Swinging at the Mississippi, just so.
This morning I took Hannah from her bed and began our morning routine. We usually sit on the step into our “sun room” in the back of the house and eat muesli & yoghurt together while reading a book. We make coffee and bring it to Almut, we occasionally sweep the first floor together (Hanna has her own broom) and we pick up to make the house clean for the day.
But the past few mornings have not been usual. In part this is because Hannah is changing and can now reach things she could not (she wants to reach everything at once), but it is mostly because I have been distracted. Distracted by cares of projects and concerns and mostly desiring to be doing something else important. Distracted by my important projects, I have not been the most loving father in our morning routine.
And so I have been coming back to the advice of Thérèse of Lisieux and her “little way.” A sickly child, and often also as an adult, Thérèse became convinced that, with her small capacity, she could not achieve the “great things” that the saints did. But she became convinced that there was another way: to do the small things available to her with great love.
“Do small things with great love”
She dedicated herself to doing small things with great love. This did not mean simply doing her small chores in the monastery with love, or focussing in her interactions with her sisters on love, though it certainly meant that. It also meant documenting and arguing for her “little way” in letters and in her autobiographical “Story of a Soul.” Her works, particularly the “Story,” began circulating widely after her death in 1897, a development she had foreseen and hoped for, and had asked her sister to facilitate. Her way is now one of the most widely followed spiritual paths among Roman Catholics, and she was declared a “Doctor of the Church” by Pope John Paul II.
Her insight, based in her profound humility, is a message in synchrony with the teachings of Christian spiritual masters from as early as Amma Syncletica in the 4th century (with her profound suspicion of the “spiritual athletes” of the Egyptian desert), documented by Benedict in his Rule several hundred years later, and reappearing in the 17th century in Brother Lawrence’s “Practice of the Presence of God.” God is love, and the way to God is love, and the way to love is to practice love in all things.
This is perhaps what I am missing in my morning struggles with Hannah: to practice doing the small things with great love. But to really follow her little way would also require me to think of my “more important” projects as also small things, and to treat them with great love. Thérèse’s call is not to self-sacrificing obscurity (though it is compatible with that), but instead to love in all things, to see love in all things, and to love all things in their proper perspective. A task like this will take a lifetime of spiritual formation and of falling down, getting up again, and returning to love. And it may also give Hannah a “papa” who is not a saint, but who can at least share a bowl of muesli in love.
Below, Almut explains how Thérèse’s motto has inspired us as we have crafted the next step in Cloister Seminars: a new program we are excited to share with you, our dear reader, first.
Blessings, Chuck
Introducing The School of Spiritual Formation.
A Conversation on doing small things with great love
Join us for A Seven Month Guided Journey (Oct 2021-Apr 2022) in an intimate community of fellow seekers
As Almut and I have been considering the future of Cloister Seminars, we have thought the time has come to invite a group of seekers to work together with us on deepening our understanding, and also to document and share that process with a larger group of spiritual seekers.
We have been studying and writing for many years now, and want to begin to gather together the threads of our understanding of Spiritual Formation and the life lived in pursuit of it. Sure, we could have started writing more blog posts or even a book. But we believe this task is best done in conversation with others dedicated to the task.
What does this school have to do with sister Thérèse and our bowl of muesli? Everything. The inaugural conversation we will offer starts this Fall and will unpack the wisdom behind the rooms of a classic monastery: portal, kitchen & dining hall, chapel, library, scriptorium, workshop, graveyard, cloister walk, cell. We will tour them to find insight about the common tasks and interactions in each of these places in the monastery and will ask how the rooms and tasks translate into our everyday life. Thus our conversation will bring what we learn to life by focusing on the common tasks in our own lives. A spirituality that cannot encompass ordinary life, that cannot address all the small things in our lives, is not a spirituality for any real person.
So we invite you to the first and founding conversation at The School of Spiritual Formation: The Rooms of the Monastery.
