February 28

Feast of Anna Julia Haywood Cooper and Elizabeth Evelyn Wright

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 22

Long ago Benedictines saw fit to re-imagine this chapter and adopt cells for sleeping quarters in monasteries rather than the dormitory Benedict describes here.  The re-imagining of the Rule is far from unprecedented.  The process of adaptation must be careful, however, to preserve the spirit behind the specific instructions when the specifics are set aside.

In the case of the Canon Communities of St. Benedict, Benedictine life is re-imagined once again.  Here the very notion of living in a monastery is set aside, but what is preserved is the mutual support and encouragement along the path of Benedictine spiritual formation, which, I believe, is the spirit behind this chapter.

Ours is to be a community in which gentle encouragement is the posture the members assume with each other.  We each have a "bed" out of which we struggle to rise, and we each have a kind nudge to apply to a brother or sister.

Br. Chad

February 27

Feast of George Herbert, Priest and Poet

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 21

One can't spend much time exploring Benedictine spirituality before encountering the issue of authority in the Rule.  St. Benedict is not shy about the topic, and his intentions for community hinge upon a very specific vision of how authority is to be held and exercised.

This chapter about deans is a good example of this vision.  Authority is never held for its own sake, but for the sake of the community.  And one function of Benedictine authority is to empower others to develop into the people they are created to be.  When a member of the community is created to be a leader, then those in authority must empower that person to lead, and the way that a person is empowered to lead is by being given a share in the authority of the community.  The provision in this chapter for the appointment of deans is a mechanism by which such empowerment takes place in Benedictine community.

Our Father Benedict is a wise and able abbot who understands that the well-being of a community is enhanced by the sharing of authority for the sake of all.  But he also understands that with the distribution of power comes the lust for power, and that all authority must be kept closely in check if it is to remain Christlike rather than Caesar-like.

Br. Chad

February 26

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 20

I've always balked a bit at St. Benedict's analogy comparing God to a Roman noble in this chapter, yet I now find myself able to relate to the relational dynamic I think he's trying to capture.  Two elements of this dynamic play out in my life every day.

First, it plays out through the sanctification of physical space for prayer.  I step out of my casual way of being and into a formal one.  Having taken religious vows and been clothed with a habit, I experience this difference in the simple act of putting on and taking off my habit.  I also enlist the aid of sacred objects such as icons, crucifixes, beads, and stones along with candles and incense to create a sense of space that is set apart from, say, my toiletries or computer.

Second, it plays out through the brevity of prayer that our Father Benedict describes.  My audience with the Divine is always open, and I am always met with a gracious and joyful welcome, but this welcome is a quality within God, not a reflection of my unique favorability.  I don't need, then, to puff myself up with words or linger like a beggar hoping for alms of Divine Grace.  I can move quickly in and out of prayer that is, in Benedict's words, "short and pure," without delusions about my role or my place in the Universe.

Br. Chad

February 25

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 19

In my experience, there comes a point in the practice of praying the Daily Office, after processing and deconstructing all of the ways in which the Psalms challenge our personal and cultural notions of prayer and propriety, when my mind feels restored to childlike trust in the words.  I move among the verses like I move among a forest, breathing deeply the scent of pine, climbing over rocks, drinking from a brook, resting on a log.  I am free from my need to understand the details of the ecosystem.  I don't pretend that I am a tree or let my body decompose into the topsoil in order to belong here. I am a part of the same creation.  It is made for me, and I for it.

Our Father Benedict uses the word "harmony" to describe the intended relationship between our mind and our voice when we chant the Psalms.  He could have used the word "unison" or implied a clear hierarchy between the psalmody and our mind, but he did not.  Harmony is a good fruit of a relationship between distinct entities.  We are not to pretend that we are not who we are when we pray. We are to be precisely who we are in the sight of the Godhead and all Angels, and we are to walk slowly and deliberately into the forest of verses like a child among the pines, without apology and without excuse, but with wonder and peace.

