One of the stereotypes of Christians is that they can be somewhat dour and lacking in joy. That might have been lurking in the back of my mind as began this morning’s reading from The Rule of Benedict, where he writes, “At all times the lifestyle of a monk ought to have a Lenten quality” (RB 49:1). That immediately led me to images of penitence and somber reflection and a joy denied for a season. That may all be a part of what keeping Lent entails, but it seems that the rest of the chapter reveals how Saint Benedict views Lent in a much different light.

A little later he writes:

Let him deny his body some food, some drink, some sleep, some chatter, some joking, and let him await Holy Easter with the joy of spiritual desire (RB 49:7).

The first thing that leaps out at me is that while he advocates denial as a discipline, his approach is moderated by saying “some food” and “some sleep” and so on. Saint Benedict does not push monks to any total measures, but to practices that focus with a purpose. This is where he gets to the most amazing part of the chapter.

Father Terrence G. Kardong comments on this verse, writing:

the joy of spiritual desire (cum spiritalis desiderii gaudio) is a highly charged expression that also has considerable spiritual depth. The remarkable thing about the phrase is its insistence on joy during Lent. In contrast with the Master, who calls for joy only after Easter (RM 53.20), Benedict thinks that it should also permeate the penitential season that leads up to Easter. This is the equivalent of saying that for Christians there is no time of sadness. How can we be sad when we know that Christ has conquered sin and death? (Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, p. 406).

What strikes me about the insight in this comment is how insightful—how resonant—is the comparison between Lent and Easter on the one hand and life and eternal life on the other. Just as Lent is a time to prepare and to anticipate and to look forward with longing and “the joy of spiritual desire” for the great celebration of Easter, so too is this life a time to practice the same disciplines with the same joy, anticipating eternal life with God. Father Kardong’s question is no less insightful for being rhetorical: “How can we be sad when we know that Christ has conquered sin and death?” How can we approach either Lent or Life and anticipate either Easter or Eternity with sadness when we know that our destiny lies with the One who is victorious over sin and death?

I will try to remind myself of this perspective when I trap myself into conjuring up the demons of stress and worry and indignation. One of the last things a Christian usually would claim as a goal is to be known for a gaudy life, but the Latin gaudio, translated as “joy,” suggests that is precisely the aim: to keep both a gaudy Lent and a gaudy life and await both Holy Easter and Heavenly Eternity “with the joy of spiritual desire.”

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

Yesterday morning, a young man from Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church came to our house to work outdoors for five hours. He came because we had submitted the highest bid in a “Servant Auction” sponsored by the youth who are raising funds for their trip to the ELCA’s National Youth Gathering in New Orleans in July. Matthew arrived a little before eight o’clock. Then he and I went to the clearing in the trees to work at cleaning up the perimeter, where downed branches lay tangled in tall weeds. The work consisted of pulling weeds and picking up branches and then hauling all of this debris to piles in the meadow.

By the end of the morning, which had grown progressively warmer on top of an already humid beginning of the day, I began to appreciate that there is a difference between being sixteen and being forty-seven! Still, it was enjoyable to see him work steadily and with good humor. We talked some of the time and then, at times, we worked in silence. It was a good and heartening experience.

This morning my muscles are reminding me of the work we did yesterday. Then the reading from The Rule of Benedict turned my attention to Chapter 48, “The Daily Manual Labor.” It tells how the community seeks balance among work, prayer, and the practice of lectio divina, which literally means “reading from God,” and is often translated as “divine reading.” Saint Benedict begins by writing,

Idleness is the soul’s enemy, so therefore at determined times the brothers ought to be occupied with manual labor, and again at determined hours in lectio divina (RB 48:1).

Saint Benedict does not set down a rigid schedule, but adapts the balance—the ebb and flow—among prayer and work and reading and rest to suit both the liturgical season and the climate and its weather. So, sanely, he builds a time for physical rest into summer days at their hottest time. The times for prayer move around slightly, taking account of the season and the natural light.

What strikes me as so natural, so grounded, so sane, is his purposeful but non-rigid approach to building a balanced day. As I have grown more accustomed to asking, “How can I live by the spirit of this Rule?” I have looked for ways to adapt Saint Benedict’s insights. Over the last four months, as I have lived between my work at the University of Nebraska Press and now the beginning of interim parish ministry, I have been blessed with the freedom to seek such a balance among my daily devotions, reading, my head-work with WideSky.biz and my hand-work outside on our land.

