Browsing tag: rule of st benedict

  • Cultivate Silence

    My children, “…diligently cultivate silence…” (Be still and know that I am God.) Rule of St. Benedict 42

    The spiritual discipline of silence has an age-old history. In the spectrum of spiritual disciplines, it belongs to the category of fasting. Exercises such as fasting–from food or from mental stimulus–not only benefit our physical and mental health, but also develop us spiritually. Over time, they help us reap a greater peacefulness, and increased fortitude to face whatever we must face in life.

    Silence need not be absolute to be beneficial. Even an ordinary person can practice it, even in a domestic context. You benefit physically from disciplining your consumption of food, and mentally from disciplining what you expose your mind to. This principle holds true even for people who are not seeking any sort of communion with God. It’s a basic fact of human health. Just as the person who cannot stop eating is showing signs of something amiss, so too the person who remains in a perpetual state of distraction. The one who cannot bear to be silent even for a few minutes is exhibiting a mental state akin to insatiable appetite.

    You may not learn to value silence until you’ve had the experience of caring for a screaming baby. The constant clamoring of children teaches us that the ability to stay quiet is a sign of maturity, whereas constant agitation and demands are the starting point of beginners in life.

    Silence as a spiritual discipline is not about finding a quiet environment, although of course this helps. But spiritual quiet is an interior state that is independent of whatever noise may be all around you. The discipline of silence has to do with the mental stimulus that you are free to regulate, not with all the noises that you do not control.

    Of course, there are people who should not engage in food restriction, because their bodies are in a fragile state. And people who are in a fragile mental state should not be seeking silence, especially if they are depressed. Some people need more nutrition, or more stimulus than they’ve been getting.

    But, if you are fit, the voluntary silencing of distractions can strengthen you spiritually. When you are at leisure to listen to something or not–music, or whatever else you normally turn to–simply refraining from this input can become a gesture by which you express to God your willingness to hear him. Even if you have nothing else to offer God, you always have this: the gift of yourself, expressed as the willing sacrifice of your attention, should he wish to speak.

    This doesn’t mean that when you practice silence, you will hear a supernatural voice. On the contrary, just as when you fast you can expect to feel hungry, when you are silent you can expect to hear nothing but the ordinary noises of your environment that you don’t normally pay attention to. If you have made yourself available, and you know very well that you have heard nothing divine, congratulations: this is a sure sign of your sanity. And you are in good company. The testimony of the saints through the ages is that they endured many long years of the silence of God before ever perceiving the voice of God.

    But the silence of God does not mean that he is absent. The God who sustains the universe at the atomic level sees and understands the effort you have made. Perhaps he will reveal himself in a spectacular way, but these interventions are rare and, by most accounts are terrifying when they occur. He doesn’t want to terrify or destroy you but to call you into harmony with himself. God knows what you can bear, because he designed you. He gave you the freedom to turn toward him, and when you exercise that freedom, even in a tiny way, he will surely draw near to the one attempting to draw nearer to him.

    On the way to hearing from God, you will have to face yourself. And for many people, the perpetual search for distraction is exactly the attempt to escape from themselves. In silence the troublesome thoughts you have been suppressing come into the forefront of your mind. Sorrows, anxieties and nagging perplexities come bubbling to the surface of your awareness. Rather than fighting them, hand them over to God in prayer: Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

    Or perhaps you find yourself enduring a period of forced silence, not at all what you wished for. Since you cannot escape, you might as well offer God your willing attention. Who knows but he will open up a whole new path for you? All things work together for good for those who love God. He will communicate, probably not with signs and wonders to impress anyone else, but in ways meaningful to you. If you have gone wrong in some way, he will bring to your attention what you should correct.

    The God who made the universe is not a puppet on a string or a genie in a lamp. No one can summon him and make him perform. He speaks to whom he wishes and says what he means to say: when, where and how he chooses. But he also quietly draws near to humble hearts willing to set aside a moment of freedom in his honor. See if he does not repay you for your effort with some gracious gift of his own.