Br. Chad

February 24

Feast of St. Matthias, the Apostle

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 18 pt. 4

I find the synopsis of Chapter 18 given by Sr. Joan Chittister in her commentary for today's passage immensely helpful.  She writes,

Benedict implies very clearly in this chapter on the order of the psalms that a full prayer life must be based on a total immersion in all the life experiences to which the psalms are a response. . . . The Benedictine is not to pick and choose at random the psalms that will be said. The Benedictine is not to pick some psalms but not others. The Benedictine is to pray the entire psalter in an orderly way, regardless of mood, irrespective of impulses, despite personal preferences. Anything other than regular recitation and total immersion in the psalms is, to Benedict's way of thinking, spiritual sloth. Ours is to be a full spiritual palate. Readings may be shortened if situations warrant but the psalms never. We are to tap into every human situation that the psalms describe and learn to respond to them with an open soul, an unfettered heart and out of the mind of God.

Our Benedictine canon community uses a thirty day cycle of psalms that can be found in the Book of Common Prayer Psalter.  It proceeds linearly through the Psalter, from beginning to end, assigning psalms to days of the month.  If you notice, for example, in the BCP on p. 759 at the top it says: Twenty-fourth Day: Morning Prayer, and then on p. 763 near the middle it says Twenty-fourth Day: Evening Prayer.  This cycle helps to give a feeling of really moving through the "full spiritual palate" of the psalms in a few short weeks, and is perfect for us non-cloistered Benedictines.

Br. Chad

February 23

The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 18 pt. 3

When working with dreams, one is often led to reflect upon what aspects of oneself are depicted in each character within the dream.  It has been posited that dreams, unencumbered by our wakeful, conscious thoughts, are an ideal venue for the unconscious mind to express itself.  It does so by projecting the thoughts and emotions it contains into the images and stories we experience as dreams.  So, in the course of dream work, it is appropriate to unpack through reflection what might be going on in my unconscious that would express itself in this way or that through a dream.

The Psalms are similar to dreams in that they too are a venue through which the unconscious seeks to be expressed.  Just as I ask myself how the threatening creature from my dream relates to my unconscious fears, I inquire within to find where "the wicked" or "the enemy" resides among my repressed emotions and thoughts.  In this way, even the imprecatory Psalms can be a powerful tool in the process of inner transformation, bringing me from a place of needing to point the finger at evil "out there" and away from me, to a place of compassion that comes from facing the evil within.

Br. Chad

February 22

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 18 pt. 2

Some days have the weight of death.  The phone call comes, the doorbell rings, and your world feels like it is crumbling all around you.  Nothing can be undone.  You can't get around it.  Things will not be the same.

On days like this, the Psalms you pray every day take on the new voice of your anguish, your sorrows, your painful, desperate hopes.

To you I lift up my eyes,

to you enthroned in the heavens.

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy,

for we have had more than enough of contempt.

If the LORD had not been our our side . . .

Then would the raging waters

have gone right over us.

Those who trust in the LORD are like mount Zion,

which cannot be moved, but stands fast for ever.

Those who sowed with tears

will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,

will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

Unless the LORD watches over the city,

in vain the watchman keeps his vigil.

Happy are all who fear the LORD . . .

You shall eat the fruit of your labor . . .

your children like olive shoots round about your table.

Br. Chad

February 21

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 18 pt. 1

This chapter lays out an order of Psalms that I keep, in part, when I pray my Midday Office on Sunday and Monday.  St. Benedict instructs that Psalm 119 is to be distributed between the "little hours" on the first two days of the week, and so I encounter several sections of Psalm 119 each week.

Growing up, I remember a feeling of repulsion arising whenever I saw this huge 176 verse Psalm lying menacingly in the middle of the Bible.  Who would ever want to sit down and read about laws and decrees and commandments ad infinitum?  It wasn't until I experienced Psalm 119 in the context of liturgy and spiritual practice that I opened to it and it to me.

Some speculate that this psalm, based on the Hebrew alphabet, is a mnemonic tool intended for children.  It is not nuanced, not subtle, and I find great help in its overt, simple assertion over and over that the speaker loves and obeys God's commands.  My ego, at a given time, might balk by any number of concepts found in Psalm 119, but the deepest longings of my true self are affirmed and encouraged by its clear intention.

I do desire to have all my desires and my whole will caught up in God's way of being.  I have seen the futility of life lived according to other ways--success, money, comfort, reputation--and so I chant boldly the words,

Make me go in the path of your commandments, 

for that is my desire.

