Where am I ranked?

Over the last couple of days we have read about rank and our rightful place in the community.  How does a priest with his special vows fit in?  Artists have special gifts.  Do they receive special rank and privilege?  The disciples asked Jesus who would sit at his right hand.  We all want to be at the head of the line, to sit in the front seat, and to know that our expertise ranks us before others.

As I contemplated returning to work, I wondered whether I should embark on a new path, but it was this very aspect of getting in the back of the line and starting at the bottom, that held me back from beginning again.  I like knowing that the time I have spent on my craft has given me competence and seniority.  However, I must remember thought that it is time on task and not necessarily innate gifts that have moved me to front of the line; I have no special right to my rank.  And this is the criterion Benedict uses.  You are ranked by time on task.  Living the Rule, building the habits of living a life a certain way, should manifest itself in a Christ centered life.  The time spent making and correcting mistakes, practicing an attitude of faith and stability, observing obedience to the Rule and to the community leaders: these make us wise. 

In addition, these passages on rank speak to the relationship between the individual and the community.  Each individual nourishes his/her own gifts, and follows a path that nurtures the person God created us to be.  However, doing this is not about us; this is about our place in the community; this is about the work God has set about for us to do.  To nurture our own gifts – whether it is mechanics or art or writing or organizing files or weeding a garden – glorifies God and services the communities in which we live.  For really, we are not what we do; we are who God made us to be. 

Sr. Joan gives a series of questions to ask ourselves as we assess whether we are in the right place and following the right path:  Is this place calling out the best in me?  Is this where I fit?  Is this the place where I can best be what God created me to be?  Is this the path on which I see the footsteps of God most clearly in front of me?

So, as I return to the world of work, leaving the safety and stability of home, I pray that I remember that the work is not about me or for me.  I pray that I remember that work is to be balanced with prayer and rest.  I pray that I move slowly into the world so that I am able to see where God leads and hear the voice of God in those around me.  I pray that as I open my lips my voice shall proclaim the words of our Lord.

Bev Olsen

Stability and the sacred

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Let the oratory be what it is called, and let nothing else be done or stored there.  St. Benedict (2011-04-30). The Rule of St. Benedict (Kindle Location 846). PlanetMonk Books. Kindle Edition.

 

Sr. Joan quotes a Sanskrit epigram:  Necessity changes the course never the goal.  Benedict speaks of keeping the prayers even when on a journey, keeping the spirit of the rule even when the letter must be adjusted.  Our spirituality creates stability in the midst of chaos; it leavens life. 

I have read this at least nine times, but this is the first time I put these words in the right order.  Spirituality has been something I have turned to in the midst of chaos, seeking meaning and stability in the midst of turbulent seas, or so I believed.  In the hospital, I would turn on music to center myself, and I would breath through the headaches.  As I have struggled to slow my pace and curb my impatience with the healing process and my own fragility, I walk and focus on the breath. 

In the past few months, I have come to acknowledge the closeness I came to death; I have confronted the miracle of that day: I heard the voice of angels whispering in my ear that I need help and to get help.  This too created a certain chaos, and I have sought the quiet to reestablish stability. 

However, I have come to realize -- with the help of several spiritual guides -- that the strength and stability of spirit were as much a cause as an effect, that the spiritual space I create is as much an effect as the cause of stability.  The discipline of my spirit have strengthened my soul as the physical exercises have built muscle; I needed both to see me from the bathroom floor to the phone to dial 911; I needed both to survive the bursting aneurysm. 

The space and time of prayer has created in me a right spirit, a clean heart: stability; this enables me.   So now, I work to maintain sacred space and sacred time so that as I journey forward into the world – away from the monastic safety of home – I am enabled.

Our Weaknesses

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If, however, the cause of the offense is secret, let him disclose it to the Abbot alone, or to his spiritual Superiors, who know how to heal their own wounds, and not expose and make public those of others.
 [St. Benedict (2011-04-30). The Rule of St. Benedict (Kindle Locations 791-792). PlanetMonk Books. Kindle Edition.]