Each day begins with the Liturgy of the Hours, followed by some reading. I’ve not been diligent about practicing lectio divina, but I have made time each morning to read passages from some devotional, spiritual, or theological text. Then on the best days, I have times when I work with my head and time when I labor with my hands. Working around rain and heat, choosing the tasks that match the weather, has kept my work flexible, my attitude one of adaptation, and my days satisfying and relatively free of toxic stresses. Instead of finding “idleness [to be] the soul’s enemy,” I have discovered Saint Benedict’s wisdom in being “occupied.”

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to prepare a sermon and to lead worship at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Marquette, Neb. Last night I met with two members of the Congregation Council at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., to talk about my service to that parish as its interim pastor beginning July 1. Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of my ordination. All together, this constellation of events and gatherings and milestones has turned my thoughts to the tasks of serving God and his Church as a leader.

The first task of leadership that crosses my mind is leading in worship. It’s not the only important part of the role of a pastor, but because worship is fundamental to the life of Christians and because it is the foundation upon which parish life is built, it stands foremost in my thoughts. Perhaps this is why, when I read “The Signal for the Work of God,” Chapter 47 of The Rule of Benedict, this passage spoke to me:

As regards singing and reading [during the Work of God, the Divine Office], no one should presume to carry out these functions unless he is capable of edifying the listeners. Let that be done with humility, sobriety and reverence, by the one designated by the abbot (RB 47:3-4, Terrence G. Kardong, Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, p. 378).

Saint Benedict is not laying out a complete theology of worship in this chapter, so he does not include a statement of the purpose of worship, but assumes that the community will glorify God. Then, given that, he reminds those who lead to keep in mind the listeners, that they ought to be edified, or built up, by the singing and reading. It seems reasonable to me to adapt this standard to preaching and the complete role of liturgical leader. If I keep foremost in my thoughts and actions the twin foci of giving glory to God and building up the body of Christ, then my work will be faithful to God and loving to the community.

The Rule guides me, reminding me that service in worship ought to be carried out “with humility, sobriety and reverence” (RB 47:4). The first of these qualities—humility—reminds me that the attention of worship is directed to God. Worship is theocentric and is not a performance in which a leader draws attention to himself or herself. The quality of sobriety means much more than leading without intoxication. Its Latin form is gravitate, so this reminds me that worship ought to be conducted with an awareness of its place in the life of God and his people. Worship is not frivolous. And finally, reverence, as Kardong notes, “no doubt has to do with the fact the whole liturgy is directed to all-holy God, before whom the only proper attitude is reverential awe” (Kardong, p. 381).

This is a good passage for me to keep in mind. It is an awesome and humbling task, to stand amidst the members of a gathered community and to speak both to them and to God. That’s why, even if I don’t use the words of the Psalmist to begin a homily, they cross my mind as a prayer:

Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14, NRSV).

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

Saint Benedict writes two chapters that fall a little harshly on modern ears. They address “Those Who Make Mistakes in the Oratory” (RB 45) and “Those Who Err in Some Other Way” (RB 46). To turn to one of the Lutheran tools for reading a text, it seems fair to see that most of these two chapters could be classified as the third use of the Law, namely to direct and to correct Christians’ actions. Their form follows a pattern: “If one does this, then the consequences are that.”

Reading these words is like catching a glimpse into a culture alien to modern Western society. It doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch to say that today the notion of standards of behavior are rather fluid or that it is difficult to say exactly when one has crossed the bounds from permissible to impermissible actions in a community. But these chapters paint a picture of a very different way of life. The first of these two chapters addresses errors made in worship, especially in chanting. The harsh part is that Benedict prescribes “a more severe punishment” for the monk who does not admit his mistake and “make[] humble satisfaction right then and there before all…” (RB 45:1). The helpful insight might be that while making a mistake that disrupts the harmony of worship for others is not a good thing, the failure to admit one’s mistake and to make amends is more damaging to the well-being of the community.

