Thursday, March 5, 2020

Things I didn’t use to like


1.         Red beets: Mom made Harvard beets, and we pretended the sauce was lipstick, but the beets were not a favorite. I was probably 60 before being introduced to root vegetables. Roasted root vegetables and even just roasted beets have ascended to a top spot.

2.         Bluegrass music: Definitely wasn’t on my playlist. But then around ten years ago Sr. Rita Bilz needed a driver to a Ralph Stanley concert. She watched out of the corner of her eye to see my response. I was hooked. That was the beginning of many bluegrass band trips. I don’t think Rita ever heard a song she didn’t know.

3.         The Civil War: I went to Gettysburg once and crossed it off my to-do list. But I had noticed the quiet way people toured the battlefield. I went back a second time. Learned there was far more than killing and brutality to the war’s history and effects. Admitted my slim acquaintance with black history, the war’s cultural impact on women, differences between north and south, the roots of political strife and civil unrest. My education continues.

4.         Psalm 119: This psalm has 176 verses. In the Liturgy of the Hours it is always broken up into small sections and sprinkled among the hours. Because, as I once thought, it says the same thing over and over. Dear heaven, this ignorance is hard to admit in print. I am going to study it, to find out why it now has so much appeal for me, and after some work I will read what scholars say. In the meantime I will keep on praying it. And enjoying it.

         I am grateful to those who introduce the new, who open a door, who provide an experience that gives life in a surprising way. Jesus says he is the Gate. Then Jesus must be present in the cook who served the red beets, Sr. Rita who took a chance on a classical music lover, camping friends who’ve traveled from Gettysburg to Appomattox, and the sisters with whom I pray Psalm 119. Their gates are standing open.

                          Sr. Christa Kreinbrink, OSB

3 comments:

  1. Lovely..thank you so much for sharing the invitation to the open gate. Ruth T

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  2. Dear sister, thank you for this truth -- you must be right that it is Jesus behind the friends who open knowledge to strengthen our understanding, allowing us, if we will, to be more compassionate and more faithful. I would go one further than that, and dare to say, look there he is also, and it is the Father, and you didn't think he would be there, did you? There was a friend telling me about the green man found on ancient English churches, who is he, with vines and branches pouring out of his mouth? There between the carved leaves and foliage? How did he survive? A puzzle. Third Millennium and we have to find communities of faith to ally together with words of love for one another -- how can we put that into action? Can I find your love within my love, if we love one another? Is that also the Father and the Mother -- Jesus Mary Joseph -- a holy family? It always comes back to that problem. The power to like what we did not like or to convert ourselves from disliking to liking and then to loving, and to build our life on that. I remember being served a piece of leathery hard liver that distressed me at school long ago (age 9), so that I detested it all my life -- and then somewhere somehow it was given to me soft and edible with a good sauce -- how it ought to be -- is this the same food now strengthening me. God bless OSB Happy Easter soon.

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