caldwell-magazine-spring-2015

CALDWELLLIFE
NATIONAL JOURNALIST PRESENTS ON
contemplation in the age of twitter
PBS-TV journalist Judith Valente (L) with Mary Ann
Miller, Ph.D., professor of English. Valente presented on
“Contemplation in the Age of Twitter” on Oct. 8 as part
of the university’s 75th anniversary celebrations. Valente
has poems in Dr. Miller’s anthology “St. Peter’s B-list:
Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints” and read at
a campus poetry reading earlier in the day.
PBS-TV journalist Judith Valente used to
fear dying—perhaps, she says, because she
had parents who were middle-aged when
she was born and looked like her friends’
grandparents. Today, Valente concentrates
more on living and goes to bed at night with
“a greater sense of having lived the day.”
How did she make that leap of faith
and learn to live each day with greater
appreciation for life Not without deep
soul searching and several trips to a
monastery in Kansas. Speaking to a group
on Caldwell’s campus, Valente recalled
how she discovered the ancient tradition of
contemplation and learned to incorporate
contemplative living into her everyday life,
which is often busy as a correspondent
for the television show “Religion and
Ethics Newsweekly” and as the senior
correspondent at the National Public Radio
affiliate in central Illinois. Valente’s lecture
“Contemplation in the Age of Twitter”
took place Oct. 8 as part of the university’s
yearlong 75th anniversary celebrations.
For Valente “the way forward” was
found by “going back”—back to the rich
monastic tradition of contemplation.
She found that “way” in a Benedictine
monastery in Atchison, Kansas, where she
met religious sisters who “live mindfully”
and taught her that “our days are meant
for praise.” While at Mount St. Scholastica
Monastery to give a talk, Valente became
aware of the phrase conversatio morum,
which, as one sister explained, means
“conversion of life,” encompassing a slow,
steady process of prayer, contemplation
and silence.
Valente made several trips to the monastery
after that initial meeting, searching for
something more, as she writes in her book
“Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence,
a Spiritual Home, and a Living Faith,”
which was selected for the Catholic Press
Association’s Best Spirituality Book in
Paperback Award and as one of three
top spirituality books of the year by the
Religion Newswriters Association.
Some visits at the monastery lasted for
one and two weeks. Change occurred little
by little as she learned how to bring the
contemplative into her daily life. She also
learned how conversion of the heart could
help her with her struggles and bring the
spiritual healing she needed to adjust to
being married into a blended family.
Busy professionals, parents and others
can incorporate the monastic practices of
silence, listening, hospitality, simplicity,
prayer and praise into their daily lives, said
Valente. “We are all searching for a spiritual
home … and for many of us things run
together … because we are
all running daily at such a
“
fast pace,” she said.
Instead one can learn to
make the day itself a prayer.
She gives the example of
her 2½-hour drive from
her home in Illinois to the
station in Chicago. “The
entire drive is a meditation,” she said.
“Sooner or later we all need our souls to
catch up with the rest of our lives … and
we can learn to pause during the day and
still be productive.” During her workouts
she incorporates prayers of thanksgiving to
God. She recommends writing a three-line
poem, known as a haiku, each day. “It is my
way of pausing, a Liturgy of Hours for me.”
Senior Kaitlyn Clausman was inspired by
Valente. “Being a student, an employee and
an athlete, I know how difficult it is to find
time just to appreciate life … I found her
idea of appreciating life in daily tasks to be
very helpful.”
Conversatio also encompasses relationships
and how we treat others—our family, our
co-workers. “Where are all the pieces in
your life that need conversatio morum”
Valente asked the audience. She pointed
to cultivating “habits of the heart” and
said, “Before you speak, ask yourself three
questions. Is what I am about to say true
Is it kind Is it necessary”
Clausman was moved by that. “Given all
the social networks and being behind a
computer or phone screen when people
are conversing, it makes it a lot easier
to say things that are not true, kind and
necessary.” Embracing Valente’s ideas
“can have a great impact on the world,”
said Clausman.
Today, Valente carries a spirit of the
monastery with her daily and says others
can do that too by embracing a “monastery
of the heart.” Monasteries are not “hopeless
throwbacks to the past, a case of ‘Let the
last monk or sister turn out the lights,’” she
said. Instead she sees them as a window to
the future, “a future we desperately need in
our society—one that stresses community
over competition, consensus over conflict,
Sooner or later we all need our souls
to catch up with the rest of our lives…
and we can learn to pause during the
day and still be productive.
”
simplicity over consumption, service over
self-aggrandizement, and silence over the
constant chatter of the Internet, e-mail,
Facebook and Twitter.” n
— Colette M. Liddy
12 CALDWELLMAGAZINE