The first word of the Rule is, in Latin, "obsculta", a word that doesn't mean just 'listen', but also 'obey' (note, you'll likely find it in a Latin dictionary under 'ausculta' as I discovered after about 30 minutes of looking). Thus, the very beginning of the Rule puts into place a dynamic of listening and obedience. One, of course, cannot obey if one has not listened to the command given; perhaps we might also say that the practice of obedience also allows us to listen better.
I don't know much about music, but it has occurred to me that the difference between a good musician and a great musician is that a good musician plays the notes and the great musician plays the silences. That is, the great musician, in interpreting music, understands the emotional content of the pauses, of the gaps between the notes, and translates that into the expression of the music. The truly deep listening of monastic life is like that, in that it strives to not just listen to the words of the Daily Office, but to the silences.
This is a form of the 'via negativa', the ascetic approach to God that finds that the most true statements about God are those that deny what we think of God. Thus, when we say that "God is good" this is a true statement only insofar as we realize that 'good' is a human word that is unable to contain the true goodness of God. A more accurate statement is that God "transcends goodness" or "is not-good" -- not in the sense of being evil, but of being so far beyond any of our concepts of goodness that to say "God is good" is to say something that is ultimately false. At some point, the best we can do in contemplating God is not to say anything and rest in silence.
While reciting the Psalms and the other elements of the Daily Office, it is the silences built in which are the places where the listening occurs. The monks are broken into two groups facing each other and take turns reciting a verse or two of a Psalm. One group will say four or five lines and then wait for a response from the other group. In this liturgical dialectic we find the constant tension between listening and obeying. One group offers up the word of God for obedience and the other group listens in silence. I find myself concentrating on saying the words I am supposed to say, but perhaps a better posture would be for me to listen to the words I am supposed to hear. Perhaps I am so busy talking to God that I have forgotten to stop and listen to what God has to say to me.
One of the lessons of Benedictine monasticism is that it is in this silence that we can begin to truly listen, and it is in the presence of the silence and in the awe of the unspeakable presence of God that we can begin to truly obey.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Our cinematic view of monastic life
I mentioned in class today that our most common cultural reference to monastic life is that of the Jedi Knights of the Star Wars movies. While it is obviously not a Christian image, there is much in common with the monks of Benedictine life -- all the way down to the attire. In fact, think about how it is Anakin Skywalker's self-will that ultimately gets him into trouble and begins his descent into the dark side.
Anyway, tonight one of the students joked that he'd happily join the monastery if they just had light sabers...
Anyway, tonight one of the students joked that he'd happily join the monastery if they just had light sabers...
A prayer for new vocations
We've been reciting this prayer at Vespers every night:
Lord our God,
through your loving kindness,
hear and answer our prayers
as they rise to You in this offering.
Through Your saints, Benedict and Scholastica,
You have called many to the school of Your service.
We ask that many other men and women,
throughout the world,
would hear and answer Your call
in our monastic way of life,
especially here at St. Gregory's Abbey.
Grant each of us the gift of holy perserverance --
that we may prefer nothing to Your love.
This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lord our God,
through your loving kindness,
hear and answer our prayers
as they rise to You in this offering.
Through Your saints, Benedict and Scholastica,
You have called many to the school of Your service.
We ask that many other men and women,
throughout the world,
would hear and answer Your call
in our monastic way of life,
especially here at St. Gregory's Abbey.
Grant each of us the gift of holy perserverance --
that we may prefer nothing to Your love.
This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The obstacle to spiritual progress according to St. Benedict
In re-reading Benedict's Rule again over the last few weeks, one of the things that struck me is his diagnosis of what ails us spiritually. According to Benedict, the primary obstacle to our spiritual progress is our self-will. In the first chapter of the Rule, Benedict describes four different types of monks, two he likes and two he doesn't. The first two, cenobites and anchorites are those who follow a rule and subject themselves to an abbot (in the case of the cenobites) or have started in a cenobitic community and progressed to the life of a hermit. The other two types of monks, sarabaites and gyrovagues, are those either have no rule or no stable home respectively. Benedict describes sarabaites as those who do "whatever strikes their fancy" and gyrovagues as those who are "slaves to their own wills."
Benedict sees our self-will as a tyrannical force that enslaves us and keeps us from making spiritual progress. The problem of our will is that it causes us to "give in to our whims and appetites" (5.12) rather than to what God desires for us. As a result, Benedict constantly urges us to "hate the urgings of self-will" (4.60), and "not to follow your own heart's desire" (3.8), or to guard against the sins "of the self will" (7.12). Benedict's concern is that when it is our self-will that is in charge, it will lead us to value things other than God and thus hinder our spiritual progress.
It is with this concern in mind that Benedict puts so much emphasis on obedience and on the role of the abbot. The abbot is charged with overseeing the spiritual progress of monks and with meeting their physical needs. By following the Rule and subjecting one's will to that of the abbot, the monk begins to have his self-will trained and focused on divine things rather than human things.
In thinking about the secret to the 1500 success of Benedictine life, I've become convinced that when we focus on the spiritual practices of the Daily Office and the Lectio Divinia, we miss the real key insight of Benedict. What makes Benedictine life so successful is its emphasis on obedience as a means of escaping the tyranny of self-will. Obedience becomes the key spiritual practice in Benedictine life.
This, of course, is a foreign idea to our modern sensibilities, which are dominated by ideas of reason and personal conscience. We are wary of any authority which may conflict with our own ideas of what is best for us or of what we should be doing.
This is not to say that there is no room for members of the church to have discussions and to dissent from authorities, but the question that we must ask ourselves is whether our dissents are just elaborate justifications for our self-will, or whether they are grounded in divine ideas of human thriving.
How would your spiritual life change if you began to think of obedience as a spiritual practice?
Benedict sees our self-will as a tyrannical force that enslaves us and keeps us from making spiritual progress. The problem of our will is that it causes us to "give in to our whims and appetites" (5.12) rather than to what God desires for us. As a result, Benedict constantly urges us to "hate the urgings of self-will" (4.60), and "not to follow your own heart's desire" (3.8), or to guard against the sins "of the self will" (7.12). Benedict's concern is that when it is our self-will that is in charge, it will lead us to value things other than God and thus hinder our spiritual progress.
It is with this concern in mind that Benedict puts so much emphasis on obedience and on the role of the abbot. The abbot is charged with overseeing the spiritual progress of monks and with meeting their physical needs. By following the Rule and subjecting one's will to that of the abbot, the monk begins to have his self-will trained and focused on divine things rather than human things.
