I’m in Kilgore, Texas this morning. I drove over 200 miles yesterday afternoon through peak, for Texas, East Texas fall. After breakfast at the Hampton Inn, I’ll pack up and go preach and celebrate at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Afterwards, I’ll meet with the leadership of the church and listen and dream with them about what God might have in store for them. Then I’ll drive back home dreaming and imagining about how we all can better partner with God and God’s mission.

I love my job.

A year ago today was my last Sunday at St. Mary’s, a place I’d loved and called home for over twenty years. A place where I’d drive three and one half miles each Sunday morning to preach and celebrate and listen and dream.

I loved my job.

In the year of my pause from my relationship with St. Mary’s, what one parishioner described as a gap year, I have only been back once, with permission, to attend the funeral of a beloved parishioner. It is the way of rector partings.

Yesterday, I wrote the Senior Warden and the Interim Rector for permission to worship on a Sunday morning at St Mary’s during Advent. As God would have it, it’s a rare Sunday that has not already been scheduled, and I am open-calendared.

A baby with whom I have two decades of family connections is being baptized, and the parents invited me to attend. I officiated at the baby’s parent’s marriage and prayed with others for years for this precious girl’s birth in into the world.

If given permission, the third Sunday of Advent, I’ll drive the twenty or something miles from my new home, past my old home, to a parish that is now one of the over one hundred fifty I now serve. I’ll worship and pray and dream. And live some of God’s great yeses to prayers.

I love my life.

Go today to walk with a God who has been good in the past,

who is faithful in the present,

and who has prepared for you a future of overwhelming hope.

From D365 written by Andrew Garnett

I hear the swishing sound of rolling walkers moving towards me. I know that the bells calling us to worship will begin to ring soon, and it will be time to pray with the sisters of Our Lady of Grace Monastery.

My day begins before the sun rises. The Oblates of our Lady of Grace have early breakfast before joining the sisters for Morning Praise.

The old coffee maker has been replaced by a newer version that now offers three choices–mild, regular, and bold, with parallel decaffeinated options. It is a better beginning to the day.

After breakfast,

we pray in community,

we do lectio divina on a portion of the Rule of St. Benedict,

we have time for quiet,

we pray again,

we eat lunch,

we give back to the Monastery with an act of service (for me, cleaning the walls of the dining room),

we do lectio on another chapter of the Rule,

we pray again,

we eat again.

Tonight after supper, we’ll play games with the sisters and pray one last time in community.

Then sleep.

In the over fifteen years I have come to Our Lady of Grace, most often twice a year, more sisters have died than have professed Monastic orders. The average age of the sisters is 72. The priest who serves the Monastery is nearly bent in half, and celebrates Eucharist sitting in a chair. As are those who worship in our churches, we are all oldering.

In the Monastery, all serve. At Noonday, the average age of the sisters leading worship must near 90.

Yesterday, at Noonday, I heard a quiet voice during the lengthening silence between the chanting of the Psalms, She’s asleep. So while the celebrant dozed, another sister took her place and began the next section of prayer.

Another sister who I look fondly upon, perhaps because she reminds me of my mother with her sweet face, white hair, and blue top, was prepared for her part in the liturgy of reading the lesson. She had placed a special lamp on the the lectern before worship began.

At the appointed time, she carefully stepped to the lectern using her walker, carefully repositioned herself to read, carefully placed a clipboard with a large print version of the day’s text, carefully turned on the light, and with a clear voice, read scripture.

After she finished the lesson from Daniel, she slowly turned off the light, slowly folded it up, and slowly placed it under the lectern. Slowly she placed the clipboard on her walker, slowly turned, slowly returned to her seat, and slowly lowered herself into her chair.

Care full. Slow. It was all prayer.

It is all prayer.

When I return to Our Lady of Grace, there are touchstones that let me know I am indeed home.

Sister Mary Luke always leaves a note in my room and some Texas memorabilia she has found on one of her thrift shop jaunts.

Calligraphy on the wall of my room that is a Word to ponder for the week.

The beauty of whatever season it is– it stops me in gobsmacked joy at each window I pass, and lures me outside for walks.

And then the prayers in the Chapel. The sisters invite us to join with them in the dance of the Hours, and it is a glimpse, for me, of worship in heaven.

When we sing and pray and chant the Psalms, we are invited to do so slowly and quietly. In doing so, my voice blends with those next to me and what we hear is one voice. This is always the most challenging for us women clergy. We are used to leading with our voices in worship. Here, “we who are many are one.”

The intercessory prayers in chapel are not a long list of rote individual prayers but a litany of those who are more often forgotten–children in foster care, those who have been abused by the Church, those without health care, those who will die alone, and on it goes–and always with great thankfulness for their benefactors.

And then there is the gracious hospitality. Who goes to a place where everyone is glad to see me? I am filled with the warm welcome and smiles and hugs. This is because Benedictines believe that all they meet are Christ. Jesus shows up every time someone comes through the door.

It so good to be in my Monastery home.