Chapter 48: Daily manual labor (paragraphs 1-2)
Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore 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.)
Meditation and lectio teach me an openness of mind and heart that expands my being -- and helps me to penetrate experiences to find the presence of God.
All my life I have been a thought-full child and on into becoming a thought-full adult. My head was stuffed with thoughts and images and I stuffed it further. I was even taught how to do thought-full meditation. The catechism defined prayer, in fact, as “raising the heart and mind to God”, to you, Abba. What a shock and a moment of awakening it was, then, to meet WCCM and John Main’s teaching a few years ago and learn that the prayer definition should end with “laying aside all thought”. What a challenge to my “tree full of monkeys mind”! Now, after four or five years of using the mantra, the thought and image monkeys of my compulsive, workaholic, mind are still alive and well. What is changing, however, is that the mantra has toned down their chatter. I now have moments of silence and stillness, moments of simply being, of quiet joy of simply being together with you, Abba. For a few moments I stop the “Manual Labor” in my head, stop being only a “human doing”. I rediscover my heart and you loving me here within me, just as I am at the present moment. What a surprising, wonderful, gift!
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