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  • Hold Your Peace

    The ninth step of humility is that a monk controls his tongue and remains silent. . . . for Scripture warns, In a flood of words you will not avoid sinning (Proverbs 10:19). [Rule of St. Benedict 7.56-58]

    When you get to the point of being able to hold your tongue, you know that the Holy Spirit really has been at work within you.

    First of all, you interact differently in a group of people, when everyone is venting grievances. You know from long experience that if you don’t chime in with a complaint of your own, you can’t participate in the conversation. But are you really so bad off today? The Spirit prompts you to remember what you can enjoy and be thankful for. You don’t really want to be one of these people for whom the only pleasure in life is the complaining.

    Or it’s time for opinions. Some people cannot NOT have a say. Their thoughts clack on compulsively without intermission.  They always know best, no matter the topic, and if they really don’t understand, they’re not interested. In a serious discussion, they tell everyone that they themselves don’t know what they mean–and yet they keep talking.

    Because social status is at stake, or success in a classroom or at a job, survival seems to depend on asserting your voice. Existence itself hangs on beating out the competition. To remain silent–unheard, unseen, unacknowledged–can feel actually dangerous, like standing still in a stampede. What will happen to you if you don’t jump in and jostle a place?  We know where the unimportant people end up: at the bottom, invisible, irrelevant, trampled.

    And yet, beneath and behind, present everywhere, seeing everything, we find God himself, sustaining all, yet so often unheeded.

    Remaining silent, listening to others is a way to imitate the character of God himself, and in imitating him, to know his peace. It is a fitting stance for a human being to remain quiet yet present, without asserting self-importance, because God himself is willing to remain present yet silent everywhere, all the time, when if he wished he could overwhelm and silence all voices.

    When you practice this act of humility, you find after a while that the insipid remarks of silly people do not irk you as they used too. That burning urge to have your say has dissipated. You are able to hold your peace.

    But just as proud people everywhere despise God for his silence and mistake his generosity for weakness, so you too may find that someone with whom you have always been gracious turns against you. You offer a listening ear, loyalty and unconditional acceptance. In return you may get–slander. The chill slither of malice through your soul leaves a hole that will not soon heal.

    Be still. Don’t play into the backstabber’s game. God hears your silence and sees your humility. He himself will enter within to comfort and sustain you. When the time comes for you to speak, the Word himself will be with you. Commit your way to him and hold your peace.

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  • Choose Your Destination

    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?

     

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  • Forbear

    In truth, those who are patient amid hardships and unjust treatment are fulfilling the Lord’s command: When struck on one cheek, they turn the other; when deprived of their coat, they offer their cloak also; when pressed into service for one mile, they go two [Matthew 5: 39-41].  (Rule of St. Benedict 7.42)

    If you had to pick the craziest-sounding command of Jesus, “turn the other cheek” might win the prize.  Second and third place go to offering extra goods to a thief and volunteering help to a bully.

    But each of these scenarios involves a strictly limited sacrifice.  You can walk two miles out of your way and still get home.  You can give up two items of clothing and still make a living.  A slap in the face is painful and insulting, but you can survive and go on.  In no way do these instructions imply that we should stick around forever to be defrauded, enslaved or murdered.

    No one has more than two cheeks, and the gospels don’t tell us what to do if, after getting a second chance, the attacker keeps on hitting.

    Still, there’s a concept here.  Like so many Christian concepts, a word exists for it in English but has fallen out of use.  The command is: forbear.

    Inherent in this word is the sense that the practice of its principle is hard.  The Old English prefix “for” intensifies the verb “to bear.”  It means to endure–specifically to suffer insult and injury while refraining from revenge.

    Who can do it?

    In fact some people in this world today are already enduring far more than Jesus asked.  They cannot bear up because they have been crushed.  Others are straining so hard against oppression that they expend all their strength just to keep their footing.

    It’s the rest of us who have choices to make.

    Sometimes you choose to walk away from friends who have sold out to trending evil.

