Last Saturday morning, after laundry, mopping, scouring and a short walk, I sat at my computer and began to sort through some old files with somewhat strange titles (remember when you could only use eight letters in a filename). Often times, when surfing the web, I’ll cut and paste little snippets that might be useful for homilies, reflection starts, or as now—a blog entry. I came across the following short clips from Kathleen Norris, a renowned Christian writer. Enjoy
On Welcome: “We think of monks as being remote from the world, but St. Benedict, writing in the sixth century, notes that a monastery is “never without guests” and admonishes monks to “receive all guests as Christ.” Monks have not been slow to recognize that such hospitality, while undoubtedly a blessing, can create burdens for them. A story said to originate in a Finnish monastery has an older monk telling a younger one: “I have finally learned to accept people as they are. Whatever they are in the world, a prostitute, a prime minister, it is all the same to me. But sometimes I see a stranger coming up the road and I say, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, is it you again?’”
On Monotony: “Perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them."