Chapter 26: Unlawful association with the excommunicated
If any member of the community presumes without the permission of the abbot or abbess to associate in any way or speak or give instructions to one who has been excommunicated then that person should receive exactly the same punishment of excommunication. (Ch. 26 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
I've had to learn -- the hard way -- that good communication (or my idea of it) is not necessarily the pinnacle of human relationship. Love, patience, kindness, prayer -- the fruits of the Spirit -- create the kingdom of God on earth.
I hate this chapter of the Rule, Abba! I rebel at any suggestion that a well-meaning guy like me could make things worse for someone I am sincerely trying to love with all my heart. For heaven’s sake! What could be wrong with my trying to communicate directly with him or her? I have had to learn and re-learn how easily I can pave hell with my good intentions, including the hell my loved one is going through. And I have had to learn and re-learn what has become my favorite definition of insanity. Insanity means doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Over fifty years of experience as a practicing counselor and psychotherapist have convinced me—often painfully—that most human problems, including mine, are really attempted solutions: the very thing I do to try to resolve a situation actually makes it persist and become worse. Continuing to try to reason with the unreasonable or communicate with the uncommunicative or manipulative can be one of my insanities. Remaining silent with, in other words, “ex-communicating”, a loved one, as aversive as this can seem to me, can become, under guidance of a “Prior” (read “outside help”), the most loving thing I can and must do. That’s what makes tough love tough, but also real.
ReplyDelete