Religious
Life
A way
to nourish a contemplative seed in a Protestant heart
Dean Ryerson drives 100 miles after work to meet with fellow
members of the Community of Benedict. The group meets at the Benedictine center
here 20 times each year. To fit the group into his life, Ryerson with forgos
dinner parties and some social life in his own community of Wisconsin Rapids
where he is school superintendent.
“I like the intentionality of living in a non-residential,
ecumenical way,” Ryerson told NCR during a recent gathering of the
community members in Madison. “We care for each other. We pray for each
other daily and help each other with our inner journeys.”
Ryerson tries to connect his spiritual life with his work life and
with ethics. “The Rule of Benedict anchors me, along with the Benedictine
biblical tradition,” he said. “I can be an authentic part of this
community while still worshiping in the Lutheran church.”
The group brings a diversity of religious traditions, ages,
hometowns, marital status, professional backgrounds and family commitments.
Membership is limited to 20 so that each member can know the others well.
“There was great discussion about that,” said founding member Shirley
Beers, of the United Church of Christ.
“We have archives. We go back,” she said, recalling the
struggle to write a covenant suitable to all, after the group sprouted during a
weekend retreat here in 1980. “We quibbled for months over language and
content,” she said, noting the battle royal between a theologian and an
English teacher.
When the covenant was finally adopted in 1986, it called each
person to nurture the “inward” and “outward dimensions of each
one’s spiritual journey. … The inward dimension is nurtured by common
prayer, contemplation and the exploration of the biblical basis for our
vocations.” The outward dimension is nurtured by “sharing experiences
in our specific ministries, directly related to our work, our family lives, our
political and social action and our life together,” according to the
covenant.
Beers had been visiting the Benedictine monastery and grounds for
16 years before she became part of the Community of Benedict. Her two daughters
loved to ride horses on the large, hilly property overlooking the city of
Madison and Lake Mendota.
Her husband, the Rev. Ed Beers, a retired campus minister at the
University of Wisconsin, arranged for a group of monks from Taizé,
France, to lead a retreat for campus ministers in 1965. During the retreat the
Benedictine sisters asked if any of the ministers would like to go horseback
riding.
Beers recalled the day as if it were yesterday. “When I gazed
over my shoulder and saw the nuns in full habit riding with us, some kind of
curtain just dissolved. I didn’t see a nun on horseback, I just saw a
human being riding alongside us.”
A United Church of Christ minister, Beers said his own
contemplative seed began to grow that day. “But what do you do with a
contemplative seed in your heart as a Protestant” whose leaders, Martin
Luther and John Calvin, rejected monasticism half a millennium ago?
For him, it was the sisters’ invitation to make a retreat
that “began to nourish my contemplative heart,” Beers said. He has
found solace in those “silences” that Benedictines place around the
scripture. “Benedictine spirituality is the core of my life,” Beers
said.
His wife acknowledged that their marriage has been nurtured by the
spirituality that both find in the Community of Benedict. “I understand
his need for meditation and contemplation,” she said.
For Ryerson, the trip between home and the Community of Benedict
pays off in nontraditional ways. He said he is glad for the discussions and for
the sisters’ vision. “There’s no ‘drivenness’
here,” he said. Just the way the Psalms are recited lets him know: “I
don’t need a big house. I don’t need to live this busy life. I can
slow down.”
-- Patricia Lefevere
National Catholic Reporter, February 21,
2003
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