In thinking about the secret to the 1500 success of Benedictine life, I've become convinced that when we focus on the spiritual practices of the Daily Office and the Lectio Divinia, we miss the real key insight of Benedict. What makes Benedictine life so successful is its emphasis on obedience as a means of escaping the tyranny of self-will. Obedience becomes the key spiritual practice in Benedictine life.
This, of course, is a foreign idea to our modern sensibilities, which are dominated by ideas of reason and personal conscience. We are wary of any authority which may conflict with our own ideas of what is best for us or of what we should be doing.
This is not to say that there is no room for members of the church to have discussions and to dissent from authorities, but the question that we must ask ourselves is whether our dissents are just elaborate justifications for our self-will, or whether they are grounded in divine ideas of human thriving.
How would your spiritual life change if you began to think of obedience as a spiritual practice?
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Creativity and Benedictine life
A common concern about monastic life is that it stifles creativity; we worry that the call for obedience, silence, and humility, the subjection of one's self to the authority of another, and the many rules of monastic life will end up turning monks into robots without any creativity. This concern, however, is wrong in two ways: first, it misunderstands how we become truly creative and, second, it is clearly false empirically once one gets to know a few monks.
Starting with the second of the two mistakes, monks have always been and continue to be enormously creative. The creativity is not restricted to academic and church life -- though that has been their greatest gift -- but extends to all areas of life. One of the late monks here was a painter and also collected art from around the world, I have this recipe book for soups from one monk, and you've already seen how mechanically creative Brother Kevin is. Monastic life often unlocks creativity rather than restricts it.
This is because we often misconceive of how creativity happens -- we think it is the result of working without rules, but that is only true inasmuch as the rules have first been mastered. Before Picasso helped create Cubism, his early portraiture represented technical mastery; before Pele was able to do magical things with a soccer ball, he first mastered the basic skills of controlling the ball; some of the world's best classical musicians still practice their scales. Unfortunately what passes for groundbreaking creativity in today's world is actually the product of people who are too lazy or too untalented to have first mastered the basic skills of their craft.
Malcolm Gladwell gives an excellent description of this in his discussion of improvisational comedians in his bestseller, Blink. He points out that improv only works if certain rules are followed; improv groups meet regularly to discuss the rules and plan for how to implement them. We think we see comedy that is created on-the-spot, but it is actually the result of a specific set of conventions that enable the creativity to flow.
Likewise, the Rule of Benedict and the shape of Benedictine life provides a structure within which creativity can flourish. By limiting choices and decisions, the monk becomes free to make the effort to master a set of skills in a way that allows creativity to break forth. Creativity is demanding and difficult task -- even God had to take a day off from it -- and Benedictine life provides the structure that allows the monk to participate in God's creative bounty in the monks own life using the abilities given him by God.
Starting with the second of the two mistakes, monks have always been and continue to be enormously creative. The creativity is not restricted to academic and church life -- though that has been their greatest gift -- but extends to all areas of life. One of the late monks here was a painter and also collected art from around the world, I have this recipe book for soups from one monk, and you've already seen how mechanically creative Brother Kevin is. Monastic life often unlocks creativity rather than restricts it.
This is because we often misconceive of how creativity happens -- we think it is the result of working without rules, but that is only true inasmuch as the rules have first been mastered. Before Picasso helped create Cubism, his early portraiture represented technical mastery; before Pele was able to do magical things with a soccer ball, he first mastered the basic skills of controlling the ball; some of the world's best classical musicians still practice their scales. Unfortunately what passes for groundbreaking creativity in today's world is actually the product of people who are too lazy or too untalented to have first mastered the basic skills of their craft.
Malcolm Gladwell gives an excellent description of this in his discussion of improvisational comedians in his bestseller, Blink. He points out that improv only works if certain rules are followed; improv groups meet regularly to discuss the rules and plan for how to implement them. We think we see comedy that is created on-the-spot, but it is actually the result of a specific set of conventions that enable the creativity to flow.
Likewise, the Rule of Benedict and the shape of Benedictine life provides a structure within which creativity can flourish. By limiting choices and decisions, the monk becomes free to make the effort to master a set of skills in a way that allows creativity to break forth. Creativity is demanding and difficult task -- even God had to take a day off from it -- and Benedictine life provides the structure that allows the monk to participate in God's creative bounty in the monks own life using the abilities given him by God.
Would you like to experience Benedictine monasticism?
On August 3-5, the monastery will sponsor a weekend spiritual retreat for anyone who is interested. The full information is at the link, but if you are interested in spending a couple of days seeing what this is like, you'll get a chance to participate in the Daily Office with the monks and then spend time with Father Charles as he works through the book,
The Spirituality of Imperfection. I overheard Father Charles mention that it has the best chapter on humility that he has ever read.
If anything I have written has piqued your interest, you ought to come check this out on your own.
The Spirituality of Imperfection. I overheard Father Charles mention that it has the best chapter on humility that he has ever read.
If anything I have written has piqued your interest, you ought to come check this out on your own.
Whose life is it?
Yesterday we had a discussion in class about the spiritual practices of the monks as found in the Rule of Benedict. I proposed the idea that many of us come to a monastery for somewhat selfish reasons; we seek to be exposed to practices or ways of life that will bring us peace, help us live in the moment, or be centered. But the goal of the spiritual practices of Benedictines is different -- it is to prepare one for eternal life. The monks may attain the side benefits we often seek now, but the real end is the beatific vision of God experienced in eternal life and what we do now to make spiritual progress, with God's assistance of course, will prepare us for eternal life.
After class someone asked me if preparing for eternal life wasn't just as selfishly motivated, with the benefits only postponed, as seeking spiritual practices for our benefit in the here and now. It was a fair and challenging question, but my response was that it is just as selfish if you assume that your life belongs to you. That is not, however, the assumption that Benedict was working under as I read him and the pattern of Benedictine life.
Instead, the shape of Benedictine spirituality operates under the assumption that our lives belong to God as the result of his gift. We do not exist apart from God and the gift of our lives is one that requires stewardship, as in the parable of the talents. Construed this way, the spiritual practices of monasticism are seen as the response to God's gift, where we engage in the practices as an act of stewardship, so we can prepare ourselves for the end for which we were created. Indeed, the practices themselves are seen by Benedict as gifts from God; he assumes that God knows best how humans should prepare themselves for their final end and that God has given us teachings that allow us to know how to proceed.
