April 10

Feast of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit, scientist, mystic

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 57

My son, Ira, believes that everything is art.  When pressed for clarification by his older brother or by his parents he simply asserts that everything, in its own way, is art.  He is quite insistent.  He has not arrived at this belief by careful reasoning and study of philosophical aesthetics, but by means of the way the world comes to him and moves through him.  Ira is an artist.  He attends to a set of phenomena in everyday life that escapes the notice of most people.  This capacity to perceive is not something he learned as much as it is something he bears into the world.  Sometimes it is a burden for him, but most of the time it is a gift for all of us.

The fact that our Father Benedict makes room in the community for Ira is a source of great joy for me.  It can be challenging to share life with an artist, especially with regard to creating structure and order according to an imposed standard, or rule.  Yet, as my dear friend, the founder and head of a secondary school for the arts, has taught me, providing a clear and livable structure wherein daily life and art are carefully integrated can be salvation for artists and their art.

As is evidenced by the life and work of a visionary like Teilhard de Chardin, Benedictine spirituality does not squelch creativity and stamp out the inner light that burns in an artist's soul.  It tends the fire by building a furnace and carrying the wood and channeling the life-giving heat as a gift for the world.

Br. Chad

April 9

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theologian, Pastor, and Martyr

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 56

This little chapter shows the importance of caring for the needs of the guest, the outsider, the one who does not belong.  The Superior holds the place of Christ, and Benedict would have her behavior mirror Jesus' in this act of eating with those outside the community.  We see here the (super)natural flow of spiritual formation from a disposition inward, cultivating knowledge and love of God, to a disposition outward, practicing love of neighbor.

Sr. Joan offers,

It was the abbot and prioress themselves who showed the community the price and the process of availability and hospitality and presence to the other.  Hospitality was not a warm meal and a safe haven. Hospitality in the Benedictine community was attention and presence to the needs of the other. . . . And, as the presence of the abbot and prioress proves, none of us can afford to be too busy or too important to do the same.

Br. Chad

April 8

Feast of William Augustus Muhlenberg, Priest, and Anne Ayers, Religious

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 55 pt. 2

I have had the privilege of walking alongside parents of a child with reactive attachment disorder, and this passage reminds me of many issues they face.  Attachment disorder occurs when a person does not form the normal attachments to a parent or primary caregiver during early childhood.  The result is a human being who believes, on a primal level, that she must fend for herself in a hostile world that does not meet her needs.  Children with this disorder can be, in turn, violent, charming, hoarding, indiscriminately affectionate, sneaky, and self-harming among other things.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Rule of our Holy Father Benedict is a kind of therapy for a soul that has lost its attachment to God, that conceives of the universe as hostile to her best interests.  Benedict's instructions here can seem harsh until one realizes the nature of the illness to be cured.  The sort of love that is willing to bear the bruises of a screaming, striking child in a calm, firm, four-limbed embrace while repeating the words, "You are safe; I will not let anyone harm you; I love you," is the kind of love displayed here by our Father Benedict.

Awakening to those things we keep hidden in our bed and facing, forgiving, and healing the child within who does not trust God is among the most difficult and beautiful work a human being can do.  And it is work we do from the midst of firm, unyielding love.

Br. Chad

April 7

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 55 pt. 1

The middle school my oldest son attends has returned to the practice of requiring a uniform to be worn on campus.  It is claimed that such a practice eliminates one way that middle and high schoolers regularly go about distinguishing themselves from one another in order to gain attention, display wealth, or identify themselves with a group.  While clearly there are other ways to gain distinction and do these sorts of things, the requirement to wear a specific uniform can often be a relief to students.  One major weight seems to be lifted from the minds and hearts of pre-teens and teenagers during a critical developmental period in their lives.  At school, when it comes to clothes, everyone is in the same boat.

St. Benedict's instructions on dress seem to be a part of his overall approach to life in common.  It boils down to the point at which we each release our claim on Creation as one who must obtain, possess, and secure resources and distinction.  I hear Jesus' words in Matthew 6 echoed here: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear."  This is a central counter-cultural component of the process of inner transformation that our Father Benedict seeks to nurture among us.

Br. Chad

April 6

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 54

As we approach the end of Lent and our penances have worked their work for more than a month, let us attend to that within us which still needs to possess and which still needs to control what comes to us.

These needs are the mountains we make low to prepare the way for the Risen One.

And let us also attend to that within us which feels unworthy to receive from the generous, life-restoring hand of God.  

These feelings are valleys we lift up.

When God's path into or lives is level, we are able to receive God and bear new life into the world, joyfully offering what has been entrusted to us for the benefit of all.

Br. Chad

April 5

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 53 pt. 2

Benedictine monasteries functioned as a hospice system within early Medieval Europe, with a constant flow of guests from all walks of life, and the instructions here about a separate kitchen and quarters for guests enabled the monastery to still be a monastery despite the traffic.  Part of the way the monastic atmosphere was to be preserved was for the instructions at the end of Chapter 53 to be followed regarding the interactions of monks with guests.  Monks are to be humble and kind to guests, but not necessarily nice.

Niceness, a perceived affect according to social norms, is a poor substitute for kindness, which is a genuine concern for the well-being of the other.  It is easy for some of us to confuse smiles and pleasant tones of voice with the things that make for true kindness and hospitality.  If we continue in this confusion for long enough, we become unable to distinguish between kindness and unkindness, hospitality and inhospitality.

My experience growing up as a person who was generally considered to be nice is that niceness is entirely oriented outwardly.  It is something one measures by what bounces back from the exterior of other people.  My developing ego was very successful at getting what it needed from this external exchange, and I have come to realize that being nice usually serves to keep me self-absorbed--caught up in my own self-interest.  People who are regarded as reserved or distant, on the other hand, may exhibit self-absorption differently, but this disposition can be just as self-interested as the other.

It is possible for one person to be outgoing and nice without being self-absorbed, and it's possible for another person to be quiet and reserved without being self-absorbed.  What matters is our ability to perceive clearly our own motives and to develop a sense of ourselves that is derived from our inner and true identity, our life hidden with Christ in God.  When we act from that place, we are able to be truly kind. 

Br. Chad

April 4

Feast of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., prophet and martyr

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 53 pt. 1

Regarding receiving the unknown guest into the midst of the community, Sr. Joan writes,

The message to the stranger is clear: Come right in and disturb our perfect lives.  You are Christ for us today.

And to assure us all, guest and monastic alike, that this hospitality is an act of God that we are undertaking, the community and the guest pray together first and then extend the kiss of welcome so that it is understood that our welcome is not based on human measurements alone: we like you, we're impressed with you, you look like our kind, you're clean and scrubbed and minty-breathed and worthy of our attention. 

There are many ways in which we all have occasion to practice the essence of this hospitality our Father Benedict describes, and many ways that we can forsake it. When it comes to being hospitable to the poor, in whom Christ is "especially" received, a reflection from the Rev. Robert Berra, our good friend, is helpful to consider:

Every time I see people try to weasel out of a charitable human spirit, I remember that an antidote to it is found in --of all places-- the Christian Patristic Fathers. 

Gregory Nazienzen, a bishop in the 370s, confronted reasons people give to not help the poor, reasons that are as familiar to us as they were to Gregory: some people deserve to be poor, they brought it upon themselves, there is "not enough", or it's a punishment from God. Gregory will have none of it. In fact, in the face of these objections, service to the poor is necessary so that we might "restrain those who have such an attitude towards [the poor], and [that we] might not give in to their foolish arguments, making cruelty into a law turned against our very selves."

Br. Chad