Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

A colour called blessings

@brittarnhild

Frosta, a peninsula in the Trondheim Fjord, is said to be Norway´s Tuscany. Lush farmland close to the fjord gives midl winters and lovely summers. I have been on a two days trip with my colleagues at the office and we spent the night at Frosta, with a perfect view over to the island Tautra.......where I have taken you many times before.

We arrived yesterday afternoon in four cars, I the driver of one of them, and as soon as I opened the front door the smell of fresh onion filled my nostrils. It is harvest time, and the farm where we stayed the night is surrounded by onion fields. I am allergic to perfume, I love the smell of fresh onions, and all other vegetables.

Today we started with morning prayer together with the nuns at Tautra monastery, and afterwards we were invited in to the Scriptorium to have a long talk with one of the nuns. 

 

The wrapping paper of my day today had the colour called blessings.

Lunch at the monastery

@brittarnhild

The church at Mariaklosteret, the Cictercian Monastery on Tautra island, out in the Trondheim Fjord. I took part in the midday prayer there yesterday, and afterwards had lunch inside the monasery. Not with the nuns, they have their own diningroom where visitors never come. But in the guest kitchen, a diningroom for people who stay in the monastery guesthouse for a shorter or longer time.

Many years ago, when I worked on my book about Lent, I stayed in the monastery for a week, and had my lunch here every day. The other meals I prepared myself, in the guest house. I have been back to the monastery many times since then, but never for a meal, so to be able to do that yesterday, felt like a rich blessing.

I have a very special tale to tell from my week in the monastery, in January 2007. You can read about this tale, my Violet Dinner, here. I never included the tale in my book, at the time it was too personal. I regretted that descision afterwords, but have shared it many times when I have been around, talking about the book.

The meals at Mariaklosteret are simple, but every mouthful you eat is a mouthful filled with prayers.

I have not always been good at using the "categorie button" when I write my posts here, but here is a link to my posts from Tautra (well, a very few of them:

Tautra

 

And here is the link to the category This Holy People (this category has several pages, so make sure to press the tiny arrow when you come to the bottom of the side:

This Holy People

 

And finally, the link to the monastery itself:

Tautra Mariakloster

 

The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent

Text ©brittarnhild and Sr. Miriam

Images © Turvey Abbey

When I decided to write about lent in my Norwegian blog this year, I sent an email to my dear friend, Sr. Miriam at Turvey Abbey, the monastery north of London where I have been several times, asking her to share some of her experiences of how they celebrate lent in the monastery. A few days ago I got Sr. Miriam´s post. I am going to translate it into Norwegian and post it on Blåklokkeveien, but I have also asked Sr. Miriam´s permission to share her original English words here with you.

 

The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent.
Rule of St Benedict Chapter 49

I’ve been living according to the Rule of St Benedict for more than 20 years and each year these words both challenge and inspire me. They are tough words. These words were written with a particular community in mind, a community of ordinary human beings who were trying their best to seek God in a monastery. In the rest of the chapter St Benedict explains how he understands the season of Lent, he says; ‘we urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times.’

 

During Lent, one of the ways in which we are helped to ‘wash away the negligences’ is by listening with our whole hearts to God’s word in communal and personal prayer. During Lent we listen to the Book of Exodus. I always look forward to this. I find myself in the story and I am challenged to allow God to provide ‘the manna, the water and the quails’ that I need for my monastic journey.

St Benedict recommended that his monks should be given a book to read during Lent. We still keep this practice in the monastery. This year I am reading The Didache by Tom O’Loughlin. (The Didache is an early Christian text, thought to be written in the First Century. It is like a ‘handbook’ for Christian living. I am enjoying the academic style and am finding much to think about. Another book that is proving to be a great spiritual tool for me is: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo is an expert in de-cluttering and her method is potentially life changing. During Lent I have tackled various areas in my room and the results are wonderful!

During Lent we also have a little extra time for prayer and creative activities. I like to try a new craft or to work on an on-going project. This year I have been inspired by ideas I have found on Pinterest for using old magazines.

