Testing the Blog Concept for Benedictine Community

So you were invited to "Test the Blog Concept" with me.  Thank you for looking at this site.  I hope that we share an interest in Benedictine Community.  Living some distance from the monastery, I find it difficult to stay in touch with others who share my Benedictine intentions.

How do you think we might encourage each other?  

Are you interested in discussing the Rule?  

If so, then we might read selections from Joan Chittister's  web site.  The link is listed under "Some Links of Interest to Benedictines" in the left column of this blog.

I hope that we find a way to encourage one another in our daily ordinary lives.  I also hope that you will share your hopes about using this blog for connection, discussion, study, or  prayer.

About confidentiality and privacy.  Even though I can't find this site without the exact URL link, it is currently functionally open to anyone.  

The option exists to limit access to "up to 100 readers" and "100 authors" to make a private blog for a small reflection, prayer, or study group.  I welcome your comments on private verses public. 

So explore,  comment, subscribe, follow...and tell me what you think. 

Peace and Blessings,

Deanne Gibbs-Brown, Oblate S.B.

Lent 2009

Ash Wednesday seemed to arrive the day after New Year's Day.  It's arrival called me back to more regular prayer of the daily hours.  Along with reading the assigned lectionary readings.

Somehow praying Lauds or Morning Prayer draws out an immediate sense of connection to the community of faith worldwide.  I am reminded that others are stopping to pray in places around the world.  Some pray in groups, others in individual prayer.  Yet we are all part of this larger community of faith as we pray the hours.  This community reaches back over the centuries of history.  This community will reach forward beyond our own generation.

In reading (or praying) the Psalm or Gospel assigned for the day, I am challenged by ideas I did not choose or even expect.  Yet God speaks to me.  God calls me to consider concepts and experiences of faith outside my own.  In the Psalms I find the emotions of the faithful through the ages.  I am often comforted by the familiar feelings, challenged to consider those feelings outside my current experience, and called to more joy.  I am reminded that this life is not 'all about me.'  Or in these times, not about my current worries.  Yet, I am reminded how much God loves and cares for me, and for the larger community.

Dear God, help me to use this Lenten Season to draw into your presence daily, even repeatedly each day.  Help me learn to be more consciously aware of God's loving presence, by Easter than I was on Ash Wednesday.