COHI Board is seeking New Volunteers

On October 10-11, the COHI Board gathered in Buford, GA, for an in-person meeting to get acquainted with new members and plan for future steps in administering the Trinity Wall Street grant. We enthusiastically welcomed new Board Members, Diane Hodgins as Secretary, and Craig Wilson as Interim-Membership Committee Chair.

Part of our planning was to revisit and clarify the Board Committee structure as created in 2022 during an organizational redevelopment initiative. We are seeking new members for the Communication, Finance, and Curriculum Committees, as well as new Regional Representatives for West/Northwest, Gulf Coast, Heartland, North Atlantic, and Southwest Regions to serve on the Membership Committee.

Please read the committee overviews and preferred skill sets below and prayerfully consider volunteering for one of the committee positions. Send your questions and decisions to communications@cohi.org.

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Committee Assignments and Preferred Skill Sets

Curriculum/Charism Committee

The Curriculum and Charism Committee’s responsibilities include: 

• Writing, researching, and editing all learning materials

• Creating & Implementing Continuing Education opportunities, including Facilitator Trainings and Leaning In Events

• Charism- Ensuring consistency of COHI's unique identity and Benedictine spirituality across all resources

• Annual Conference planning is a subcommittee

Skill set preferred:

• Event planning, content development, and strong administrative skills.

Send your questions and decisions to communications@cohi.org.

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Membership Committee

The Membership Committee is made up of the Membership Chair,  Membership Administrator, and Regional Representatives. 

• This committee is charged with ensuring the Membership Chair, Membership Administrator and Regional Representatives have clearly identified written roles and responsibilities along with a communication plan for engagement as appropriate with the COHI board members, COHI centers and inquirers.

Primary responsibilities of Regional Representatives include:

• Acting as liaison between Centers and the Board through regular communications, including attending Reg. Representative meetings

• Listening, encouraging, and problem-solving with Centers, Regional Representatives, Membership Chair, and Membership Coordinator 

• Encouraging Centers to participate in COHI and Regional events

• Facilitating coordination between Centers to share resources

• Participating in Centers’ Circles of Care, commissioning, retreats, etc. as needed and if invited

• Planning and participating in Regional and COHI retreats, conferences and training (including lay pastoral care training, facilitator training, leadership training)

• Promoting COHI within respective regions to interested organizations 

Skill set preferred:

• Commitment to Benedictine spirituality, effective oral and modern written communication skills, and comfortable holding virtual meetings (Zoom). It’s not required for you to be the host; someone in your church, or you can partner with another Center to do the technical pieces.

Send your questions and decisions to communications@cohi.org.

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Finance Committee

The Finance Committee will be made up of the Finance Committee Chair, committee members, and the Treasurer.

This committee will work with the Treasurer on COHI’s budget plans, grant opportunities, existing grants, and fundraising campaigns created by the Communication Committee. They will also work with our grant contractors. 

Skill set preferred:

Knowledge of budgets and money matters, preferably with experience on a finance committee. 

We are seeking a Finance Committee Chair (*Board position).

Send your questions and decisions to communications@cohi.org.

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Communication

The Communication Committee will be made up of the Communication Committee Chair, committee members, and a graphic design contractor as needed.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Creating and monitoring social media posts, including Facebook and the website. 

• Producing marketing materials

• Tracking Constant Contact usage, bounce backs, and discrepancies

• Coordinating with IT contractor to update discrepancies

• Creating and monitoring forms

Skill set preferred:

Knowledge of and ease of using social media platforms, communication strategies, and comfort level with CRMs (Customer Relationship Management/databases). Writing & editing experience would be helpful.

Send your questions and decisions to communications@cohi.org.

Saint Mark's Little Rock Trains 55 Lay Chaplains in Summer 2025

The Rev. Joanna Seibert M.D., deacon Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

From June to September 2025, we trained 55 participants from across our Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas in pastoral care through Community of Hope International on Zoom. Eighteen churches were represented from all across the diocese. In particular, we aimed to connect with people at smaller churches where this training was more difficult. The speakers were predominantly Episcopal priests and deacons in the diocese. 

In addition to the weekly talks, we had a private Facebook page where participants could respond to the daily Rule readings from Joan Chittister's book. This was especially powerful as we read others' responses daily. It was like reading the Rule many times that day. 

