Cowley Magazine - Summer 2008

Volume 34 • Number 2

Summer 2008

“We must remember that the Kingdom of Christ grows not by what it incorporates, but by what it communicates. It is the putting forth of the energies of the Body of Christ which constitutes the growth of that Body. It is not the mere annexation of territory for purposes of selfish aggrandizement or even of philanthropic enthusiasm, which constitutes the growth of Christ’s Kingdom. It is the development of the resources hidden, treasured up, waiting to be developed, in the Body of Christ Himself.”

Richard Meux Benson, founder of SSJE

Cover photo: The Monastery tower rises above the growth of late summer foliage.

©2008 by The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, North America

A Letter from the Superior Dear Members of the Fellowship of Saint John and other Friends, Curtis Almquist, SSJE

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he word “conversion” appears twelve times in our Rule of Life and figures prominently in our prayer, conversation, and daily living. Conversion is about change. Our word conversion has New Testament origins, and it means quite literally to turn about or turn around, to change course. We understand conversion on a quite personal level. There are the countless daily interventions of forgiveness, healing, counsel, and kindness of Christ – usually meditated through another person – to set us on a new course. We also understand conversion on a community level. We pray to be attentive to the leading of God’s Spirit. How are we being invited to change? What Jesus said of the householder applies to a monastic household if it is to stay vibrant: the need “to bring out of the treasury things new and things old.” Both. I’ll tell you about some changes.

First, we are making changes in our formation program for novices. We regularly communicate with many men who express interest in monasticism; however they are not at a place in life where they are open to considering a life commitment. The notion of a long-term commitment dissuades any number of men from being free and interested to even test out the monastic life. We now have begun a novitiate program that is two years in duration, with a new “class” arriving each Sep-

tember. Following this novitiate program and “graduation,” our novice-brother, may choose to depart from us. Should he have interest to make initial vows – and the community concurs – this then opens a new chapter of our life together.

Br. David Vryhof, our Novice Guardian, writes more about our new novitiate program in an article that follows.

Second, you will find in this edition a letter from The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley, who serves as the Episcopal Visitor to SSJE, reporting to the Committee on Religious Communities of the House of Bishops about the community’s life and practical affairs of the Society.

The letter provides details on our fiscal health and explains how we have been blessed with counsel from talented advisors. We give thanks to our advisors who have opened our eyes to challenges that we are facing and strategies to address them. The major challenge is that to continue our ministry of hospitality, the Monastery complex in Cambridge is in need of significant renovations. We will be communicating with you about a capital campaign for the Monastery during this year.

Third, preparation for our capital campaign and construction renovation to renew our ministry of hospitality creates very challenging, opportune days.

We ask for your prayers and support as we enter a period of disruption and ask you to abide with us. The renovation of

Br. John Goldring in the Cloister with longterm guest Crishan Thuraisingham

the edifice is reflective of the ongoing transformation of our monastic community. From July this year we will not be offering retreats at Emery House, our rural retreat house in West Newbury, Massachusetts, as is our normal practice. The Guesthouse at the Monastery will be open and we invite you to visit.

All of the Brothers will be living at the Monastery in Cambridge as of July.

A year when the entire community is living together will allow us to better husband our strengths, to coordinate our work, and to pray through the transformation. The work on our historic Monastery buildings invites us to do inner work – the real work of monks – to pray and practice a spirituality of disruption. In the summer of 2009 Emery House will reopen to receive retreatants, lodging in our beautiful hermitages. God willing, in June 2009 the Monastery Guesthouse will close as we begin as a first phase of actual renovation work.

During this period of reconstruction, some Brothers will reside in temporary quarters in Cambridge – so as to maintain a rhythm of prayer and worship in the Monastery Chapel – while other Brothers will reside in the main house of Emery House.

We, like other monks down through the ages, are eccentric, from the Latin, eccentricus, meaning “having a different center.” Prayer, worship, and the service of God is central to our life. Our founder, Richard Meux Benson, would so frequently say to the Brothers, “Look to the Glory!” Everything else is like a concentric circle in some nearer or farther proximity to this center. Meanwhile, we are firmly grounded on this earth – in space and time – and housed in buildings. Our prayer and practice of life melds together the vertical and horizontal planes, and this is the source for our own ministry to so many: helping them live a whole and holy life.

We gladly share our life with you.

Come visit us! And we are so grateful for your share in our life. We remember you in our prayer, with thanksgiving.

Faithfully yours,

Curtis G. Almquist, SSJE Superior

The original part of the main house at Emery House dates back to 1745.

SSJE

The New Novitiate: Changes in Our Program of Formation David Vryhof, SSJE

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e strive to be “Monks of the 21st century,” which means that we are always asking ourselves questions like: What should monastic life look like in the 21st century? What should we keep, change or discard? What are the needs in the Church and in the world to which we are uniquely equipped to respond? What needs and desires are being expressed by men who are interested in exploring a vocation with SSJE? Recently, the Brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist agreed upon some changes in the structure and focus of our novitiate program in response to questions like these. Currently, after a process of application that includes visits, interviews and evaluations, new men are accepted into a six-month postulancy period followed by a two-year novitiate. During this twoand-a-half year period, they are trained and formed in our way of life through participation in a program of work, study, and prayer. We often find that men in the novitiate spend a great deal of time and energy discerning whether they have a life-long call to the monastic life and to the vows it requires – a process that often distracts and drains them, and makes it difficult for them to simply experience and enjoy the life we live. Some are intimidated by the vows, and may decide not to come in the first place or to leave midway through the novitiate if they cannot envision

themselves as lifelong monks.

Attempting to address these obstacles, we are planning to offer a 21-month novitiate program to men who are interested in living our life for a time. New men will be admitted to the Community each September, whereupon they will be clothed in a black cassock and a gray scapular, indicating that they are novices participating in this new novitiate program. For the next 21 months, they will study and work and pray with us. They will attend classes and be given study assignments. They will be assigned tasks that support the functioning of the Monastery, but they will not be placed in major roles or in jobs that carry considerable responsibility. The focus during these months will be on their spiritual growth and their formation in the monastic life as we live it. They will participate in many Community discussions, but will not attend or vote in Chapter meetings.

This new 21-month program of study will cover a curriculum that will include such areas as scripture, theology, Church history, monasticism, the SSJE Rule, liturgy, prayer and spirituality. Basic instruction will also be given in preaching, spiritual direction, and retreat-leading, but those in the program will only participate in the ministries of hospitality and preaching (as they are equipped and able to do so). SSJE Brothers will serve as spiritual directors to the novices

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Novice Guardian, David Vryhof with novice, Andrew Gary, who was clothed on February 24th.

throughout their novitiate.