So the question we must ask ourselves in any of our spiritual practices is why we are doing them? Are we doing them for selfish and temporal reasons, or as a response to God's gift and for the end He has prepared for us? Who do you think your life belongs to?
After class someone asked me if preparing for eternal life wasn't just as selfishly motivated, with the benefits only postponed, as seeking spiritual practices for our benefit in the here and now. It was a fair and challenging question, but my response was that it is just as selfish if you assume that your life belongs to you. That is not, however, the assumption that Benedict was working under as I read him and the pattern of Benedictine life.
Instead, the shape of Benedictine spirituality operates under the assumption that our lives belong to God as the result of his gift. We do not exist apart from God and the gift of our lives is one that requires stewardship, as in the parable of the talents. Construed this way, the spiritual practices of monasticism are seen as the response to God's gift, where we engage in the practices as an act of stewardship, so we can prepare ourselves for the end for which we were created. Indeed, the practices themselves are seen by Benedict as gifts from God; he assumes that God knows best how humans should prepare themselves for their final end and that God has given us teachings that allow us to know how to proceed.
So the question we must ask ourselves in any of our spiritual practices is why we are doing them? Are we doing them for selfish and temporal reasons, or as a response to God's gift and for the end He has prepared for us? Who do you think your life belongs to?
Monday, June 25, 2007
A Theology of Vigils
The first set of prayers each day is Vigils, which starts at 6:00 in the morning. The Psalms we read were Psalm 134, Psalm 37, Psalm 52, Psalm 11, and Psalm 105. As our class discussed this morning, the choices of the Psalms at specific times of the day represent a theological understanding of the needs of persons at different times of day. So, take a moment to read the Psalms and see if you can tell me what the purpose of Vigils is? Can you detect a theme in the Psalms I've listed?
A question to you from one of the monks
Father Charles has put a question to our class that I would like to ask any readers to answer. He's responsible for identifying and helping recruit men to join the monastery and as he's putting together the materials he'll use, he wants to know what questions people might want answered about monastic life if they were interested. So let me ask you to answer in the comments two questions: 1) What would you want to know about Benedictine life if you were interested, and 2) What is it that would attract you to life in a monastery? To put it in a marketing context (if you'll forgive me for vulgarizing it) how should they market their way of life and once they got your interest, what would you want to know?Tonight one of my classmates joked that he had told his wife that if the monks didn't take marriage so seriously that he might not be coming home. Once you've been here for a while, there's an amazing appeal to their way of life.
So please post your responses in the comments and I'll pass them along to Father Charles.
Recycled Grace
I've written about Brother Kevin before, (read the whole post) but at the time Youtube didn't exist and you couldn't embed pictures in blogger. So for the first time I give you photographs of his homemade motorcycle, Recycled Grace, which is made up of half an old Suburu engine, an Oldsmobile glove compartment, and various springs and pulleys that don't belong on a motorcyle. In case you are wondering where the seat is, he's got it off right now while he is trying to install a new gear box. Above is a picture of the motorcycle and a brief video with the engine running.
There are different kinds of geniuses in the world and Brother Kevin is one of them. One of the nice things about monastic life is that it actually provides ways for the monks to do what God made them to do, whether it is to be a priest or to be the mechanic for the Abbey.
Al Gore should meet this guy
Tonight we went on a tour of campus with Brother Kevin, who came to the monastery 50 years ago as a high school student and never left. At the time he arrived, the monastery was located on what we would think of as a typical Oklahoma plain, bereft of anything much taller than grass. At the top is a picture of the monastery grounds around 1950, and the bottom picture is from tonight. The difference (besides the lack of an aerial view) is Brother Kevin, who has been planting things since he arrived here. I asked him tonight how many trees he had planted, and he said that between trees and shrubs, he has put about 1500 things in the ground. 1500. He knew about when he had planted most of them, how long they'd last, etc. It's absolutely amazing how one man has transformed the land that he lives on. This is someone who definitely has a positive carbon footprint, which is good, because my next item is about his motorcycle.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Can you step in the same river twice?
In Plato’s Dialogue, Cratylus, Socrates quotes the Greek philosopher Heroclitus, who said that you can’t step in the same river twice; between the first time you step into the river and the second time you step in the river, both the river changes and you change. If Heroclitus thought his world was always in flux, one wonders what he would make of a world where change is almost considered a virtue, where we get new fashions every three months, where new cars come out every year, where being a ‘change agent’ is part of the job description for some people, and where we change jobs, locations, and spouses with near breakneck speed.
As I’ve prepared this week to return to the monastery for the third time, the question of stepping into the same river twice has been gnawing away at the back of my mind. What am I coming back to and who is it that is coming back? Part of the question is a function of the time between my last visit in 2004 and now and part of it is the interesting philosophical question about how we account for continuity in organisms that are constantly changing. So much has changed for both me and the monastery that I have wondered if Heroclitus was correct.
For me, the changes have been dramatic. Since I was here last time I have quit my job, moved to Dallas, fell in love and married a wonderful woman, completed a masters degree and started a Ph.D.. The last time I came here I came as a student, this time I come as an assistant to the professor and will get a chance to give three lectures and work with some small groups.
There have been changes at the monastery as well. Father Theodore has died since I was last here (I took a moment to visit his grave when I arrived today). There is a new abbot, who was formerly the president of the university. Brother Kevin has had to take his last few trips in a car, instead of on his motorcycle, Recycled Grace. The monks are older and fewer in number.
Yet two things have not changed. First, the Rule of Benedict is still in effect. After 1500 years it continues to regulate and provide continuity for communities around the world. One can step into any Benedictine monastery in the world and have a pretty good idea what to expect. Second, the Daily Office of reading the Psalms and other parts of Scripture have not changed at all since I was here last, nor will they change substantially any time soon.
It seems to me that Heroclitus was wrong about stepping in the same river twice, because he held that what made the river the river (the essence of the river, if you will) was the water rushing by at the moment. But I wonder if what really makes a particular river a river is not so much the individual water molecules, but rather the source of the river and the boundaries of the river. I can know that I am stepping in the Mississippi River and not the Amazon because the two rivers have different boundaries and different sources. Likewise, the individual molecules of St. Gregory’s Abbey have changed, but the boundaries provided by the Rule of Benedict and the source of its continuity, found ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, but experienced through the Daily Office, remains the same.
As I sat down for Vespers tonight, I felt myself quickly settling back into the rhythms of the monastery. The Psalms were the same and the prayers were the same. I was back in the river I left three years ago.