The second chapter applies much the same rule to all other places, those outside of the oratory, beyond the time of worship. But then Saint Benedict ends his chapter with a turn to a word of consolation. He writes:

If, however, it is a question of a hidden problem of conscience, he should only reveal it to the abbot or one of the spiritual seniors. For they know how to cure their own wounds and those of others, without divulging them in public (RB 46:5-6).

This is a word of promise that offers some comfort. It’s a statement of implicit trust that God will care for the community (and the individual) by raising up people to positions of leadership (abbots) and others to positions of guidance (spiritual seniors). These are people who are wise and compassionate, who are self-aware, “know[ing] how to cure their own wounds” (RB 46:6). They are people whom God has blessed with the capacity and the insight to see the wounds of those who come for help and to know how to cure them in confidence.

This leads me to a few questions. Who are my spiritual seniors? Who are the people in my life to whom I can turn when I have questions, when I have concerns that weigh me down, when I have a wound that needs to be cured? And then, as I am beginning to turn my thoughts to how I will serve as an interim pastor, I wonder how I am equipped, in some sense, to serve an abbotial role in the parish, to serve as a spiritual senior for others. It is key, Saint Benedict implies, for those who serve as spiritual seniors to recognize that they themselves must find others to serve as their own spiritual seniors.

This leads my prayers to include two petitions, that God will strengthen my spiritual seniors and that he will guide me when I am called to serve as the spiritual senior for others.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

Sometimes as I read The Rule of Benedict, the text seems to speak directly, offering a clear word about how I ought to live. But then, on other occasions, as I am reading it, the tremendous differences in time and culture step to the forefront. The title of the chapter I looked at this morning, “How the Excommunicated Should Make Satisfaction,” (RB 44) provides a hint that this will be one of those chapters that emphasize every one of the centuries between the 500s and the 2000s.

In its ten verses, the chapter outlines the steps a monk takes before the community under the authority of the abbot to make satisfaction for the acts that had led to his excommunication both from the oratory and the table. Where does one begin to list the cultural differences?

• Sins have consequences.
• The community exercises discipline.
• The abbot speaks with authority.
• There is a distinction between pardon and satisfaction.

This list presents me with a challenge. When I ask myself the question that helps to guide my journey as a Novice Oblate—How do I live according to the spirit of this Rule?—I am led to wonder about a number of issues. In what communities do I live? I get the sense from reading this chapter that the steps of making satisfaction address the healing of breaches in the community, so identifying my communities is a key first step. My family is the primary community, and probably the closest to the community of the monastery, in the sense that I do not choose my relatives and that we are bound together by God. My community of faith, perhaps ironically, is much less a community. We do not live among other members of that community, so we tend to see them only on Sunday mornings. Other groups, such as my fellow Oblates, or the Lincoln Stamp Club, occupy even more narrow slivers of my life.

Either the bishop or the pastor of our parish technically occupies the role analogous to the abbot. Yet the cultural expectations that might place authority in the hands of either person has been diluted to the point where it’s difficult for me to recognize how they might exercise that authority.

And then, maybe the greatest chasm is the one that opens between a time when a community found strength in pairing the proclamation of grace with the frank recognition that sin bears consequences and in seeking restoration through making satisfaction. I can see that our time differs from Benedict’s on this point, and it makes me wonder whether we have lost or gained by the changes we have made.

It’s one thing to confess a sin to God and to hear, receive, and cling to his promise of forgiveness. But this pardon does not address the ruptures that a sin creates in the community, nor does it address a prescription for healing the breach that a sin creates in relationships. This is, I think, the intent of “making satisfaction.” The abbot, in this chapter, is the one who speaks for the community, who “decides enough satisfaction has been made ” (RB 44:3). I can never, as the one who has sinned against another, decide when satisfaction has been made. Instead, I throw myself, perhaps figuratively, at the feet of the ones against whom I have sinned, and await a word. As Saint Benedict ends the chapter, “Let them keep this up until he blesses them and says, ‘That is enough’” (RB 44:10).

And again, the act which I am called to make is simple: “Listen…with the ear of [my] heart” (RB Prol. 1).

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

One of the most famous sayings, or mottoes, to arise from Benedictine spirituality is the phrase, “ora et labora,” meaning “prayer and work.” It’s a shorthand way of gathering up the insights about the value, both spiritual and physical, in achieving and maintaining a proper balance in one’s life between one’s vocations to serve God and the community.