Novices who complete the 21month curriculum will ‘graduate’ with the option of either petitioning the Community to make initial vows or moving on to some other type of life and work outside of SSJE. The graduation is for both the individual and the Community a positive sign of accomplishment, and novices who choose to go in a different direction take with them the spiritual formation and training they received here, with the Community’s gratitude and blessing.

Novices who choose to continue in the monastic way prepare for initial vows by making a long retreat in the summer. They then take initial vows in September, but for a period of one year only. Each September these annual vows are renewed. After three years in initial vows a Brother is eligible to petition the Community to make life vows.

A Brother entering initial vows begins a period of further training in ministry (which includes training in leadership, in teaching and preach

ing, in offering spiritual direction, in leading retreats, and in other forms of pastoral ministry). He begins to participate actively in the various ministries of the Society and is eligible for outside training opportunities, such as seminary courses, Clinical Pastoral Education (C.P.E.), or other study opportunities.

Brothers in initial vows are also eligible for positions in the Community with greater responsibility. They are given voice and vote in Chapter and participate fully in Community meetings.

They have the same rights and privileges as life-professed members.

By offering a concentrated 21month program of spiritual formation and training, with lighter responsibilities in work and in ministry, we hope to offer an experience of monastic life to men who might want a taste of monastic life but feel they are not ready to consider lifelong commitment. We ask a 21-month commitment at the outset, then invite them to extend their stay with us by taking vows which are renewed annually for three to six years.

We hope that a number of them will choose to make this their life’s calling by committing themselves to God and to the Community in life vows.

Those interested in the novitiate program are invited to write to the Novice Guardian at vocations@ssje.org or call (617) 876-3037, extension 28.

More information about the program will be available soon on our website, www.ssje.org.

SSJE

Is God Calling You to serve in monastic life?

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.

Psalm 62:1

Our 21-month novitiate program offers men between the ages of 21 and 45 the opportunity to explore religious life first-hand. During the novitiate, they will: • Participate in the common life of the SSJE Brothers • Join the brothers in praying the Daily Office and celebrating the Eucharist • Engage in an ordered program of reading and study, with weekly novice classes • Take on regular work assignments that support SSJE’s life and ministry • Participate in our ministry of hospitality by extending welcome to our guests • Receive spiritual direction and training in prayer from professed Brothers • Be offered opportunities to preach (as they are prepared and able) • Develop friendships with the Brothers For more information on how to apply for the novitiate, please contact the Novice Guardian at vocations@ssje.org or call (617) 876-3037, extension 28.

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley 644 Old County Road, Deering, NH 03244 Telephone: 603 464 5622 Email: a_walmsley@mcttelecom.com

2008 Report of the Bishop Visitor The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Dear Friends of SSJE, It is my privilege to report to you, the members of the Fellowship of Saint John and Friends of SSJE, on the life and work of the community during the past year.

As the Episcopal Visitor to SSJE, it is part of my responsibility to the Committee on Religious Communities of the House of Bishops to make regular visits, review the community’s life and practical affairs, and – most rewarding to me – interview each Brother about his life in community. Let me comment under four headings about what I see.

1. Transitions in Community Life: “Positioning SSJE for its Future Ministries” A number of changes mark the life of SSJE over the last year. Three senior Brothers, Paul Wessinger, Bernard Russell, and John Mathis, have for health reasons moved to the Jeanne Jugan Residence of the Little Sisters of the Poor, nearby in Somerville, where they are receiving the level of health care they need. Their daily presence at the Monastery is much missed. SSJE continues its important outreach ministries at St. George’s College in Jerusalem and in East Africa; their website (www.ssje.org) makes spiritual formation available online in increasingly innovative ways; students at seminaries and universities continue to flock to the Monastery, several regularly serving as acolytes and readers. A steady stream of inquirers approach SSJE for potential vocations.

2. Balancing the Budget: “The House Is in Order” I am pleased to report that in the current fiscal year (July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008) SSJE anticipates a balanced budget. Projected operating expenses of $2.2 million are supported by: • Gifts to the Annual Fund - 38% • Monastery and Emery House guest income - 12% • Other Sources - 11% • Spending from Endowment (with a 5% draw) - 39% Two factors have enabled the Brothers to balance their budget. First is the continuing generosity of supporters to the Annual Fund, which is projected to reach $850,000 this year. Second, the Brothers are maintaining responsible control of expenses. In this, they are assisted by the expertise of talented lay advisors who serve on three fiduciary committees: Financial, Investment, and Buildings & Grounds. The 2007 audited financial statement reports SSJE in good standing.

SSJE

Based on the counsel of their Investment advisors, the Brothers have diversified their Endowment. The portfolio – comprised of domestic and international stocks, bonds, and mutual funds – is now managed by two investment firms. The Brothers are committed to an Endowment draw that, in real terms, will provide a steady and predictable stream of income to support SSJE’s activities in perpetuity.

3. Major Physical Refurbishing: “The Buildings Need Work” The Monastery in Cambridge is in need of major renovations. The work to be done will include replacing the inefficient steam heating and ventilation systems with environmentally-responsible, efficient ones; rewiring the 80 year-old electrical system, and re-plumbing the entire building; making the Guesthouse, Chapel, and Monastery more handicapped-accessible; and lighting the Chapel tower to increase visibility and witness. Safety and building code issues are clearly involved. As a first step toward addressing these concerns, the Buildings & Grounds Committee has assisted the Brothers in hiring a Project Manager to represent SSJE’s interests in this work (as well as to oversee similar repairs and improvements at Emery House).

Neither SSJE’s endowment draw nor the annual fund will fund these capital expenditures. To raise funds for this effort, the Brothers publicly announced their capital campaign on May 3rd at their Saint John’s Day celebration. The timing of the work on the buildings will be announced in due course. During this time of transition, the Brothers will give enhanced attention to balancing their inner life with the ongoing mission of SSJE at the Monastery and beyond.

4. Facing the Future: “Keeping the Financial House in Order and Building the Endowment” The Brothers depend on the Endowment and the Annual Fund for 77% of revenue. In times of economic distress, investment returns may suffer and philanthropic giving decrease. To keep budgets in balance, SSJE’s advisors recommend that the Brothers explore ways to grow the Endowment; consider the potential for additional streams of revenue; and continue to ask Friends and other supporters to increase their giving to the Annual Fund. Once the renovations are complete, the Brothers will need additional funds both to maintain the Monastery complex and to support the operating budget.

I have used my home address for this letter, and would be pleased to receive any questions or comments you might wish to address to me, or through me to the Brothers. As I go about my life and ministry, I regularly meet a wide spectrum of people who find SSJE an important source of spiritual and personal strength.

Thank you for your confidence in their work.

