What Is Peace?

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Benedictine peace, courage of hope, faith, Peace, right-heartedness, serenity, Sr. Joan Chittister, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Although we are not engaged in an “all out war” in our country right now, we are experiencing what Joe Wise, one of the early musicians of the “guitar Mass” era, called our “private little wars.” In truth, we are in a very dangerous moment of civil unrest and seem unable to restore a sense of peace any time soon. With this in mind this morning, I turned to Joan Chittister for a word of hope or guidance. I was not disappointed. Sister Joan reminded me of what some call “the long view” – the truth that cycles of life are longer than my personal story and it is up to me and all of us to move toward change for the better each day. Here is what she said about Benedictine peace. Every sentence deserves reflection.

Benedictine peace is not something that is ever achieved. It is something sincerely and consistently sought. It comes, in fact, from the seeking, not from the getting. It comes from the inside, not the outside. It comes from right-heartedness, not from self-centeredness. It comes from the way we look at life, not from the way we control it. It comes from the attitudes we bring to things, not from the power we bring to them…Monastic peace, in other words, is the power to face what is with the serenity of faith and the courage of hope, with the surety that good can come from evil and the certainty that good will triumph. Peace is the fruit of Benedictine spirituality. Peace is the sign of the disarmed heart. (Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, p. 184)

Call to Mindfulness

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Benedictine, mindfulness, monasteries without walls, silence, Sr. Joan Chittister, St. Benedict, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Unlike most of those holy people we call saints, the influence of Benedict (c. 480 – c.547), whom we celebrate today, has been constant in the Western world of monasticism for over 1500 years. In fact, Benedict’s influence in the wider world of spirituality is now likely more expansive than ever before. Groups are forming and calling themselves “monasteries without walls,” living life “in the world” while following the tenets of the Benedictine rule. People are in search of a model for living that calls to mindfulness and a balanced way of being that fits into “real life” – not necessarily hidden away in a monastery. They are finding such a way with Benedict.

Twenty years ago Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister wrote a book entitled, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. It is a simple, straightforward work on how to live every day mindfully with examples of how to balance work and rest, community and silence, and much more… examples that can relate to all of us. Sister Joan has a paragraph that sums it up quite well and is easily explicable, I think, to anyone who desires a closer relationship to God while living in any lifestyle today.

And so Benedict calls all of us to mindfulness. No life is to be so busy that there is no time to take stock of it. No day is to be so full of business that the gospel dare not intrude. No schedule is to be so tight that there is no room for reflection on whether what is being done is worth doing at all. No work should be so all-consuming that nothing else can ever get in: not my husband, not my wife, not my hobbies, not my friends, not nature, not reading, not prayer. How shall we ever put on the mind of Christ if we never take time to determine what the mind of Christ was then and is now, for me? (p. 105)

Good question…

From the Inside Out

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monastic peace, Peace, right-heartedness, Sr. Joan Chittister, the Benedictine Way, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily

Sister Joan Chittister is one of the most prolific spiritual writers on the planet in our time. My assessment of her “success” is simple. She writes what she has learned from living a life dedicated to what is known as “The Benedictine Way.” All religious congregations have rules on which they base their life and their members do their best, more or less, to grow in their attention and commitment to what is called for in their daily life in order to follow the vision of their founder. Benedictine women and men have done so for fifteen hundred years. Recently many others have joined their effort in what has been called “monasteries without walls” because they are seeking deeper spiritual lives lived with an essential component called balance. That, they find, brings peace, a state that is sorely lacking in our world today. I speak of Christian groups here but as we know the same is true in other religious traditions everywhere.

As I reflect on this moment in time, when we are living in a moment of universal upheaval, I find Sister Joan’s book, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, a valuable tool for my reflection. Here are the words that give me pause for today from her chapter called Peace: Sign of a Disarmed Heart.

