It is winter. The lead article in this issue gives us a great picture of what is involved in living in the present moment or season of our life. Sometimes we coun-sel a person who is anxious or afraid, to try just living in the present mo-ment, but then we are asked: “Well what about the future? Aren’t we sup-posed to be prepared? Meet deadlines? Accomplish our daily tasks?” Yes indeed and often it IS the work of the present moment to plan and pre-pare for things to come. The problem arises when we not only work on future projects in the here-and-now, but also try to live into that future. We only slowly learn the art of walking the fine line that keeps us quietly doing what is given to us to do each day and avoiding the temptation of fashioning a future that is not here, (and perhaps never will be). We recently came across a poem by William Carlos Williams which aptly captures how Nature herself works this way. The poem is entitled Winter Trees and the final four lines run like so: Thus having prepared their buds Against a sure winter The wise trees

Stand sleeping in the cold. They are ready for their long winter nap after pushing up sap to nourish buds and leaves in the spring, en-during the sun and storms of summer, and putting on a great show in the autumn before shaking themselves free of their finery to reveal their true selves during the winter months. But if we look closely, we can see the rounded tips of branches where buds are securely encased for the season. These hold the promise of spring but must quietly await the rising sap to waken them. Winter is often the time when our true selves are most fully revealed, also. We often experience disappoint-ment that we are not better than we are. We forget our True Self is the Divine One alive and loving within us, even as Thomas Merton has said, “living in us as us”! For our readers in Australia and New Zealand who are now enjoying summer, we ask you to save this is-sue for a few months! And to our dear Ravens everywhere, we send our profound and humble gratitude for all your donations, large and small. May God reward you abundantly!

A Word

From

Still Wood

February 2018 Online Edition 3

What, When We Do It, Leads to Eternal Well-Being

We think we have plenty of time, especially when we are young and vibrant. Youth intoxicates us into thinking we have time to postpone where is important to us. We stall rather than pause. We put off and delay when what we need to do is con-template how we live out life. We need to answer the question to ourselves: What are we doing with out life?

Our tendency is to repeat the same old thing over and over again, never realizing that this repetitive habit nails us to our inner dissatisfaction and discontent. The reason why we do not get anywhere (spiritually) is that we do not know our limits…We think tomorrow is a better day to be along, to sit down and consider the question: What are we doing with our life? Our answer depends on how we see life. If we think we have plenty of time, we postpone looking at this question. We act on the propaganda of a consumer world of getting another thing to end the yearning inside of us.

Over the years we need to continue to pay attention to this question every day throughout the day since every day it is challenged by the tendency to rely on old habits and challenged by countless mental distraction.

The best time is right now. To visit and revisit what is im-portant right now. And to remember these inescapable Truths that support our willingness to continue on this path. The power of these Truths comes when we know these truths firsthand and remember them everyday.

The body and mind will grow old. The body and mind will get sick.

The body and will die. Everything we hold dear will be lost.

Impermanence shakes up the lazy, neglectful and wishful thinking that can pervade our mind-attitudes giving us enough insight into meeting what needs attention, meeting what is most important. We know we cannot rely on the body, the mind or all those other things we hold dear to fill the yearning.

In solitary, silent contemplation we have the opportunity to see what needs attention. We study the longing that comes in the form of wanting something else, somewhere else and begin to find well-being is there within us in the situation we are in. IT is there, in the well-being of the moment right where we are that we take action.

In most cases, the action consists of the ordinary duties of the world of things; brushing teeth, washing hands, reading the mail, changing diapers, comforting a loved one, going for a walk, sweeping the floor, making a meal, going shopping, writ-ing a check, driving to work...an endless array of duties to be fulfilled right in the situation of our life as it is.

We still the yearning by using time to tend to it in silence and solitude and contemplation. Once it is settled we are availa-ble to meet the countess things that show up in our life every day with concentrated attention. The work is akin to chopping wood and carrying water which is no easy duty when the mind years for something else. Even a little taint of yearning can make the bucket weigh a ton and the wood wet.

From “The Single Thread”

BEGINNERS

by DENISE LEVERTOV

From too much love of living, Hope and desire set free, Even the weariest river Winds somewhere to the sea - But we have only begun to love the earth. We have only begun To imagine the fullness of life. How could we tire of hope? - so much is in bud. How can desire fail? we have only begun

To imagine justice and mercy, Only begun to envision how it might be to live as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors. Surely our river cannot already be hastening into the sea of nonbeing? Surely it cannot drag, in the silt, all that is innocent? Not yet, not yet - there is too much broken that must be mended.

Too much hurt we have done to each other that cannot yet be forgiven. We have only begun to know The power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle. So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture, so much is in bud.

4 Online Edition Raven’s Bread

BOOK NOTES AND REVIEWS

The Hymn of the Word.

A seven page booklet and CD

Embedded in the opening verses of St. John’s Gospel

lies an ancient hymn, which Rev. Eugene Stockton (a

Raven’s Bread Reader) disentangled from the original

beginning of the text about the witness of John the Bap-

tist. The hymn appears to have been an independent

composition, subsequently placed at the beginning of the

gospel, whether as a majestic introduction to the story or

as a communal recital, a creed, before the public reading

of the gospel text.

This profound text is set to music and played by Amanda

McKenna and sung by the Monte Singers from Monte

Sant’ Angelo Mercy College and Patrician Brothers’ Col-

lege, Blacktown.

The CD contains three tracks: #1 Full Choral Version, #2

Instrumental Backing and #3 Muted Choral Version.

Recorded and Published by:

Blue Mountain Education and Research Trust, (2017)

254 Great Western Highway

Lawson NSW Australia 2783

www.bmert.org

HOLY SOLITUDE: Lenten Reflections with Saints, Hermits, Prophets and Rebels by Heidi Haverkamp. This book suggests unique practices that are rooted in the original purpose of Lent. It is a richly annotated text with quotes from Julian of Norwich to Seraphim of Sarov; examples from Hagar of Egypt to Francis of Assisi. Suggestions for daily practice challenge us to stretch our ability to live the traditional practices of Lent: fasting, prayer and alms-giving. 148 pp. $11.85 pbk. Published by Westminster John Knox Press 2017. ISBN 10: 0664264151; ISBN 13: 978-0664263157 SILENCE: A Series of Conferences Given by a Camaldolese Hermit by a Camaldolese hermit. A pithy and thoughtful compilation of talks that are as relevant today as when first presented in 1986. We highly encour-age readers to take advantage of publications by the Camaldolese Hermits of Monte Corona (er cam) in Ohio. 100 pp. $7.00 pbk. Holy Family Hermitage 2010. ISBN–10: 0972813276; ISBN–13: 978-0972813273 THE HERMITAGE WITHIN by A Monk; Translation from the French by Alan Neame. Anyone who senses the call of a solitary walk, will find in this book some hidden treasures on their desert journey. This book may be useful for someone who is discerning a call to live as a hermit because it discloses the stark reality of total self-offering and complete immersion. 152 pp. $14.70 pbk. Published by Cistercian Publications; Reprint Edition 1987. ISBN-10-0879077808; ISBN-13: 978-0879077808

Night is our diocese And silence is our ministry, Poverty our charity and helplessness Our tongue-tied sermon. Beyond the scope of sight or sound We dwell upon the air Seeking the world’s gain in an Unthinkable experience. We are exiles in the far end of solitude, Living as listeners With hearts attending to the skies we Cannot understand: Waiting upon the first far drum of Christ the Conqueror, Placed like sentinels upon The world’s frontier. Thomas Merton From “The Quickening of John the Baptist”