Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Jane Tomaine

Blogging Benedict: Real-Time Obedience

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Funny how God works sometimes. As I read and write about St. Benedict’s vow of obedience this week, God is teaching me the lesson of obedience in real time.

Jane Tomaine notes that the Latin root for obedience is obaudire, “to listen thoroughly.” She points out that in his Rule, Benedict describes obedience as both listening and responding:

“Those who practice obedience set aside their own concerns, plans, and tasks, even going so far as to leave work unfinished  in order to respond quickly to the request. The requested action would be completed without hesitation, almost at the same moment the request was made.” (from St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Benedictine Living)

When I check my phone on Monday, I see a message from an unfamiliar number. It’s Lelia. Turns out, one of the speakers on the agenda for her conference this weekend has a family emergency and can’t make it … might I be able to speak in her place?

I say yes.

Let me tell you, one of my greatest fears, second only to throwing up, is speaking in public. I would rather visit the gynecologist and get a mammogram and a root canal and my legs waxed all in the same day. I would rather stand in line at the DMV every day for a month straight. I would rather clean hard water deposits off my bathroom faucet and my neighbor’s bathroom faucet and her neighbor’s bathroom faucet with a toothbrush. I’d rather do just about any other dreaded task over speaking in front of an audience.

But I say yes. It’s so obvious I should say yes that I don’t even think about it. “No problem,” I tell Lelia. “It’ll be totally fine, I promise.”

Then I hang up the phone. And Freak. Out.

The funny part about this story is that only hours before, I’d griped to Brad about how I needed to line up some speaking engagements. Not that I want to line up speaking engagements, mind you, but I realize speaking is part of the territory: published writers are expected to speak. Some days I wish I lived in the 19th century so I could hole up in an attic like Emily Dickinson and just write without worrying about the platform-schmatform and social media and whether I should wear pants or a skirt when I speak in public.

“It seems like all these speaking opportunities seem to drop right into other people’s laps,” I told Brad that afternoon. “I don’t get it.” He’d shrugged. Clearly he didn’t get it either.

After I got off the phone with Lelia and was catatonic on the couch in primal freak-out mode, Brad reminded me of our conversation earlier in the day. “Hey, you just got a speaking engagement dropped into your lap.” Not to be an ingrate, but I’d been thinking more along the lines of “dropped-into-my-lap-with-four-months-notice,” rather than “dropped-into-my-lap-with-four-days-notice.”  God is clever like that sometimes, isn’t he?

Oddly, in between bouts of catatonia and feverish PowerPointing, I am also feeling an overwhelming sense of peace and calm. Part of me knows that everything will be fine, just like I told Lelia. There’s something liberating about being so hopelessly out of control and in over your head. There is serenity in knowing I can’t possibly do anything but hand it entirely over to God.

So that’s what I am doing. Being obedient. Handing it all over to God – the worry, the insecurity, the fear, the queasiness. Trusting that he will be right here with me, teaching me what to say (Exodus 4:12).

So tell me, when’s the last time you were hopelessly in over your head? How did God set your heart and mind at ease?

I would so deeply appreciate prayers for my friend, the one who was originally scheduled to speak, who is dealing with a family emergency right now. And also, while you’re at it, that I might keep my head on straight, not succumb to primal freak-out and, above all, convey God’s message to the ladies at the Refresh My Heart conference this Saturday. Amen. And thank you.

This post is part of my Friday Lenten series  called Blogging Benedict. I am using the text St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living as my guide.

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Blogging Benedict: Because Conversion is Supposed to Take Forever

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A few years ago, when I felt the first inkling of belief, I assumed I was set. I figured once I’d experienced my official “conversion,” I’d be home free, transformed, smooth sailing for eternity.

As with most everything else in this journey so far, I thought wrong.

Believing in God, it turned out, was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The real conversion, I’ve since learned, takes place continually, incrementally, from that first moment and in every moment forward. Come to find out, there are a lot of backwards steps in the process of conversion, too.

Benedict called this continual conversion conversatio morum – the conversion of life. Author Jane Tomaine explains the concept this way:

“While stability calls us to remain, conversion of life calls us to change and to grow, to be transformed by the Spirit. It has an outward dimension and an inward dimension. Outward behavior or attitudes change as well as the inner self. God works with both dimensions…Conversion of life is a process where, again and again, we recognize that we’ve turned from God, we listen to how God is calling us back, and we take action to return to living a gospel life.”