Faithfully yours,

The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley Bishop of Connecticut, retired

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

SSJE Officers, Bishop Visitor, & Other Leaders Officers

Br. Curtis Almquist, SSJE – Superior Br. Mark Brown, SSJE – Treasurer Br. James Koester, SSJE – Clerk Br. Robert L’Espérance, SSJE – Asst. Clerk

Bishop Visitor

The Rt. Rev. Arthur T. Walmsley Deering, New Hampshire Member, the Fellowship of Saint John

Buildings & Grounds Committee Financial Advisors

Mr. Nardin L. Baker, Needham, Massachusetts Ms. Karen Bird Wayland, Massachusetts Ms. Kalita Beck Blessing Dallas, Texas Mr. John F. Cogan, Jr. Cambridge, Massachusetts Dr. Gresh Lattimore Lexington, Massachusetts Member, the Fellowship of Saint John

Ms. Karen Bird Wayland, Massachusetts

Dr. Gresh Lattimore Lexington, Massachusetts Ms. LuAnn Polk Cambridge, Massachusetts Mr. Alvin Scott Brookline, Massachusetts Ms. Janet Stearns Newton, Massachusetts Ms. Sarah Wilcox Newton, Massachusetts

Mr. Troy Y. Murray Wellesley, Massachusetts Mr. H. Michael Stevens Lexington, Massachusetts Member, the Fellowship of Saint John Mr. Bruce V. Thomas Richmond, Virginia

Investment Advisors

Mr. Nardin L. Baker Needham, Massachusetts Mr. James Bell Boston, Massachusetts Mr. Jonathan B. Treat Belmont, Massachusetts 10

Investment Managers

Pension & Wealth Management Waltham, Massachusetts Salem Capital Management Woburn, Massachusetts

Certified Public Accountants Samet & Company PC Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

For more information, please telephone: Mr. Jamie Coats, Director, Friends of SSJE 617-844-2244 April 2008

SSJE

Poet Mary Oliver with her dog, Percy.

Stone and Light The Society of Saint John the Evangelist is housed in a building of stone and light. The stone is patient, the light which enters is transcendent, partly because it is the nature of light to be so and partly because of the attention with which it is greeted by the Brothers who live here and their many visitors. It gives, as is also its nature, both repose and energy. The Brothers who live here have active lives, both in their patterned hours of devotion and in their gifts to this nearly broken world, offering an abundant program of lectures, retreats, spiritual advisement – whatever is asked for, whatever is needed, the Brothers will seek to respond.

It is just as well, then, that the roof does not leak, that there be places where private conversations can be held and offices where the work can be done that reaches from the Word to the world.

This is not, for any of us, an easy financial time. All the more satisfying, then, to give – the pinch of it makes it a more real and earnest gift.

Stone, and Light.

Mary Oliver

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

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Running to the Empty Tomb: A sermon on the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, the Beloved Disciple The Reverend Margaret Bullitt-Jonas

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riends, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be back in this chapel and to share this service with you. One of my great losses in moving away from Cambridge four years ago was the loss of easy contact with this place, and with the Brothers, and with this larger community of faith. I rejoice to be with you today and to have a chance to reflect on this morning’s Gospel (John 20:1-9).

What interests me most in the scene we just heard is imagining what the beloved disciple experienced on that Easter morning. Of course, other characters also appear in the story of the empty tomb – Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter – but it is the beloved disciple who most attracts my attention. That is lucky for me, I guess, because he is the one whose feast day we are celebrating this morning. But even more than that, I wonder whether his experience of the Resurrection can tell us something about our own experience of the risen Christ. I wonder if, by imagining the experience of the beloved disciple, we can take the journey with him and discover how his encounter intersects with ours, and ours with his.

The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulcher on the Morning of the Resurrection c.1898, Burnand Eugene (Swiss).

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I have to tell you right off the bat that I majored in literature. If you listen to “A Prairie Home Companion,” you know from Garrison Keillor how hapless English majors are – they’re the ones who end up lost in dead-end jobs because of their idiosyncratic interest in symbols and images and stuff like that. English majors get no respect. And yet, as my friend and colleague Rob Hirschfeld likes to say – (he is, by the way, a member of the Fellowship of St. John, but was unable to join us this morning) – as Rob likes to say, John’s Gospel is the gospel for English majors. Everything in this Gospel seems to have been written for a reason – every detail counts, every repetition is deliberate, every image has some meaning to convey.

So with the zeal of an English major I roll up my sleeves and dig into this text, and, maybe because I’m not only an English major but also an Episcopal priest – and you know how we preachers love to make three points – what I notice about the beloved disciple in this passage is that he does three things.

Running Toward the Unknown What does he do first? He runs. As far as I can tell, this is the only scene in the entire Gospel of John in which anyone runs.

Elsewhere in the Gospel, people walk; they stand; they come forward; they step back; they come in; they go out. At one point Mary of Bethany “got up quickly and went to Jesus” (John 11:29, 31) – but no one runs.

Except in this scene. When Mary Magdalene sees that the stone has been SSJE

Brs Jonathan Maury and Curtis Almquist prepare for worship with the Reverend Margaret Bullitt-Jonas and Deacon Daphne Noyes, both members of the Fellowship of Saint John.

removed from the tomb, she runs to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple.

When the two of them hear the news, we’re told that they “set out and went toward the tomb” – the usual pace of things in this Gospel – but suddenly in the next verse they are both running, and the beloved disciple is moving so fast, he outruns Peter and reaches the tomb first.

Running – that’s an image of urgency and eagerness, an image of a passionate, whole-body desire to come and see. The beloved disciple wants to see what’s going on. He wants to see if what Mary told them is true. He can’t move quickly enough – maybe he is breathless, but he doesn’t care – he wants to make his way to the tomb as quickly as he possibly can, with no detours, no delays, no pausing to put his affairs in order first. He knows where he needs to go and he runs.

That to me is as good an image as any of what it means to be on fire for God. In those blessed times, we gather up all our scattered energies and we focus them on God. We want nothing more than God, nothing less than God, nothing other than God. We want our lives to be directed toward God, our hearts to be turning toward God, our prayer to be focused on God. Nothing else is enough.

That holy fire blazed up in all of us at one point or another in our lives, or we wouldn’t find ourselves here this morning.

The decision to explore a monastic vocation, the decision to make a life profession, the decision to commit oneself to the Fellowship of St. John – all these decisions came out of some experience of clarity and fervor in which we saw that we wanted our lives to head toward God. Every time we sit down to pray and touch that deep longing for God, we become the beloved disciple and we start to run to the tomb.

But let me add this. Like the beloved disciple, what we will find, we don’t know.

How God will show up, we don’t know.