    If you have the power to stop an injustice, to stand idle is not forbearance but collusion.  If you are responsible for other people, you must act in their best interest.  Forbearance ends where duty begins.  Sometimes duty requires that you act to oppose bad behavior.

    Nor can you forbear on behalf of someone else.  You bear up under your own suffering.  You don’t glibly offer up another person to endure something that you yourself don’t have to worry about.

    Forbearance is the restraint of strength, not the passive submission of weakness.  In order to forbear, you must first realize that you could hit back.  So think of a way to do it.

    Then, instead, attempt to negotiate a solution.  You hope that your example of restraint will give pause to the other person.  After all, people can behave badly without being bad people.  Perhaps they will reconsider and make an effort to do better.  Instead of escalating the conflict, you give them another chance.  You appeal to the good in them rather than fueling the bad.

    Or you may hold back out of concern for someone else who is innocent and who would suffer as a result of your action.  For the sake of the good person, you refrain from punishing the bad one.  This is the forbearance that God extends to the whole world every day, as he continues to sustain the existence of those who do wrong, for the sake of those who do right.

    There’s no privileged class of people who can bypass the righteousness of God.  He will hold each person accountable individually.  We can refrain from vengeance because he promises that he will establish justice in the end.

    So it’s not only for this world’s life that we struggle.  Yet we do struggle for life in this world.  We refrain from vengeance, but we also work for justice.  We manage to turn the other cheek, because we look over the shoulders of wicked people and see a new day dawning in which they have become irrelevant.

    Your own dwelling is the greenhouse of the seedlings of hope.  It’s at home that we learn to forbear.  When a boy has had his juice spilled by his little sister–the juice he was going to take to school, and now there’s none left–and (after the initial howl of dismay) he tells you not to be mad at her, it was just an accident, and even, “I’ll clean it up”–then rejoice and be glad, because heaven has conquered in that moment.

    Or perhaps a younger child destroys the possession of an older sibling.  This is where the older one learns what grace is.  Because restitution may be impossible.  The child must let go the attachment to the destroyed object and extend mercy to the incompetent other, who not only cannot compensate for the loss but is not even reliably going to refrain from doing the same thing again.  This is forbearance.  It is brotherly love.  A child who can forgive a brother or sister has come very far in the Christian life already.

    When children begin to intercede on behalf of their siblings, so that you won’t be angry at the brother or sister, then you know that you’re in the presence of saints.  They don’t think of themselves as saints.  But their behavior is no less holy.

    Forbearance is that moment when justice halts for the sake of peace.  Truth holds its tongue for the sake of love.  On a small scale, everyone regularly experiences something that feels unfair.  When everyone learns to forbear, you will have a happy home.

    Not wealthy homes but loving ones produce good people.

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  • Persevere

    For Scripture has it: Anyone who perseveres to the end will be saved, [Matthew 10:22]and again, Be brave of heart and rely on the Lord. [Psalm 27:14].  (Rule of St. Benedict 7.36-37)

    Discipline for a goal always was, and still is worth it.

    People with ordinary faces get up every day and keep going: for the sake of their children; for the sake of what is right and true and good; for love.

    Any goal worth reaching will point you uphill.  Hell is the other way.  There’s a broad, paved road with a gentle slope downhill, and all the cool people are on it, crowds of them.  If you were drifting with them but decide to turn around, you’ll have to fight your way through them, and they shove hard.  You will impede their fun.

    The question that pulses and pants and gets a headache is: what am I doing this for?

    Heaven beckons like a five-star vacation.  The Church promises that it’s already booked and paid for.

    But you’ve got to do the walking.  It’s a long hike through tough terrain.  Hardship doesn’t mean you’re guilty.  Hardship means you’re human, and still trying.

    God is always at work everywhere for good: within you too.  He will sustain you.  Bet your life on it.

    Sure, take a break and see if you can prove something.  But the choice always comes down to going on or giving up.  Therefore, people who are sweating uphill are probably honest when they offer help. Try being grateful, and accept it.  Hoist yourself to your feet.  It’s called perseverance. In other words, it means sending weight to bear on your forward foot when your toes pinch and your heel blisters.