The participants did the two visitations with their local priests or lay Eucharistic visitors. 

We had an all-day retreat in September to continue the study, so participants could bond in person with others they had been studying with all summer, and who they had gotten to know particularly on the private Facebook Page. 

The commissioning took place at their local church. The commissioning was often the first introduction of Community of Hope International to new congregations. 

Participants will use the training in over 30 new ministries in churches. Most will be involved in visiting those in the hospital and those who are homebound. Still, participants will also use their training in recovery ministries, grief work, hospitality, funeral ministry to families, ministry to the homeless, those in prison, senior ministry, hospital chaplaincy, evangelism, Walking the Mourner's Path facilitators, and welcome ministry.

We will continue with a monthly Zoom Circle of Care meeting to discuss visits, have speakers, and study the Rule, this time from Always We Begin Again by John McQuiston. 

We learned a great deal about doing Zoom with such a large group. Two leaders were needed for each session: one to manage Zoom and the other to organize the meeting. The participants asked questions in the chat instead of speaking up or raising a hand.

Despite the large group, I think we did bond, especially on the private Facebook page, and we will continue this bonding with our monthly meetings, and daily studying the Rule on the private Facebook Page. The two leaders were also available during the week for any questions or concerns.

Book Review: Man of Blessing: A Life of St. Benedict

By: Pam Piedfort

Do you have a broader picture of St. Benedict than what you gather in reading The Rule of St. Benedict? Do you know about the miracles attributed to him? Do you know the details of his three years living in the cave at Subiaco? If you know him only as he appears in The Rule, you are missing many dimensions of his life. 

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I was hooked on Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s book Man of Blessing: A Life of St. Benedict on page 2 of the Preface when Butcher was introducing herself. I perceived that I had led a very similar life to hers when she began describing her Evangelical church upbringing. I was zoomed 60 years back to my childhood reading her descriptions of strongly religious Vacation Bible Schools, Sword Drills (races to find a particular Bible verse before anyone else,) and Sunday dinners held in the fellowship hall with “fried chicken and green bean casseroles made of Campbell’s condensed cream-of-chicken soup and sprinkled with crunchy French Fried onions,” not to mention the dreaded Jello mold salads with all manner of items suspended in their giggly shape. Our parallel lives diverged around our college days when she began her path to becoming the distinguished scholar of Medieval Studies that she is today.

Her 2006 book reads almost like a novel with its colorful descriptions of people and places, imaginary dialogue between Benedict and others, and a liberal sprinkling of legend. I do not mean “like a novel” in a derogatory way, but in its readability and engagement; I read it in one sitting.  

Based on Pope Gregory’s Dialogues, structured as a conversation between himself and Peter, a deacon, about “miracles, signs, wonders, and healings done by the holy men of sixth-century Italy,” we have the best historical and mystical information available about Benedict. Highly suited as a book study for COHI centers, Butcher’s book affords the multidimensional look we all need of the man who authored our founding philosophy.

Deacon Wisdom from the Harp

By: Joanna Seibert

“For the elements changed places with one another,

as on a harp, the notes vary in the nature of the rhythm,

while each note remains the same.” — Wisdom 19:18

I began a journey with this classical instrument over forty years ago when my daughter begged for a whole year to get a harp.

A Midrash tradition is that David’s harp strings were made out of the tendons of the ram offered as a sacrifice instead of Isaac. The Psalms suggest that David’s harp had seven, eight, or possibly ten strings. This Celtic lever harp has 34 strings, and the larger Troubadour lever harp I play has 36 strings. A full-sized pedal harp has 47 strings.

The strings are the piano’s white keys, so it is easy if you understand the piano. Next, you lean the harp against your body so you can hear the vibrations and feel the music within you. 

The harp has taught me so many lessons about life, other than the discipline of trying to master a technique for following and plucking strings.

When one string breaks, it is challenging to continue playing. Part of playing is knowing the relationships between each string and the others. Now, a gap, large or small, changes the entire road map. It is almost impossible to play with that gap. I must take the time to replace the string as soon as possible. I try to keep remembering how important staying in relationship is. 

