Benedictine Balance, The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus

The idea that Benedictine spirituality is all about balance seems to be a pervasive one. I frequently hear people say it is why they are interested in coming to the monastery, in learning more about Benedict and applying Benedictine principles to their lives. It is a very admirable goal in our world characterized by frenzy and headlong activity.

I think there is one problem with it. (Warning: this is where I am about to commit Benedictine heresy, the fainthearted among you may want to quit reading at this point and skip to something safer.) After having read and tried to live the Rule of Benedict for a number of years I think the idea of Benedictine balance is a lot like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It is a wonderful idea that reflects our deepest needs and desires but is ultimately a myth.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny speak to our childlike desire for the free gifts, the chocolate eggs and new bicycles that we want so badly. The idea of Benedictine balance speaks to our deep, childlike desire for a life that does not seem to involve intense, unending busyness, a life in which our desire for God is a significant part, not a piece that is shoehorned in-between meetings and obligations. This idea of balance seems to be based on an ideal of a life that would be equal parts work, family, leisure and God. It is not a bad ideal. But I don’t think it is Benedict’s ideal.

For Benedict monastic life is not about achieving a balance of various activities it is about a life in which absolutely everything is centered on God. God is not a significant part of monastic life, a primary priority in a hectic schedule, but monastic life is completely, absolutely, unequivocally focused on God. Work is what monks have to do to support themselves to live a life focused solely on God. Everything in the Rule, everything in monastic life, is about God, how you handle the dishes, how you sleep, how you relate with one another, how you pray and how you eat your food are all about the journey toward God, the ultimate journey to eternal life.

This is usually where people start to despair. They think that if this is the case then Benedictine spirituality cannot speak to ordinary people with families and demanding jobs and all sorts of responsibilities in “the world.” Clearly this kind of total focus on God can only happen in a monastery where all the structures are oriented toward this full-time, wholehearted, immersion in God.

I don’t think that this the only or even the easy answer to the “balance” problem. It is quite possible, even easy to live in a monastery and not be focused on God. It is also quite possible to live an ordinary, hectic life in “the world” and be a true monastic. Perhaps the key is not trying to achieve “balance” as if our search for God were a task on our “to-do” list that we can check off. If I do a certain amount of prayer, lectio and spiritual activities then I have achieved a balanced life. Our search for God may instead be a matter of cultivating mindfulness, awareness of God in all that we do, in all that we are.

This mindfulness is implicit in the Rule. Benedict encourages his monks to be aware of the presence of the sacred in all things, in tools and utensils, in the demands of the sick, in the disruptive visitors. Benedict encourages an awareness of God in all activities. He reminds his monks that the life of faith is about service of God and others in all things. Benedict encourages his monks to make prayer something that not only happens at set times but is a practice of dwelling deeply in God’s word throughout the day.

The Benedictine life is one that structures everything so that God can come first. Even in a monastery that means the hard work of learning to see things differently. We can decide whether or not God will be present in the chores, the irritations, the demands and challenges of the day. Each of us will decide whether our errands, our work, our relationships will reflect God and faith or whether they will be things and activities that are somehow separate from our desire for God.

Striving, running, climbing and making progress are all images that permeate Benedict’s Rule. Being a wise abbot Benedict knew that all of us fallible followers of his wisdom wouldn’t be able to instantly see God in all things at all times. In our overwhelming busyness and distraction we start by longing for balance, for a little more time and space for God and prayer. This is a wonderful goal but Benedictine wisdom challenges us to go deeper. To be Benedictine, to be Christian! is to make God part of the air you breath, the presence you see in everyone you meet, the coming of God’s reign the objective in every task you do. Don’t strive to make God an important part of your life, run your life’s journey striving to make God present in all that you do, in all that you are, that God may be as close as your breath.

Scars After the Resurrection

Since tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension I thought it was high time to reflect on some of the Easter stories in the Gospels, “Doubting Thomas”, the road to Emmaus, Mary Magdalene at the tomb and others. I’ve heard these stories so many times before but recently I noticed something that I hadn’t seen before.