    There’s a clear enough path when you start out. But then it wears thin and blends into the rock you’re balancing on.  Next thing you know, you’re craning your neck up a cliff face.  Walking was the easy part. You tell yourself it’s time to turn around and find that highway you were too good for.

    Others have been this way before: learn from them.  For instance, wear the harness.  Use the ropes.  You will surely slip and fall, but humility will save your life every time.  Free solo climbers will not pray or obey.

    Muscles clench that you didn’t know were in you.  The hissing sound is your own breath.  Fingertips are all the grip you’ve got.

    Someone slips and showers you with dirt and fragments.  The echo of that scream does not fade away.

    Or was that a jumper?  Jumpers are never alone.  They always drag a few others who were strapped to them.

    Certainly there are prayers that God seems in no hurry to answer. But when you pray for strength to do the right thing, he comes through, especially when there’s someone else roped to you and your fingers have gone numb.

    Sometimes he answers so fast that by the end of the day you’re kicking back on a plateau, enjoying the view.  When everyone you care about is getting along and helping each other, you might as well be in heaven.  You’ve already got what it’s all about.

    Pace yourself.  The tough parts push you beyond your limits.  That’s what getting stronger feels like.

    For a long time it’s awful, but the day comes when you flex your fingertips and don’t cramp.  You’re hanging off the next cliff, but it’s your cliff.  You own it.

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  • Wise Up

    Repent Definition

    If at all times the Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see whether any understand and seek God (Psalm 14:2)…After sparing us for a while because he is a loving father who waits for us to improve, he may tell us later, This you did, and I said nothing (Psalm 50:21).  (Rule of St. Benedict 7.26-30).

    God is not absent: he sustains the universe.  He’s not stupid: after all, he created you.  He’s not indifferent: he’s waiting to see what you will do with the freedom he’s given you.

    He sees you getting up every day, trying to do the right thing.  Then again, he also sees those who don’t bother; are misguided; insane.

    Why doesn’t he do something?  If you want to complain, make sure you’re doing the thing that you are in fact responsible for.  This gives you credibility.

    And then you have to stop doing the wrong thing, which is trickier.  Maybe you’re trapped.  This is when you’ve got to start praying for help.

    Usually it’s someone else’s fault.  Still, you’re responsible for your part in it.

    One day you’ll stand before God face to face, at which point you can explain that he made several terrible strategic errors, one of which was believing in you.

    Meanwhile, he’s expecting you to figure out what the right thing is and put it into practice.

    Surely he has a plan B?

    You ARE plan B.  The A guy didn’t make it.

    It was supposed to be someone pure.  Someone holy.  Someone perfect.  Unfortunately, now it’s you.

    Even if you don’t do a perfect job, the fact that you keep trying makes all the difference between happiness and unhappiness for those who depend on you.  Half of goodness is just showing up.

    God expects us to grow up, to become mature.  This is why he leaves us to make our own choices and even allows us to make mistakes: just as parents allow their toddlers to fall when they’re learning how to walk.

    The Christian life is something that we learn by living it, just as we learn to walk and talk by doing these things.  We shouldn’t be terrified of making mistakes.  When we stumble and fall, we get up and try again.  Terror of imperfection is the obsession of neurotics.  The Christian has been promised infinite grace, and forgiveness every time he acknowledges his faults.

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  • Silent Night, Holy Dawn

    Elegant Definition

    We absolutely condemn in all places any vulgarity. . . .  (Rule of St. Benedict 6.8)

    In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.  He spoke, and called forth formed things. To live a holy life is to move within these forms willingly.

    A holy life is an elegant life.

    The savor of elegance blends qualities of restraint and creativity.  Vulgarity glaringly lacks both.

    What is vulgarity?