Whether God will show up, we don’t know.

Whether we’ll recognize the signs of God’s presence when God comes, we don’t know.

We run because we thirst for God, but what we will find we can’t possibly predict or control. As we run, we must drop our expectations behind us, as a runner sheds the stuff she’s carrying so that she can be lighter on her feet. Let your prayer be fervent and pure – that’s what the disciple says to me as he runs. But don’t imagine for a moment that we can know in advance what we’ll find. The mystery of the living God can never be grasped or tamed, never locked away in a box – or a tomb. When we run toward God, we always run toward the unknown.

Gazing Without Grasping So that’s the first thing. And here’s the second: when the beloved disciple reaches the tomb, the Gospel tells us, “he bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in” (John 20:5). Now that’s a curious moment.

The beloved disciple wants so eagerly to

Br.Timothy Solverson with the Reverend Brian Murdoch, a long-time member of the Fellowship of Saint John.

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

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Barbara Braver and the Reverend Mark Anschutz, co-chairs of our Stone & Light capital campaign.

see that he runs, but when he actually gets there, he pauses at the doorway and does not enter. The text seems to highlight this move – or, I should say, lack of movement – by contrasting it with what Peter does.

When Peter reaches the tomb, he heads straight in.

Why does the beloved disciple pause at the doorway? Of course the Gospel never tells us, so we can imagine whatever we like. Did he simply need to catch his breath after running so hard? Did he suddenly get fearful or timid and feel a need to hold back? Either of these is possible, of course, but I’m going to argue for something else.

I think the beloved disciple stopped at the doorway because he wanted to gaze. He saw the same thing that Peter saw – the linen wrappings lying there, as if Jesus’ body had somehow released itself from the wrappings without disturbing them – but unlike Peter, the beloved disciple stopped to gaze. He needed not just to see, but to see deeply.

When it comes to prayer, we need ardor, yes; we need fervor – of course. But we also need to gaze. We need to be willing to give prayer some time, to let it unfold, to let a deeper truth come forward and to speak in silence to our hearts. How can we take something in if we only give it the quickest of glances? How can we apprehend the holy Mystery, the living Presence, if we treat it like a drive-by fast food joint – drop by, place our order, and go? God doesn’t work like that. Prayer takes patience – even if several of the latest books on prayer are sub-titled “101 Quick Ways to Pray,” 14

“Quick Prayers for Compassionate Caregivers,” “Quick Prayers for Determined Dieters,” “Quick Prayers for New Moms,” and so on. There is certainly a place and a need for quick prayers, no doubt about it. And yet the beloved disciple reminds me that if I really want to see, if I really want to perceive the Risen Christ and to be drawn into the living Mystery of God, then I must pause at the doorway to gaze. As a friend of mine says about prayer, “Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle.”

Prayer can’t be hurried any more than love can be hurried. When my son Sam was a boy, we had a nighttime ritual of saying the Lord’s Prayer and then exchanging the words “I love you” several times – “I love you,” “I love you, too” – back and forth.

Not only did we have to say it over and over several times – these had to be the last words that Sam heard before he went to sleep.

One night I finally admitted to myself that I found this repeated verbal dance rather tedious. “Why do we have to keep repeating ‘I love you’ over and over?”

I asked my son. “Why can’t we just say it once?” Sam’s answer was disarmingly simple. “I want to feel it inside me before I go to sleep.”

Ah, don’t we all. There are times when God calls us to run hard and fast, but there are times when love asks us to linger and go slow. To say, “I love you” with complete attention. To say it a million times over, if we need to, until we and the other person are laughing with joy and those three small

Br. Robert L’Esperance with newly received FSJ member José Latour of St. Petersburg, Florida.

SSJE

Br. David Vryhof with FSJ members Jeanine Taylor of Concord, New Hampshire, and the Reverend Anoma Abeyaratne of Boston, Massachusetts.

words can hardly contain the love that has poured into the room. To hear God say it to us again and again until divine love has penetrated the dry soil of our hearts and we spring up, as Isaiah says, “like willows by flowing streams” (Isaiah 44:4).

Entering the Mystery The beloved disciple is willing to wait and to gaze without grasping, until at last he feels drawn to step inside. And that is the third thing he does. He “went in” – that is, he stepped into the Mystery – and he “saw and believed” (John 20:8). The Fourth Gospel uses the word “believe” a full 96 times, and the Gospel’s whole purpose is to invite its readers to do what the beloved disciple did: to see and believe, and so to live, to receive everlasting life.

What do you think it looked like when the beloved disciple saw and believed? Did his face begin to shine? Did tears of joy spring to his eyes? Did he throw his arms wide and begin to dance? We don’t know what he did. What would you do? His journey is our journey, for the story of our faith may well have the same three markers along the way that his does – we run toward the sacred unknown because we want to see; we pause at the doorway because we see but also need to gaze; we enter inside and now see and believe.

I must say a word about the final sentence in this passage, the comment that “as yet they did not understand the scripture, that [Jesus] must rise from the dead” (John 20:9). There is a wonderful freshness to

the experience of the beloved disciple. He is the first to believe in the risen Jesus, but he does so not because believing this fits with what the Scripture says, or because he has figured anything out intellectually. His direct religious experience comes first. Later he will have a chance to think about it, because language comes later, and thought comes later – for now, he is simply immersed in the kind of innocent, fresh, direct perception that is ours in prayer when language and thought fall away and we find ourselves contemplating the holy Mystery in silence.

I must end by thanking the Brothers of SSJE, these dear friends of mine and friends of yours who have helped us and so many others to connect with the beloved disciple: to claim our own desire to run toward God, to spend time gazing, and to step forward and enter the holy Mystery so that we too may see and believe in our risen Lord.

The retreats and spiritual direction that we find here; the sacred spaces; the sacraments and services of worship; the friendship and companionship along the way; the Rule of Life that supports us as a trellis supports a climbing rose – all these have inspired and strengthened us in our journey into the heart of God. And now, of course, you and I have a chance to give something back: to help the Brothers re-build these beautiful spaces, to offer them not just our moral and spiritual but also our financial support, to become enthusiastic contributors to their new building campaign, “Stone and Light.” I can’t imagine what my own journey in faith would have been like without these dear colleagues and friends, these mentors and allies in the quest for God. I give thanks for you Brothers, and for this assembled community that seeks, as the beloved disciple once sought, to be faithful friends of Jesus and to bear passionate witness to his living presence in the world.

The Reverend Margaret Bullitt-Jonas is a member of the Fellowship of Saint John and a long-time friend of SSJE. She and her family live in western Massachusetts.