As I’ve prepared this week to return to the monastery for the third time, the question of stepping into the same river twice has been gnawing away at the back of my mind. What am I coming back to and who is it that is coming back? Part of the question is a function of the time between my last visit in 2004 and now and part of it is the interesting philosophical question about how we account for continuity in organisms that are constantly changing. So much has changed for both me and the monastery that I have wondered if Heroclitus was correct.
For me, the changes have been dramatic. Since I was here last time I have quit my job, moved to Dallas, fell in love and married a wonderful woman, completed a masters degree and started a Ph.D.. The last time I came here I came as a student, this time I come as an assistant to the professor and will get a chance to give three lectures and work with some small groups.
There have been changes at the monastery as well. Father Theodore has died since I was last here (I took a moment to visit his grave when I arrived today). There is a new abbot, who was formerly the president of the university. Brother Kevin has had to take his last few trips in a car, instead of on his motorcycle, Recycled Grace. The monks are older and fewer in number.
Yet two things have not changed. First, the Rule of Benedict is still in effect. After 1500 years it continues to regulate and provide continuity for communities around the world. One can step into any Benedictine monastery in the world and have a pretty good idea what to expect. Second, the Daily Office of reading the Psalms and other parts of Scripture have not changed at all since I was here last, nor will they change substantially any time soon.
It seems to me that Heroclitus was wrong about stepping in the same river twice, because he held that what made the river the river (the essence of the river, if you will) was the water rushing by at the moment. But I wonder if what really makes a particular river a river is not so much the individual water molecules, but rather the source of the river and the boundaries of the river. I can know that I am stepping in the Mississippi River and not the Amazon because the two rivers have different boundaries and different sources. Likewise, the individual molecules of St. Gregory’s Abbey have changed, but the boundaries provided by the Rule of Benedict and the source of its continuity, found ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, but experienced through the Daily Office, remains the same.
As I sat down for Vespers tonight, I felt myself quickly settling back into the rhythms of the monastery. The Psalms were the same and the prayers were the same. I was back in the river I left three years ago.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Returning to the monastery
On Sunday evening I will return to St. Gregory's Abbey for the first time since 2004. As was the case in my two previous trips, I'll be blogging my reflections on monastic life while I'm at the Abbey. My first post will be up on Sunday evening. Until then, feel free to nose around and check out my posts from my last two trips...it may provide some useful background.
One of the nice benefits of the last few years is that the tools in Blogger have improved, which means I'll be able to add pictures to my words. The picture above is St. Gregory's -- both the monastery and the university.
Until Sunday evening then.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
About this blog
This blog is a journal of the two different weeks I spent at St. Gregory's Abbey in Oklahoma in 2003 and 2004. I do not post to it any more, as it was meant to capture my experiences in a very specific period of time. The best way to begin is to start in the oldest 2003 archives and work your way forward chronologically into the 2004 archives.
Friday, June 11, 2004
Back in a couple of days
We just ended up our final class session, which ended with a blessing from Father Charles, like he gave to Brother Boniface before he left the monastery. I have a few more essays and observations to write, which I will take up starting on Sunday afternoon. In the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Check back later. Blessings, David.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Death and Benedictine spirituality
As I write this essay I am sitting in a swing donated in memory of Oklahoma City bombing victim, Diane Althouse. The swing faces the monastery cemetery, which is just south of the chapel. The sun is to my back as the day is ending and the wind is humming through the many trees planted by Brother Kevin. A few minutes ago the Abbot and one of the other monks walked by on a post dinner walk and asked me what I was writing. I was finishing up my last formal journal entry and told them I was writing about authority. The Abbot replied that the cemetery was the perfect place to write about authority, implying that death has authority over all of us while we are here on earth.
In chapter five of the rule is one line that is easy to miss and dismiss as unimportant, but it describes much of the Benedictine approach to death. The line is, “Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.” The monks believe that we are born so that we may die. This is also a counter-cultural attitude, as death has become the last unforgivable sin, the last taboo, in America. Our culture is in complete denial about the reality and finality of death. We cannot talk about death, we worship youth, and we do everything possible to reverse the natural course of aging. The rich irony in this approach is that by seeking to avoid death, aging, and suffering, we often end up devaluing the precious life that God has given us. We are never satisfied with the life we are given and the rich gift that it is; instead we always want what is not ours to have – physical immortality.
The proximity of the cemetery to the chapel serves several purposes. First, it allows easy access for the monks to visit their deceased brothers. One can often see monks spending time in the cemetery, paying their respects. Second, it provides a constant reminder of the authority death has over them. Third, it provides a goal for the monks. It may be difficult for us to think of being buried in a cemetery as a goal, but when the current president of St. Gregory’s University, Father Lawrence, was interviewed by a local reporter after he took office, she asked him what his goal would be after he completed his term as president. She seemed to think that he might be able to work at another university. He told her that his next goal was “to be buried out in the cemetery.” I’ve been around lots of deans and university presidents, but I’ve never heard that announced as a personal goal before! But I’ve also seen university presidents afflicted with a bad case of hubris, men who have become so seduced by their power that they lose their grip on the reality of their mortality. It’s not a pretty sight.
Brother Kevin, who is still alive, has taken to putting flowers on his future gravesite. He has a spot reserved next to the only monk at St. Gregory’s ever to live to 100. One of the brothers makes the coffins for the brothers. Yet on the anniversary of each monk’s death, his biography is read at dinner – they are dead, but not forgotten.
Several years ago one of the monks announced to the brothers that he was dying of cancer. He had kept it concealed, but finally told them when he thought he had several months left. It turns out that he was down to a few weeks. Toward the end he was dying here at the monastery – they have rooms where home medical care can be received. On Easter he was dying and all of the monks were gathered in his room, where they did Compline together. The last line of Compline is a prayer, “May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.” The monk died within thirty minutes, the prayer answered. It was Easter with all of the hope and promise entailed for the Christian on that holiday.
Father Charles said that the way that the death happened had a powerful affect on the monks. Even for these men who daily remind themselves of their impending end, there are times when death transforms even them. While most of us fear death, there is perhaps no more intimate moment in life than being with someone who is dying. Most of us rightfully fear dying alone, yet it is the denial of the reality of death that often puts us in places where we end up dying alone, isolated from our community. Without death, there would be no reason to find meaning in life; without death there would be no reason for us to have God, for we would be gods; without death there would be no urgency to our lives; without death there would be no need for Jesus to rescue our souls from death. Death is something to be feared, but yet it is also God’s final gracious act to each of us.
