Saying of the Desert Christians: Life Together 5

from:http://www.cin.org/dsrtft8.html

A beginner who goes from one monastery to another is like a wild animal who jumps this way and that for fear of the halter.

Some thoughts

Well, isn't this the truth. Benedict is far less complimentary in Ch 1 of his Rule:

"The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.
These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province,
staying as guests in different monasteries
for three or four days at a time.
Always on the move, with no stability,
they indulge their own wills
and succumb to the allurements of gluttony,
and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites.
Of the miserable conduct of all such
it is better to be silent than to speak. "

I also think of the modern day equivalent of those who are continually looking to have their needs met and they church shop or try on the latest fad spiritual practice. It is pretty clear that the Desert Christians and Benedict agree that the immature have been described.

I find myself wondering also about the modern multi-tasker who never give their attention to only 1 task but are bored silly when they are not doing 12 different things at a time. Are we post-moderns at risk to lose the capacity to savor only one thing at a time? Are we at risk to lose the ability to chose God above everything else?