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

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The Buzz at Emery House Reclaiming the monastic practice of beekeeping

James Koester SSJE

T

here has been a lot of talk about bees at Emery House over the last several months, inspired by the two hives installed in the old orchard last year, but also out of curiosity resulting from all the coverage in the news about disappearing bees and the mysterious colony collapse disorder (CCD). Many have wondered if our bees had yet succumbed to CCD (they haven’t).

Throughout the New England winter the bee conversations have continued, as the bees retreated into the hive.

The questions have continued: “Do bees hibernate or simply die?” “How do they keep warm and stay alive?”

(They cluster into a ball, and keep one another warm by vibrating their wings.)

“Have you ever been stung?” (Yes!) One thing that has emerged in this conversation is discovering how many people still keep, or once kept bees, or know of a neighbour or relative that did or does. Another thing that has come up in the conversation is how many people have read and fallen in love with Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees. What people perhaps don’t realize, however, is the long connection between beekeeping and monastic communities.

In this day of electrical power and white sugar we have forgotten the crucial importance of candles for light 16

and honey for sweetening. We have forgotten that in a world, not only heated but also lit by fire, candles and candle-making were an important part of the domestic routine and the local economy. In a world where refined sugar was rare and expensive, honey was often the only sweetener. If there was not a ready source of both beeswax and honey, other less desirable substitutes had to be used.

Because of our sweet tooth and our need for light, bees have been managed by humans for thousands of years.

There are ancient cave paintings and more recent Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting both honey harvesting and methods of beekeeping. There are ancient Greek and Roman scientific and practical treatises on beekeeping and equally ancient recipes which use honey as a sweetener or a medical aid.

One of the curious by-products of these ancient Greek and Roman scientific treatises on bees was the development of a bee “theology” or “spirituality.” It was no accident, therefore, that bees, beekeeping, and beeswax became deeply connected with the rise of Christianity.

The Greeks and Roman who studied bees held a number of important assumptions about them. Because they had not seen a drone (male) bee SSJE

The SSJE hives – named Ambrose (the patron saint of bee keepers) and Exsultet.

mate with a fertile queen (female) bee they assumed that bees reproduced by a non-sexual method. As the cult of the Virgin Mary grew and developed in the Church, the idea of a virgin queen bee producing offspring appealed to the mind of the Church as an illustration of the Virgin Queen of Heaven who also produced an offspring in the person of Jesus, “not of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” In the mind of the Church, there existed in nature, in the example of the queen bee, a creature not unlike Mary, the Mother of the Lord. With this important link between the Virgin Mary and honeybees other links began to be made between honeybees and worship, the most notable being in the use of candles for worship.

Until the nineteenth century and the development of paraffin (an oilbased wax), candles were most frequently made from tallow or animal fat or beeswax. The beeswax candles were by far superior in that their light was

brighter, their smell more pleasant, and their flame more dependable. These, however, were simply a bonus to an institution which so highly valued virginity and the unmarried state. For the Church it was obvious which candle was suitable for the worship of God, one made by the offspring of the virgin queen. Even today candles made for use on the altar by custom must contain more than 50% beeswax. We value still not only the light but the product of the hive, even though we now know how bees reproduce.

Just as bees have made it into our imagery of the Virgin (in some artwork you will see bees buzzing around her) and into our worship through our use of candles, so too have they made it into the text of some of our liturgies.

In some versions of the Exsultet sung at the Easter Vigil (although not in the version in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer or the Canadian Book of Alternative Services) the deacon sings: “Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the

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way, “Mary brought forth her firstborn child and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.”

I giggled. “Do you think that really happened?”

“Well, yes and no,” she said. “Some things happen in a literal way, Lily. And other things, like this one, happen in a not so literal way, but they still happen. Do you know what I mean?”

I didn’t have a clue. “Not really,” I said.

“What I mean is that the bees weren’t really singing the words from Luke, but still, if you have the right kind of ears, you can listen to a hive and hear the Christmas story somewhere inside yourself. You can hear silent things on the other side of the everyday world that nobody else can. Big Mama had those kinds of ears.”

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, New York: Viking ©2002, pp. 143-44.

Br. James tends the hives at Emery House.

offering of this candle in your honor, the work of the bees, your creatures.”

In a sense, as the psalmist says, the bees “swarm about us” even when we are not aware of them.

Perhaps though the most wonderful way in which the honey bee buzzes about in our piety is told in The Secret Life of Bees: “Tell me one of Big Mama’s tall bee tales,” I said.

August thumped her finger on her forehead like she was trying to tap one of them off some back shelf in her head. Then her eyes lit up, and she said, “Well, one time Big Mama told me she went out to the hives on Christmas Eve and heard the bees singing the words of the Christmas story right out of the gospel of Luke.” August started to sing then in a humming sort of 18

Like the folk stories that tell us a midnight visit to a barn on Christmas Eve will reveal the cattle and sheep lowing carols, the bees are not left out. This past winter, as I visited our hives, I tried to hear them sing, just as I did at Easter, listening for their proclamation of the Good News of the Resurrection.

Unlike the monks of the Middle Ages who kept bees for theological and spiritual as well as practical reasons, we know how the honey bee reproduces, and we don’t depend on beeswax for light or honey for all our sweetening.

In spite of that, the beehives at Emery House have been a wonderful addition to our life. They have been the source of countless mealtime conversations, endless hours of fascination, and yet another link to our monastic forebears.

SSJE

Join the SSJE Brothers on pilgrimage to

The Holy Land 2008 December 2-14, 2008

THE PALESTINE OF JESUS

Photo: William Snyder

Brs. David Vryhof and Robert L’Esperance

The dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The church marks the place where Jesus was crucified.

SSJE brothers serve as course chap­lains. We lead in the daily prayer and worship, offer meditations and spiri­tual reflections, and give guidance to the pil­grims on how to “pray their own lives” amidst the sacred landscape where the life, death, and resur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ unfolded. Outstanding faculty, gracious accom­mo­da­tions, and delicious meals are pro­vided through Saint George’s Col­lege, a con­tinuing edu­ca­tion center for the entire Ang­li­can Com­mun­ion.

For more information and to regi­ster for a course, contact: Saint George’s College, Jerusalem www.sgcjerusalem.org email: registrar@stgeorges.org.il

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

telephone: 011 972 2 626 4704

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Chanting with Both Sides of the Brain Sung prayer as a path to God Polly Henninger is a member of the FSJ and a regular worshipper at the Monastery.

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s human beings, we have an internal struggle throughout our lives to “hear” both sides of the brain. At any moment, one side directs processing and determines how that moment is experienced. The left side of the brain, which is dominant for language, organizes information in a linear fashion and creates experiences in a sequence of moments highly influenced by our perception of time. The left hemisphere is typically dominant in most people, in most situations, and we become anxious when that control wavers. The right brain organizes information in a more holistic manner, with context and emotion greatly influencing experience, and with less attention given to time. Music is preferentially processed by the right hemisphere and provides an experience that activates its processing style. Music can lead the right brain to take control of processing. Spiritually, I believe it is through right brain experience that we enter into a mode that transcends time, reduces anxiety, and opens us to the Divine.