Our spiritual elders are to be our confessors, and they are “to heal their own wounds” and make us whole.  These lines brought to mind the image of my aneurysm, which is a bubble in the artery caused by a weakness in the arterial wall.  Our failings and our flaws are the weakness of our character, the bubble in our walls.    

Unfortunately, under duress an aneurysm will burst.  When my aneurysm burst, it took eight weeks to heal well enough to drive and cease napping every day – and I was a lucky victim.   To heal an aneurysm, the surgeon wound a small platinum plug through the arteries in my groin, through my heart, and coiled into the broken part of the artery in my brain.  This plug was coiled into the bubble of the artery and clotting ensued; this clotting, a scab, prevents bleeding and heals the whole caused by the burst. 

Our spiritual advisors or confidants are the surgeons to whom we present our flaw, the weakness in ourselves hidden deep within our conscious.  They will help us work from the actions of our lives into our hearts until we are able to create a patch on our spirit that will enable our spirits to grow in strength and endurance. 

Like physical healing, this kind of healing requires a commitment to the work, a consistent effort at increasing the strength of the muscles, a new lifestyle to maintain healing, and the support necessary to enable the healing.

Quiet Times

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Monks should always be given to silence, especially, however, during the hours of the night.   [St. Benedict (2011-04-30). The Rule of St. Benedict (Kindle Locations 741-742).  PlanetMonk Books. Kindle Edition.]

We’ve been reading over the last few days about the rhythms of the day and of the year.  The rhythm of the season and day dictate the rhythms of work and meals and sleep and prayer.  In today’s world, artificial lights and electricity create infinite day; no one is compelled to stop when night falls.  So this Rule of silence after Compline seems a stronger imperative than ever.

My husband, Craig, has been working extended hours over the last few weeks, and as the days have grown shorter, these days seem longer and his exhaustion at the end of the day seems greater.  Often at the end of his day we have only an hour of time to sit together, yet this hour of quietly sitting with one another feeds and strengthens me.  This hour makes the rest of the hours easier to bear. 

This is our silence after the compline.  And as we move from fall to winter and from ordinary time to Advent, and as the days shorten and darkness seems to overwhelm the light, we should embrace and cherish these moments of quiet.

The Proper Amount

We need enough of the world to feed us! We don’t need too much.  Balance.  I am not good at balance.  I tend to go all speed ahead.  I tend to concentrate 100% … we call it focused. 

But today, I colleague described me – post-surgery—as slower, as walking slower, as talking slower.  In these past few months, I have been forced to rethink the necessity of balance.  My own sense of my fragility makes me walk and talk and move with more care, to move with more awareness of balance.  In the answer is not in the extremes; the answer is not abstinence or gluttony, losing or gaining, thoughtlessness or obsession.  The answer is on the balance beam in between, and this is very hard space for me to find, and it is harder space for me to maintain.

Benedict claims that we do it anyway, without grumbling.  Sr. Joan speaks says that “thoughts affect feelings.”  In today’s lexicon, perception is reality.  Think it, imagine it, make it real.  Here is the real focus: slow down, balance the spirit and the mind and the body, balance the communal and the individual.   Yoga practices do this with breathing and balancing the muscles: the left and the right, the core and the back, the legs and the arms, the inner spirit of breath and the outer strength of solid muscle.  If we balance, and each of us have a unique balance, we do not fall.

Broken Rules

We have been reading about punishments for those monks who have broken the rule.  There are a couple of things that I take with me from these chapters. 

·      To break the rule is to lose your way

·      To follow Christ is the rule.  We tend to break the rule when we listen to our own voice rather than the call of God.

·      Human beings are generally communal.  The monastery is a community that requires obedience and corrects the behavior of those who do not follow the rules.  Choose a community that supports and encourages following the rule.  Choose a community that does not lead you into the temptation to put our own selfish desires first.  Be open to the community’s guidance.