Incline my heart to your decrees

and not to unjust gain.

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways. 

Br. Chad

February 20

Feast of Frederick Douglass, Prophetic Witness

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 17

What makes a practice a practice, whether it be athletic, artistic, intellectual, or spiritual, is the repetition of actions with the intent to form an ability or capacity within a individual or community.  A habit also involves repetition but is distinct from a practice inasmuch as it lacks explicit intention around the formation it affects.

This is not to say that practices are good and habits are bad.  Many practices become habits over time and are able to maintain their formational trajectory along the lines of their original intention.  The easier the ability to be formed, the more quickly a practice becomes a habit. 

Think of driving a car. I haven't practiced driving since I was 15 (or for a few hours after completing my last defensive driving class).  Now I just drive, having had the ability to do so adequately formed in me long ago.  The more difficult an ability or capacity to be formed, the longer a practice must remain a practice that maintains the clear intention of its undertaking.  Professional athletes must practice for as long as they desire to remain competitive.  Once the intention is lost and habit takes over, an athlete competing at the highest level loses the edge needed to remain on that level.

The spiritual formation of a human being on a Benedictine path requires lifelong practice.  Our Father Benedict desires to form in us the ability to live in God's tent (RB, Prologue), which is really the capacity to bear God into the world (RB, Prologue).  This is no easy skill set that one can learn by rote and convert into habit.  It requires daily intention of careful practice.

Our prayers can become habitual and memorized over time.  There is nothing wrong with this in the least.  It is not the ability to pray fluently in one way or another that our prayers are intended to form in us.  We learn to pray so that our prayers become a component part of our Benedictine practice with its grand transformative intention.  To consider the prayers themselves to be the intention leads to the legalism, judgment, and pride that is a source of much contention in the Church.

Br. Chad

February 19

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 16

This chapter in the Rule can help to illustrate my earlier point that our Father Benedict does not intend for us to mirror the sentiments and ideas we encounter in each Psalm every time we pray.  In fact, if we think practically about what it would look like to order our days in such a way that we stop and pray seven times, it's easier to perceive that the Psalms function, as Sr. Joan writes, "to wrench [our] minds from the mundane to the mystical, away from concentration on life's petty particulars to attention on its transcendent meaning."  A monk stops and prays regardless of what he "feels" like when the bell rings.

One way the Psalms help to do this wrenching, this reorienting, is by confronting our minds with a different reality than the one we may be experiencing.  For example, the practice of our community includes a midday office.   On most days this office includes chanting Psalms 123-125, the opening lines of which declare: "To you I lift up my eyes, to you enthroned in the heavens.  As the eyes of servants look to the hands of their masters and the eyes of a maid to the hands of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God until he show us his mercy."  By the time the office places these words before my mind just after the hour of noon, I can almost guarantee that some task or encounter has pulled my gaze from the peace of God's presence in the two and a half hours since Matins.   This Psalm invites me back to my center, to notice the "transcendent meaning" of the "petty particulars" that populate my life, and to reorient my awareness toward my true home.

A consistent value of a practice that engages the Psalms throughout the day is the way that they apply brakes to our personal freight train of thoughts and emotions before it runs away into the sunset.

Br. Chad

February 18

Feast of Martin Luther, Augustinian canon and theologian

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 15

Another outward aspect of the role the Psalms play in spiritual formation is a two-edged sword, quite honestly.  This aspect has sparked not a little tension in my parish as I, the musical liturgist, on and off over the last several years, have moved the chanting of the Psalms to a more prominent place in our liturgy.  The aspect to which I refer is the role of the Psalms in shaping our language, especially our language about God.

On the one edge, wonderful, ancient expressions of praise and joy, such as "Alleluia!" make their way into our vocabulary via the Psalms.  I'm grateful that our Father Benedict sees fit to keep the Alleluias rolling through the year (with the notable exception of Lent, of course).  We also receive beautiful words like hesed, which is translated as "loving-kindness" or "steadfast love" from exposure to the Psalms, words that attest to God's grace and mercy and faithfulness towards humankind and all Creation.  Some Psalms bring us among high mountains and great forests and the wide oceans and birds and deer and sea creatures, opening our prayer vocabulary to the wonders of Nature.