May the all-powerful Lord grant you a restful night and a peaceful death. Amen.
In chapter five of the rule is one line that is easy to miss and dismiss as unimportant, but it describes much of the Benedictine approach to death. The line is, “Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.” The monks believe that we are born so that we may die. This is also a counter-cultural attitude, as death has become the last unforgivable sin, the last taboo, in America. Our culture is in complete denial about the reality and finality of death. We cannot talk about death, we worship youth, and we do everything possible to reverse the natural course of aging. The rich irony in this approach is that by seeking to avoid death, aging, and suffering, we often end up devaluing the precious life that God has given us. We are never satisfied with the life we are given and the rich gift that it is; instead we always want what is not ours to have – physical immortality.
The proximity of the cemetery to the chapel serves several purposes. First, it allows easy access for the monks to visit their deceased brothers. One can often see monks spending time in the cemetery, paying their respects. Second, it provides a constant reminder of the authority death has over them. Third, it provides a goal for the monks. It may be difficult for us to think of being buried in a cemetery as a goal, but when the current president of St. Gregory’s University, Father Lawrence, was interviewed by a local reporter after he took office, she asked him what his goal would be after he completed his term as president. She seemed to think that he might be able to work at another university. He told her that his next goal was “to be buried out in the cemetery.” I’ve been around lots of deans and university presidents, but I’ve never heard that announced as a personal goal before! But I’ve also seen university presidents afflicted with a bad case of hubris, men who have become so seduced by their power that they lose their grip on the reality of their mortality. It’s not a pretty sight.
Brother Kevin, who is still alive, has taken to putting flowers on his future gravesite. He has a spot reserved next to the only monk at St. Gregory’s ever to live to 100. One of the brothers makes the coffins for the brothers. Yet on the anniversary of each monk’s death, his biography is read at dinner – they are dead, but not forgotten.
Several years ago one of the monks announced to the brothers that he was dying of cancer. He had kept it concealed, but finally told them when he thought he had several months left. It turns out that he was down to a few weeks. Toward the end he was dying here at the monastery – they have rooms where home medical care can be received. On Easter he was dying and all of the monks were gathered in his room, where they did Compline together. The last line of Compline is a prayer, “May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.” The monk died within thirty minutes, the prayer answered. It was Easter with all of the hope and promise entailed for the Christian on that holiday.
Father Charles said that the way that the death happened had a powerful affect on the monks. Even for these men who daily remind themselves of their impending end, there are times when death transforms even them. While most of us fear death, there is perhaps no more intimate moment in life than being with someone who is dying. Most of us rightfully fear dying alone, yet it is the denial of the reality of death that often puts us in places where we end up dying alone, isolated from our community. Without death, there would be no reason to find meaning in life; without death there would be no reason for us to have God, for we would be gods; without death there would be no urgency to our lives; without death there would be no need for Jesus to rescue our souls from death. Death is something to be feared, but yet it is also God’s final gracious act to each of us.
May the all-powerful Lord grant you a restful night and a peaceful death. Amen.
Journal entry #4
In my first journal entry I talked about what I see as the problems with churches today around the issues of commitment, accountability, and authority. In my second one I compared the Baptist church with the Benedictine monasteries and found some surprising similarities. Yesterday I talked about how I deal with commitment, accountability and authority in my life in the church. Today I’d like to talk about what I’ve learned about commitment, accountability, and authority from my experience here.
The monastic life is a lifelong commitment. As I mentioned previously, the commitment is made over at least a four year period, so it is not entered into lightly by the prospective monk or the community. When the novice monk takes his final solemn vows, he signs papers making his commitment. Just before that he signs his will. Part of the decline in the number of monks in the U.S. is the result of the decline in our ability to make lifelong commitments. About the only lifelong commitments people are willing to make anymore are to their sports teams.
Perhaps the secret is the focus of the commitment. My theory is that commitments work best when they are made to something that is bigger than the humans involved. It may be that we call certain social arrangements “institutions” to remind us that they are bigger than us. We talk about the institution of marriage and maybe we should remember that a marriage is bigger than the two people involved. I think the monks commit to more than just the people involved in the monastery. They commit to a life with God, lived in community, mediated by the Rule of Benedict. Obviously God is bigger than any of them, but I think the fact that the rule has been around so long and has worked successfully for fifteen hundred years gives the monks something that has passed beyond human hands to commit to. I wonder how often in our churches we commit only to a pastor or a set of friends that are all human and limited. Maybe the only way to live out a commitment to a group of people is to actually be committed to something bigger than them and bigger than our petty concerns.
I saw an interesting act of accountability at lunch today. The one junior monk, Brother Boniface, had to leave campus for some reason. Before he left, he came and asked Father Charles for a blessing. It was a brief action, but loaded with meaning. First, it was a way for Brother Boniface to communicate that he was leaving, so that at least one other monk knew about it. Second, he requested a blessing, not permission. By granting the blessing, Father Charles was not so much exercising authority as he was showing that the community wanted the best for Brother Boniface. Now I’m sure that this is just a routine ceremonial moment, and I don’t know if only junior monks are required to do this, but still there was lots of neat stuff in just a little action. Wouldn’t it be interesting to frame accountability as a way to communicate about where we are and as a way to share a blessing. We worry about judgment, which is often just a reflection of our own internal judgment, when we think about being accountable, but perhaps it is actually a grace.
Finally there is authority within the monastic community. There is a clear chain of command, with the Abbot at the top of the hierarchy. Seniority is based on how long the monk has been in the community, not based on age, education, or ordination. Nevertheless, there is marked difference in the use of authority here, perhaps best summed up by another conversation from lunch today. One monk was discussing the difference between his mother telling him what to do as a child and the monks telling him what to do and he said, “the difference is that here they listen.”
It’s a powerful word, “listen,” and is the first word in the rule of Benedict. There comes a point when the abbot must make a decision that binds the community, but there is always a great deal of listening that goes on first. The rule requires that decisions be discussed and that even the youngest brother’s opinions should be considered, as “the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger.” The rule of Benedict emphasizes humility and obedience, not just within the hierarchy, but in all directions. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a better leader anywhere than the ideal abbot described in the second rule.