·      We can begin again.  However, when we begin again we start from the beginning.  A couple of years ago I had foot surgery and did not walk for four weeks, and then I walked on crutches, followed by the use of a cane.  When I began to exercise again to build my strength, I had to begin all over again.  I couldn’t start with a 5 mile run, but I built up my strength, endurance and distance over a couple of years.  After I got out of the hospital in September, I could barely walk down the block.  Again, I had to begin at the beginning.  I have been walking almost every day since.  Now I can walk two miles.  I walk slowly, and I still have a long way to go before I can run.  Beginning again takes patience; there doesn’t seem to be any short cut.  So it is when we build the strength and endurance of our spirit.

·      Some pathways work for us and bring us to Christ; some do not.  When a rule of life doesn’t bring us to Christ, we need a new rule; we need to find a new way.  This should be celebrated; this should not be seen as a failure.

New Link

Tom has sent us a new link to a blog called: an inquiring and discerning heart.  Try a visit.

Rilke's Fear of Dogs

Rilke's Fear of Dogs by Jeffrey Harrison had less to do with any harm they might inflict than with the sad look in their eyes expressing a need for love he felt he couldn't meet. And so he looked away from them. He was too busy for such obligations, waiting instead for angels to speak, looking up at heaven with an expression they couldn't help responding to, try as they might to avoid his gaze. "Rilke's Fear of Dogs" by Jeffrey Harrison, from Feeding the Fire. © Sarabande Books, 2001.

How's this for a Benedictine poetry?

From Tom

Ex=Out Com=together, with others

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Yesterday and today, the rule spoke about excommunication: to take a person out of communication, community, living together with others.  Sister Joan speaks of the justice of this punishment for those of us who want things to be all about me.  This I understand.  We all tend to look at the world through the lens of our own experience, and too often interpret events as if we are at the center of this world. 

When I left the hospital a few weeks ago, I asked folks to visit.  I knew that if I sat in my own house alone, living in my own head, in my own world, I would devolve into depression and despair.  I would become the center of my own broken world.  I need the voices of others to be able to hear the voice of God.  These are the voices that kept insisting that my living and breathing presence among the living was God’s miracle. 

It’s easy to want to live according to our own vision and rule of life; it’s too easy to stray from God’s way.  Time apart, separateness, is a reminder that we separate ourselves from the love of God when we separate ourselves from the rule.

Keep your mind in the game

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One of the side effects of having an aneurysm burst in my occipital lobe was I saw double.   As the blood cleared from my brain, however, this passed.  The occipital lobe serves to interpret the data coming through from the eyes.  Damage to this portion of the brain means that the brain will not decode properly or will not receive the images from the eyes.  No connection to the brain, damaged sight or even blindness.

Sometimes we pray like that.  The voice speaks the words, but the words don’t connect to the brain. We sing; we recite the prayers.  However, no connection is made in the brain, in the soul; we are not listening; we are deaf to the word.

“Let us consider, then, how we ought to sing psalms in such a way that are minds are in harmony with our voices.” (RSB 19)

The discipline of the psalmody is not to be faithful to the routine: to read the right psalm on the right day at the right time.  The discipline is to be present in mind and spirit to each word of the prayer, to be truly “reverent.” 

Lectio Divina: Pray the words

1. Silence:  Recollect,  meditate, breathe
2.  Lectio:  Read the words, Savor the words, Listen to the words
3.  Meditation: Repeat a word or phrase which speaks to you this day, deepen awareness, stir memories
4.  Oratio: Let prayer form from the phrase or words  
5. Contemplation: Listening for God’s response, be still in the presence of God.

Discipline

Almost three years ago, our first group of Benedictines at St. Martin’s met.  Our challenge was to read from the rule and the Psalms daily.  At the beginning, filled with the spirit of a new endeavor, I was enthusiastic and faithful.  I read C.S. Lewis’s understanding of the Psalms; Merton’s; Bonhoeffer’s.  I bought a Psalter.  Every two months I worked through all 150 Psalms.

