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I am on an email list where one of the members consistently writes something that challenges me to consider or re-consider my own thinking. She has sparked privous blog netries. Here's another example.

She wrote:

I
> don't know (that is to say, I am thinking out loud) the beauty of beautiful,
> old and honourable rules - versus the beauty of spontaneity, new creativity
> and life without fomulas. one voice in me says 'rules are the old way', but
> one says 'this is the narrow path ( an order) - miraculously it is still
> here, and you may, god willing, still have time to get on it - what are you
> going to do?' how does me, changeable mutable me, commit to an order? maybe
> i can't - maybe i can only do it through god and that is the point.

My response:

Ah, there are times when I can hear myself talking through your words.


Thinking out loud is a practice in which I frequently engage. Sometimes I have no idea what I think on a subject until I either talk or write about it . It is a constant journey of discovery that disarms me. I don’t know if readers practice Lectio Divina, ( www.valyermo.com/ld-art.html ,
www.osb.org/lectio/ , www.osb.org/lectio/about.html ). Anyway, a short description is that it is a mode of Bible study that allows the texts to permeate our very being until we discover ourselves not only thinking , but talking, acting biblically as if it were second nature to us. That is one of my goals for myself and those who know me, know how far short I fall of this.

I suppose all of us must be tempted by the old vs the new, keeping our options open in case something better comes along. Goodness, I have done that, chasing after every new spiritual whatsis. What I discovered about myself is that in so doing, I never grew. Not as a person and certainly not as a Christian. I didn't stay with anything long enough to have it make a difference as I was always chasing after the next big thing.

This has been a pattern in my life. Partly this is due to the fact that I simply enjoy the process of learning. It doesn't matter what the subject matter might be, I just love the whole process of learning something new. The pitfall, of course, is that I have ended up learning something that doesn't particularly add anything to the quality of my life. And it can be even dangerous to me, as I discovered when I allowed this joy of learning to suck me in to the American business world of out-to-get-the- competition corporations and I ended up disabled. What I see pretty clearly **now** is that I gave into temptation, instead of proceeding a vocational path then.

I also did this with crafts. I'd try everything and one day I realized that I was a Jill of all trades, a mistress of none and I didn't want to be half-good at a lot of things, I wanted to excel at one. So I turned to knitting and that has been wonderful. To really sink into an art form and let it shape and mold me.

This realization about knitting was a lifesaver. It opened the door for me to say 'no' and to see that there are more positive fruits when I limit my options than when I leave them limitless. This is what got me off my own spiritual tourist gig and caused me to choose to sink into something I had loved a long time: the Rule of St. Benedict.

Can it get more old-fashioned than the 6th century?? And yet every generation of Christians rediscovers the RB and finds in it a document that is still relevant to us today. Ok, sure, maybe some of the details aren't too applicable. At one point Benedict addresses what the monk is to do with his knife while asleep. Few of us take a knife to bed with us these days, but the basic principle of safety is still with us.

We might find Benedict's approach to discipline harsh and inappropriate. In this way, he was very much a product of his times. But here again we can distill the basic principle that the Christian life is to be taken seriously, that there are consequences to our actions when we act in a manner harmful to our community and most importantly, that we much take the concept of personal sin very seriously.

I suppose the Rule of St. Benedict could be considered a "narrow" path. The irony is that this narrow path has opened the doors for me to have everything I have ever most long for. So how narrow can it be when it is a path to infinite love, infinite grace, to the Most High God?

May the Holy Spirit dance in your heart.