Our society glorifies power and authority and people may spend their entire lives seeking to attain it. But Benedictine spirituality teaches that the cardinal value is humility. It is power wielded by the humble that is true authority and that provides leadership worth following. A few years ago I read an article in Harvard Business Review about companies that had the best growth over a sustained period of time. What the article said is that companies led by individuals with two qualities were most successful: they needed a strong sense of what they wanted to accomplish and they needed to be humble and willing to learn from others. Benedict knew that fifteen hundred years ago.
I am convinced that if Benedict was teaching at a university today, I’m sure he would not be teaching theology, but more likely teaching in the department of psychology; he was a human relations genius. When you look at how the rule of Benedict sets up a community where commitment, accountability, and authority are so well balanced, one can only stand in awe at the divine inspiration that must have been the source of such deep insight into the human character.
The monastic life is a lifelong commitment. As I mentioned previously, the commitment is made over at least a four year period, so it is not entered into lightly by the prospective monk or the community. When the novice monk takes his final solemn vows, he signs papers making his commitment. Just before that he signs his will. Part of the decline in the number of monks in the U.S. is the result of the decline in our ability to make lifelong commitments. About the only lifelong commitments people are willing to make anymore are to their sports teams.
Perhaps the secret is the focus of the commitment. My theory is that commitments work best when they are made to something that is bigger than the humans involved. It may be that we call certain social arrangements “institutions” to remind us that they are bigger than us. We talk about the institution of marriage and maybe we should remember that a marriage is bigger than the two people involved. I think the monks commit to more than just the people involved in the monastery. They commit to a life with God, lived in community, mediated by the Rule of Benedict. Obviously God is bigger than any of them, but I think the fact that the rule has been around so long and has worked successfully for fifteen hundred years gives the monks something that has passed beyond human hands to commit to. I wonder how often in our churches we commit only to a pastor or a set of friends that are all human and limited. Maybe the only way to live out a commitment to a group of people is to actually be committed to something bigger than them and bigger than our petty concerns.
I saw an interesting act of accountability at lunch today. The one junior monk, Brother Boniface, had to leave campus for some reason. Before he left, he came and asked Father Charles for a blessing. It was a brief action, but loaded with meaning. First, it was a way for Brother Boniface to communicate that he was leaving, so that at least one other monk knew about it. Second, he requested a blessing, not permission. By granting the blessing, Father Charles was not so much exercising authority as he was showing that the community wanted the best for Brother Boniface. Now I’m sure that this is just a routine ceremonial moment, and I don’t know if only junior monks are required to do this, but still there was lots of neat stuff in just a little action. Wouldn’t it be interesting to frame accountability as a way to communicate about where we are and as a way to share a blessing. We worry about judgment, which is often just a reflection of our own internal judgment, when we think about being accountable, but perhaps it is actually a grace.
Finally there is authority within the monastic community. There is a clear chain of command, with the Abbot at the top of the hierarchy. Seniority is based on how long the monk has been in the community, not based on age, education, or ordination. Nevertheless, there is marked difference in the use of authority here, perhaps best summed up by another conversation from lunch today. One monk was discussing the difference between his mother telling him what to do as a child and the monks telling him what to do and he said, “the difference is that here they listen.”
It’s a powerful word, “listen,” and is the first word in the rule of Benedict. There comes a point when the abbot must make a decision that binds the community, but there is always a great deal of listening that goes on first. The rule requires that decisions be discussed and that even the youngest brother’s opinions should be considered, as “the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger.” The rule of Benedict emphasizes humility and obedience, not just within the hierarchy, but in all directions. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a better leader anywhere than the ideal abbot described in the second rule.
Our society glorifies power and authority and people may spend their entire lives seeking to attain it. But Benedictine spirituality teaches that the cardinal value is humility. It is power wielded by the humble that is true authority and that provides leadership worth following. A few years ago I read an article in Harvard Business Review about companies that had the best growth over a sustained period of time. What the article said is that companies led by individuals with two qualities were most successful: they needed a strong sense of what they wanted to accomplish and they needed to be humble and willing to learn from others. Benedict knew that fifteen hundred years ago.
I am convinced that if Benedict was teaching at a university today, I’m sure he would not be teaching theology, but more likely teaching in the department of psychology; he was a human relations genius. When you look at how the rule of Benedict sets up a community where commitment, accountability, and authority are so well balanced, one can only stand in awe at the divine inspiration that must have been the source of such deep insight into the human character.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Journal entry #3
When I did my journal last year, Dr. Schmidt gave us some specific questions to answer that required some serious introspection. So far this year I don’t feel like I’ve challenged myself to think that hard about my own role in community. I’ve talked a lot about structures and ideas, but not about my own role and experience. That’s probably fear talking (or not talking as the case may be). So today I’m going to do an inventory of my strengths and weaknesses in the areas of commitment, accountability, and authority. I guess without spelling out the reasons why, I’ve decided that those are all vital elements of community and church.
I think that there is a difference in being involved in church life and being involved in the life of the church. The first implies involvement in a set of activities that are more temporal in nature without any transcendent purpose, while the latter indicates a commitment to the ongoing growth and propagation of the church, even after we are long gone – it is something that is bigger than any of us. I think my story may reflect a shift from one idea to the other.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was involved in church life from the very beginning, getting my first Bible within two weeks of being born. The story in my family is that when we moved to Florida when I was in third grade, we started looking for a church to join and planned on going to several churches, but I like Seminole First Baptist Church so much that we never went anywhere else. By the age of fourteen I was reading the Bible through every year and had my first set of commentaries by the time I was about 17. I was very involved in my youth group and at the age of sixteen I experienced a call to the ministry.
Some serious family problems, long hidden, came to light while I was a freshman in college, putting me into a long spiritual tailspin. I was like the Israelites, wandering the desert of Sinai, without a spiritual home. I still managed to read the Bible through every year, but it was as dry as the desert, and I was unconnected to any church, community, or myself. I look back and, while I do not think God willed that I would experience that sense of disconnectedness, I think that God has been able to use that experience to make me more aware of what others are going through. There are some who are blessed with a life free of desert experiences, but I think most of us have to go through the desert to get to our Promised Lands.
I did visit a church in Gainesville for about six months, but never really felt a part of it, though I do not think that was the fault of the church, but rather my own deep troubles. But I remember vividly when things started to stir in me again. I had been coaching a girls soccer team for two years, and one of the team captains, Erin, was being confirmed at her church. Erin’s family invited me to join them and so I drove down to Ocala for the service. I remember that for some reason the hymns touched me deeply; I think that perhaps the physicality of singing gave my soul a chance to express itself. In looking back, I wonder if part of the impact was the result of being there not by myself, but with people I was connected to. Perhaps it is difficult to worship God by oneself, after all, even God is in community with Himself through the Trinity. Regardless, it was there that my longing for God truly began to express itself.
