The Ignatian Center of Santa Clara University, as part of
the mission of the Jesuit Higher Education, sponsors Immersion experiences
for students to places with special needs. Santa Clara's website explains
the purpose of Immersions:
“These mutually enriching
programs provide students with the opportunity to experience different cultures
and diverse socioeconomic environments and to witness firsthand the challenges
faced by marginalized communities.”
Usually places such as the inner city and poorer parts of
world are chosen to host the students. Last March, Santa Clara tried a
new kind of Immersion and sent 10 students and 2 team leaders to Redwoods
Monastery: a very different kind of marginalized community with a very unique
culture (Cistercian monasticism based on the Rule of St Benedict) and an
interesting socioeconomic environment. (We live by the work of our hands and
own no property.)
The sisters at Redwoods entered this project in faith and
not without some trepidation. We knew that the students were both men and
women between the ages of 19 and 22, representing variety of cultures and a
wide range of backgrounds, interests and academic disciplines. Some majored in biology, math or
engineering; others in computer science,
theology or political science.
But the students were not unprepared for monastic life.
They had spent months before hand with staff at the Ignatian Center
learning about monastic and church history, monastic practices and prayer.
By the time they arrived at Redwoods, they constituted a well-formed
community ready for their week immersion experience.
One of the first group activities was a tour of the
monastery. Sr Claire and I lead the tour and pointed out a redwood with a
ten foot long scar across its trunk. I told them the story of how the previous
owner of the property, Bob Usher, had saved this redwood tree in the late
1940's. As he was driving by one day, he heard the loggers sawing and
told them to stop - that he was buying the property. Bob a lover of trees
and God eventually gave the property to the sisters for the construction of the
monastery. On hearing this story, one of the students said, "I feel
like hugging this tree. Let's all do it." And so began the
Immersion…
This image of 12 young people, connected, hugging an ancient
tree (1600 years old) became icon for the Immersion. The redwood would have
been a small seedling when the first monasteries were built in the West and
later a towering tree when St Benedict wrote his Rule. And now in the
21st century, these young people were open and enthusiastic, embracing a
tradition centuries old just like they embraced the redwood.
The week of Immersion was marked by a somewhat rigorous
monastic schedule of early rising, prayer and meditation, liturgy of the hours,
lectio, conferences, work and meals. In choir our voices soon blended
into a steady and full stream of chant as the liturgy of the hours provided the
basic structure of our day and the rhythm of our prayer and our community life.
Our guests arrived to choir on time and participated fully at each 6
hours of prayer. No small task, even for seasoned monastics!
Lectio divina (close and prayerful reading of scripture) was
done in common after breakfast for an hour.
Later in the morning, conferences were given by the sisters and the Immersion
staff. One of the most impressive aspects of these students was their ability
to read scripture with an open heart and cut to the meaning of the passage,
applying it to their personal experience.
In the afternoon, the students tried their hand at manual
labor done mostly in silence. There were some very impressive and
dedicated gardeners among them who helped Sr Ann Marie with weeding and vegetable
bed preparation. Others spent their time in the kitchen, diligently
cracking nuts with Sr Victoria. Another group worked in the redwood grove
collecting fallen limbs and trimming huckleberry bushes while enjoying the
beauty of these ancient giants. Finally, a group of young men cleaned
hard to reach places in our monastery.
Was the week of
Immersion beneficial? Absolutely. For that week, the size of our
monastery doubled. We were exposed en masse to a group of young people
who were remarkably responsive and accepting of our way of life. They
seemed to naturally fall into the rhythm of monastic life without losing their
spontaneity or zest for life. It gave us hope that monasticism can still
be meaningful to a new generation of adults.
The students also seemed to benefit from the Immersion.
Before they left Redwoods, they told the sisters about what affected them
most during their stay. Some spoke of their personal experience deepening
in prayer or meditation and self-knowledge. Others felt that the
Immersion helped them to reevaluate important relationships. They also
discovered that being alone and being with oneself was not "lonely"
but made them calmer and more self-assured. Without cell phones, internet and
school and social pressures they experienced “rest.” (In the monastic tradition
this is known as “quies.”) Jowy, a musician in the group, reflected that
without rests, there could be no music.
The importance of the Immersion was its reciprocity. Both
groups, the sisters and the students, grew from the encounter and the embrace.
We accepted each other and formed a unique ecclesia in the Redwoods.