    Vulgarity displays itself verbally in language; visually in esthetics.  Jokes can be crass, but so can architecture.  Clothing but also conversation can be indecent.  The vibe of vulgarity involves an absence of restraint along with a will to self-assertion, especially in a group.  Crude people do not call themselves into question, because everyone they notice is doing the same thing.  A sort of pushy smugness combines too much confidence with too little content in too callous a crowd.

    Profane people do not stop.  They stampede in the direction of a boundary and trample it deliberately, because they can.  It’s also the only thing they know how to do.  They tend to be the set in power at the moment.  

    With no respect for boundaries, there’s no sense of danger.  Uncouth people back off the edge of the Grand Canyon taking selfies.  They die on a ledge a few hours later because the lives of paramedics can’t be risked for anyone that graceless.  Their barbaric friends take more pictures, then go on their way just as before.

    Base people do not feel grief.  Mourning requires sensitivity to the border between life and death, and even this line of demarcation they do not perceive.  How could they?  All they’ve ever been taught is that they emerged randomly from nothing.  They fully expect to dissolve into nothing again, and not be missed.  Randomness is a brutal philosophy.  Its adherents show no pity.

    Elegant people are gracious

    In contrast, gracious people voluntarily honor boundaries: the lines between right and wrong; good and evil; being and nothing; beauty and ugliness.

    The antidote to vulgarity is humility.  If you treat other people with respect, you won’t commit obscenities, even though you make mistakes.  If you’re not trying to assert yourself over others, you’re not likely to infringe.  Minding limits, you engage your whole life in a practice of discipline.  This reeling in of yourself on the verge of a boundary is the essence of modesty.  It’s an active compliance that trains self-control, so you can live a graceful life.

    Elegant, definition: Elegance involves a sense of risk.  It’s a challenge to thread your way through without transgressing.  Who can do it?  But each attempt develops ability.  There are some who succeed beautifully.  We admire them and strive to imitate their technique.  Artistry is not the province of flippant violators.  Creativity does not ignore principles but rather applies them.

    For the Christian, beauty includes paradox.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  The greatest was the servant of all.  The virgin gave birth.  The creator of the universe chose human parents who couldn’t afford anything better than an animal shed to shelter in.  Again and again, Christian teachings balance improbable truths on a fulcrum of miraculous possibility.

    As we make our way, we search for this narrow ridge of redemption.  We find it, and then our feet slip out from under us, and we slide off.  But there is someone to rescue us.  Holiness is not only practiced but bestowed.  Failure climbs back as resilience.

    Within the ways of God we exercise complete freedom to create.  He is the one who called us into being, gave us shape and endowed us with talents.  Vulgarity is not our destiny.

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  • Zip It

     I said, I have resolved to keep watch over my ways that I may never sin with my tongue.  I have put a guard on my mouth…. [Psalm 39:1-3]  (Rule of St. Benedict 6.1-6)

    Keep your mouth shut? It’s awfully hard to do.

    It’s especially difficult in a competitive environment, where talking is part of the game, and the loudest ones seem to win.  Across languages and cultures, human beings exercise dominance by imposing verbally over others.  The powerful say whatever they want.  Everyone else has to be careful, and whisper.  Sometimes speaking at all can feel like a fight for survival.  In this as in everything else, the Christian message is paradoxical.  Do you fear being completely ignored, if you keep quiet while everyone else has a say?  Then trust God, and hold your tongue.

    If you follow this teaching, expect to spend many hours of your life listening to other people declaim nonsense.  There are some who will talk at full speed as long as anyone will listen, never pausing for breath.  Curiously, though, as soon as you try to reply, the intense focus of which they are clearly capable dissolves into wandering attention and distracted mannerisms.  They have the energy to speak, but not to remain silent.  Talking requires much less effort than listening.

    Do not imitate them.  In the short term, they seem to dominate the group.  But in the long run, the verbose end up deleted.  Just because people have no choice but to hear you doesn’t mean they are persuaded.

    The goal is not to seal yourself into hermetic isolation, however.  There is a time to communicate what you think.  The monosyllabic sphinx is a tiresome companion too.  When people are sincerely interested in you, don’t weary them by making them guess what’s going on.  It’s on you to communicate in a coherent way.  But what thoughts are actually pouring forth from within you?