On the other edge, some Psalms take turns down the back alleys of the ancient world and seem to acquire the dialect of hatred, vengeance, and bravado that grows among oppression and suffering.  This is not a dialect I desire to acquire or that I desire my children to pick up as a way of speaking to or about God and neighbor.  I seek to cultivate gentleness and patience in our household, not animosity and anger.  This is a real tension and a point of legitimate concern for any Christian congregation.

I desire to name here and acknowledge the two sharp edges on either side of this aspect of the Psalms' role in formation.  This is a tension that cannot be easily resolved, and I do not intend to try to do so here.  Holding such tensions in the context of intentional, vowed community is yet another formative aspect of Benedictine spirituality.

Br. Chad

February 17

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 14

Another aspect of the "outside" connection that the Psalms provide is the fact that generation upon generation, going back long before Jesus, has sung the Psalms in its own time as a part of its daily prayers.  The Psalms are a very tangible connection to the Communion of Saints among whom we walk the Christian path.

I feel supported and comforted to know that my heroes of the faith, including my patron Saints Chad of Lichfield and Joseph the husband of St. Mary took these words daily upon their own lips in prayer to God.  In this way, the Psalms contribute to my conception of catholicity.  It is as though I stand in an ancient river flowing slowly, steadily, and forcefully to meet me, the water having touched the hands and feet of my sisters and brothers who have gone before and will continue on its course far beyond me.

Br. Chad

February 16

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 13 pt. 2

Yesterday I concluded my post by writing, 

The Psalms are intended to connect all of me, body, soul, and spirit, to a world that is much larger than my personal experience and conscious awareness.  I see this connection taking place in two distinct ways . . .

The Psalms connect me to the voice of the human condition that is manifest both far outside of me and deep within me.

Outside

I may or may not feel full of indignation against my enemies every day, but I am certain that many people in the world do.  When I take up words of self-justified condemnation against "the wicked," I am offering these very real human events to God as prayer on behalf of all who harbor such sentiments in their hearts.  I participate in an aspect of the monastic vocation as it has been lived out in the East and West for millennia, that of standing before the Presence on behalf of the whole human family, the good and the bad, and unloading its cosmic baggage.

Inside

On the other hand, since, in fact, I do not consciously experience feelings such as overt hatred of enemies on a regular basis, the Psalms provide a means by which I am able to unload whatever unconscious, repressed feelings have built up within me.  They help to locate the hidden pride and envy and anger within me in order to uproot them from my soul so that they do not grow and bear fruit.  In this capacity, the Psalms give voice to the very personal story we each must learn as a part of our inner transformation.

Br. Chad

February 15

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 13 pt. 1

No matter what arrangement of the Psalms one uses in praying the Offices, it becomes clear rather quickly that one cannot expect to mirror every sentiment or idea expressed in each Psalm with the present state of one's emotions and beliefs.  Attempting to do so is a recipe for cognitive and emotional dysfunction.  Our Father Benedict is not urging us, like some 6th Century praise and worship leader, to "Sing it like you mean it!" when he arranges Psalm 67 right next to Psalm 51 each morning.

This is not to say that both Psalm 67 and Psalm 51 cannot speak to us each and every morning.  But the way in which they communicate is not necessarily by means of our personal sentiments and beliefs.  When I take the Psalms upon my lips, it is not St. Benedict's intention that I "mean" every word in the way our culture conceives of earnest feelings and beliefs.  The Psalms are intended to connect all of me, body, soul, and spirit, to a world that is much larger than my personal experience and conscious awareness.  I see this connection taking place in two distinct ways that I will touch upon tomorrow.

Br. Chad

February 14

Feast of Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop
(oh, and that St. Valentine guy)

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 12

Over the next several days, I will offer some thoughts about the Psalms as they function in the Christian contemplative tradition, of which Benedictine spirituality is a part.  My comments will not be closely tied to the content of the Rule for these days, although I may touch on this or that from the daily reading.

