My Benedictine Spirit

PHOTO: SAINT JOHN’S ABBEY
Life’s twists have turned me into a vagabond, and my Benedictine spirit is rebelling. A large canvass tote packed with a change of clothes, calcium pills, and a notebook sits at my bedside, ready to go. My purse holds a toothbrush and phone charger as well as more standard fare. I have deodorant and a Ziploc of herb teas on the nightstand at a friend’s house and have to look at my planner to remember where I need to be the following night.

This morning, I walked into the kitchen of my father’s home, switched on the electric teakettle, and felt an overwhelming need to cook. I wanted to fill the refrigerator with foods like eggplant, sugar-snap peas, and chicken. I wanted to stay put instead of shuttling between the house I am preparing to sell, a friend’s where I crash after I’ve packed a day’s worth of boxes, and the big home where I grew up. I carried a mug of tea into the upstairs bathroom where I sank into a tub of hot water and read a few pages of Anne Lamott before realizing that what woke me at 6am was the same thing that had dogged me for a couple of weeks: My monastic soul longed to stay put. I needed to cook, to pray, and to be faithful to the writerly life. Why didn’t I?

Slogging through a dissolution and filling out close to one hundred job applications has become a convenient excuse. My doctor hinted at the same thing last week when I warned her that lab work would reveal unacceptable cholesterol levels since my eating habits have deteriorated.

“That’s life, Mary. There will always be stresses,” she said as she walked out the examining room door.

“She’s right, darn it,” I thought as I put on my clothes and walked to the lab across the hall where I sat watching blood that would reveal the pizza’s and Easter candy I had consumed fill a small glass vial.

This is a particularly rough patch of life, no doubt, filled with challenges that overwhelm even though I know they will not last forever. Eventually my husband and I will legally be going our separate ways, the house will be sold, and I will not be unemployed. Still, I need to meet these immediate challenges just as I have overcome others in the past: from a place of strength and centeredness. For me that means prayer, writing, and staying in one place long enough to cook healthy food.

One afternoon a year ago, when a group of writers and scholars had gathered for our weekly brown bag lunch at Saint John’s in Collegeville, a wise Benedictine monk dropped a pearl of wisdom: You don’t have to do a lot to get a lot done.

At eighty-eight, he still writes award winning poetry and works with nearby immigrant populations. He jokes that he’d rather miss prayer than a party, but those who know him, know better. His life is lived from the strength of prayer and community, and what needs done is accomplished not because he crams everything in, but rather because he doesn’t. He keeps in touch with the God he trusts and rests when he “runs out of gas.”

I will buy some eggplant and chicken today, spend quiet time in the Presence, and wear the St. Benedict medal that reminds me to put balance in my day. I may not do a lot, but I hope to get a lot done.
© 2010 Mary van Balen