One part of this discipline is to keep these two vocations in balance by allotting time for each. Then one also can focus on each vocation when its time is at hand. In a way, this is an application of the insight from the tradition of wisdom literature in the Old Testament, where Ecclesiastes notes that each part of life has its proper time.

The Rule of Benedict speaks to the ways that one works out this balance in daily life:

At the time for the Divine Office, as soon as he hears the signal the monk should drop whatever is in hand and rush there with the greatest haste. But he should do so with dignity so as not to provide an occasion for silliness. Therefore nothing should be put ahead of the Work of God (RB 43:1-3, Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, Terrence G. Kardong.).

This passage gives me a sense both of comfort and of challenge. On the one hand, it helps me to see the virtue in focus. When it is time to work, give that task my attention. But when it is time to pray, then it’s alright—more than that, really!—to set aside the work and turn to prayer. This is the comfort, both that God intends for my life to be filled with purpose and balance and that he delights in a life lived in this fashion. The challenge comes in a subtle way. The best I can express it is to say ’balance of predisposition.” It is much easier for me set aside prayer for work or for play or for rest or…, than it is for me to set aside other tasks for prayer.

This, I believe, is not peculiar to me. That’s the wisdom in the monastic life of punctuating the expression of daily life with times of prayer. By having a routine for prayer as well as for work, the tendency of volition, of will, to slack off on prayer, is restrained by the ringing of the bell and the gathering for prayer.

This is a routine that works when one lives in a monastery. But what about those of us who are not monks, but who desire to live according to the spirit of the Rule? Finding some way to adapt is the key. I’ve found that when I pray either the Office of Readings or Morning Prayer first thing when I wake up, before I do anything else, including making a cup of coffee, this routine allows me to embrace the aspiration that “nothing should be put ahead of the Work of God.” It’s much more difficult for me to set aside the tasks of my day to turn to prayer, but it is something toward which I strive.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur.

One of the little lessons I remember from my years of taking private lessons to play the alto saxophone is that music comprises both sound and silence. In many ways, the silence provides the setting, the foundation, from which the melodies and harmonies arise and take their shape in our ears’ memories. The famous opening theme from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, for example, repeats at the beginning of the first movement, but between the two statements of the theme lies a rest, when none of the instruments in the orchestra plays. This brief—but essential—silence helps to make the power and grandeur of that theme all the more eloquent. This is why my teacher said that a rest was “timed silence.” I take that to mean that the silence is deliberate.

It seems that a reading of “No One is to Speak after Compline,” Chapter 42 in The Rule of Benedict, leads me to a similar appreciation for the role of silence in monastic living, and so too, for the place of silence in my life, as I seek to live according to the spirit of this Rule. Saint Benedict begins by writing, “Monks ought to strive for silence at all times, but especially during the night hours” (RB 42:1). I appreciate his use of the phrase “to strive” (studere), because, as a commentator notes, it “implies that they will not always succeed” (Terrence G. Kardong, Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, p. 345.). So this is yet another time when the Rule strives (successfully!) for a reasonable and attainable approach to holy living.

This time of “striv[ing] for silence” comes as a pause, a rest, at the end of the day, a day that has been punctuated by the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours. So if one looks at the mix of sound and silence, the composition of the day’s music reveals itself. There is a time to speak and a time to listen.

Most everyone who knows me knows I am a big fan of Apple Inc. and its products. I have owned an iPod for a number of years and thoroughly enjoy its amazing ability to pack enough music into a little box in my pocket that I could listen for 45 days without hearing the same song twice. So it would be no surprise to note that I used to listen to music on my iPod while I worked in the yard. But this spring, as I have spent time planting flowers and grasses and shrubs and plucking up weeds, I have not broken out my iPod. Instead, I have let this time outdoors be a time of silence, a rest from the sounds I might choose to fill my ears, and a time to listen to nature’s improvisations and to attune myself to the rhythms of my own thoughts as they arise in my mind’s ear.

Or perhaps I should have used the phrase “ear of my heart.” After all, in the the first sentence his Rule, Saint Benedict’s writes obliquely of silence, “Listen, O my son, to the teachings of your master, and turn to them with the ear of your heart” (RB Prol. 1).

