October 29, 2010
Meditation garden at Kordes
Recalling the words of the late Sister Geraldine Hedinger
A prayer written by Benedictine Sister Geraldine Hedinger is part of a prayer garden at Kordes Retreat Center in Ferdinand. Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
A few years ago, Reen Gutgsell faced early retirement from her job as a pharmacist because chemotherapy treatments had torn up her feet.
“I loved being a pharmacist,” she said of her 35-year career. “It was a terrible blow.”
Then she lost three loved ones in 30 days.
She lives in Jasper, and she turned to the Benedictine Sisters at Monastery Immaculate Conception in nearby Ferdinand for solace.
Benedictine Sister Marilyn Schroering suggested that Reen pull a few weeds and do a little mulching in the area near Kordes Retreat Center on the monastery grounds.
Reen agreed. “I said, ‘Sister, I can do that.’”
As she worked there, she began making plans to create a meditation garden in front of the retreat center.
She decided to create a place that would “welcome visitors,” and reflect the hospitality of the Benedictine Sisters, women who “really do live the Rule of St. Benedict.”
She and friend and neighbor, Deanne Seifert, began to focus on a 40 by 40 foot area near the main entrance. They tore out the grass, installed a solar fountain and a wooden pergola, laid about 1,000 concrete pavers for an 18 by 20 foot patio area, and built walls using about 400 cottage stones.
She paid for the project, explaining, “It was my gift to them.”
Her vision for the garden included lots of color, which meant planting hyacinths and tulips for the spring, petunias, dahlias and zinnias for the summertime, and mums and asters for the fall.
“When a person sees color, it brings out the positive. It brightens your outlook. To me, color gives hope.”
She laughs — now — at the amount of work it took to dig through Indiana clay. “We started digging, and digging, and digging. It wasn’t easy.
“One evening, we were working, and some nuns came by. We made them carry the cottage stones up the hill for us. They pitched right in, and we had a lot of fun.”
As the project progressed, Reen said she learned a lot from the Sisters, especially about the importance of hospitality. It was a lesson she first learned as a little girl.
“My mother taught me that. On Sunday mornings, as we approached the church, she smiled and nodded at everyone she saw.
“I asked her, ‘Do you know all these people?’ and she said, ‘No, but we are a community of Christians, and you should greet everyone.’
“I was about five years old,” Reen said, adding that “the Sisters extended that lesson of hospitality. We are taught to see God in everyone, and when you go to the monastery you are welcomed.
“There is no stranger.”
The Benedictine Sisters also reminded her of her mother who was a “prayer warrior. When I was working there and I heard the bells I knew they were going into pray. I prayed too.”
She still prays with the Benedictine Sisters, but now she prays as she listens to CDs made by their musical group Stillpoint.
“Sister Geraldine was a part of that,” Reen says of the Benedictine Sister who died on Feb. 2; she was the diocesan director of adult formation.
Reen was so impressed with the prayer on the back of Sister Geraldine’s memorial card that she asked for permission to use her words in the garden.
Be propelled by the Spirit of God within you.
Be on fire with the love of God so that it becomes contagious.
Become a hospitable and welcoming person to all.
Develop the mustard seed concept.
Start small. Be patient.
God can grow large trees from small seeds.
Be leaven. Be salt. Be light.
Make a difference.
Sister Geraldine’s prayer was engraved on a large stone, and Reen says, “Now, as you step into the garden, the first thing you see is her writing.”
She believes the prayer “encompasses our Christian faith. It’s the best advice anyone can give on how to live your life.”
There were many times when Reen was working in the garden when she would pray to Sister Geraldine. “Sometimes we were pulling our hair out, and I would say, ‘Geraldine, please help me.’ I would be trying to get the cottage stones level, and within five or six minutes, they would be level.
“This happened about seven times when I prayed to her. I told the nuns, ‘She is here. She is here.’”
When Sister Geraldine was alive, she told Reen “many times” that she “had to be patient.”
Reen says that when she was working in the garden “I thought, ‘OK, I’ll be patient.’ Sister Geraldine was always trying to slow my wheels down over the years.”
She added, “I firmly believe Sister Geraldine will be canonized same day. She was that kind of person.” She laughed, and said, “And she would say, ‘Stop it. There’s no way.’
“That’s how she touched my life. I don’t know anyone who would disagree with that, that she was totally a saint walking among us.”