Then, it takes days or weeks for that new string to stretch and be in tune. Then, finally, it must be “mentored,” so to speak. 

Almost every atmospheric condition changes the harp strings. Constant tuning is mandatory. My husband loves the old joke about harpists. “We spend half our time tuning and the other half playing out of tune!” 

I have also learned a great deal about listening from my harp. Perhaps you have occasionally noticed a loud buzzing sound when some harpists play. Buzz. One of the reasons for a buzz is that you have plucked a string that is still vibrating from a recent placement of that finger or another finger on that string. You must wait for that string to stop vibrating before you play it again, or this annoying sound develops.

My buzzing harp is reminding me to wait for the person I am meeting with to stop talking before I speak.  

I am learning how to play less buzzing notes and to talk less and listen more at the same time. 

My buzzing harp string has become my icon for listening.

On this musical journey, the harp has become an icon for living, listening, and working in community. 

Its constant need for tuning reminds me how much I must try to stay current, learning, and staying in relationship with what is happening in the world around me. 

If I don’t, I become “out of tune,” either too sharp or too flat. 

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I would love to hear from others about life lessons they have learned from a musical instrument.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Reflections on the Rule - November 2025

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Martyrs, Monks, and Mystics

Dr. Brandon Beck

Lay Chaplain, COHI

Monk, The OOOW

Church of reconciliation, san antonio, TX

Theology Student, Brite Divinity School

Christine Valters Paintner, in The Artist’s Rule, a book-guide using The Rule of Benedict and artistic/creative prompts to “nurture your creative soul with monastic wisdom,” describes the Benedictine vow to stability using a quote from Edward C. Sellner’s Finding the Monk Within: “Stability is perceived as an antidote to the restlessness of mind and heart in which a person searches for new experiences, new relationships, and new geographical locations to escape difficulties or to solve problems by avoiding them.” Paintner says that Sellner breaks this stability into three types: “stability of place, stability of community, and stability of heart. (page 71)

I am currently enrolled in a course on the history of spirituality aptly named “Martyrs, Monks, and Mystics.” We’ve read primary texts by and about Perpetua and Felicity, Bernard of Clairvaux, Antony, Guigo, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Mechtild, and Meister Eckhart thus far.

In Chapter One of his Rule, St. Benedict identifies four types of monastics in his time - cenobites, anchorites, sarabites, and gyrovagues:

It is well known that there are four kinds of monastics. The first kind is cenobites, that is, those in monasteries who live under a rule and a superior.

The second kind is anchorites or hermits, that is, those who, no longer in the first fervor of their conversion, but tested by long monastic practice and the help of many others, have already learned to fight against the devil…

The third kind is the sarabites, the most detestable monastics, who have been tested by no rule under the hand of a master, “as gold is tried in the fire,” (cf. Prov 27:21) but have a nature soft as lead. Still keeping faith with the world by their works, they lie to God by their tonsure. Living in twos and threes or even singly, without a shepherd, they are enclosed not in God’s sheepfold but in their own…

The fourth kind is called gyrovagues, who spend their whole lives drifting from one region to another, staying as guests for three or four days at a time in different monasteries. (Sutera’s translation, pages 25-6)

In her commentary, Sr. Sutera shares that Benedict repeats his classifications from Cassian and the Master. She, like Benedict, finds sarabites and gyrovagues to be lacking in the stability and wisdom and spiritual fortitude of cenobites. Sutera comments that “cenobite” is derived from koinonia - Greek for community. (26-7)

I wonder, how would Benedict (and Cassian, the Master, and Sutera) classify these spiritual classics I’ve been studying? They’ve all exhibited stability in their love of Christ and their commitment to live and even die for their beliefs. They’ve all exhibited stability to the community of believers to which they belonged. They’ve all exhibited stability to the place where they lived. Some, like Bernard and Guigo, lived in communities under superiors and rules. Some like Perpetua and Felicity were part of the world; perhaps they were not monks at all. Certainly history has classified them as martyrs and not monks. The definition of sarabite fits them quite well, although I would never consider them as “soft” or as ones who “lie to God.”

