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.