Editor's Note

September 25, 2021

Go up into the hill country; bring timber, and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and receive my glory, says the LORD. (Haggai 1:8) 

We on occasion in the School use with student groups as conversation starters “highs and lows”, “peaches and pits”, “ups and downs.” There is a bit of a “high” that comes with each new year: hopes, expectations, challenges. These may already have begun to show cracks and stresses. We have discovered the excitement of the newly extended community that has arisen with the school year, of new strategic plans and goals, of hopes renewed. And also thus far this school year, I have attended the funeral of a colleague and friend of the monastery, was unable to make it to the funeral of a family friend, and learned of the death of the grandfather of three students whose family has long been connected to us. Thursday's reading from Haggai spoke to me of all this. The passage relates a moment of restoration - but it is couched within admonition and a sharp examination of conscience. We hear of a call to rebuild, of the end of long suffering and restoration of God’s temple. Yet as Christian typology, the “timber,” the wood, elicits the cross, Christ’s death on the mountain, and the glory of his crucifixion. Haggai seems to tell me that at both moments, God is building or rebuilding His temple, His people. In the highest of highs, and in the lowest of lows. May this hope bring stability to our rollercoasters, optimism in our struggles, humility in our successes, God’s will in all. And may I hear and respond to God’s calling: go into the mountains, collect the wood for His temple, increase His glory. 

Pax,

Blake Billings

September 11, 2021
 

“Out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord.” This memorable and moving antiphon from Psalm 130 resides in Monday Vespers, starting the psalms of the evening. It has usually touched me as a kind of lament, a prayer of petition, expressing to God the hardships and struggles, the passion and cross, the painful search for God, searing to our spiritual core. Strangely, amidst the wave of duties and distractions that have swept over me of late as school begins, it caught my attention differently, as an affirmation, a declaration of faith. While trying to catch my breath, to take on what is coming next, to find my heart and mind running in various directions and losing an authentic sense of faith smothered in the chaos, the verse resonated with a new meaning. Silently within, ever listening, hidden amidst the commotions of the world, the soul still desires His voice. The depths still await His creation. The rudder of the true self continues its hidden work, quietly, below the tumult of the storm that may rage above. So, I was grateful for Monday Vespers, which now seemed to offer matching bookends to my spiritual journey. For when the cross of life exposes inescapably the soul’s most fundamental need for God, or when the frenetic events and demands of life lead the conscious self to forget its Priority: in both moments, out of the depths, the soul cries to God. Whether we hear its cry or not, I was reminded and exhorted in this evening refrain, that hidden soul which resides in the silent depths still presents its cry and awaits His response. 

Pax,

Blake Billings

September 5, 2021

I am typically a bit of a hopeless wreck this time of year. The resumption of our weekly publication of The Current is just one small piece in a larger puzzle of life beginning anew, and with a vengeance, as the new school year swells, and with it my anxiety. So I found myself to be, somewhat paradoxically, heartened this week when the Mass reading of 1 Thessalonians 5 drew my attention to the Greek distinction between “ton chronon” and “ton kairon” – typically translated as “the times” and “the seasons.” These two, Paul’s letter instructs, are both to be seen in light of the overriding “time”: “the day of the Lord.” I have been pondering time a lot lately, in its varied permutations of “times” and “seasons.” As I understand it, chronos refers to the flow of time, the measurable movement from moment to moment, from day to day, year to year. In this perspective, I have lately been watching in particular the days of August diminish, and those of September approach. We consider kairos, “the seasons,” differently: What is the time like? What is it about? What is its… personality, its character? Christmastime elicits this sense of time, or springtime, or “the academic year.” The two experiences of time intersect, to be sure, and their meanings mutually enrich each other. That the clock is ticking implies chronos, but that it may be running out, this opens the significance of kronos. There is a strange stress and excitement that presses down upon late summer, saturated with nostalgia, dread, and anticipation – at least for me, in my seasonal academic world. But it is a stress which, Saint Paul reminds me, must be situated in the midst of an entirely different time: the time of the Lord. This emphasis on “the day of the Lord” - often associated with doom and dread - struck me this week not as the source of a yet more intimidating, transcending anxiety. I was surprised, rather, to discover that it in fact offered me a sense of peace. This is perhaps the reason for Paul’s somewhat unexpected conclusion to his admonition concerning “the day of the Lord”: “Encourage one another; build one another up.” Handing over the vicissitudes of chronos and kairos to the Lord; allowing my anxieties to be superseded by His will, allowing my time to become His – this is in fact a recipe for joy and hope. I find my stresses smoothed out in the rhythm of the divine office, in the sustenance provided by the daily Mass, in keeping an eye toward the eternal. At least, I caught brief sight of this, a momentary glimpse into how these early September days can in fact offer an important lesson in the encouragements of faith, as the new academic year rushes toward us in our halcyon life here at the Abbey. 

Pax,

Blake BIllings