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

The chapter’s title, “At What Hours Should the Brothers Take Their Meals?”, led me to believe I would be reading my way through a thicket of details, with little to find worthy of adapting to my daily life. And the truth is that much of this section does concern itself with the timing and frequency of meals. Without clocks, a monastic community arranges its life around other rhythms: the liturgical year and the ebb and flow of daylight and darkness that come with the changing of the seasons. One could adapt or even adopt this for life outside of a monastery, but it would be challenging, especially when living in a family and amid a community that might not adhere to the same rhythms.

But then, dropped right into the middle of this brief chapter is an amazing sentence: “And so [the abbot] should arrange all things with such moderation that souls might be saved and the brothers can do their work without justifiable murmuring” (RB 41:5).

It seems to me that Saint Benedict says here that even something that might seem so mundane as the scheduling of meals can become an aid or a hindrance to the journey of faith of a member of the community. The key is “…arrang[ing] all things with such moderation that souls might be saved….” That helps me to explore how I can live according to the spirit of the Rule.

There is no detail of my life that is so small that I cannot ask how I might arrange it so that it helps, and does not hinder, my life of faith. Do I eat meals in balance with my need for sustenance and with gratitude to God for his blessings? Do I care for the possessions with which I am entrusted without making of them an idol for celebrating my own tendencies to acquisition? How might I see caring for our pets as a way to express stewardship and loving dominion for God’s creation, but not as a burden that gets in the way of my own, more “important” tasks? When parts of my life devolve into clutter, how can I restore order to them, so that they remain testimonies to the God who creates by bringing order out of chaos and not to the Confuser who delights in muddling and muddying the world to his own devilish ends?

It is only one sentence, but its ability to change how I view my life is boundless. There really is no part beyond its examination, no practice upon which it cannot comment, no patterns it cannot turn to serve spiritual ends.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

In recent weeks, Anne, my wife, and I have met with our pastor, the Rev. Ron Drury, and another member of our parish to discuss adapting the model constitution for congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to our congregation, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, Nebraska. This project will update the current constitution to match the model, while adapting the model to serve as a tool to guide the congregation in its mission. Completing this project will meet one of Anne’s goals as president of the congregation.

Once I get into the mode of thinking in terms of bylaws and continuing resolutions, of envisioning possible eventualities and drafting codified responses, of looking for gaps and filling them, of tying down loose ends, of tweaking and honing the language, and of formatting the presentation, I find that way of thinking has a power that goes beyond the project. It is difficult to turn this method on and off.

That’s why I am finding today’s reading from The Rule of Benedict such a calm and persuasive counterpoint to the constitution project. Writing about “The Quantity of Drink,” St. Benedict begins by echoing 1 Corinthians 7:7, recognizing that “‘each person is endowed by God with a special gift, some this, some that.’ Therefore it is with some uneasiness that we lay down rules for the consumption of others” (RB 40:1-2). Then, of course, he overcomes that uneasiness and lays down some rules.

But the spirit in which he works is typical of the Rule. He holds simultaneously to some large-scale principles while applying them in ways that call individuals to high standards, to support the common good, and to view even the smallest parts of life as places where God is at work. He recognizes that individuals have varying needs for fluids, that some have “the strength to abstain,” and that availability, workload, and heat can all influence consumption.

It’s this spirit, this way, that holds up a vision rooted in God and his gifts, his trustworthiness in sending community leaders and inspiring wisdom in them, that I find so refreshing and beguiling. St. Benedict does not try to anticipate and to pre-legislate a response to every circumstance that could conceivably arise. That’s why his Rule—not his Constitution—has endured for fifteen centuries. He could not have anticipated the details of twenty-first-century monastic or oblatory life. But he could point faithfully to the grace and gifts of God and lead a community to follow a path of obedience to God’s will.

And so I am left wondering. What would a parish look like, how would it feel to be a participant in its communal life of faith, if we could hear God’s call to gather around him, to make an offering, an oblation of our lives, and to submit ourselves to a pastor-abbot who would guide us in wise obedience to a rule that embraces both the grace of God and the glorious diversity of our “special gifts?”

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.