Oregon Tales

While we were in Oregon we didn’t make it to a church, but instead on that Sunday made a pilgrimage to a building that houses some of our favorite objects. Ever since we read about this Portland attraction, we knew that we had to find our way there and had little doubt we would leave empty-handed.

You don’t have to walk too far through our front door before coming face-to-face with our collection. They are found in places of honor, on the dining room table, on the end table, on shelves, beside the bed, near the stove, stored in closets and even in the bathroom. I don’t think there is a room that is void of these items.

We rode the train to downtown Portland, but the vast majority of the commuters exited at the Saturday Market and the riverside parks. We continued deeper into the city, map in hand. Considering the reputation and size of our destination (it covers an entire city block), it has a pretty plain entrance with unremarkable furnishings, but when you walk inside, and are handed a map, there was almost a Pavlov’s dog reaction and we walked instinctively forward. We synchronized our watches, leaving each to our own discoveries. Even though I was miles from home, I was surrounded by familiar names and trusted companions. One by one they greeted me: Rohr, Wiederkehr, Rupp, Nouwen, Bell, Foster, Yancy, Kushner, Chittister, Tolstoy, Kidd, Peterson…, offering their suggestions and revisiting old memories.

In the end, we left Powell’s Book Store with a surprisingly restrained book bag, limiting ourselves to three books each. I brought home The Sacred Way, Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants and Pictures from a Mediaeval Bible. The last one published in 1961, has selected folk art woodcuts that illustrated the Cologne Bible. It isn’t a book that would normally be on the shelf in our major bookstores. In the age of the internet, I probably could have saved a few dollars, but there’s something about leafing through a book and choosing random pages to preview that I haven’t quite found paralleled on an electronic reader. There’s that common perception if you own the books, you have mastered the knowledge. However I may have more books than brain cells, but I’m willing to share!

• Woodcutting depicting David watching Bathsheba “washing herself”
  

• Asking me why I keep the Offices is like asking me why I go to church. One, granted is a place of bricks and mortar, but the other is a chapel of the heart…. The Offices open to me four times a day and call me to remember who owns time and why it is, as a part of creation. All that means really is that four times a day the watchmaker and I have conversation about the clock and my place as a nano-second in it. (The Sacred Way)

  One Benedictine might approach another and ask, “Is that you?” And the one climbing the ladder of humility might answer, “Not yet, but someday.” (Monk Habits for Everyday People)