What the Rule of St. Benedict has meant to me
A question was asked on an email list 'What does the RB mean to us?" Someone answered and I was off.
> The Rule doesn't offer me a whole lot, except to confirm how evil my heart is, and how far I have to go towards perfection. I'm only continuing because God won't let me give up on it yet, and I remind myself that many of my favorite Saints were formed by the darned thing, or its derivatives.
>
How do you think they were formed by it? What do you think their
experiences were like? As I read their lives, it wasn't all cozy down
comforters.
> It holds no joy, no wisdom, no comfort for me.
Maybe not at this time. Did it once? Maybe it will in the future. I
experience a whole gamut of relationships with the Rule; best friend;
accuser; boring, plodding; dazzling; too hard; too easy; too slow; too
fast; lover; etc etc etc.
>
> Part of this is because, although I have had some lapses in my 45 years, the majority of my life has been spent "seeking God's Will", trying to do the right thing...that holding before me that God's Angels see me and report to God about me...only to be slapped in the face by both my family and my Church, has caused me to say (clean version): "I Certainly Hope They Do!"
>
I am grieved to read this. Family is family and seem simultaneously
the people who know us best and understand us least. I don't want to
say that 'familiarity breeds contempt" exactly, but it sure does seem
to lead to "Just who do you think you are? I remember you when
But the Church... now the Church's work is surely to do everything in
it's power to enable us to live the RB and our own personal Rules, if
we have them. OTOH, what is the Church except family? So maybe the
same "who do you think you are' business applies?
Right here in San Diego among my friends, family and church there are maybe 7 people who understand what God has called me to. Most of my church are polite but distant. My best friend never speaks to me of my religious life. My mother laughs whenever I refer to myself as a nun or someone calls me Sister and my brothers have limited themselves to scatological comments and then ignore my existence, except when it suits them to remember I am handy to mom when they want money from her or to lash
out at her.
I have to say that my own path through life has been a difficult one.
It's not easy marching to the beat of a different drummer. It's not
easy having every person one meets all of one's life say some version
of "you sure are different. I don;t like it. That makes me
uncomfortable. Why don;t you change?"
By the time I got to my 40's I was a train wreck. I had invested a
very great deal in trying to fit in and conform. Except that i could
only ever go so far before my disgust with my own hypocrisy forced me
to ceased such wasted efforts. It has only been since the grace of
disability came to me, that God has finally managed to make Himself
heard and i have come to know joy in the midst of the agony. To
accept how completely different I am from so many people and to enjoy
it, to love myself.
Like the person to whom I respond, my hunger for solitude started very early... when I was a toddler. It was an ongoing issue with mom right from the start. I
wanted to be alone, she wanted my company. But out in the yard, I had
Jesus for a playmate and how can a mere mother compare??? One of the
most destructive forces I have struggled with has been how all of life
in these United States conspires to prevent solitude. And when the
need for it is built in and overwhelms one like a craving, then one is
really outta step. My hunger has been for that which is completely
different from my society.
And through the grace of disability, solitude is my almost constant
companion. Event to the point that it has found a home within me and
I can take my solitude out into the world with me and i inhabit
solitude and solitude inhabits me even in the midst of crowds.
How? There have been been 4 constants: The Triune God; the Bible, the
RB and therapy.Oh, I don't say that i do this perfectly or that my
peace isn't shattered or that i don't get overwhelmed with busy-ness,
because I do. But I can see that the trend is there more often than
not. It has become noticeable to those who have known me well for
years and so although they don;t understand my vocation, why I hunger
for this life or even share my faith, in some instances, they now see
the fruit of my stubborn, dogged, tenacious for solitude and to be the
best Gloriamarie I can be, to be as much like God's vision of who
Gloriamarie is, regardless of how outta step i am with the rest fo my
world.
This is all full of "I's" as if I did all this. The work was God's;
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As I look back, all the worst nightmares
of my life have been redeemed, reclaimed and renamed. As I look back,
I see the path was under my feet all along, the path that got me here to where my will for my life merged with God's will for me. There is no better way to be.
> Now that I've read this over more than once, perhaps I have learned something: That spirituality sometimes consists in just plodding along day after day. Praying the Psalms no matter what I'm going through, no matter how angry, bitter, depressed, disillusioned....blah blah yadda yadda......I am.
