OSL Retreat

Well, the official learning and worship of The Order has concluded. Worship was tremendous - high church worship at its absolute best! Smells and bells, chant and silence, baptismal remembrance and Eucharist. (By the way, "Eucharist" is a word which means "Thanksgiving" and is another name for Holy Communion.) Sr. Heather Murray Elkins' presentations were outstanding as always and left me yearning to return to the academic world to do a PhD. Someday perhaps...

The Council of the Order reconvened after lunch to finish our business for this event. Business is not always the most interesting matter, but within the Order, even our business is conducted prayerfully and in light of our covenant as brothers and sisters in Christ. Someone once dubbed this prayerful business "worshipful work." The only tasks which remain are dinner and fellowship tonight and breakfast and closing Eucharist for the Council tomorrow.

I was talking with one member of the Order the other night during a pilgrimage to a local eatery. I shared with him that there is this part of me that wishes that I could be a monk. I say it half-joking, of course. After all, how many monks have you met who are married with two children? Or are as young as I? Or wear an earring and play Nintendo Wii and think sandals are a year round option?

All jokes and oddities aside, there is a part of me that longs to live more fully into the reality of ordered religious life. Every time I am blessed to be with the Order, I have this same longing. In other words, I'm never ready for retreat to be over. I'm never ready to go back into a life of diaspora (life apart). If only we could all be together, praying and chanting and communing, all the time... But the beauty of the baptismal covenant is that all Christians ARE bound together in this way. We are one! Yes, we are apart geographically. Yes, we are different in many ways. But still, we are one because we join our voices together in proclamation: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.