    For some, it’s perpetual dissatisfaction.  They can complain about anything, and they will.  If the temperature drops, they complain about the cold.  When it warms up, they complain about the heat.  If it rains, they complain about getting wet.  If it doesn’t, they complain on behalf of the parched vegetation. Keep your mouth shut? You wish you could tell them!

    Others spew malice.  They sidle up, masquerading as sociable.  Beware those who insinuate nasty things about people behind their backs, while attempting to draw you in with flattery.  As soon as you’re out of earshot, they’ll be hissing derogatory remarks about you too.  If you must comment on someone who’s absent, try to think of something positive to say.  Malicious gossips will learn to avoid you, because it repels them to hear others praised.

    Good words come from the good within you.  If only this were enough!  But the thing is that dishonesties characterize the social conventions of every society.  Cultures define themselves by the peculiar sorts of dissembling they require.  Figuring out what you’re not supposed to say is one of the biggest challenges of a foreign environment.  Some are so hateful that you live in fear of tripping a mine whenever you open your mouth.  You have to be careful about speaking the truth.

    It’s safest to refrain from asking questions.  But if you see someone making a potentially dangerous mistake, you must in good conscience speak out.  The other person will likely reject your advice.  Sometimes your intrusion will provoke such resentment that the chill will never thaw again.  But you’re not actually doing anything wrong, if you’re motivated by love.  It’s just that not everyone will want to hear it, even if you’ve got it right, even though you care.

    There are also, inevitably, moments of personal struggle, when you simply must express how you feel, whatever the consequences.  Every human being needs friends.  When another person hears and understands, there’s an enormous relief, quite apart from solving any problem.  Just remember that those who love you enough to listen also need support from you.  Listening is a mutual comfort.

    Sometimes in acute distress we lash out at the person closest to us.  This is human, but it’s also terribly unfair.  Pull yourself together and apologize.  Even in the most loving, most intimate relationships, you’ve got to maintain a proportion of courtesy.  Honesty, like vinegar, is unbearable on its own.  More oil than vinegar goes into a salad dressing, and the same is true for relationships, even close ones.  Try to balance your honesty with some balm for the feelings of the other person.

    Cherish those who care enough about you to listen.  And with strangers, keep your mouth shut.  You won’t get into trouble for what you don’t say.

     

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  • Trust And Obey

    The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all.…  [T]hey carry out the superior’s order as promptly as if the command came from God himself.…  This very obedience, however, will be acceptable to God and agreeable to men only if compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or half-hearted.…  (Rule of St. Benedict 5.1-14)

    Sheer cussedness is not a Christian virtue, even if you are from Texas.  None of the translators feature “stubbornness” anywhere in the lists of fruits of the Spirit.  “Perseverance” comes close, but perseverance implies that you’re going in the right direction.  Going the other way just because it’s your way is called “perverse,” and that’s not in there either.

    If you can’t tell the difference between persevering and perverse, ask yourself when was the last time you were wrong.  If you can’t remember ever being wrong, or admitting it, you’ll belong in the short word crowd.

    Watch out, because perverse can slide into “perverted” when you reject all correction, on principle.  The day comes when even your instincts are destructive, and so are all your friends.  That population does not perceive that the impulse carrying them over the cliff is their own ill will.

    Rebellion gets attention, but rebellion for its own sake only tears down existing systems.  The perpetual objector doesn’t contribute anything positive.  At school, at home, at work, waiting in line and anywhere else, the person who just won’t do what anyone asks makes life tedious for everyone else.  The worst part of leadership, when you are the one in charge is dragging along the grudging trudger.

    All human authority rests on the authority of God (Romans 13:1-7).  Where a derivative power contradicts the sustaining source, we surely should question that rickety racket.  So do open your eyes, prick up your ears and wrinkle your nose before going along with anyone.  But on the other hand, you can’t expect to develop sensitivity to divine cues, which are spiritual, if you refuse to heed human instructions, which you understand just fine.  Obedience to human authority is a way of expressing obedience to God’s authority, when the one does not contradict the other.