In the second year, I was not so disciplined.  I made a CD with Psalms 67 and 51 at the beginning; Psalms to start each day as I drove to work; the daily morning prayer Psalms prescribed by Benedict.  Occasionally, I pulled out the Psalter.  However, this misses the spirit of the readings:  we are not to read the psalms we love; we are to read all the psalms.

Recently, as we began to read the chapters about the order of Benedictine worship, I realized that I had abandoned the Psalms altogether.  Benedict’s prescription for worship always seems so hard to follow, until the end of the chapter.  Here, he tells us to be sure to read all of the Psalms each week.  He allows us to change the order if we need to.  But, 150 Psalms?  This is discipline: to read faithfully each of the psalms whether we are in the mood or not, whether the message seems to fit our lives at that moment or not.  This is the discipline and the challenge.

When we began to follow in the footsteps of Benedict, we agreed to follow the format found in the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer.  In this sequence, all of the psalms are read each month.  We made one amendment. The Psalter assigns readings for each day of the month, prescribing some readings for the morning and some for the evening.  We agreed to read the morning Psalms on the odd months (Jan., Mar, May, July, Sept., Nov.) and the evening Psalms on the even months.

So, as is often true of the Benedictine’s discipline, I begin again.  To misquote the rule:  We read, after all, that our ancestors, energetic as they were, did this all in a single week.  Let us hope that we, lukewarm as we are can achieve this in the course of two months.

The Same Psalms repeat.

 To repeat the words each day at the same time could lead to rote memorization.  How often do we repeat the words of the Lord’s Prayer without hearing them?  How often do we go through the motions of the Mass without our spirit being present? 

However, in times of stress and anxiety, to have the words at hand brings comfort.  When the mind will not think clearly, the memorized prayers give me the words I need.  The rhythm of the days in which we repeat the words of the psalms or of prayers become rhythms with which we float when we need something to keep us above the raging waters of difficult times.

O Lord Make Haste to Help Us

The Benedictine Monks days begin with prayer; they end with prayer.  In the midst of the days – in the midst of work – they are called to prayer; the little hours are times to stop in the midst of the work and pray and to center ourselves in Christ.  These prayers are scheduled every three hours.  Do I schedule, intentionally, moments to stop in the day?  How could I accomplish this?   

In John McQuiston’s little book Always We Begin Again,  he has structured a day with seven stopping points to give thanks, to ground, resist the temptation of despair,  to call upon the Lord.  Here is his schedule:

6:45 – 7:15  Reading and Meditation.  Use a mantra and silence to be present to Christ; give thanks.

Breakfast

Commute:  Praise God; Center the Self in Christ.

Work:  Slow down; don’t rush.  [“For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world and forfeit their lives.” Matt 15: 22-25]

10:30:   A minute of Silent thanksgiving and praise.

Work:  Stop for deep breathing when tense to center the self.

Noon:  A minute of silent thanksgiving

Lunch:  Eat in community if possible.

Work:  Remember to slow down; remember to be genuine.

2:30: A minute of silent thanksgiving.

Work

Commute:  Praise God; Give thanks for the Day.

5:30 – 6:00 Exercise

Supper with the family; Reading and Family Time.

10:00  Meditation and Thanksgiving

Sleep

Mr. McQuiston schedule echoes the Benedictines, who pray every three hours.  He adapts the requirements of modern life, but this adaptation to the rhythms of the world seems very Benedictine in and of itself.

What is your schedule?  How can we place moments intentionally in our day?  When I was teaching, these moments were integral to my day.   On medical leave, I must manage my own time and be more intentional in the midst of a day without a structure.  I will be thinking on how to do this.  Add a comment and share your thoughts on this.

Alleluia

Remembering the Saints

Benedict accommodates worship to remember the saints; Sr. Chittister speaks of the saints as our community’s heroes.  What is the communion of saints?  Those believers who light the way before use; the valiant who defend the cross; the extraordinarily faithful who obey the rule without question; those who hear the voice of God?

