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A turtle in our cloister garden


markdohle

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A turtle in our cloister garden
(ByFr. James Behrens)

This a homily Fr. James gave on or monthly vacation prayer day.  It is very good and filled with dry humor, which is something
Fr. James is very good at.  I have written a few pieces on this turtle and am happy to share it here with those who love turtle
s.

There is a turtle in our cloister garden.  I do not know if it is a he or a she.  Let’s call him, a he.  He has been there a long time, for as long as I have been here and probably longer than that.  I saw him twice this week, going about his business, seemingly enjoying the sun after a heavy rainfall.  He was on the grass, his little head raised and looking upwards.

I assume he is celibate.  He certainly is faithful to the routines of his turtle life.  He does not worry about the past or the future – he is completely attuned to the present moment and all that it offers, even though that is perpetually very little.  His diet is modest but healthy.  We monks may strive to live lives that are, according to our tradition, hidden, obscure and laborious.  These traits the little turtle seems to possess with gusto.  And he stays, year after year.  The seasons come and go, the rain falls and the winds blow and the sun shines and he stays within the parameters of the cloister garden.

He has life and has it to the full.  But he does not know that the way that we do.  We may look at him with a bit of envy.  What we struggle for seems to come to him so easily.  But that is the nature of being a turtle in a cloister garden. 

Jesus had a habit of looking about and taking from nature examples to illustrate his thoughts on God and providence.  A mustard seed, the birds of the air and flowers in a field were among those natural everyday sights that enabled him to highlight the generosity of God’s abundant love for us. 

I wonder what he would have said about turtles.

Today has been set aside to pray for an increase of vocations to religious life.  Much has been written about what some, perhaps many, are calling a crisis in religious life.  We are all familiar with the problem – steadily declining numbers and a seeming inability on the part of the dwindling numbers of religious to stem the tide.  So we continue to pray, hoping that our prayers will bring about some positive change in the current state of affairs. 

In many ways, the current situation has caught us unawares.  Massive shifts in culture and religious sensibilities have destabilized the taken for granted status of religious life.  And we are trying to regroup, marshaling whatever help we can get – including God’s.  One very positive result of the vocation dilemma is that it has brought about a reassessment of who we are as Cistercian monks and what we have to offer the world.  It has involved us in an ongoing clarification of our lives. 

The future may well bring about a further decline in our numbers. But through it all we take to heart the confidence that God cares for us.  He cares for us deeply, tenderly, faithfully.  He cares for the turtle as well. And he endowed the small creature with a very slow but sure span of patient growth. We are asked to trust that God cares for us as well and will provide for us the ways and means to live our monastic calling, slowly but surely.  And patiently. The little turtle has all it needs to be a turtle.  We have all we need to be monks. We may look to God for numbers.  He may look to us to be resourceful in other and important ways, ways that will bear fruit.  And that is precisely what seems to be happening.--Fr. James Behrens   

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