Benedictine peace is not something that is ever achieved. It is something sincerely and consistently sought. It comes, in fact, from the seeking, not from the getting. It comes from the inside, not from the outside. It comes from right-heartedness, not from self-centeredness. It comes from the way we look at life, not from the way we control it. It comes from the attitudes we bring to things, not from the power we bring to them…Monastic peace, in other words, is the power to face what is with the serenity of faith and the courage of hope, with the surety that good can come from evil and the certainty that good will triumph. Peace is the fruit of Benedictine spirituality. Peace is the sign of the disarmed heart. (p. 184-85)

An Encouraging Word

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Sr. Joan Chittister, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, we are all one, You matter

I’m cooking this morning for the group that’s here at our retreat center for the first workshop of our season. I need to be in the kitchen 35 minutes from now so I just picked up Joan Chittister’s book, We Are All One, looking for a quick thought since my head is full of plugging in the coffee and making pancakes and cutting up cantaloupe. As I opened the book a small business-card sized message fell out. A stranger had handed it to me some time ago as I left a store. It says: YOU MATTER in white letters on a red background with the outline of a heart on the bottom right-hand corner.

I think that’s as good as it gets for today. Keep it in mind and have a good one.

A Consistent Voice

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gift of life, independent, living rightly, proclaim what is right, Sr. Joan Chittister, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unity, we are all one, wholeness

This morning I woke up with Joan Chittister’s name front and center in my consciousness. I don’t think I was dreaming about her but I looked across to a little book of hers standing upright and face out on my bookcase across the room. “She must have something to say today,” I thought. My guess is that Sister Joan always has something to say and it’s usually important. The little book, entitled We Are All One, was written last year and contains the author’s reflections, as the subtitle explains, on “unity, community and our commitment to each other.” It could have been written by Lynn Bauman whom I quoted yesterday. It seems that many of us are waking up to the same or, at the very least, similar themes for living rightly in this world. Here’s a smattering of sentences from the introduction that sets out the foundation of all that follows. I believe the book will be among my reflection tools for the foreseeable future.

Life, we learn young, is one long game of push and pull. One part of us pushes us always toward wholeness…The other part, however, pulls us back into ourselves. It separates us from the universe around us and leaves us feeling distant and out of sync…We seek unity, yes. But lurking within every human act is the gnawing need to be independent, to think of ourselves as distinct from the rest of life…Is the purpose of the gift of life to consume it for ourselves…or is our purpose to join the human race on its way to fullness of life for everyone?

And then her conclusion: The choice is actually simple. We must only decide if we will go on lingering in the shadows of life, forever trying to choose between doing what a numbed world will call “nice,” or step up and, in the face of evil, proclaim instead what is right. (p.1-3)

Mindfulness

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Benedictine, busy, consciousness, full, mindfulness, spiritual traditions, Sr. Joan Chittister, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

In March The Sophia Center for Spirituality will offer a five-session series on spiritual practices that foster mindfulness. Far reaching and from diverse spiritual traditions, we hope something in these presentations and exercises will catch the attention of each person who participates. Sister Joan Chittister, the prolific and highly esteemed author of spiritual books, many of which teach about Benedictine spirituality, reminded me this morning of how important it is to be consistently mindful as I go about my days. Here is what she says:

And so Benedict calls all of us to mindfulness. No life is to be so busy that there is no time to take stock of it. No day is to be so full of business that the gospel dare not intrude. No schedule is to be so tight that there is no room for reflection on whether what is being done is worth doing at all. No work should be so all-consuming that nothing else can ever get in: not my husband, not my wife, not my hobbies, not my friends, not nature, not reading, not prayer. How shall we ever put on the mind of Christ if we never take time to determine what the mind of Christ was then and is now, for me. (Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, p. 105)

That about covers everything, I’d say…no life, no day, no schedule, no work, no person or thing. I am fascinated with the way Sister Joan rolls out her sentences so that each slice of life is connected to a practice that – if we are not mindful – is ignored to our detriment. Each of her sentences, therefore, could be a subject for examination of consciousness. How busy am I? Of what is my day full? How tightly do I pack my schedule? What consumes me that hinders my attention to the important things/people in my life? How do I see my capacity for “putting on the mind of Christ?” Weighty questions, these. Perfect for a Saturday perhaps!