The Psalms, in the Benedictine tradition, take up the lion's share of the floor time in the Daily Office.  If we understand daily prayer to be a program for the transformation of consciousness, chanting the Psalms is a technology and a curriculum through which that program is implemented.  In this context, the Psalms provide the words with which one raises the full array of the human experience to God in prayer.  And by doing so in the form of chanting, the Benedictine seeks to align body, soul, and spirit in worship before the One.

Our Father Benedict goes to great lengths to assign particular Psalms to various offices in order to guide the monks through the Psalter each week.  He does so because the Psalms are anything but straight forward songs of praise.  Without a wise and careful guide, in fact, they can pose a danger to the spiritual development of a human being.  But with guidance, the Psalms can help us to navigate the diverse landscape of the human condition in which we find ourselves.

Br. Chad

February 13

Feast of Absalom Jones, Priest

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 11

Sunday is always the greatest and highest of feasts.  Sr. Joan describes it as "the weekly celebration of creation and resurrection, . . . always a reminder of new life, always special, always meant to take us back to the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the Center of life."

Our Father Benedict seeks to emblazon this centerpiece of the Christian life with a special liturgy intended to enact what Sr. Joan describes.  A Benedictine finds peace and joy in returning each week to the rhythm and tradition of the ages, to the pomp and solemnity that fixes her identity among the heavenly hosts, in the Great Hall of the Eternal Now.

There is no denial here that God is to be sought in the mundane details of everyday life.  An ordered religious life moves from hour to hour in pursuit of divine imminence.  Yet the transcendent also beckons the soul to shake off the holy dust of the earth from time to time and take flight.

Br. Chad

February 12

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 10

It is comforting to know that one's well-being is important to someone else.  For all the aspects of the Rule that might sound harsh to 21st Century ears, the seemingly mundane instructions in Chapter 10 are born of gentleness and kindness.  When the nights grow short during the summer, our Father Benedict chooses to shorten the night prayers rather than the community's sleeping time.

It takes wise and mature leadership to know when to hold back on the reigns and when to push forward.  We too often witness leaders in our achievement-oriented society driving after an ideal without appropriate concern for the well-being of those they lead.  I hear from this little chapter that St. Benedict's leadership can be trusted to have our best interest at heart.

Br. Chad

February 11

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 9

Benedictine prayer presents a steep learning curve for the beginner.  It is mind-boggling to attempt to make sense of all the instructions and details our Father Benedict lays out in a passage like Chapter 9.  One crucial aspect of any beginner's experience on a Benedictine path, however, is that one is never tasked to learn it alone.  Each novice is supported by a community that is steeped in the prayers and guided by a novice master who provides skillful instruction.

Learning to pray is much like learning a new language, and it is undeniable that the best way to learn a language is through an immersion experience among native speakers.  And just as fluency in a new language opens up access to a dimension of the human experience known only by those who think in terms of the structural, cultural, and historical framework provided by that language, fluency in Benedictine prayer avails the soul to the riches of St. Benedict's transformative path.

True prayer is never easy, but it is always worth the effort.  Thanks be to God for the help of the Spirit and for the guidance of our sisters and brothers whose voices we are given to imitate.

Br. Chad

February 10

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 8

Chapter 8 begins thirteen straight chapters of instruction regarding prayer in the monastery.  For the purposes of my reflections here, I will not be concerned with the particulars of times for prayer and the number and order of the Psalms to be used as our Father Benedict lays them out in these chapters.  My reflections will touch on the spiritual and practical underpinnings of St. Benedict's instructions about prayer with the hope of providing support for those who have undertaken a contemplative practice.

Sr. Joan points out that the chapters on prayer follow our Father Benedict's treatise on humility.  She writes,

Prayer is, then, the natural response of people who know their place in the universe.  It is not designed to be a psychological comfort zone though surely comfort it must. . . . [I]t is an act of community and an act of awareness. 

That said, chapter 8 begins by hitting a major artery that feeds any spiritual practice, personal or communal: nighttime sleep.  What we do with the time surrounding our sleep can show us a lot about our priorities.  Think of what will get you out of bed in the middle of the night: a crying child, a red-eye flight, "the necessities of nature."  We orient our real lives according to such things.  To be Benedictine is, in part, to orient one's life according to prayer.

Br. Chad