Conversion isn’t instantaneous. It doesn’t happen overnight or in a split second. It’s a lifelong process. A two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of journey.

Case in point:

A few summers ago I got mad at my neighbor. For weeks he’d parked his pick-up truck in front of the flower garden that sidles along our picket fence, right next to the street. Day after day I couldn’t run the sprinklers, couldn’t weed or deadhead or prune, couldn’t even admire the blooming lilies and bee balm and phlox because his big ol’ truck was in the way. “This is ridiculous,” I fumed to Brad. “I can’t even see my own garden. All I see is his stupid, ugly, red truck. Why can’t he park in his own driveway?!”

I plotted revenge. I decided I would confront my neighbor about the parking issue, and when (of course I assumed when, not if) he refused to move, I planned to yank weeds, toss them into the back of his truck, flip on the sprinkler system and watch as the bed of his pick-up turned into a muddy, glumpy mess.

Of course you know what happened, right? When I marched over to confront my neighbor, he couldn’t have been more gracious.

“I’m so sorry about that,” he said immediately. “We are about to resurface the driveway, would you mind if I parked the truck there just a few more days?” Not only was he pleasant and apologetic, he also took the time to show Rowan how the fountain in his front yard pumped water. And he invited us inside for a tour of the remodeled kitchen. And he offered free three-day passes for Brad and me to use at his son’s new gym.

Needless to say, I was properly humbled. I’d forgotten one of Jesus’ most important commandments, second only to love God. I’d forgotten to love my neighbor. I needed a re-do, and now God was calling me back for yet another chance to live a gospel life.

True conversion requires that we continually prepare our hearts for transformation. We continually strive to make God, rather than ourselves, the center. But it’s not a day-long or month-long or even a year-long process. It’s lifelong. A true conversion of life.

What about you? Do you ever feel like you should be “done” with your transformation by now?

On Fridays during Lent I am re-visiting (read: rewriting) a series called Blogging Benedict that I wrote a couple of years ago. I am using the text St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living as my guide.

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Blogging Benedict: Rooted

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Back when we were in graduate school umpteen million years ago, Brad entrusted me with his favorite plant, a lush fichus tree named Herman (in honor of Herman Melville), before he left town for a while.

I moved Herm into my house, positioned him in a sunny spot next to the sliding glass doors and then watched as he began to drop leaves at an alarming rate. I moved him to a South-facing window. More leaves littered the carpet. I watered Herman, fed him plant food, repositioned him yet again in a less chilly spot. Still he dropped leaves.

A week after Brad left, I called to report that I’d killed Herman in a record-setting seven days flat.

Turns out, fichus trees crave stability. Brad had left Herm next to the same sunny window for years, without sliding his pot so much as an inch. Then we had tossed the plant into the backseat of my Pontiac Grand Am and carted him to my house, where I’d moved him from spot to spot in a desperate attempt to quell the leaf-shedding.

There’s a Benedictine lesson to be learned from Herman the fichus, a lesson about stability.

When they first join the order, the Benedictines take a vow of stability. As Jane Tomaine explains in St. Benedict’s Toobox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living, “Stability is saying ‘Yes’ to God’s will for me in the place where I believe God has placed me and with the task I believe God has given me to do.”

Our culture promotes the opposite of stability. Over time, we are conditioned to think that it’s okay to drop one thing and move onto the next. Marriage grown stale? Divorce. Bored on the job? Quit. Shoes scuffed? Buy a new pair. Acquaintance irritate us on Facebook? Unfriend. We abandon with ease, enticed by the fresh and new.

This relentless pursuit of the perfect place, the perfect situation, the perfect person, leads to the Herman phenomenon. Instead of finding contentment and peace, our searching results in greater dissatisfaction. We feel restless, uprooted and displaced. We wither rather than thrive.

The solution, Benedict tell us, is that we should aim for stability.

“The vow of Stability affirms sameness, a willingness to attend to the present moment, to the reality of this place, these people, as God’s gift to me and the setting where I live out my discipleship,” writes Elizabeth Canham. “We are discouraged from fantasizing some ideal situation in which we will finally be able to pray and live as we should.”