Many of the stories feature the disciples examining the hands, feet and side of Jesus to examine the scars of the nails and lance. This helps them see that he is not a ghost or a figment of their imagination but he is indeed truly risen from the dead. The stories focus on the corporeality of Jesus, now the risen Christ.
One day I realized, “Wait a minute, Jesus is resurrected. What do you mean he has scars? He’s resurrected, doesn’t that mean perfection?” There was a fundamental incongruity I had never noticed before. Here is Jesus who has conquered death, and yet he still bears the scars of torture and death. Somehow that doesn’t seem quite right. Resurrection should mean that everything has changed, all the reminders, tangible and intangible, of death and pain should be wiped away. And yet the disciples keep touching the scars. Jesus, who is the Christ, the resurrected Son of God, bears the marks of death.

So what does that mean for those of us still living in the reality of everyday, pre-resurrection life? What does the fact that after the resurrection Jesus retains the scars of death mean for us who are still living in the midst of this life? What do Jesus’ scars say to those of us travelling towards resurrection, struggling in the here and now to attain the full stature of Christ? Somehow this bothers me. I want to think that the power of the resurrection in our life means that we shouldn’t have scars, we should be able to be healed of all our pain and be completely new without any reminders of our suffering, our limitations, our wounds.

But perhaps the fact that Jesus still bears his scars is actually a sign of deep hope. Perhaps the scars of the resurrected Christ tell us that even as we grow, change, mature and are being re-made into the image of God our scars remain with us as powerful reminders and testimony to who we are, to how God made us. The reality of the resurrection is that new life happens, God’s power works within us, but we are still our fundamental selves. The power of resurrection in our lives means that we are transformed but we don’t get personality transplants, God gives us new life in the context of our old life. I am changed and healed, my wounds are no longer gaping holes but reminders of God’s work. The reality of Easter is that I am changed but the scars remain to remind me of God’s transforming power.

Here in the monastery this means that we are all slowly, haltingly, in the process of living into the reality of the resurrection. We try to be open to God’s transforming power. We struggle to manifest the grace God freely gives. But we all bear our scars. I try to be open to growth and healing but my scars are reminders to myself and everyone who lives with me that I won’t be perfect. As much as I change I will still be who I am and I will still get on some peoples nerves and have more than my share of limitations no matter how much I change. In turn I will see all our sisters who are also struggling with what it means to manifest the power of the resurrection in their lives and I will see their scars. I will experience how much they have changed and how far they still have to go. They will get on my nerves and be as limited and broken as I am.

But maybe the ultimate meaning of these stories is that each of us becomes Christ for one another. In community we are being called to be the presence of Christ for one another and put our hands into the scars of each sister who is Christ for us. We put our hands into one anothers scars and know the reality that our deepest wounds are also the tangible proof that God’s love conquers the power of death in our lives. By Christ’s wounds we are healed, in our own wounds and the wounds of those around us we touch the reminder that the power of the resurrection is at work in our lives.

Pride and Busyness

I hate it when homilists are right. Not just right about interesting pieces of Bible trivia or right in saying nice, affirming things. I hate it when they are right about things that really strike to the core.

The other day our chaplain gave a homily in which he quoted from a Benedictine abbot (talk about hitting below the belt) who said that busyness can be form of pride. Uh-oh. In fact he linked it to the ancient monastic teaching that pride is one of the patterns of thought that lead us away from God, a teaching that evolved into the idea of the seven deadly sins during the Middle Ages.

So why is busyness linked with pride? I’m not sure I remember exactly what he said, and I don’t need to. In many ways I’m an expert on the subject.

When I first came to community one of the greatest struggles I had was that I had to completely start over. I no longer had my previous identity, no one knew me, what I had previously done or achieved didn’t matter. I had to start over and learn to be a monastic. For those first few years I wanted to wear a sign around my neck: “I used to be a busy, important person.” In starting over I was stripped of my hard earned sense of being a capable, competent person. I had to start from scratch and learn all the things that were important about being a monastic, most of which had nothing to do with my previous life.

Now, almost twelve years later, I have re-gained my sense of being a competent person, but that is not all good. Hard work is a key value in our monastic culture. Whether it is our German and Swiss heritage, simply the fact that it takes hard work to keep a monastery functioning or whatever else, we work hard. And, probably unconsciously, we pride ourselves on how hard we work and judge others according to how hard they work.

Maybe it is an unfortunate part of human nature, the need to distinguish ourselves from one another, to judge others. In a monastery it is hard to tell how someone is praying but it is pretty easy to tell (or so we think!) how hard someone is working. In a culture where we can’t judge one another by how much money we make, there are no strong indicators of status, we are left with work and busyness as a way to distinguish one another. And this is where pride comes in.