For many years, I conducted research in right and left brain consciousness, with a particular focus on musical processing. I sought to stimulate right brain functioning in patients who had had the two hemispheres of the brain separated surgically to control epilepsy, which enabled the study of each hemisphere in isolation. Although music preferen20

tially engages the right hemisphere, it was very difficult to research music with these subjects because I needed to evoke a response that did not engage the left hemisphere. As soon as a subject uses language, the left hemisphere engages and takes control. The usual way to avoid using language and to evoke a response from the right hemisphere is to show a stimulus and have the subject point to the answer with the left hand.

With auditory material, one can’t point to an answer. So I began to search for a sound that would stimulate right brain activity. In 1994 I went to a Gregorian chant workshop and realized, “That’s it.

That’s the sound I have been looking for.” And it was.

Chant is sung prayer. Although chant uses words, which engage the left hemisphere, the words are integrally related to the melodic line so the two hemispheres do not need to alternate or compete. The musical line remains preeminent, which allows the right brain to control processing. Moreover, chant sung from ancient notation particularly evokes the non-linear, spatial, affective processing of the right brain. In ancient notation, the musical notation reflects the hand movements of the chant master and sounds are stretched out or shortened a fraction of a beat, depending on the meaning of the word being sung.

Thus the rhythm arises from the meaning of the words, not from an indepenSSJE

dent rhythmic beat. When music is sung balance psychologically, emotionally, in this way, it allows both hemispheres intellectually, and spiritually. It allows to be full partners. Chant provides you to escape the tyranny of the left simultaneous expression of both sides of hemisphere without the anxiety such the brain, an integrating experience for release of control can cause. In allowthe person chanting, and a portal to an ing the right brain to take control for experience of the Divine. an extended time, chant opens you to I believe that chanting the Ofexperience Transcendence. fices every so many hours can restore a A member of the Fellowship of Saint John, Polly person to that integrated state where Henninger, PhD, worked as a research associate both hemispheres are fully participatat Cal Tech and as a staff neuropsychologist at Cambridge Hospital. Forced by lyme disease to retire ing. People feel this yearning because early, she now lives in Pasadena, California, where both sides of the brain want expression, she sings in her church choir, a shape note group, an but usually one side dominates at the opera chorus group, as well as in a Gregorian chant expense of the other. It’s critical to have scola. the kind of experience you can have here at the Monastery, coming and singing with other people, to keep bringing you back to the experience of having both sides satisfied, and to do an activity in which the left brain is not just willing, but content to take a backseat for half an hour. Singing the Daily An example of Gregorian chant, notated on a four (rather than Office puts the brain in five) line staff.

The Fellowship of Saint John (FSJ) is comprised of men and women throughout the world who desire to live their Christian life in special association with the Society of Saint John the Evangelist.

They have a vital interest in the life and work of the brothers, and support our life and ministries with their prayers, encouragement, and financial gifts. The brothers of SSJE welcome members of the FSJ as partners in the gospel life, and pray for them by name in our daily prayers, following a regular cycle. With us the FSJ members form an extended family, a company of friends abiding in Christ and seeking to bear a united witness to him as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” following the example of the Beloved Disciple.

For more information, please write to the Director of the Fellowship of St. John, 980 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02138.

Br. Geoffrey Tristram and the Reverend Elizabeth Marie Melchionna following her reception as a member of the FSJ.

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The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Friends

An Invitation to Join The Friends of SSJE

The Brothers in the monastery can touch each of our lives in very special ways. In the church we too expewww.ssje.org rience the crazy pace of the world so the monastery becomes an increasingly important place. For me the monastery over the last number of years has become a real anchor, and a place of sanctuary, a place of renewal and refreshment.

The Rev Canon Steve Huber, Vicar of Washington National Cathedral

Becoming a Friend Please consider becoming a Friend today. A tax-deductible contribution may be made by check (payable to “SSJE”), credit card, or a gift of securities. Gifts may also be made online through our website.

USA

Friends of SSJE The Society of Saint John the Evangelist 980 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel (617) 876-3037 ext. 24 Email: friends@ssje.org www.ssje.org

CANADA

“SSJE” c/o Scotia Trust Co. Attn: Mrs. Vi Bunclark Trust Administrator The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co Exchange Tower, 130 King Street West, 20th Floor, PO Box 430, Stn First Canadian Place Toronto, Ontario M5X 1K1

UK

For UK tax deductible donations please donate via the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).

Contact www.cafonline.org or telephone 01732 520 050. Please specify “The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Boston” when making your gift.

We placed SSJE in our will about 15 years ago, then expanded our giving five years ago, because of all the churches and foundations I’ve had contact with, either as a boy or as an adult, SSJE has been the most enduring and important to me. To have within the church’s communion a community like SSJE, dedicated to prayer for the whole world, is an overwhelmingly powerful witness. As I’ve tried to live a sacramental life, a life that really is governed and informed by the ongoing reality of the incarnation, I’ve depended on the sustained witness of the Society in prayer, meditation, reflection, good humor, sharing meals, and affection. My love for the songs and prayer book I use daily is grounded largely in the idea of their witness, the idea of there being monastic communities and SSJE in particular, who say the hours. When I’m doing morning or evening prayer by myself, I don’t feel alone.

So I pray for their life, that they might have life more abundantly. I also pray that they may see men who are called to this vital life. I pray for the ongoing life of the community.

Prof. Charles C. Taliaferro, Minnesota

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SSJE

Please remember SSJE in your will. Please let us know if you would like a copy of the Ways of Giving brochure to learn how you can include SSJE in your estate planning.

Friends of SSJE The Society of Saint John the Evangelist 980 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: (617)-876-3037 ext. 24 E-mail: friends@ssje.org www.ssje.org

The Friends of SSJE Annual Fund 2009 Information on Giving US Giving SSJE Friends in the USA can make tax-deductible gifts to SSJE. Checks: Please make checks payable to: SSJE and send to: The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, P.O. Box 382601, Cambridge, MA 02238 Online: Credit card donations can be made via www.ssje.org Stock Gifts: Please email treasury@ssje.org for details.

Monthly Gifts: Please email friends@ssje.org if you would like to make monthly pay ments by credit card.

Pledging: If you like to pledge please email your pledge to friends@ssje.org Tax Receipts: After the end of each calendar year receipts will be sent for Chapel gifts made by check and for all pledge payments received.