Within just a few months, I was in Texas, which was also the result of God moving in my life and in the lives of others. He has slowly been delivering me back to community with Him and with others. It was in Galveston that I decided to go back to church – I realized that after all of those years that the church had meant a lot to me and I needed to be a part of it.
There are lots of levels of commitment, the first and most basic one being attendance. Half of life is just about showing up. I started by coming to the worship services – sitting in the back, of course. I then started coming to Sunday school classes fairly regularly as well. At this point I was slowly reintegrating my way back into church life, refamiliarizing myself with the rhythms of worship, prayer, and the people. There was a very nice old woman who sat a couple of rows behind me, Rachel Lu Syler. She had been at the church most of her life and had never been married. She was fairly frail, so I would often offer my arm to her to help her walk out after the service. She passed away a few years ago.
Sometimes I think we only discover the depth of our commitments in times of crisis and perhaps the resignation of our pastor was a blessing to me. At that point I realized how much the church had come to mean to me and I was determined to do my part to help it survive through the tough times to come. I think that it is at this point that I became interested in the life of the church. The ensuing several years have tested my commitment to the life of my church to the core. There have been several times when I’ve been tempted to leave because things were so miserable, but I’m glad I’ve stayed. As I’ve learned from my grandmother, the bad times pass, as do the good times. And we often learn more from the tough times than we do from the easy ones. I’ve been fortunate that I take my commitments very seriously, maybe more than I should sometimes.
My willingness to make myself accountable is not quite the same. For many years one of the excuses I used for avoiding church was that I didn’t want people telling me what I can do or can’t do. This was demonstrated by sitting toward the back when I first came back to the church, I was symbolically keeping the church at a distance. I could come and participate in the worship, but if they did not know me, they could not interfere in my life. But, of course, one cannot be a part of a community by keeping it at a distance.
The irony is that the more I took the risk of letting people in – and the potential judgments that went with it – the better my experience was. By letting people get to know me, they were able to help me out when I needed it. By getting to know them better, I was able to help them when they needed help. There is something nice about someone saying that they haven’t seen you in church for a while and they’ve missed you. It is easy to hear that as a judgment, but often it is someone telling you that the church is a better place when you are there.
Like most people, I have the most difficult time with accountability in the area of confession. The Baptist tradition does not teach anything about public confession to a church authority figure. The idea is that when we sin, we sin against God and it is God who forgives our sin when we confess to God and repent, so we pray for forgiveness to God, who forgives us. Theologically, this makes a lot of sense to me; psychologically I’m not so sure it makes any sense. While it may be only God who can forgive our sins, I get the sense that psychologically it may be more beneficial to confess to another human being. It is humbling enough to confess to God, but God is perfect and so there is a sense in which we can excuse ourselves for being less than perfect. How much more humbling and challenging is it to confess to another fragile human being and ask that person to share God’s gracious forgiveness with us?
Last night one of my Catholic classmates arranged to have confession with one of the monks. He said that he felt like a load had been lifted off of his shoulders after it was done, that he had the best walk back to the dorms of the week. I don’t know what happened or how it went or what he confessed, but I was frankly envious of his visible relief. I’m not sure that I’ve ever had the same sense of relief from any of the confessions that were just between me and God. Maybe that says something about me and my relationship to God. But, if you are like me and prone to sins of pride and arrogance, perhaps the humility of confessing to another human being is the best form of accountability available.
Finally, there is the issue of me and authority. I’m perfectly fine with authority as long as I’m in charge. Otherwise, there might be a problem! I have a natural built in resistance to authority. Actually, the more nuanced way of putting it is that I am willing to subject myself to authority when I think that the person is using power appropriately. I will always resist power used wrongly. Of course, the problem with all people in authority is that they are human and even the best leaders are going to misuse their authority now and then. But the reality is that no human community can survive without working out how power is distributed. Recently there seems to be a plague of people who somehow think organizations can function without authority structures, but that is so beyond possibility as to be foolish in the extreme. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does power. It is better to deal with the reality of the fact that power must be used in order to keep a community functioning.
I have to constantly be careful in my relations to authority figures in the church. Because of my proclivity to reflexively resist authority figures I may be missing out on working with people who can challenge me and push me to grow. I still have a lot to learn and only by making myself available to authority figures that can help me in that learning which will allow me to be able to become the person God made me to be.
In my final journal entry I will write about what I’ve learned about these three things from the monks here. Peace be with you.
I think that there is a difference in being involved in church life and being involved in the life of the church. The first implies involvement in a set of activities that are more temporal in nature without any transcendent purpose, while the latter indicates a commitment to the ongoing growth and propagation of the church, even after we are long gone – it is something that is bigger than any of us. I think my story may reflect a shift from one idea to the other.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was involved in church life from the very beginning, getting my first Bible within two weeks of being born. The story in my family is that when we moved to Florida when I was in third grade, we started looking for a church to join and planned on going to several churches, but I like Seminole First Baptist Church so much that we never went anywhere else. By the age of fourteen I was reading the Bible through every year and had my first set of commentaries by the time I was about 17. I was very involved in my youth group and at the age of sixteen I experienced a call to the ministry.
Some serious family problems, long hidden, came to light while I was a freshman in college, putting me into a long spiritual tailspin. I was like the Israelites, wandering the desert of Sinai, without a spiritual home. I still managed to read the Bible through every year, but it was as dry as the desert, and I was unconnected to any church, community, or myself. I look back and, while I do not think God willed that I would experience that sense of disconnectedness, I think that God has been able to use that experience to make me more aware of what others are going through. There are some who are blessed with a life free of desert experiences, but I think most of us have to go through the desert to get to our Promised Lands.
I did visit a church in Gainesville for about six months, but never really felt a part of it, though I do not think that was the fault of the church, but rather my own deep troubles. But I remember vividly when things started to stir in me again. I had been coaching a girls soccer team for two years, and one of the team captains, Erin, was being confirmed at her church. Erin’s family invited me to join them and so I drove down to Ocala for the service. I remember that for some reason the hymns touched me deeply; I think that perhaps the physicality of singing gave my soul a chance to express itself. In looking back, I wonder if part of the impact was the result of being there not by myself, but with people I was connected to. Perhaps it is difficult to worship God by oneself, after all, even God is in community with Himself through the Trinity. Regardless, it was there that my longing for God truly began to express itself.