A sister complains about how busy she is and I catch myself thinking “doing what?!” Another seems to be everywhere, always helping with what needs to be done and I find my opinion of her as a “good community member” rising. My opinion isn’t based on who they are as people, whether they are committed to the hard, inner work of transformation in a monastery but on how hard they work at the never-ending tasks that comprise modern, monastic life.

It’s a subtle, tricky trap that creeps up and swallows us. The real hard work that all of us should be doing is what is outlined in the Rule. Benedict was concerned about whether monks were growing in humility, growing into the full stature of Christ. He wanted them to commit to the monastic way of deep service, awareness of God, experiencing compunction that would be transformed into the joy of knowing God. This is the real hard work of monastic life. It has nothing to do with how many committees we are on, how many hours we spend in our offices, how many tasks we complete or how hard people think we work. This is the true work of monastic life.

G.K. Chesterson once said: “It isn’t that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and never tried.” One could easily apply the same insight to monastic life. The hard work we should really be about will never lead to pride. The hard work of monastic life is that which leads to humility, the profound realization of grace, that when we cling tightly to our work it will turn to ashes in our hands. Our true work is to open our hands in hope, supplication, praise, ready to receive the grace that requires no work on our part.

Spring: And Money Is In The Air

You can always tell when it is spring in the monastery. We begin to count time according to “before” or “after” Easter. The wildflowers peek out on the hill. The weather seems to be suffering from bi-polar disorder, swinging from snow to sun several times in the course of an afternoon. And budgets are due.

Money is probably one of those things that many people are curious about in monastic life but are hesitant to ask about. The other is probably celibacy, but we won’t go there. Since poverty is associated with religious orders there is a lot of curiosity and misconceptions about money. People assume that we are supported by the Church which isn’t true, we are entirely self-supporting. There are probably a lot of other interesting assumptions that I’m not even aware of. But one of the biggest differences about money in monastic life is the way we are accountable for it.

Money is basically community property not private property. Each sister turns over whatever she earns to the community without keeping any of it. In turn we all rely on the community to pay for our expenses such as health care, food, computers, work expenses, etc. We don’t personally own large items. The monastery owns all the cars and we use them in common. At the same time each of us also gets a small, personal allowance for individual expenses like clothes, toiletries, entertainment, books, that sort of thing. Each of us has to rely on community for our needs and each of us has a say in how community spends money. This is where budgets come in.

Being able to rely on community to pay your bills should lead to a healthy humility. Hopefully we all come to a point of gratefulness for what we have been given. But since human beings don’t always learn the intended lessons sometimes we have to have some imposed accountability. All of us are required to estimate our expenses for the coming year on a budget form. I try to plan and estimate what my health care expenses might be, if I know that I will need some kind of treatment, dental work, glasses, etc. I put down plans to make a retreat, go to conferences workshops or attend classes. If I know I need a new winter coat or special shoes that I can’t afford from my personal budget I put those in my budget for the year.

The process is designed to help me think through what I really need versus what I want. It encourages a mindfulness about expenditures that may not happen if money is readily available. In turn the budgets are reviewed by the monastic Council, the advisory body for the Prioress and leadership team. They review the budgets of individuals and departments and can discuss whether expenses are justified.

After the budget is discussed and possibly revised by the Council the last step is for the community to approve it. At our last community meeting before the new fiscal year the entire community receives a presentation about the coming year’s budget by the staff of the business office. We hear about income, projected expenses, large projects and the “bottom line” of last year’s budget and the current proposed budget. Finally the whole community votes to accept it.

Like any system it isn’t perfect. There are disagreements about expenditures, concern about income, murmuring about how some people always seem to spend more money than others, but overall it is a surprisingly peaceful process with common consensus. The goal, which we may not totally achieve but at least we try for, is for consensus and accountability. In a society oriented toward competition and accumulation we try to model a different way.

Budgets are still not my favorite part of spring, sometimes I need to see the wildflowers on the hill just to get away from budgets and worksheets. But monastic life aims to be a tiny microcosm of a society lived according the promise of the Reign of God. It is in little ways, with little budgets and a lot of accountability that we inch our way to the new reality of transformation.