Incarnation Monastery

On Monday, Dr. Martin Luther King's Birthday and the day of President Obam's inauguration I flew to California for the beginning of my annual "week of prayer". Since my sabbatical in 2005 I have been taking the first week of January as a week of prayer. This year it was a few weeks later because of the sabbatical. Incarnation Monastery is a small Camaldolese Monastery of 4 monks in the Berkley hills outside of San Franscisco. The Camaldolese monks are part of the Benedictine families and grew out of the reforming efforts of Saint Romulad, and 11th century Italian monk. Hs reforms brought out the best of the communal, solitary and evangelizing aspects of monastic life.  As you can see this does not look 

 like your normal monastery but is rather a house hanging on the the Berkley Hills. And I mean hills. Everywhere you walk or drive around here is up or down and very few streets go straight. I had a wonderful room with a view of the SanFransisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge. It was to cloudy/foggy/smoggy to get a good picture but I enjoyed this place of prayer and silence. The monks here just gather together for prayer at 7 am for "lauds" and 5 pm for Vespers. They are located just a 10 minute walk from the University of California Berkley Campus. My reading for this week from Scripture was the books of Genesis, Job, Matthew & Mark.

University of California: Berkley Campus

Part of my coming here was to experience  Muir Woods which is the last stand of Giant Redwoods in the US. These used to cover the CA coast and were mostly all cut down for lumber to build San Fransisco. John  Muir is the grandfather of the conservation movement and founder of the 1st National Park in the US. This grove is named after him. This quote of his is at the foot of one of the redwoods". God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods, but he cannot save them from fooIs- only Uncle Same can do that."  I took a 10 mile hike here through the redwoods up and over the mountain and down to the pacific ocean.  It was a foggy and rainy day but it this very moisture that enables these trees to thrive,

 Some of the redwoods in this forest are 1000 years old. This giant Sequoia was planted by Muir by his home 100 years ago. It is still very young. Muir grew up in a strong and strict Christian home and was taught about God as creator. He had memorized the entire NT by the time he was 12 under his fathers switch.  However it was the disregard of many who called themselves Christians for God's creation that eventually drove him away from the Christian faith, although he continue to confess a God of all creation. This should remind us that one of the first jobs that God gave Adam & Eve, before sin entered the world was to care for the creation God had made. How quickly we forget this. We can thank the Lord for people like John Muir who helped people be aware and recover an appreciation for God's creation. We should also go back to the Scriptures which continually speak of all creation giving praise to our God. Let us join this great chorus of praise with our own voices and experience the goodness of God in the world God has made. Ps. 8, 19, 104. My reading for this week has include a book from my seminary days entitled General Revelation by GC Berkouwer and Ravished by Beauty ((The surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality) by Belden Lane. In addition in preparation for our trip to Egypt-Jordon-Israel I have been reading James Mitchner's novel: The Source, which is a history of Israel from prehistoric times to the present.  Below is a picture last night after the sun had set off my balcony. Blogging this in a local Starbucks (no wi-fi at monasteries) I'm now off to the New Camadolie Hermitage at Big Sur.