Canadian Giving SSJE Friends in Canada can make tax deductible donations through The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust. At this time we cannot accept Canadian gifts paid by credit card. Please make checks payable to: SSJE and send to: “SSJE” c/o Scotia Trust Co., Attn: Mrs. Vi Bunclark, Trust Administrator The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company, Exchange Tower, PO Box 430, Stn First Canadian Place, Toronto, Ontario M5X 1K1

UK Giving SSJE Friends in the UK can now donate through Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).

This method allows SSJE to reclaim the taxes paid by the donor as is allowed under UK tax law. You can open a CAF Charity Account either online at www.cafonline.org or by calling 01732 520 050. Please specify The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Boston when making your gift.

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Recovering the Calm

The Rebalancing of our Monastic Life David Vryhof, SSJE

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ommunities are living entities: they come into existence, they develop and grow, they change and adapt to meet their circumstances, and eventually, when they have served their purpose, they die. Monastic communities are alive in this way, always changing and adapting to meet the needs of their members and the needs of those whom they serve in the broader communities of the Church and the world. Communities that do not or will not or cannot change become extinct. To preserve and strengthen its life, it is necessary for a community from time to time to engage in a period of self-examination and to make changes that will keep it healthy and effective.

In recent months we Brothers have been taking a close look at our life together. We have had a sense during the past few years, especially as we have been working hard to lay the ground

Br.Timothy Solverson serves as the Monastery Cellerar, but he cooks for the love of it.

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Eldridge Pendleton, SSJE, doing one of the many things he loves: writing an icon.

work for our capital campaign, that our life has become imbalanced. Like so many in our culture, the pace of our life has quickened, the demands on us have increased, and our work has so dominated our life that the time available for genuinely recreative activities has been gradually eclipsed. We are convinced that we cannot recommend a balanced life to others unless we are able to model a more balanced life ourselves, and so we have agreed to make a number of changes in the way we live together in the coming year.

First, we decided that we would need to protect time in our schedule for activities that renew and refresh us as individuals and as a community. So we have set aside times for individual and collective meditation and prayer, times for reading and study, and times for exercise and creative pursuits. Our weekly Sabbath day serves this purpose, but it is important that these activities find a place in our daily routines as well.

In order to make this possible and to SSJE

Br. Curtis Almquist is an avid amateur photographer.

protect ourselves from the temptation to overwork, we are aiming to confine our work to specified periods during the day. This will necessarily mean that we will have to choose and prioritize our work commitments carefully.

Second, we decided that we wanted to spend more time together, deepening our friendships and our common life.

On Tuesday mornings, we will meditate together in the Holy Spirit Chapel. On Thursday evenings, we will have opportunity to share our faith as we study the Bible together. On Saturdays, we will gather for a common work period and for a time of relaxed conversation. Evenings will also be available for Brothers to share in casual conversations together.

During the coming year, our guesthouse will be closed for one week each month. During these ‘home weeks,’ we will give ourselves opportunities to pray together (on our monthly retreat day), to worship together (in services not open to the public), to learn together (by sharing in Community Education Days), and to engage in more in-depth discussions of our life and our mission.

Finally, we have resolved to keep the Greater Silence (from 8:45 p.m. to 9:15 a.m.) as a time when we are not engaged in work or in activities

that connect us with the outside world (unnecessary phone calls, answering or sending email, surfing the Web, etc.).

These boundaries are necessary to protect and enrich our inner lives, and to save us from giving in to boredom or distraction or to the avoidance of God. Our purpose is to “recover,” in both senses of the word. We can speak of recovering from a sickness or a pattern of disorder, but we can also speak of recovery in the sense of reclaiming something that has been lost. Our own Rule of Life has been our guide in this process. We aim to practice what we preach to others. Before we can offer silence and solitude, guidance in prayer and spirituality, and a vision for wholeness to others, we must be rooted in such a life ourselves.

Perhaps this will be an invitation for you as well: an invitation to reflect on your own life, to see where you might be “out of balance,” to make time for activities that refresh and renew you physically, spiritually, and mentally, and that deepen your relationships with others. All of us are called to live in community, and for our participation in our communities to be lively and life-giving, we need from time to time to “recover the calm” by rebalancing our lives.

Brs. Mark Brown and Jonathan Maury during morning pantry clean-up.

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Standing in Solidarity

An Interview with Br.Tom Shaw about his Mission to Zimbabwe Tom Shaw, SSJE

Cowley: Tell us why you went to Zimbabwe, and why so suddenly? This wasn’t on your calendar, was it?

Br. Tom: No, it wasn’t on my calendar, but our Presiding Bishop [Katharine Jefferts Schori], knowing that Zimbabwe’s social and political infrastructure was collapsing, asked me to go and to visit to express support for Zimbabwean Anglicans and to gather impressions for the Episcopal Church.

Bishop Shaw prays with a sick child.

Cowley: Tell us some of what you saw.

Br. Tom: Well, it was worse than I’d feared. I interviewed 49 priests and also met with lay people, human rights lawyers, and staff at the U.S. Embassy.

The situation is worsening by the day.

People are locked out of their churches.

Priests who serve multiple parishes have had their cars confiscated. Services of worship have been interrupted and parishioners have been beaten. I don’t think I’ve ever been any place where the oppression has been that overt.

There are widespread violations of human rights, daily reports of murder and torture. It’s an economic and humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions.

The inflation rate is one million percent and unemployment ranges between 80-90%. I saw long lines for gas and 26

at banks, and experienced the limited electricity and clean water. And I saw virtually empty shelves in supermarkets.

It’s really awful.

Cowley: Were you ever personally harassed or threatened?

Br. Tom: No, I wasn’t personally harassed by the police or security services.

I traveled to Zimbabwe alone, but while I was there I was escorted by the Bishop of Harare, Sebastian Bakare (who is a member of the Fellowship of Saint John). He and his wife Ruth and I traveled throughout the Harare region.

We didn’t actually witness violence, but Anglican Christians repeatedly told me of being assaulted in churches by police and other officials, often with dogs and batons.

SSJE

Br.Tom speaks with children whose parents have died from AIDS.

At one parish, back in May, there were between 80 or 90 riot police that came into the church to break up the service, and the people simply refused to leave, even though it was a very threatening and dangerous atmosphere. They just stayed there and prayed and sang hymns together for over two hours while the police and their dogs were threatening them, pounding on pews, and shouting.

Cowley: What can we do, practically speaking?

Br. Tom: Well, we can pray, of course, and keep the situation and the people there before God and each other. And I think everyone should be in touch with their congressional delegation and urge them to encourage the United States to continue to speak out about human rights violations in Zimbabwe. I know a lot of people think that such a simple thing won’t really make a difference, but I can assure you it does.

deep sense of joy and of hope among these persecuted Christians is what I’ll remember. It’s amazing, really. On the Sunday I was there, I went to this really poor township, and over 400 people were worshiping in the yard of this person’s house, spilling out into the road.