Today, a type of monasticism called “21st Century monasticism" or “new monasticism” has gained attention in scholarship. The name and concept is derived from a comment theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer made in 1935: “The restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ.” (Bonhoeffer, a letter to his brother Karl-Friedrick 14 Jan 1935) In essence, Bonhoeffer called us all to be sarabites, possibly even gyrovague-sarabites. But in a way vastly different from the way Benedict perceived sarabites and gyrovagues to be. For Bonhoeffer, new monasticism must be very stable - in place, community, and most especially heart.

As members of Community of Hope, International, we are “new monastics” called to “live[] in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ” when you really look at our mission to “serve others through compassionate listening.”

Listen to the words of the Sermon on the Mount in the NIV:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Here we are in the world, not conformed to it but in it, committed to following Jesus’ teachings in order to love each other more. We go from “house to house” listening for the “still small voice of God” in each person we meet. They may be “poor in spirit,” or they may “mourn,” be “meek” or “hunger and thirst for righteousness”; always we are a stable presence listening to them and showing God’s mercy and comfort.

Their “restless mind[s] and heart[s]” can be comforted by our stable willingness to be part of a monastic community that looks a little different than Benedict’s.

I wonder if there’s power in knowing that we’re still doing things the same way even though we’re doing them differently?

Therapy Dogs

Joining the COHI ministry was for us, so to speak, the tail that wagged the dog. We had recently adopted 2 tiny, older fur babies with the intention of training them to therapy and about a year after that, we heard about COHI and decided that it might be a match made in Heaven, so to speak … therapy dogs who cannot talk, involved in a ministry that emphasizes “listening with the ear of your heart.”

And so we entered chaplain training which, as Brother Michael quipped, was simply ‘learning how to show up and shut up.” Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Well, the show up part is but the shut-up angle takes a lot of training! Humans are not naturally the shut-up type. We love to talk, we love to share, and sometimes we even love to ‘one up’ those to whom we are ministering, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of The Ear of Your Heart thing.

It’s so easy to fall into that trap … sometimes we think we’re just helping our fellow pilgrims by attempting to make their issues seem less stressful by contrasting them with more dramatic examples we’ve heard or experienced. That alone would guarantee that COHI chaplain would not be asked to return. Our pilgrim clients, like us, want to have their issues validated, appreciated, understood and above all, simply….heard. And then again, sometimes we the chaplains get sucked in and simply cannot help but share triggered experiences that we may never have quite resolved, ourselves. That would be another no - no.

Doing a therapy dog ministry cured both of those problems because our two tiny elderly pups stepped up and took the ministry out of our hands and into their own paws, to the extent that I eventually published a book about it entitled “Paw Prints On My Soul.”

We already knew the healing effect therapy dogs had on nursing home and senior center folks, but once we were certified as chaplains, more doors were open to us and to our furry assistants and they pretty much took over the ministry. We were already making therapy visits, as per our and their certification as therapy dogs and handlers. This did make the entire process much easier. We had in essence already performed a 6th month (at least) internship equivalent, so we literally hit the ground running. And that was preceded by an extended dog training/handling course to get the dogs where they needed to be to wear their little red therapy dog jackets and make official visits. That is indeed ‘a whole ‘nother story.!’

The dogs were already certified and visiting and stimulating our elderly and infirm clients, but armed with our new chaplain knowledge and training in listening, we no longer prattled on and on about the dogs, their training or their issues (they had handicaps that did indeed make them more ‘user-friendly). We simply showed up, shut up and let the dogs work their magic.

Of course, we always asked if people wanted a dog-visit. We knew there were folks with fears and/or allergies - but once they nodded, we placed a dog in a lap and the crooning, singsong recitations and often whispered telling of secrets began and we were simply those humans on the other end of the leash….for a while, anyway.

Once the dogs’ cute cuddliness began to break down long-erected barriers, the words began to bubble up from the depths, trickle into sentences and flow more towards us as chaplains and we discovered listening wasn’t that hard…folks had a LOT to say. It didn’t always make a lot of sense, but they had stifled it for a long time; busy caregivers didn’t have the time to listen - then hear it again and again, dementia shorted out wiring in their brains and fried the facts beyond recognition and sometimes what they had to share was too hard to hear…even for them.

The dogs remedied all that. All we had to do was acknowledge that we heard what was being shared, to honor the words and pray with the sharer.