Good Morning Everyone,

As we study St. Benedict we learn, share and practice what it means to be a good Christian.
Sister Joan writes the following, which I forward because I believe we are trying to achieve the third level of a spiritual life.

Peace,
Larry

 Three stages of the spiritual life

The spiritual life is not a template; it is a process meant to change our lives. There are stages in the spiritual life that move us from one level to another.

The first is compliance. The Ten Commandments dominate in this phase. Being spiritual in this phase depends on keeping a list of do’s and don’ts, on keeping the “rules”—whatever they are—on being perfect.

The point is that we don’t make choices in this stage. Not real choices. We simply conform or rebel. We do what we’re told but never ask ourselves whether or not what we’re doing has anything at all to do with Beatitudes or not.

The second level of the spiritual life is awareness. It has more to do with becoming a Christian than it does with going through the rituals of being Christian.

…we come to realize that though God began the process of Creation it is our responsibility to complete it. Then we set out to become the kind of people we were put on Earth to be. We begin to go out of ourselves for the sake of the world rather than simply awarding ourselves gold stars to being regular observers of ancient rituals. It is holiness, not regularity, that we are now concerned about in our spiritual life.

Finally, the third level of the spiritual life is transformation. It requires that we ourselves begin to “put on the mind of Christ.” We ourselves begin to think like the Jesus of the Mount of Beatitudes. We face what it means to be just in an unjust world, meek in an arrogant one, humble in a domineering one, compassionate in a prejudiced one, full of grief for those who suffer from suffering not of their own doing, compassionate for those who are oppressed by the indifferent of the world.

Then the truly spiritual soul sees the world as God sees the world and sets out to make it right.

—excerpted from the “Foreword” by Joan Chittister in Sick, and You Cared for Me: Homilies & Reflections for Cycle B, ed. by Deacon Jim Knipper  (Clear Faith Publishing).

Our Community

"We are all bound to the Gospel, under leadership of some kind, faced with the dictates of tradition or the cautions of experience and in need of a direction" (RB 3)

Following Wednesday's discussion of our identity as Benedictines at St. Martin's, these lines resonated.  I see us as: Bound to the Gospel, under the leadership of our ministers -- Shirley and Clay -- within an Episcopalian tradition, using the Rule as a compass in our search for living as followers of Christ.

 

We would see Jesus.

This Wednesday, we looked at the four kinds of monks that Benedict describes in the rule.  Benedict describes the lives of each of these monks and the means by which they seek Christ, and admonishes those whose path lacks depth or commitment.  And so,we asked what kind of seekers are we, in this community?  How are we Benedictine?  How are we Christians?  Are we committed to a deepening faith?  How does are commitment to the group deepen are faith?  We began to answer.  I think we each will continue to ponder.

We have been sanctified by the church. To be sanctified is to be made holy, to be separated out from ordinary for the work and use of God.  We separate ourselves out for holy time and space to grow together in Christ; we are a community of Christians, and in this we are Christians as Benedict envisioned being followers of Christ.  Over and over, we see Christ in one another and we become Christ for one another.  We would see Jesus in our midst and in the face of others.  To show up each week is to be Christ for one another and to let others be Christ for us.  Often fear of intimacy or responsibility holds us back from this kind of connection.  We also remember that each of us is responsible for our own discipline in the reading of the Word and the reading of the Rule.  It is this discipline of prayer that connects us, but it is also this discipline the strengthens us and helps us to grow.

Sr. Joan shares these words of wisdom:

The ancients say that once upon a time a disciple asked the elder,

"Holy One, is there anything I can do to make myself Enlightened?"

And the Holy One answered, "As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning."

"Then of what use," the surprised disciple asked, "are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?"

"To make sure," the elder said, "that you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise."

The Rule prescribes directions that will keep us, like the mythical disciple, awake until what we live, lives in us.

"Still": A poem which conveys the essence of humility

This poem conveys the essence of humility!  It's not just that we are the least, but the least is full of God's glory.

Still

 by A.R. Ammons

I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!

Turning Back

 Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to God from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience.

Today we turn back to the beginning.  We return to listen and to hear the voice of God – “to attend them with the ear of our heart.”  So today, we joined together in our recommitment to the discipline of reading and prayer and obedience.  We admit there are times when we have faltered – drifted -- from our labors, and so we encourage one another as we turn back, so that in the turning back we move forward in our spiritual journey.

We turn back as both an act of repentance and an act of conversion.  In repentance we turn away and leave behind the sloth and the distractions and the way of the world; we leave behind the excuses. And, our intention is to listen for voice of God as we read scripture and the Psalms, as we read the words of St. Benedict and Sr. Joan, as we gather together as a community. In an act of ongoing conversion, we respond to the voice of God: we obey.   To each word, to each prayer, to each day, we will choose to obey and to “faithfully put into practice.”  Or so we will try

Ideas in Passing from Joan Chittester

This morning we shared and discussed these words of wisdom from Sr. Joan.  They so fit today's readings from Jonah and 2 Cor!  Thanks Larry for sending these to us and Tom for bring this to us in prayer.

The glories of weakness

“In my weakness is my strength,” Paul writes (2 Cor. 12:10). I never understood that passage nor did I like it until, struck with polio as a young woman, I began little by little to realize that if I ever walked again, it would not be thanks to me, it would be thanks to everyone around me who formed the human chain that kept me human. When I could not move, they carried me. When I could not work, they found functions for me that justified my existence. When I could not find a reason for going on, they liked me enough to give me back a sense of human connectedness. When I could not cure myself, they cured me of the clay of my limits and turned them into life again. They taught me the glories of weakness.

When I most wanted to be strong and like no other time in life found myself defined by my weaknesses, I began to understand the great questions of life. If I do not need other people, what is their own purpose in life, what is their claim on my own gifts when they need me as I have needed them? The moment I come to realize that it is precisely the gifts which I do not myself embody that make me claimant to the gifts of others—and they of mine—marks the moment of my spiritual beginning. Suddenly, creature-hood becomes gift and power and the beginning of unlimited personal growth.

Community

Our readings have been about opening the monastery to new members and welcoming people into the community.  We have been blessed in the past two weeks with two new guests at our worship who are becoming part of our community on Wednesday mornings.  Tom has had queries from folks about our prayer group, the study of the Rule of Benedict, and meeting Wednesday mornings for prayer and support.

We ask ourselves how we become Christ for one another in our community.  We ask ourselves how we open ourselves to sharing our faith in the world around us and inviting folks into community. 


"Benedictine life is rooted in three dimensions: commitment to community, fidelity to a monastic way of life and obedience.  It is a life that sees sanctification as a by-product of human society, the development of a new way of thinking and living, and total openness to the constantly emerging challenges of the God-life within us.  To pursue Benedictine spirituality, we must carry our part of the human race and allow it to mold and polish an tember us.  We are to be people who see the globe through eyes softened by the Gospel." [Chittester, Joan.  The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages. New York: Crossroad. 1992. Page 153.]