It was an unbelievable experience. The enthusiasm, the joy that these people have is pretty profound. And the thing that blew me away was that despite their poverty, the Zimbabwean Anglicans took up a special collection to make a donation to a summer program for underprivileged children in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Cowley: That’s very moving. What did you preach about is such a dire setting?

Br. Tom: I preached about the fact that they are not isolated in Zimbabwe or in the Anglican Communion. I told them that there were literally millions of people around the globe are praying for them. And I told them that they were a real model for the rest of us around the world, in the way that they are standing up against oppression, and not letting it get in the way of their worship and love for God.

Cowley: What memory of the trip lingers more than any other?

Br. Tom: That’s hard to say—there’s so much—but I would say that the

A church in Harare is chained shut by police.

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God Never Gives Up On Us A weekday homily on hope in the face of hopelessness John Goldring, SSJE

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od never gives up on us. If you think he does, you only need to look at what God did for the prophet Elijah.

Elijah had been fleeing for his life as the Israelites had forsaken God’s covenant, thrown down his altars, and killed his prophets. Only Elijah remained alive of all God’s prophets, and the Israelites were still looking for him, to kill him.

Elijah hid in the wilderness, and an angel of the Lord came to him twice, and fed him a hot cake to give him energy for the long journey to Mount Horeb. It took forty days and forty nights of walking to reach the place where he finally found a cave to sleep in. But then God showed up and asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake either. And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And then, most terrify28

ing of all, the sound of sheer silence.

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then Lord asked him again, “What are you doing here, Elijah? Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus.

When you get there, anoint Hazael as king over Aram.” God didn’t give up on Elijah, and God doesn’t give up on us.

We sin. We go to confession and seek forgiveness and absolution and begin life anew. We receive Jesus at the Eucharist in the Bread and Wine, in the Body and Blood. We receive spiritual direction and engage in a new sense of life with Jesus and our fellow Christians. We receive hope and a sense of well being.

Life begins to have meaning and a sense of destiny and direction and purpose.

We begin to have joy in the Lord. Jesus is our friend and companion. There is always Jesus. We are never alone. Hallelujah, Jesus is with us. We are in good hands because God never gives up on us.

See 1 Kings 19 for a full account.

Elijah’s cave on Mount Horeb.

SSJE

COMMUNITY NEWS Br. Curtis Almquist with the Rev. Gary Jones, rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia, and a member of our Fellowship of Saint John. Br. Curtis led a weekend retreat for the parish in early May, then preached and taught on Sunday morning.

capacity as Bishop of Massachusetts, while Geoffrey will be one of several religious from throughout the Anglican Communion serving as chaplains to the gathered bishops.

Brs. Geoffrey Tristram and Tom Shaw

The Rev. Gary Jones with Br. Curtis Almquist

In residence with the Little Sisters of the Poor in Somerville, Massachusetts, are Brs. Bernard Russell, John Mathis, and Paul Wessinger (seated), with the residence’s director, Mother Celine, and Br. Curtis Almquist.

Br. David Vryhof served as chaplain for the annual clergy conference of the Diocese of Ohio, May 6-8. Here he is shown with clergy of that diocese who are members of the Fellowship of Saint John, along with their bishop, The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr.. From left to right: Barbara Bond, Ed Perkinson, Kip Colegrove, Br. David, Bob Walcott, Evelyn Manzella, and Bishop Hollingsworth.

Br. David Vryhof will clergy of the Diocese of Ohio

Brs. Bernard, John, Paul and Curtis visit with Mother Celine

Brs. Tom Shaw and Geoffrey Tristram will both be in attendance at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, July 16 – August 3. Tom attends in his

Brs. Timothy Solverson and Bruce Neal were in Pensacola, Florida from February 28 to March 3, visiting the parish of Christ Church. They put on a weekend retreat, preached and taught the Adult Education class on Sunday, and spoke to the youth group.

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As part of his sabbatical visit to Japan, Br. David Allen attended the Annual Consultation Meetings of the Episcopal Asian American Ministries held at Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He is pictured here with the Right Reverend David Jones, Bishop Suffragan of Virginia, who also attended the conference.

Brs. Bruce Neal and Timothy Solverson

Br. Tom Shaw’s book, Conversations with Scripture and Each Other, was published in February by Rowman and Littlefield with the Cowley Publications imprint. In June, Br. Tom and poet Mary Oliver, whose newest book, Redbird, has just been published by Beacon, read from their books at an event hosted at the Monastery in support of STONE & Light, our capital campaign.

Br. David Allen with Bishop David Jones

Br. James Koester traveled to his native Canada and led a retreat for military chaplains in Ottawa.

This summer we have two interns, Hal Carter and Bob Swartz, working with us at Emery House under the guidance of Br. Robert L’Esperance and our property manager, Brent Was.

Brent, Hal and Bob at Emery House

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SSJE

Br. Timothy Solverson led a spring retreat for members of St. Michael and All Angels, Dallas, Texas.

will be teaching at St. Phillip’s in March, 2009.

Elizabeth Keller, Elphas Wambani, Nan Hardison, Br. David, and Gerry Hardison

Br.Timothy with members of St. Michael and All Angels, Dallas

During the month of May, the community welcomed Crishan Thuraisingham as a long-term guest (he is pictured with Br. John Goldring on page 4). Crishan, a native of Sri Lanka, has been a friend since his days as a graduate student at Harvard. He now lives in Geneva, Switzerland, where he works for the World Health Organization.

On April 29th, the community hosted a missionary couple from Kenya. Dr. Nan Hardison is the principal of the St. Phillip’s Theological College in Maseno, Kenya. Her husband, Dr. Gerry Hardison, is the chief physician at the Maseno Hospital. Joining them was Elizabeth Keller, who participated in SSJE’s recent mission to Tanzania, and Elphas Wambani, a lecturer at St. Phillip’s who is currently studying at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. With them is Br. David Vryhof who, along with Br. James Koester (not pictured),

Br. Bruce Neal led a group from St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, on a retreat from May 15 – 18.

Br. Bruce with members of St. Mary’s, Arlington

In March, Br. Geoffrey Tristram served as chaplain at the regular meeting of the House of Bishops.

During the month of April, Brs. David Vryhof and Mark Brown taught a four-week course entitled “Seeking God Together: A Course in Group Spiritual Direction,”at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Todd Smith (formerly known as Br. Jude) withdrew from the novitiate and has returned to his prior work with the United States Court of Appeals.

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