In the past year, I've learned that every inch of space is valuable in a city apartment. Growing up, my sisters and I enjoyed our home with big yards in the both the front and back of the house. The monastery at home has wonderful spaces both public and private for the sisters to enjoy. But now that I'm sharing my second convent apartment with Sister, the rooms in our apartment have various roles. My bedroom is also my office, the kitchen is also the laundry.
This simple arrangement is the heart of our convent apartment. The dining room table is framed on one side with a picture of our community. Above the picture are three little mirrored 'word' boxes: live, love, laugh. On the other wall are drawings of Benedict and Scholastica done by one of our Sister Artists back home at the monastery. The beautiful buffet holds all our prayer books, music books and CDs, and other spiritual reading. We also use the buffet to display our Bible (we use for prayer) that Sister received from a friend before moving down to our new apartment.
We gather at this table at least three times a day... We pray Lauds at 6:30 AM, the same time as our sisters at the monastery, before going out to our various ministries for the day. We return home for the evening and share our supper together. After taking time during the meal to visit about the day, we clear away the dishes. Then we return to the table to pray our Vespers, thanking God for the blessings of the day.
Blessings,
No comments:
Post a Comment