Choose your destination before you set out on a path.
Their law is what they like to do, whatever strikes their fancy. Anything they believe in and choose, they call holy; anything they dislike, they consider forbidden (Rule of St. Benedict, 1.8-9)
So . . . if you’re thinking that this is a description of our culture today, actually it’s not. This is St Benedict describing corrupt monks in the 6th century. The mental outlook that surrounds us now was already an option then. It has always been appealing to think that you can do whatever you want now and be fine in the end. But a closer look at real experience shows that choices have consequences. You’ve got to choose your destination in order to figure out the right path to get there.
The monks that St Benedict approves of are the coenobitarum, which is Latin for koinos bios, which is Greek for common life, which is English for what I aim to discuss here. Life in community is the focus of St Benedict’s Rule. He invites you to choose as your destination community with God and your fellow human beings.
St. Benedict also refers to the eremitarum, which is the Latin transliteration of the Greek eremitēs, which means “one who lives in the desert” and gives us the English word hermit. He himself lived as a hermit for three years. He describes the hermit as ready with God’s help to grapple single-handed with the vices of body and mind (Rule of St. Benedict 1.5).
When I first started to think of the housewife-mother as a domestic hermit, it was because of the experience of being overwhelmed by the demands of life in a family with children. And yet I also felt isolated, grappling with all sorts of interior struggles. I don’t think my experience is unusual. I think that many people flee the domestic life exactly because of this combination of exterior harassment and interior aridity.
My goal here is to provide some support for Christian families. I’m going to write from the perspective of someone who finds goodness difficult and not always attractive. If you’re very good already, I won’t be at your level. If you’re hanging on by your fingernails and thinking of letting go, I have a few tips for how to claw your way to survival.
Most people dislike philosophy, so I’ll just note that I would situate myself in the Existential Thomist line. If you’re interested in pursuing this topic, I would suggest that you NOT try reading St. Thomas Aquinas on your own. I would suggest that you read Jacques Maritain instead. Start with his Christianity and Democracy. The difference between reading Maritain and reading Aquinas is like the difference between drinking a gin-and-tonic and chewing the bark of the cinchona tree to extract the quinine. In the case of Aquinas, you really do want someone else to distill it for you.
You don’t need to be a philosopher to notice how challenging it is for Jesus to say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” John 14:6. His way of life is a narrow path uphill, and that’s not where the crowd is heading. Meanwhile, you have myriads of alternatives immediately available. A lot of nice people are rushing off in other directions, and who can tell yet where they will end up? But Jesus insists that only his path leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).
He didn’t say you have to climb quickly. There’s no quota of miles you must get through in a day. You can sit down every ten feet and rest, if you need to. And you don’t have to get to the end to experience the life. You just have to be on the path–or in the vicinity of the path, retrieving someone from the landscape. You can backtrack and retrace your steps, again, because that’s just what you have to do to keep everyone together. And you may find that your children have more energy than you do for the challenge. They hate to walk, but they love to run. If you point them in the right direction, soon they’ll get far beyond you, and you’ll be calling to them to wait up.
Choose your destination: are you aiming for eternal community with those you love and with your Creator?