    This is why the goal of the Christian cannot be to rebel and get away with it.  The Christian goal must be to establish a just society, so that there’s no moral dilemma opposing obedience to God and obedience to authority.  In all ordinary occasions of everyday action, obedience to intermediate authorities is the Christian default.  Not snide reluctance but willing participation is what we offer to those in positions of responsibility.  If you are habitually helpful, when a truly moral dilemma comes along, most authority figures will be well-disposed to listen to you.  Even tyrants run low on energy and resources.  They lean on the person they can count on.  Ten to one they would rather accommodate your objection on that day, since you frame it in a respectful way.

    And if they refuse to listen, you will be able to mount an effective protest only if you can work with other people.  Working with people always does end up requiring systems of authority, hierarchy and delegation, because perfect unanimity in all things is a divine quality, not a human one.  Deferring to each other is the closest we can get to harmony.

    Of course, the ultimate question is whether we can trust God, to want to obey him at all.  In order to trust someone’s leadership, you need to feel confident both in the goodness and in the competence of the person in charge.  God is good, but is he good enough?  It’s the longing for goodness–to find it somewhere in the mess, to retrieve whatever’s left of it from annihilation, to set it back on its feet–that keeps driving us to throw in our lot with someone who does not guarantee that we will not suffer.

    We do accomplish something.  It is worthwhile.  Risks are worth taking for a life worth living.

    Obedience is trust taking that risk.  We trust the God who created the universe to figure out how to fix it.  He has a plan.  No one else does.  Christ is the only one offering redemption.  He is the one who climbs into the rubble of the world to rescue those trapped in the wreckage of ruined lives.  We follow him into dangerous places because we trust him to lead us through death itself into eternal life.

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  • Redemption

    Place your hope in God alone.  If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 41-43)

    Glaciers are receding, and at first the mountains they leave behind are as bare as the moon.  But up the stark cliffs the lichen first, then the wild sweet peas, then the alders grow.  Evergreen forests, moose and bear come to thrive on slopes relieved of eons of ice.  Grizzlies, bald eagles and salmon multiply, given a habitat and half a chance.  What about us, can we come back?

    It’s a spiritual ice age, these days.  Cool people tell us that we emerged randomly from nothing, will soon dissolve into nothing, and that no one cares anyway.  They say we’re helpless to control our own impulses; cannot alter our destructive habits; might as well yield to what’s killing us.  Give up and despair.  Do violence to yourself.  End it.

    But the Church holds onto the warmth of love and holds out for the thrill of life lived in harmony with our Creator.  The Christian hope is redemption.

    Redemption is a process, sometimes a slow one.  Glaciers and fingernails grow at about the same speed. So do souls.  But redemption is a transformation we willingly engage in.  We surrender the parts of ourselves that are mean or petty, that clash with the character of our Creator.  The God who formed the universe and who endows each tiny creature with its own particular beauty also called each one of us into being.  He wants to pull us back from the brink, but he gives us our freedom.  We participate willingly or not at all.

    First we must reconcile with the source of goodness, in order to develop goodness ourselves. Then we let our old identity die away even as a new identity forms within us. The new person gets up every day and struggles to do the right thing. It’s not a futile struggle. It’s the exertion of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. Every decision you make against evil, for good participates in your eternal formation. What you will be has not yet been revealed, but your new form will be glorious. Look around and observe glimpses of glory. God is always at work everywhere for good. Contemplate what he has already done.

    Right now you may feel slimy, constrained and exhausted. The effort is part of the process. You get stronger as you try. This is because you’re not just achieving an objective. You’re becoming someone. Morphing from one state of being to a new one, temporarily you have fewer powers, not more. The force of rage has dissipated, because you experience peace within. Your new movements may be awkward at first, but soon enough you’ll stretch wings and be flying. It’s a whole new experience of reality. No regrets for the dry husk left behind.

     

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