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.)

Idleness seems to me to be a disconnect between body and soul - a forgetting of the awe in which Benedict wants me always to live. When awe is a part of my whole being, then attention is natural, and work becomes holy.