All by Chuck Huff

The alphabet of the Spirit: A conversation with Evagrius Ponticus

The alphabet of the Spirit: A conversation with Evagrius Ponticus

Chuck Huff
Lenten Retreat

Three hundred years after the death of Jesus on the outskirts of Jerusalem and 1,000 kilometers away, the habitable margins of the deserts of Egypt were filling up with strange people devoted to becoming more like him.  The eldest and most revered of these are called the Desert Elders.  Most were native Egyptian villagers and peasants who left their villages and farms to enter the desert and follow more seriously the way of Christ.  They were mostly poor, not well educated, and of lower social class.   Their language was Coptic, with its roots in the ancient agriculture of the Nile. 

Walking with the Desert Elders through Lent: An invitation

Walking with the Desert Elders through Lent: An invitation

Chuck Huff
lesson from the monastery, Lenten Retreat

The deep origins of Christianity are in the desert. It was an urban and pastoral culture on the edge of the desert into which Jesus was born. When he was baptized, Jesus was driven to walk into the desert for 40 days of fasting and reflection.  The origins of monasticism came from Christians walking into the desert, away from the distractions and comfort of urban society.  This Lent, we will be reflecting on the spiritual journeys and wisdom of those desert Elders.  What knowledge can these gentle and severe extremists bring us for our own life journeys?

Ignoring the Rev. Dr. King

Chuck Huff

In 1962, I was seven years old.  My sister and I were watching cartoons on Saturday morning when the picture tube of the television died.  Ploop.  Darkness.  The argument about whether we would watch Tarzan or Captain Kangaroo was now moot.  Mother's solution to this argument was to never repair the television.   So I never watched the moon landings.  Or pictures of the Vietnam War.  Or President Kennedy's speeches. I was pressed into duty handing out campaign literature for Barry Goldwater.  But I never watched the Rev. Dr. King give a speech, or march; I never saw the news reels of black protesters' bodies rolling down the street assaulted by water from firehoses. I saw neither the terror nor the triumph of the civil rights movement.  

 

The Ninth day of Christmas. A New Year's Walk

Chuck Huff
12 Days of Christmas 2017

Yesterday, in arctic temperatures, we went on our New Years' walk over the lake towards Stella Maris Chapel. Our footprints in the snow, and the icy stairs reminded us of a poem by the German poet Hermann Hesse. Hesse knows we often prefer to live with our comfortable selves, and not step out into the challenging new.  Here he calls us to health and wholeness, to taking courage, to walking through our farewells, to stepping forward by leaving behind, one step at a time.  We share this, our own translation of the poem, with you as a blessing for this day.

Why should we care about virtue?

Chuck Huff

Perhaps because our normal listing of them, like any classification system, obscures their deeper meaning for our lives.

Saint Martin of Tours, a 4th century saint who was drafted by the Roman military, is famous for using his sword to cut his military cape in half to give to a beggar in the cold of the northern French winter.  The virtues of Saint Martin are many, and one might say the episode with the beggar is evidence of great charity, or of compassion or kindness or mercy, or even of courage.  

Seeking the heart of our daily work

Seeking the heart of our daily work

Chuck Huff

How do we know the proper value of work?  How do we decide its role in our lives?  In a monastic community the value of work is not measured in how much someone will pay to have it done.  It is not seen in narrow economic terms.  The value of work is instead measured in the contribution of that work to all the aspects of daily, shared, life. For monastics that means daily shared spiritual life – because ALL of monastic daily, shared life is our spiritual life.  In the gospel, all life is seen through the ultimate lens of love of God and love of neighbor.

St. Benedict's Cave

Chuck Huff
pilgrimage

On Monday of last week, we visited a cave in a valley near Subiaco, a one-hour drive directly west of Rome, into the Apennine mountains that run down the center of the peninsula. Benedict’s story begins in this cave where, as a young man he spent 3 years as a hermit, with a local monk lowering him food in a basket.

Thin places in time

Thin places in time

Chuck Huff
pilgrimage

How looking beyond the present makes a walk more meaningful

One can stand in a place and feel the presence of other times, of momentous and of ordinary events.  Every place one stands is old beyond reckoning.  But some seem more likely to call you into the past – or perhaps the past lingers here like a ghost or a kind spirit...

New Year's Blessing

Chuck Huff

"Oh God, our provider and sustainer! Your end has no end, but we find ourselves ending and beginning a new year. We ask that your compassion protect us this year from evil, that you call us sweetly to follow you, that you give us a longing to leave our old self behind, and that you guide us to walk in your love. May your grace bless the universe and shower us with favor."

-a prayer for the New Year, adapted from Rumi

Sanctifying Travel: How the Goal Transforms the Way

Sanctifying Travel: How the Goal Transforms the Way

Chuck Huff

For the past month, I have traveled regularly from our apartment in Munich out to rural St. Ottilien Abbey, a Benedictine monastery about an hour’s train ride from us.  I go to meet with one of the monks there for spiritual direction.  Sometimes I stay for the night, sometimes I return the same day, but every time becomes a pilgrimage.

Hallowing All Saints' Day in Munich

Chuck Huff

Many years ago, I volunteered to be the caretaker at a small cemetery near a church in the country.  It was done in part in pity because I saw how run down the place was. It had suffered the same fate as many cemeteries in the USA whose communities had fallen on hard times – the only flowers were wild, thorns were as numerous as the ivy, and many of the stones were leaning or falling. It was situated on a hill, around a corner, and had a lovely view of the valley.  It sported a forlorn and wild beauty. 

Rushing into the Silence: The meaning(s) of Sabbatical

Chuck Huff

A “sabbatical” is supposed to be a time apart, a sacred time, a time of silence and waiting.  Translated from the Hebrew it might be ceasing or releasing.  It is, of course, based on God’s ceasing or resting on the 7th day after creation.  Its religious purpose varies according to different traditions, but rest is clearly one of them, as is release from burden (even beasts were not supposed to labor), and making holy those things that grow naturally (fruit that grows in the seventh year without cultivation is seen as holy in a special way).  All of these involve not just napping, but a considered attitude towards oneself, others, and the earth. 

Emptiness and openness on Father's Day

Chuck Huff

This Father's day weekend I have been sitting in the garden, empty.  The weather has been wonderfully cooperative for those having feasts and outdoor barbeques, and the noise of celebration drifts over into our garden where I sit.  It is, for us, a day for crying together, but also for pondering together the greening power of nature. Creation brings beautiful abundance and also an abundance of loss; not every bud becomes a flower.  To participate in the beauty is also to risk the loss.

Method and Madness in Rumi

Method and Madness in Rumi

Chuck Huff

I have spent the weekend at my Benedictine home, St. John’s Abbey, getting lost in mystical lyrics like these.  Rumi, a Muslim sage, scholar, and poet seems so inviting at first.  But when I try to puzzle out what he means, I get lost. Because the poetry of the 12th century mystic Rumi is easy to love, but much harder to understand.This is why Rumi calls everyone to become lost, all who would experience the deep things of the Spirit, and even all those who are not interested. As long as you love anything at all, you are on the way to the Ocean.  All loves, even shallow, incomplete ones, are a mirror in which we can see, darkly, the great ocean of Love. 

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