WORKING FOR INNER PEACE
by Sandra Kallio/Wisconsin State Journal
October 22, 2006

Volunteers can work the land in exchange for a spiritual retreat Heather Musser snipped dried brown-eyed Susans, dropping seeds into a bucket looped over her shoulder, stopping to warm her hands and reflect on her time-out from ordinary life back in Vancouver, British Columbia. While some singles seek a break from la vida loca on vacation, this social worker searched for an experience to bring her closer to nature, closer to herself, closer to the peace that surpasses all understanding. She became the first participant in a retreat offered by Benedictine Women of Madison at Holy Wisdom Monastery, formerly known as Saint Benedict Center.  A religious order of women who live together, the sisters open their ecumenical center for programs and retreats.  They call their newest retreat Volunteer in Community, reflecting the participants’ chance to experience monastic life in exchange for environmental work on the order’s 130 acres in Middleton.  The program for single women ages 20 to 45 offers spiritual guidance, room and board, all for free from two weeks to the six months Musser chose.

On one of her last days working outdoors, she looked back on her experience and concluded, “I think I’m always looking for utopia and what I got was reality.”  Laughing about the nose-dripping cold day, she asked, “For example, how do you feel close to God when your hands are freezing up?” Still, the natural environment topped the list of what she’ll miss when she leaves Saturday.  “I’m going to miss especially how the prairie looks right now,” she said, later adding she’ll miss eating apples from the trees and squash from the gardens prepared by the cook on staff.

The verdict is out about whether Musser found answers to all of her questions —something she may be mulling over now during this week she has chosen to spend in solitude at the monastery’s hermitage.  But, for the most part, the Volunteer in Community program seems to have provided what she sought in “a community that calls itself intentional about supporting and caring for one another in a shared spiritual framework.” The daughter of a Baptist minister, she appreciated the structure of prayer five times a day, including meditative Centering Prayer sessions, although she was not required to attend. “I wanted a place where there were older women who could mentor me,” said Musser, who’s 35.

Community time

Jerrianne Bland, the 50-something spirituality coordinator for the Volunteer in Community program, later explained that each of the program participants chose to join her for lecio divina (Latin for holy reading), which involves reading Scripture or other spiritual writings slowly three times followed by listeners sharing a word, phrase or response related to the meaning for them.

Apart from her job at the monastery, Bland is one of 120 “oblates,” or associate members, who are not sisters but try to live out the Rule of Saint Benedict in their daily lives and meet several weekends a year.  The Rule of Saint Benedict spells out how to live a life balanced in prayer, study and work.  Benedict of Nursia, Italy, whose writings are 1,500 years old, even offers guidelines when caring for a sick brother, who is to be given an extra serving of wine.

“It’s a holistic spirituality that honors the total person,” Bland said, explaining how the rule governs life at the Middleton monastery.  “There’s a bond of love, prayer, silence, community, time together and alone.”

For Musser and the other three women in the program so far this first year, Bland’s goal has been to help them find a relationship with God that works for them — if they want to meet with her (all have).  The application process, which includes a letter of intention, helps Bland tailor readings and discussions for the participants, such as for a woman grieving the loss of her parents.

“There’s lots of emotions sometimes,” Bland said, including both tears and laughter, as the volunteers talked and laughed late into the nights.

Finding balance

Musser was not so much looking for social exchanges, although she did receive many invitations from visitors and staff.

“That’s been difficult for me here — discovering how much social time and how much alone time I wanted,” she said, adding that she had been accepting more invitations lately and had traveled to Chicago with one visiting sister and Downtown Madison with another.  “You really need community as well.  You need to have your thoughts balanced by other people or you can just spin.”

What she started out looking for was outdoor work but no “psycho” workload.

“I wanted to work outside because I feel such peace and connection with the divine when I’m outside,” she said.  “I was looking for space in my schedule.  I’m not trying to work 40 hours a week.  I wanted to have more time for personal prayer every morning.  I like to pray for about an hour every day.  It’s kind of like the bedrock of who I am and who I want to be.”

She generally could find time between 5:20 a.m., when her day began with yoga in her room and 9 p.m., when she went to bed.  In the interim, there were prayer sessions several times a day, spiritual readings and discussions, journaling, meals alone or with others, and two to three hours in the morning and again in the afternoon working with the full-time restoration ecologist Paul Boutwell.

He’s the kind of boss who would not only take time to smell the roses but to urge others to do the same — and then teach them how to tend the bushes.

“Can you imagine waking up and walking out of doors to where you work and where you can find beauty?” he asked, talking about times he and Musser would spot a Cooper’s hawk flying or deer heading to the restored lake.

“If people can experience beauty in nature, it usually affects people in a very positive way,” Boutwell said.  “We offer here a chance for women to find balance in their life.”

He could not maintain the restored prairies, lake and wetlands or the landscaped area and nature trails without volunteers, most of whom come through UW-Madison or other arrangements.  So far, only a handful of women have taken up the monastery’s offer for this particularly flexible program — even though no previous experience is necessary and work can be adapted to suit volunteers’ physical abilities and interests.

Musser, for instance, talked about the herb garden she planted with oregano, sage, basil, mint, cilantro parsley, rosemary and lemon thyme.  “I didn’t know an herb from a hole in the ground, but I had an interest.”

She also followed Boutwell’s lead in monitoring habitats and wildlife, removing invasive species such as buckthorn and Canada thistle, shaping bushes, splitting fallen wood and weatherproofing structures.  Eventually she learned enough to lead other volunteers.

“When she goes out into the world, she can be successful in whichever area she chooses,” Boutwell said.  “That’s our expectation for the program.”

Her father, Musser said, laughed at her for going all the way to Wisconsin to mow when she didn’t do that back in their Vancouver suburb.

Well, she could have stapled papers in Canada, too, but perhaps not with the same outcome.

Changing along the way

Offering an example of how she had changed over her six-month stay, she said she had learned to stop beating herself up when she didn’t know how to do something perfectly right away.

“It really is in the journey,” she said, whether she’s collecting seeds or dealing with a jammed stapler for the rare indoor project.  “I finally realized there was a zen to this stapler,” she said, explaining that when she focused on the task and pressed the stapler just so, it worked.  “On some level, that was a profound day for me,” she said, laughing at her own example.  “I know it was just a stapler.”

Besides giving herself space to learn, she talked about simply listening to herself.  “A lot of women in our teen years are taught to discount our voices.  That has become a major problem in my life,” she said, alluding to anxieties that “bubbled up.”

“I’ve been looking for the divine through the voice of God, but I’ve discounted the voice I hear speaking in me.  I’m coming to realize that is part of ‘God,’” she said, framing the word with work-gloved hands, a spiritual seeker on a seed-saving mission.

Reprinted with permission of the Wisconsin State Journal.