When I was in the hospital, I received a card with Numbers 6: 24 -26 on its face:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

I have meditated on these words using Lectio Divina for weeks, and today the Oratio, the part in which the words of the meditation becomes a prayer, these words become a prayer that I too will more fully walk with communion of saints:

May I be a blessing for those I encounter today; may I be the face of the Lord shining for someone who needs light; may I be filled with kindness and graciousness with each person I encounter this day;  May I be the voice and hand of comfort and solace, walking beside someone today who needs a hand to hold;  May these acts bring peace and fill our hearts.  Amen.

So many folks have been Christ to me these past weeks; I have learned so much about being present in these acts of mercy and compassion.  I hope and pray that I may become this, following in the footsteps of the saints. 

How do we begin our day?

As we have read in the rule these past few days about Lauds – the morning prayer – this is the question that echoes.  This question is also pressing for me because two months ago, a brain aneurysm burst in the occipital lobe of my brain, and the routines which shaped my life ceased.  The rituals and daily procedures have given way to days filled with a focus on healing.  And these days have shifted and changed as the course of my healing progresses. 

In the hospital, my morning began with waiting:  for nurses to give medicines, for my husband to arrive with tea.  This waiting was often characterized by closing my eyes against the headaches and breathing through the pain; I would breath through the muscle aches and cramps of forced bed rest.  I listened to Peter Gabriel’s song “Washing of the Water” in which we pray “teach me how to float” and to “wash this pain away.” I have been blessed; I was only in the hospital three weeks. I am grateful for the goodness around me. I rejoice in the love of my family, the kindness of my visitors, the prayers freely given, the abundance which poured forth from the communities at work and church.  Praise God! Let your ways be known on earth! (67:2)

When I first arrived home, the morning formed a ritual: medication and a bath.  In the hospital, I was given sponge baths, and when I first came home, the stitches in my head prevented me from showering; I gloried in bathing.  This water washed the pain away; it was meditative and healing.  In Psalm 51, each day we ask God to heal: to wash us through and through.  In those days, my prayer focused on physical brokenness.  I prayed these mornings for strength, both physical and spiritual.  During these days friends visited, letting me find strength in their presence.  I was given CDs to listen too, since I was still seeing double.  My husband called home each day to check on my well-being.  Create in me a new heart; renew a right spirit within me. (51:11)

As my eyesight and mobility have improved, I have begun to feel anxious about getting things done, getting moving.  Some days I must force myself to be still in the morning; some days I get bogged down in the stillness.  And even as I try to be still, I find myself surrounded by distractions: a computer, a tablet with solitaire and crossword puzzles to play, two books, and a TV.  So, while I am physically still, I am quite restless.   I have lessons to learn from these days of brokenness.

How should I begin my day?  How do you begin each day?  How do we set our mind in the way that we should go each day?

A Poem as a Benedictine prayer

Here's another poem I read this morning and found it a perfect Benedictine prayer.

To Happiness  by Carl Dennis

 If you're not approaching, I hope at least
You're off to comfort someone who needs you more,
Not lost wandering aimlessly
Or drawn to the shelter of well-lit rooms
Where people assume you've arrived already.

If you're coming this way, send me the details—
The name of the ship, the port it leaves from—
So I can be down on the dock to help you
Unload your valises, your trunks and boxes
And stow them in the big van I'll have rented.

I'd like this to be no weekend stay
Where a single change of clothes is sufficient.
Bring clothes for all seasons, enough to fill a closet;
And instead of a single book for the bedside table
Bring boxes of all your favorites.

I'll be eager to clear half my shelves to make room,
Eager to read any titles you recommend.
If we've many in common, feel free to suggest
They prove my disposition isn't to blame
For your long absence, just some problems of attitude,

A few bad habits you'll help me set to one side.
We can start at dinner, which you're welcome
To cook for us while I sweep and straighten
And set the table. Then light the candles
You've brought from afar for the occasion.

Light them and fill the room I supposed I knew
With a glow that shows me I was mistaken.
Then help me decide if I'm still the person I was
Or someone else, someone who always believed in you
And imagined no good reasons for your delay.

"To Happiness" by Carl Dennis, from Unknown Friends. © Penguin, 2007.

Tom Hale