Chapter 48: Daily manual labour (paragraphs 1-2)
Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore all the community must be occupied at definite times in manual labour and at other times in lectio divina.
(From para. 1 of Ch. 48 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)
Idleness, for me, is not holy leisure -- idleness is like being stalled or stuck in my own daydreams, while my ego manages my consciousness in a dull-witted way. The significance of work, and prayer -- and leisure -- comes through transformation of consciousness. Benedict's point here, as I see it, is that transformation of consciousness comes about through faithful, loving discipline. Just in the same way as we are taught to say the mantra.
"And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty should require that they themselves do the work of gathering the harvest,let them not be discontented; for then are they truly monastics when they live by the labor of their hands, as did our Fathers and the Apostles."
ReplyDeleteAny work is holy if I approach it with reverence. My attitude is what makes a job holy or unholy.