Chapter 48: Daily manual labor (paragraphs 6-7)

If there are any who are so feckless and lazy that they have become unwilling or unable any longer to study or read seriously then they must be given suitable work which is within their powers so that they may not sink into idleness. (From para. 6 of Ch. 48 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

At the beginning of this chapter, Benedict said, "Idleness is the enemy of the soul."  That means to me that idleness is a disconnect between spirit and body -- a forgetting of the awe in which Benedict wants me to live always. That awe is a manifestation of divine energy that leads me appropriately into contemplation, into action.