I get that inclination toward fantasy. I often find myself imagining a serene retreat at a monastery, in which I can relish the silence, the peace and the time and space to pray without interruption and distraction. But the reality is that I have a job, two young kids and a household to maintain. If I wait to find God in the ideal, I miss him in the here and now.

Stability means we hang on in the situation we are in and with the people who are there with us. As we stay put, as we quell the inclination to flee, we find God’s presence.

As it turned out, much the same was true for Herm the fichus. I finally stopped moving him around the house and let him simply be, and after a few weeks passed, I began to notice tiny buds sprouting on bare branches. Leaf by delicate leaf, Herm began to thrive, unfurling and blossoming into a lush, verdant canopy. In his stillness, he grew strong once again.

What’s your reaction to this notion of stability? Have you ever been grateful that you stayed the course?  [I want to note here, too, that I am in no way advocating staying in an abusive or unhealthy relationship. I’m talking about situations that are uncomfortable, not destructive.]

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I’ve recently revisited a series I wrote three years ago called Blogging Benedict, and I’ve decided to run some of these posts on Fridays through Lent. They are based on the book by Jane Tomaine called  St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Living, which I am re-reading this Lent.

Blogging Benedict: Listening with the Ear of Your Heart

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Fifteen centuries ago a young man abandoned his scholarly studies in Rome and ventured into the Italian countryside, where he founded a monastic community and wrote what he called “a little rule” to help his fellow monks live a spiritual life in community.

That man was Benedict, better known as the founder of the Benedictines, a Roman Catholic order that still thrives today.

“So how does this apply to me?” you might be thinking. “I’m not a monk, and I’m not Catholic. I don’t need The Rule.”

Not true. Although Benedict’s Rule was written for monks, his advice covers much of what encompasses our everyday, right here in the 21st century: worship, prayer, work, study, relationships, our use of time, community and hospitality. Benedict’s Rule is more useful to us now than ever.

Benedict begins the Prologue to The Rule with these opening words:

“Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”

Concrete person that I am, listening with the “ear of my heart” doesn’t make much sense. At first. But the more I read about Benedict, and the more I practice quiet, focused listening, the more I understand that looking for God in all things, in the ordinary circumstances of my life is possible.

As Jane Tomaine, author of St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living, writes, “God is before us and within us, waiting to be found. The challenge is that every day we have so many things to do, and the crush of work can leave us hurrying through one task to move onto the next. But is it possible instead to do our work on one level, yet reflect with our mind and heart on where God is in the task? Can we allow the task before us to reveal itself as an opportunity to find God?”

Tomaine gives her readers a number of ways to practice this discipline, this listening with the ear of your heart.

1. Keep a gratitude journal. Take a few moments to reflect on your day, the small instances in which you felt the presence of God in your life. You can even join an online community, like Ann Voskamp’s 1,000 Gifts community every Monday, when she lists a continuing stream of 1,000 gifts and encourages others to do the same.

2. Notice the metaphorical breadcrumbs God leaves us to follow. Look back over your life, suggests Tomaine, to uncover the threads that led you to where you are today. Sometimes our God vision is 20/20 in hindsight. Such is the case for me and my move from Massachusetts to Nebraska. In retrospect, I see now that God threw the entire loaf of honey whole grain in my path, not merely the breadcrumbs. But it took several years for me to realize that this period of upheaval was actually the direct work of God in my life.

3. Take a thankfulness walk. This is perhaps better accomplished when the weather warms up, but the point is to walk slowly through nature, focusing on your senses – the chickadee chirping in the white pine…the scarlet berries dangling on delicate branches – and giving thanks for the hand of God in all things.

Like any spiritual discipline, listening and watching for God in the everyday takes practice. I’ll be honest, some days spin by so rapidly that I don’t notice him at all. But I continue to practice, and little by little the extraordinary shines through the ordinary.

“Incline your ear and come to me; listen, so that you may live.” (Isaiah 55:3)

How do you listen for God in your life? How do you “incline your ear” or listen with the “ear of your heart?” Add your ideas in the comments to suggest practices others might try.

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I’ve recently revisited a series I wrote three years ago called Blogging Benedict, and I’ve decided to run some of these posts on Fridays through Lent. They are based on the book by Jane Tomaine called  St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Living, which I am re-reading this Lent.

Next Friday: Blogging Benedict: Lectio Divina.

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