From the Editor

September 26, 2020 

From Saint Ignatius, we learn of the value of desolation. We see in his spirituality how the darkest moments, carrying the sense of God’s absence and our own despair, may also bear the fruits of the spirit and propel us toward God’s grace. Similarly, we also learn from Ignatius how we may reverse our perhaps intuitive approach to an examination of conscience as exclusively paying attention to our faults. We need not only look to our failures, limitations, or sins in examining or evaluating our own daily experience. Ignatius would not have us overlook a genuine assessment of how God is positively working within us, and how we may be responding well. This direction of examination may be well worth recalling in our present day, with its stresses and anxieties, its frustrations and limitations. Paul tells us in Galatians 5: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Do we find, even a little, of these gifts at work within us? Have we caught a glimpse of patience within ourselves; managed a moment of self-control; acted on another’s behalf without thought of personal gain? Such moments, scattered or brief as they may be (for one such as myself), are not to be dismissed, overlooked, minimized, nor ridiculed, even if they appear to be the exception rather than the rule. They are evidence of God working in us. Anything good within us, attribute to God, Saint Benedict says. Perhaps it would be beneficial to take some time to survey the terrain of such divine action in our lives, to parse it out a little further, to allow again the fire of that love to be kindled. 

Pax,
Blake Billings

September 19, 2020

There are so many layers to the beginning of this school year, it is difficult to unpack it all. Each class, each practice, each meeting, each meal, each Mass: affected visibly and unavoidably by our present crisis. Nothing is easy, nothing. The idea of reflection on humility in this week’s exploration of Benedictine Wisdom seemed to flow directly from this encounter with the profound, really profound, struggles of this academic year. The beginning of the year excitement has been tainted, tarnished, by these additional layers. I have been trying to sift through three phenomena I am experiencing, to see if there is a distinction with a difference: fear – as an emotional response; risk calculation – as a rational process; anxiety – as a clinical condition. Well, if there is an antidote or counterpoint to any of these, it is faith. Faith in one of its most basic forms: trust. This is the fundamental trust elicited by the words of Christ that Julian of Norwich heard: “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.” Chapter 27 of her Revelations of Divine Love describes her wrestling with the suffering in the world, the result of sin, and her wondering why God even allowed it to happen. She feels duly chastised by Christ, who “blameth not me” for committing sin, after she seemed to place the blame on God for allowing it. We may recall Joseph, who tells his brothers who wished him ill: “God meant if for good.” Or Paul, who draws on the prophet Isaiah: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). These exorbitant and outlandish claims – that it is all for good, that all will be well, that God has prepared wonders – these crazy claims are in fact at the heart of faith. They serve well to center prayer, to stabilize the fear-risk-anxiety nexus. Well – these are things I am trying to tell myself. Or, rather, are they things that God, again and again, is trying to tell me?

Pax,
Blake Billings

September 12, 2020

As the theme of food started to emerge this week for “The Current,” I put down my bag of chips and got to typing. We have been hitting the “Grab and Go” lines here this summer, curiously hearing big machinery at work within the depths of the kitchen. Who knew what had actually been happening within the bowels of that establishment? While our “carbon footprint” may have temporarily shrunk from the loss of hot meals these past months, we will unfortunately have expanded the Great Pacific Refuse Patch with all of the plastics protecting our takeout. You can’t win! Alumni of my generation, when the Stillman was in its twenties, remember the delicacies of mystery meat, bug juice, rock-hard rolls. “He feeds them with the finest wheat,” remained part of our liturgical rather than culinary life. Now we see that the fancy new array of juices has led to corrosion of the pipes. So there, sinners. I must say, the fare served me just fine back then, though nowadays I see what we were missing. I do not remember answering a single survey on my “dining experience” in the Stillman back in the 1970’s. I did once speak with Chauncey Stillman on the telephone – he chewed me out for my liberal theological training in Belgium. I think I lost the Abbey millions with that one call.  Be that as it may, I remain grateful, and not only for the dining hall his support made possible. He was in fact behind the scholarship that made attending the Abbey possible for me, and looking back now down all those years, indirectly shaped my life’s path. 

That path, like my Abbey food experience, has been marked by abundance and ease. My experience with community service here, however, has made me aware that others do not have it so easy. So we see the pairing of articles in “The Current” this week: our own kitchen, and those who still need to be fed. The economic hardships associated with our health crisis have hit hard those already on the economic fringes. While the absence of the School community has enabled us to tend to kitchen repairs and enhancements, our food collections have dropped with remote Mass attendance, and our ability to contribute time and treasure to help those in need has similarly diminished. So, in our “Works” column we hear of local food services now struggling to expand to meet an ever-expanding need. I was pleased to read an article recently appearing in the Summer Alumni Bulletin, written by Udenna Nwuneli ’21, who describes his work in the Lagos Food Bank in Nigeria through a Haney Fellowship, highlighting one of our community’s involvements in this same issue internationally. As our school gathers again in-person, enjoying the renovations and repairs to our own dining hall, may we continue to consider the difficulties many are having in finding their daily bread. May we direct our attention, our effort, and our resources to help address this pressing local and global community need. 

Pax -
Blake Billings