A core group of seekers will join us for seven monthly essays on each room, write their own brief reflections on those essays, and engage in compassionate conversation and critique as we explore interior rooms and craft personal responses that deepen our love for the “small things” in life.
The texts that emerge from these conversations will then be shared with the wider community in our Cloister network for further discussion and reflection.
This core group series is not for beginners but for those who have already engaged in reflection on their spiritual path. It invites our fellow travelers from all ways of life and educational backgrounds who long to deepen their path and share their insights in a protective, supportive and private community.
As we bring our unique mix of philosophical, theological and psychological reflection as well as our intercultural perspectives to facilitate a conversation, we will ask you to bring your reflective personal experience and your willingness to share from your well of wisdom with our fellow travels.
In case you wonder…
You do not have to be an academic to join. You must simply be a seeker who is willing to bring your own experience and knowledge to bear and willing to offer reasons, examples, questions, prayers, and insights as we engage in a facilitated online conversation, which you can follow at your own pace and time. We hope that from this shared conversation a spirituality of everyday life emerges, creating a well which will refresh, deepen and sustain each of us and a broader community.
This school is not like any other school. You will not be overburdened by readings, or class meetings nor will will you receive fancy credits at the end :-) Instead what we offer here is a schooling of heart, where we share what is on our hearts, share our intellectual and spiritual insights as well as our day to day struggles, ask deeper questions and in doing so transform hearts.
You do not need a bunch of free time to join. The assignments for this school consist of a careful reading of our monthly reflection, your integration of these insights in your daily spiritual practice, and a brief response of yours shared with our intimate group of fellow travelers in our private online group.
You will decide how much time you want to invest into this program, how much you would like to engage with your fellow travelers and how much guidance you would like to receive.
We developed this program with You in mind:
the mother of a toddler trying to balance her demanding family life with her professional vocation and her spiritual calling (which would be also one of us :-).
Or you, recently retired and now looking for some guidance to find your vocation on this new stage of life.
Or you, on a crossroad in life, longing for an intentional community but still shy to share what is on your heart.
Or you, almost a sage ;-) wanting to share what nourishes you and to learn what nourishes others.
And also you, dear one, who has gotten busy with all the spiritual activities out there, now longing for a time of deepening and practicing in a slow paced and intimate setting, where pausing is part of the program.
And also for you who already have some idea or suggestion of how such a school should be organized to attract and support you - come, let us know and help us build the school you have been longing for.
And for sure, you, our dear fellow traveler, who has visited several programs of ours and are hoping and also asking for a tighter nit program over a longer time, to grow and share and gather our insights together.
This school is tailored to provide unique support to each participant and thus can only host a small group per season.
If you would like to learn more about this year’s School and be notified first when enrollment starts please get on our interest list below:
What we bring:
We have done quite some pondering thinking and rethinking of our program at Cloister Seminars. We have especially asked ourselves, “How can we serve our fellow travelers who have visited our programs regularly and have asked for being part of an intentional community?”
And so we have thought to establish a School of Spiritual Formation.
Not because we are so spiritually advanced, but because we feel called to pull together the few threads given to us to help us better understand Spiritual Formation and what we do at Cloister Seminars. Those threads include:
An approach to philosophy, personal theology and existential practice that is deeply rooted in European traditions and deeply personal.
An approach to the good life that is deeply rooted in current empirical research on moral formation.
Our engagement with the spiritual formation literature from the desert elders to the post-modern existentialism of Kierkegaard.
the need of a facilitated program for the community of kindred spirits at The Cloister who have been longing for a communion for like minded seekers to grow with
a program that will help us sustain all other programs, providing stability to you and us
If you feel called to explore more about this schooling of the heart please join our email list (above) so we can update you on the program and when enrollment opens.
If you have questions and advice, please feel free to leave it in this form, too. All of this is a draft and we hope to fine tune it with your help and suggestions. After all, this program is for you.
Peace and Blessings, Almut & Chuck