Rhythms of Life

The beginning to this sabbath time has been about rhythm.The normal structures of our days and weeks have been removed and as a result we are trying to figure out what to do, how to do it, and when it should happen. This initial sense of being off-kilter shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, as the same was true when we were on sabbatical in Oxford. Knowing that we were able to find stability then gives me some hope now as we make camp, household, spend time time together and do our work. (the boys have independent study while I have my own study)

Part of my reading on vital practices for congregations has been ordered by our ongoing work as part of the College for Congregational Development. Five folks from All Souls took part in the first year of this two year program last year and three more will join us this year for the week in mid-June. Between the first and second years, each congregational team is asked to undertake a project in our home congregation––ours has been to study the patterns and understandings around giving at All Souls. Along with that project, the College assigns several books to read in order to prepare ourselves for the next year and the work that we are to do together. This list is as follows:

In the Grip: Understanding Type, Stress and in the Inferior Function by Naomi Quick
Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal
one of two books on facilitation, I chose Great Meeting, Great Results by Dee Kelsey and Pam Plumb
The Character of Organizations by William Bridges
Organizational Development and Change by Cummings and Worley
one of three books on congregational systems by Peter Steinke, I chose Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach
A People Called Episcopalians by John Westerhoff

Alongside these excellent books about best practices––whether practices for businesses, governmental agencies or university departments––the College has found it important to ground these practices in the ways that Christians have gathered for centuries. To do this, they have recommended a powerful book about the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal, an Anglican laywoman. What makes de Waal’s exploration of the millennia-old set of practices so compelling is that she isn’t a monk or a nun. She is living out this way of being in the midst of the chaos that life can bring. For her, the heart of the rule is the ways that we can live towards God, rather than what we cannot do. She writes, “…seeking God does not demand the unusual, the spectacular, the heroic. It asks of me…that I do the most ordinary, often dreary and humdrum things that face me each day, with a loving openness that will allow them to become my own immediate way to God.” (page 105)

In Benedictine spirituality, the daily tasks and chores, the householding, the details that occupy so much of our existence, can actually become entrances into a life of living with God. Benedict saw stability as essential in part because some ascetics in the early centuries of Christianity would leave communities as they grew weary of the ordinary, of the friction and the challenge of living in community with the people who annoy or frustrate us. It’s my experience that this has not changed. We leave jobs, schools, marriages, often looking for the next opportunity to be better than the one we are currently frustrated by. And yet, without real work, little substantial change comes from these transitions. We are still the same people, just in different surroundings. So what, then, are we to do when feeling besieged by the tide of demands that rise up around us? For Benedict and for de Waal the response is to actually enter more fully into the spaces and relationships where we are. It is remember that the grass is growing, here.

Again, though separated by thousands of years, the Rule developed by Benedict sounds a clarion call to us in the hyper-active 21st century. In her chapter on balance, de Waal reminds us that, “We are essentially rhythmic creatures, life needs this rhythm and balance if it is to be consistently good and not drain us from the precious possibility of being or becoming our whole selves. Unless we take this seriously we are going to reduce the amount of ourselves that is actually there and available to us. We will live with less and less of our whole selves.” (page 93)

For Benedict, alongside the core concepts of obedience, stability, and conversion of life came the foundational practices of work, study and prayer. For many of us, this focus on work is duly given, though often in ways largely removed from the manual labor that Benedict’s Rule supposed. But more often than not, it is wildly out of proportion to the other two practices that undergird the Benedictine life: study and prayer. Study, or learning to come closer to the an understanding of the world around us, can happen but we must make time for it. It is not seen as a necessity in our product-driven culture, and yet real, deep study serves as the fount of our creativity, our collaboration with God. And prayer...well, if we are not proactive, days can pass before we remember to create space in our selves and in our lives to give our attention to God. Again, while the Daily Office has been the rhythm for monastics and others for centuries, there can be other fruitful ways to come close to God. But we must create the space for them.

In Seeking God, Esther de Waal uses an evocative metaphor of what it is like when a Rule, when the Word of God finds space in us. She writes, “(we are to) establish a life that can be lived after the Gospel, and that for St. Benedict means, above anything else, a life that is earthed in Christ.” (emphasis mine) Perhaps it is because of the physical spaces that I write this in, but this understanding of “earthing” our beliefs rings truly for me. For if we do not earth them, or ground them in our regular living, then our beliefs become like all of the good intentions of our lives––wished for but not actually lived by. So one of the questions that de Waal’s Seeking God has made me consider is this:

    How do I incorporate (make into being), or earth, these three elements of work, study and prayer into my daily, weekly, and yearly life?

In the weeks and months to come, I am looking forward to having initial answers to this question, not just in ways that are in rhythm for this time of Sabbath, but in ways that will sustain as we re-enter the intensity of school and work come September. After our last sabbatical, in addition to the study around intentional Christian communities I also developed some practices around rest. What the Rule of St. Benedict is opening up for me now is a real desire to create practices around study and prayer that create the downbeats and pauses needed to be earthed in Christ that I may come closer and closer to my whole self. What might this "earthing" look like for you?

Peace,

Phil+