WCCM Oblate Blog: Reflections from Daily Reading of the Rule of St. Benedict

WCCM Benedictine Oblates are encouraged to read a designated portion of the Rule daily, and to write a brief, personal response. I hope that this blog will support our Oblate community in this practice. Please, keep blog entries brief and in a first-person ("I") voice. Refrain from discussing, offering an opinion, or commenting on other entries. Simply consider how a particular section of the Rule is speaking to you in your present circumstances.

Friday, April 12, 2019

Chapter 57: Members of the community with creative gifts

If there are any in the community with creative gifts, they should use them in their workshops with proper humility, provided that they have the permission of the superior. (From para. 1 of Ch. 57 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

My understanding of "creative gifts" is expanding. It includes a growing quality of selfless attention when I practice my own art, and when I help others to create art. Creativity also seems to be inherent in my attentive interaction with all creatures, with all of creation. True creativity is not fantasy nor perfectionism, but "being real" in all the deepest meanings of the words.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersApril 13, 2019 at 5:10 AM
Today is my elder son’s forty-third birthday and now he has his own two sons. Each of us are your children, Great Artist, fruits of co-creative love, and each creative artists in their own way. Help us all never to forget that only you give the healthy increase of our family tree.
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