Within just a few months, I was in Texas, which was also the result of God moving in my life and in the lives of others. He has slowly been delivering me back to community with Him and with others. It was in Galveston that I decided to go back to church – I realized that after all of those years that the church had meant a lot to me and I needed to be a part of it.
There are lots of levels of commitment, the first and most basic one being attendance. Half of life is just about showing up. I started by coming to the worship services – sitting in the back, of course. I then started coming to Sunday school classes fairly regularly as well. At this point I was slowly reintegrating my way back into church life, refamiliarizing myself with the rhythms of worship, prayer, and the people. There was a very nice old woman who sat a couple of rows behind me, Rachel Lu Syler. She had been at the church most of her life and had never been married. She was fairly frail, so I would often offer my arm to her to help her walk out after the service. She passed away a few years ago.
Sometimes I think we only discover the depth of our commitments in times of crisis and perhaps the resignation of our pastor was a blessing to me. At that point I realized how much the church had come to mean to me and I was determined to do my part to help it survive through the tough times to come. I think that it is at this point that I became interested in the life of the church. The ensuing several years have tested my commitment to the life of my church to the core. There have been several times when I’ve been tempted to leave because things were so miserable, but I’m glad I’ve stayed. As I’ve learned from my grandmother, the bad times pass, as do the good times. And we often learn more from the tough times than we do from the easy ones. I’ve been fortunate that I take my commitments very seriously, maybe more than I should sometimes.
My willingness to make myself accountable is not quite the same. For many years one of the excuses I used for avoiding church was that I didn’t want people telling me what I can do or can’t do. This was demonstrated by sitting toward the back when I first came back to the church, I was symbolically keeping the church at a distance. I could come and participate in the worship, but if they did not know me, they could not interfere in my life. But, of course, one cannot be a part of a community by keeping it at a distance.
The irony is that the more I took the risk of letting people in – and the potential judgments that went with it – the better my experience was. By letting people get to know me, they were able to help me out when I needed it. By getting to know them better, I was able to help them when they needed help. There is something nice about someone saying that they haven’t seen you in church for a while and they’ve missed you. It is easy to hear that as a judgment, but often it is someone telling you that the church is a better place when you are there.
Like most people, I have the most difficult time with accountability in the area of confession. The Baptist tradition does not teach anything about public confession to a church authority figure. The idea is that when we sin, we sin against God and it is God who forgives our sin when we confess to God and repent, so we pray for forgiveness to God, who forgives us. Theologically, this makes a lot of sense to me; psychologically I’m not so sure it makes any sense. While it may be only God who can forgive our sins, I get the sense that psychologically it may be more beneficial to confess to another human being. It is humbling enough to confess to God, but God is perfect and so there is a sense in which we can excuse ourselves for being less than perfect. How much more humbling and challenging is it to confess to another fragile human being and ask that person to share God’s gracious forgiveness with us?
Last night one of my Catholic classmates arranged to have confession with one of the monks. He said that he felt like a load had been lifted off of his shoulders after it was done, that he had the best walk back to the dorms of the week. I don’t know what happened or how it went or what he confessed, but I was frankly envious of his visible relief. I’m not sure that I’ve ever had the same sense of relief from any of the confessions that were just between me and God. Maybe that says something about me and my relationship to God. But, if you are like me and prone to sins of pride and arrogance, perhaps the humility of confessing to another human being is the best form of accountability available.
Finally, there is the issue of me and authority. I’m perfectly fine with authority as long as I’m in charge. Otherwise, there might be a problem! I have a natural built in resistance to authority. Actually, the more nuanced way of putting it is that I am willing to subject myself to authority when I think that the person is using power appropriately. I will always resist power used wrongly. Of course, the problem with all people in authority is that they are human and even the best leaders are going to misuse their authority now and then. But the reality is that no human community can survive without working out how power is distributed. Recently there seems to be a plague of people who somehow think organizations can function without authority structures, but that is so beyond possibility as to be foolish in the extreme. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does power. It is better to deal with the reality of the fact that power must be used in order to keep a community functioning.
I have to constantly be careful in my relations to authority figures in the church. Because of my proclivity to reflexively resist authority figures I may be missing out on working with people who can challenge me and push me to grow. I still have a lot to learn and only by making myself available to authority figures that can help me in that learning which will allow me to be able to become the person God made me to be.
In my final journal entry I will write about what I’ve learned about these three things from the monks here. Peace be with you.
Praying the scriptures
This morning we took time to try the ancient prayer practice of lectio divinia. It's made a bit of a revival in recent times, but is still relatively unknown in Protestant circles as a regular spiritual practice.
Last year we did a passage that I had a very difficult time with. I had some serious issues with it and ended up spending a couple of hours talking to my friend about it. The passage we used today was 1 Kings 17:7-16, which I had a much easier time with, particularly as I have some anxiety about my future right now.
It is an interesting way to pray and I would definitely recommend it as a something to try.
Last year we did a passage that I had a very difficult time with. I had some serious issues with it and ended up spending a couple of hours talking to my friend about it. The passage we used today was 1 Kings 17:7-16, which I had a much easier time with, particularly as I have some anxiety about my future right now.
It is an interesting way to pray and I would definitely recommend it as a something to try.
Bacon
One of the nice things about eating breakfast here is that they often serve bacon. I happen to be slightly obsessed with good bacon (not that there is such a thing as bad bacon, just some that is better than others). Anyway, if you too are not afraid to stand up tall and strike fear into the hearts of swine all over the world, you might want to visit this site, where you can find the Bacon of the Month Club. You won't be sorry.
I got up for seconds this morning and Dr. Schmidt almost broke the silence by laughing at me, because he knew where I was going and what I was going for.
I should remind first time readers that in the monastery, breakfast is completely silent. (If you want to know more about the basics, check out my journal from last year, which can be found starting here.) Another thing about the monks and food is that you never see them scrape leftover food off of their plate. They will take an initial portion and then go back for more if they are still hungry. It is not a wasteful group of guys.
I got up for seconds this morning and Dr. Schmidt almost broke the silence by laughing at me, because he knew where I was going and what I was going for.
I should remind first time readers that in the monastery, breakfast is completely silent. (If you want to know more about the basics, check out my journal from last year, which can be found starting here.) Another thing about the monks and food is that you never see them scrape leftover food off of their plate. They will take an initial portion and then go back for more if they are still hungry. It is not a wasteful group of guys.
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