>
Yes. That's it exactly. Moment by moment can be pretty nigh
unbearable, but there is cumulative effect of plodding along day by
day doing what is right for no other reason except it is right even
though one doesn't feel positive. The cumulative effects have
cumulative effects
> The Rule doesn't offer me a whole lot, except to confirm how evil my heart is, and how far I have to go towards perfection. I'm only continuing because God won't let me give up on it yet, and I remind myself that many of my favorite Saints were formed by the darned thing, or its derivatives.
>
How do you think they were formed by it? What do you think their
experiences were like? As I read their lives, it wasn't all cozy down
comforters.
> It holds no joy, no wisdom, no comfort for me.
Maybe not at this time. Did it once? Maybe it will in the future. I
experience a whole gamut of relationships with the Rule; best friend;
accuser; boring, plodding; dazzling; too hard; too easy; too slow; too
fast; lover; etc etc etc.
>
> Part of this is because, although I have had some lapses in my 45 years, the majority of my life has been spent "seeking God's Will", trying to do the right thing...that holding before me that God's Angels see me and report to God about me...only to be slapped in the face by both my family and my Church, has caused me to say (clean version): "I Certainly Hope They Do!"
>
I am grieved to read this. Family is family and seem simultaneously
the people who know us best and understand us least. I don't want to
say that 'familiarity breeds contempt" exactly, but it sure does seem
to lead to "Just who do you think you are? I remember you when
But the Church... now the Church's work is surely to do everything in
it's power to enable us to live the RB and our own personal Rules, if
we have them. OTOH, what is the Church except family? So maybe the
same "who do you think you are' business applies?
Right here in San Diego among my friends, family and church there are maybe 7 people who understand what God has called me to. Most of my church are polite but distant. My best friend never speaks to me of my religious life. My mother laughs whenever I refer to myself as a nun or someone calls me Sister and my brothers have limited themselves to scatological comments and then ignore my existence, except when it suits them to remember I am handy to mom when they want money from her or to lash
out at her.
I have to say that my own path through life has been a difficult one.
It's not easy marching to the beat of a different drummer. It's not
easy having every person one meets all of one's life say some version
of "you sure are different. I don;t like it. That makes me
uncomfortable. Why don;t you change?"
By the time I got to my 40's I was a train wreck. I had invested a
very great deal in trying to fit in and conform. Except that i could
only ever go so far before my disgust with my own hypocrisy forced me
to ceased such wasted efforts. It has only been since the grace of
disability came to me, that God has finally managed to make Himself
heard and i have come to know joy in the midst of the agony. To
accept how completely different I am from so many people and to enjoy
it, to love myself.
Like the person to whom I respond, my hunger for solitude started very early... when I was a toddler. It was an ongoing issue with mom right from the start. I
wanted to be alone, she wanted my company. But out in the yard, I had
Jesus for a playmate and how can a mere mother compare??? One of the
most destructive forces I have struggled with has been how all of life
in these United States conspires to prevent solitude. And when the
need for it is built in and overwhelms one like a craving, then one is
really outta step. My hunger has been for that which is completely
different from my society.
And through the grace of disability, solitude is my almost constant
companion. Event to the point that it has found a home within me and
I can take my solitude out into the world with me and i inhabit
solitude and solitude inhabits me even in the midst of crowds.
How? There have been been 4 constants: The Triune God; the Bible, the
RB and therapy.Oh, I don't say that i do this perfectly or that my
peace isn't shattered or that i don't get overwhelmed with busy-ness,
because I do. But I can see that the trend is there more often than
not. It has become noticeable to those who have known me well for
years and so although they don;t understand my vocation, why I hunger
for this life or even share my faith, in some instances, they now see
the fruit of my stubborn, dogged, tenacious for solitude and to be the
best Gloriamarie I can be, to be as much like God's vision of who
Gloriamarie is, regardless of how outta step i am with the rest fo my
world.
This is all full of "I's" as if I did all this. The work was God's;
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As I look back, all the worst nightmares
of my life have been redeemed, reclaimed and renamed. As I look back,
I see the path was under my feet all along, the path that got me here to where my will for my life merged with God's will for me. There is no better way to be.
> Now that I've read this over more than once, perhaps I have learned something: That spirituality sometimes consists in just plodding along day after day. Praying the Psalms no matter what I'm going through, no matter how angry, bitter, depressed, disillusioned....blah blah yadda yadda......I am.
>
Yes. That's it exactly. Moment by moment can be pretty nigh
unbearable, but there is cumulative effect of plodding along day by
day doing what is right for no other reason except it is right even
though one doesn't feel positive. The cumulative effects have
cumulative effects
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 11:37 AM
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