I made a cross to send to a friend who works as a teacher in London.

It is traditional to fast during Lent. In practice, this can be rather hard to arrange in a monastery. We are of varying ages and have very different metabolisms. We try to eat simply and to enjoy what we have. Of course, there are several feast days in our calendar and so we really appreciate something special on those days.

At the heart of Lent is the desire to have God at the centre of our lives. Our time spent in prayer, or trying to fast, or in doing some small act of kindness brings us closer to the God we seek and to the new light of Easter. At the end of the journey of Lent we are ready to sing with St Augustine, ‘We are an EASTER people and ALLELUIA is our song.’

 

Thank you Sr. Miriam for your thoughts and thanks for letting me share them here.
I had to laugh when you write that you read Marie Kondo´s book though. I have never read it, but read about it in a newspaper a few weeks ago. And wrote this post:

Å faste fra eller å faste til

May be I should read the book, and get some new ideas myself :-)

 

By the way, your cross is beautiful. Next time I come to Turvey you must teach mw how to make it.

 

 

A Thousand Tear Bottles

@brittarnhild

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love (Washington Irving)

One of the things I love about British cathedrals, is their openness for change, for art, for the way they are used. Some years ago I visited Durham cathedral several years in a row (during my Lindisfarne period), and I was amazed of how they used the old and the new art in the cathedral to communicate. In many ways we tend to look at Nidaros cathedral too much as a museum. New music is okay, dance is okay, but when, a few years ago, the cathedral had an art exhibition with paintings by Håkon Gullvåg, the discussions were quite busy.

How wonderful then to walk into Chichester cathedral, the cathedral which looks so much alike Nidaris cathedral when we see the outside of it, but which turned out to be quite different inside, to meet an exhibition by the artist and ceramicist Deborah Tompsett - A Thousand Tear Bottles.

 

Literally you can find a thousand bottles in the cathedral, 100 by the famous Chichetser Relief dating from the 12th century, 300 in the chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene, and some 600 by the Cahedral´s Shrine. All these places you could find sheets of paper with information about the bottles and reference to tears in the Bible.

 

I took one of the sheets of paper with me home:

Tears can be a gift, therefore, a sign of healing and resurrection - where even at our most forlorn the flow the tears can bring a changing tide of strength and newness. Weeping is after all the opposite of indifference; it is a sign of compassion, of deep connectedness to others, a sign of love. This love is what makes our tears an expression of our deepest sorrows - and also the means by which we might heal from them: Psalm 126.1 "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy."

 

You can read more about the tear bottles here.

 

A Walk in the Abbey Park

@brittarnhild

While Norwegians, at least in my corner of Norway, continue to wake up with fresh snow, which luckily melts during the day, I am walking in the monastery park of Turvey Abbey.

Most of the time I have the park all by myself.
Well, me and the birds that is.

All through the park there are old, worn benches. From time to time I sit down. I read from the book I´ve brought. I write and draw in my journal. I do some work writing and thinking.

Or I just listen to the birds.

 

Day #something……..Turvey Abbey

@brittarnhild

I am back in London, after three days in lovely, peaceful Turvey Abbey. Yes, I am back in London, though in my mind I am still walking the secret pathways in the park which is surrounding the abbey.

 

Last time I spent time at Turvey Abbey it was May, and the woods where coloured completely blue by the bluebells. This time I found quite another colour palette.

Though still just as beautiful.

 I walked in the park from early morning until the light faded, and though the pathway is only a short one, it never felt the same.

 

And if it started to feel the samen, I just turned around and walked the other way back.

 

The churches of Lalibela, the world´s 8th wonder

@brittarnhild

Already when we walked around, I told myself: this is going to be fantastic to blog about. Every time I sit down to write a new blog, I am thinking: Lalibela. But then my mind goes blank. No, that´s not correct. My mind doesn´t go blank at all, it goes rainbow!

