“I’m drowning,” I said flatly to Molly. I meant it.
We were nearing the end of our new weekly meeting and, having covered what the staff needed to convey to Standing Committee and what Standing Committee needed to convey to staff, I used our final few minutes to bring up something I’d been chewing on.
“I just have so much that I need to do from day to day, and no matter how hard I try to block off time to bring our new website and online home to life, something always comes up that needs my more urgent attention. My weekends often are gobbled up with work, too. But we need the website. So I was wondering if you’d approve me using money from my ‘Travel and Business’ line in the budget to spend a couple of days at St. Francis in Dewitt and ignore all the rest of my work while I’m there. A deep work retreat, you know? So I could just really focus on the website and only the website.”
“No,” she said, perhaps even more flatly.
I have to admit. That was not the answer I was anticipating. I was thrown.
“Oh, uh. OK. Well. I…”
“You just told me you’re drowning! My answer is, ‘No,’ because if you’re drowning, you don’t just need to work, you need spiritual renewal. My answer is, ‘No,’ because that’s not long enough and that’s not far enough away from your home or office to actually disconnect from everything else. You need to go away. Far enough away to really be away. You need to go somewhere with good WiFi. You need to be gone for at least six nights. You need to spend the first day at least just getting used to being on retreat and not working.”
I was shocked. That all sounded exactly like what I needed. And although I know Molly to be a faithful Standing Committee President, an intuitive priest and pastor, and an all-around wonderful human, I was still surprised that my boss (or,I suppose, 1/9 of my boss, since we don’t have a bishop at the moment) was responding to my request for supported, focused time away – time to ignore emails and metaphorical fires – with such generosity and kindness and grace. I realized that the free-market-economy world view of a boss needing to squeeze every bit of productivity out of an employee was the water that I thought I was swimming in, even as I work for our diocese. I realized that I thought asking for a retreat for deep work was selfish, frivolous. I realized that I thought of myself as a human doing and not a human being when it came to my work.
That night, I submitted a personal retreat request for Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton Wisconsin. Holy Wisdom is the home of Benedictine Women of Madison, an ecumenical monastic order.
Two days later, I texted Molly, “On the way home from our meeting, I had to stop to get gas and I realized when I did that I was walking taller… Your generous and wise response to my request for a work retreat lifted a burden I didn’t even realize that I was carrying. Knowing I’d have a whole week to focus on the website has allowed me to *not* think about it since. I realized that, even as I was working on urgent and important things that needed my attention in ny daily work, I always felt like I was doing the wrong thing or was wasting time because I *wasn’t* working on that big project, which had really just become a big cloud.”
Eleven days later, after spending a week and a half working feverishly to get other projects wrapped or at a good stopping point before I left town, I arrived at Holy Wisdom.
___
When I’m not flying, I don’t travel light. I was grateful for the luggage cart at the front desk when I checked myself in so that it only took one trip up the elevator to bring in my suitcase, my weighted blanket, my extra monitors (it’s a work retreat, y’all), my giant Post-It notes, my regular size Post-It notes, my box of Sharpies, my journal, my cold snacks, my not-cold snacks, my electric kettle, my milk warmer and frother, and what I thought was waaaaayyyy too much tea (spoiler alert: it was not).
Amid all those creature comforts, I also brought my mug that lives on my desk in my diocesan office. The mug reads, “Lord, I offer my prayer as my work, my work as my prayer.” The sentiment, of course, comes from the Latin, “Ora et Labora,” the motto of Benedictine orders which translates to “Pray and Work.” I’ve had the mug for more than a decade, since before I was an Episcopalian. I really can’t remember why I bought it except that I really loved it when I saw it, and my love for it has only grown after being confirmed and as I’ve learnt more about The Rule of St. Benedict and how Benedictine spirituality has shaped Anglican theology and practice. However, even though I now know more about the context of the phrase on my mug that I use every work day and even though I came to retreat at Benedictine monastery, I didn’t bring the mug on purpose. I brought it because I’m a beverage goblin who always has to have like three drinks at a time and as I was packing up my office to leave, I didn’t think my emotional support water bottle and travel mug would be enough.
___
As I write this, it’s Thursday night. My retreat will come to an end on Saturday. I just walked into my small, tidy room, its walls now covered in giant Post-It notes, and saw my mug on my windowsill next to a candle, and amid my pile of teas, books, journals and blank Post-It notes and in front of the window-turned-to-do-list covered in not-blank Post-It notes.
Lord, I offer my prayer as my work, my work as my prayer.
That’s been it, friends. That’s been my week. On Monday, following Molly’s advice (which, because the Holy Spirit was pretty sure I wouldn’t follow that wise advice if I only heard it from one faithful person, was also given to me independently by my intuitive, wise, kind friend, Fr. Shadrack) I spent the day in quiet. Apart from meeting with a Spiritual Guide, I didn’t speak. I was still. I listened. Even when I walked around the beautiful restored prairie and quiet woods of the land on which the Monastery rests on that first lovely day of Midwest False Spring™️, my heart and mind were still. Through grace in the Holy Spirit, I didn’t try to make anything of that day. The day was a prayer. The prayer was my work.
The next morning, I awoke eager to work on the website and our new online home for connecting, Circle. I had renewed clarity, not just in what tasks I needed to complete and in which order, but in why I was doing this work. Above all, our website and Circle, our social media and print pieces, our emails and, yes, even our swag is about offering hospitality and belonging, offering space and information and tools to build, maintain, strengthen and repair relationships. Relationship with God. Relationships with each other. Relationship with the Divine within ourselves. Relationships with our communities, our neighbors, our friends, our enemies, our frenemies, our earth, the soil and, yes, our waters. (You didn’t think I’d actually write something for our diocese and not mention water, did you?)
This week, I’ve lived by the rhythm of prayer. I’ve prayed the liturgy of the hours with the Sisters and broader community here at Holy Wisdom. I joined a contemplative prayer group for a time one afternoon. I’ve been called to prayer by the church bells and by the birds outside my open windows. I’ve been called to prayer by writing. By organizing our online spaces. By imagining how you might use and be blessed by these spaces. My work is calling me to prayer. My prayer is calling me to work. Ora et labora, over and over and over. Thanks be to God.
__
I don’t take lightly the gift that is working for our diocese and with such wonderful humans who understand the holy and sacred need for retreat. I get that what I’ve experienced this week isn’t available to most people through their work, because for most of my career, I haven’t been in a role where experiences like this week would be in the realm of possibility.
It could be easy for me to say, “Sure, you can’t take a work retreat to a Monastery, but you could just take time off and go to a Monastery,” but I know that “time off” and the means to be able to get away to a holy space just isn’t something that is available to everyone.
If you can go on retreat, do it! Do it for real!
But if that’s not in the cards for you right now, I wonder how you might be able to view your work as a prayer and prayer as your work. I wonder what in your daily life and work might be calling you to prayer. I wonder what in your prayers might be calling you to work. I wonder what touchpoints of awareness and stillness you could bring to your days, your holy, ordinary, work days.
As I prepare to leave this wonderful place and return home and to my routines of family and work life, I am wondering myself how I will bring this renewed connection to the Benedictine posture of ora et labora with me. I invite you to share your practices of Ora et Labora here or in our Circle Community so that our shared work is part of our shared prayer and our shared prayer is our shared work.