Lalibela was so impressing. So different from everything I have seen elsewhere.

I had read a lot about the eleven churches of Lalibela before I came. I had seen pictures. Still I was completely unprepared. And walked around asking myself - is this real?

After my visit I have read Philip Marsden´s book The Chains of Heaven, and as I lack words myself to describe this place, I borrow some from Marsden:

 Lalibela is a town to die in. The tunnels that once linked the complex of churches are clogged with centuries of corpses. To make a pilgrimage to Lalibela eases your later passage to heaven - but to die here is much better. The soil itself is sacred, and those who take the journey are buried in shallow graves.

......It is not known precisely when the churches were carved, whether they were started during the thirteenth-century reign og King Lalibela or much earlier. Nor is it known where all the excavated rock was deposited, nor if any outside expertise was responsible. 

I have read somewhere that it must have been 40.000 men working on the churches. Or rather, they must have been built by angels. The legend tells that king Lalibela fell into a trance and was transported up to the heavens, and there he saw the eleven churches he was to build.

Philip Marsden again: So Lalibela became a Biblical Land in miniature. Here is Golgatha, Cana and Nazareth. Beneath Calvary is the Tomb of Adam. I had skirted the slopes of Mount Tabor. Mount Sinai, crossed the River Jordan and climbed the Moint of Olives. In the compound of Beta Maryam, I had bent to smell the single rosebush from the Garden of Eden. Beside the church of Beta Giorgis is a slope f un-dug rock which is Mount Ararat.

Often I say to myself: the world is filled with so many thing, places, people you have absolutely no idea about, how will I ever know it all, how will I ever experience it all, how will I ever learn it all.......

But then I know - it is not up to me to know it all, to experience it all, to learn it all. What is up to me is to know, to experience, to learn...... to LIVE!

 

Thank for walking the way of LIFE with me.

 

His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew

@brittarnhild

Traveling officially, for work, means a lot of meetings, which of course again means less time for sightseeing. It has a huge advantage though, you get experiences you will never have as a tourist.

Like an audience with the ecumenical Patriarch, His All-Holiness Bartholomew, who is also known as The Green Patriach.

I took part in a sailing along the coast of Norway with His Holiness 10 years ago, the aim was to focus on nature conservation and sustainability. I was impressed by His Holiness then, and I still am today.

Over in Books in the Menu you can read about one of His Holiness´books.

The way we live our lives

text and image britt-arnhild

 

 

I have some reading to do at work these days. Thick documents. Filled with information.

In my coffee breaks I do some quite different reading. A book about the Norwegian missionary Ingeborg Skjervheim (1921-2006). Ingeborg was born on a small mountain farm, the oldest of five sisters.  Early in her life she got a call from God to become a missionary. The people of Tibet filled her heart, but Tibet was and is closed for God's Word.

Eventually opened the door to Nepal for her. So from a small mountain village in the middle of Norway, she travelled to a small mountain village in Nepal. And spent 33 years of her life there.

 

It is moving, touching, to learn how Ingeborg let her life, her every move, be led by God's light.

 

:::::::::::::::::::::::

In a few weeks I'll be following Ingeborg's paths in Nepal.
For 10 days.

A dream of mine will come true.
And I pray:
God, show me YOUR way.
Make me willing to walk the paths you have prepared.

 

In Prayers

text and images britt-arnhild

We have been out all day. My feet are hurting, I am tired, I want to go to bed.
But first blogging.

There is a hall outside our bedroom where we eat breakfast every morning. This is also where I have found a cable for my mac, and therefore the place I blog.

It is supposed to be quiet here.

Tonight, when we came home, it was NOT.

A group of chineese students are sitting around a table. They make a lot of nice.....or rather, they did make a lot of noise. It irritated me.

 

Then, all of a sudden they gathered in a prayer.
My irritation turned to joy. And thankfulness.

From the tabke where I sit with my mac I joined them.
In my own silent prayer.

 

Thank you Heavenly Father for giving me this blessed ending of a wonderful day.