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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

St. Benedict's Rule

What I Learned about Jesus from Mohammed on the Bike Path

March 10, 2015 By Michelle

Y is for Yaweh

We passed each other on the path several mornings a week. He walked slowly, shuffling, staring ahead with a stern, almost angry look on his face. Occasionally he rode a bike, the old-fashioned kind with a wide seat and no gears. He sat straight and tall like a diplomat, his winter coat flapping open in the breeze. When I waved or said hello, he didn’t make eye contact, but held up his hand, palm out, as if to offer me a high-five.

One morning, as we traveled in the same direction, I passed him as he was walking. “How far are you going?” he called out to my back.

“Four,” I answered, turning around, still jogging backwards. “Four miles. What about you?” He told me he was walking six; the same route he walked every day, unless he decided to ride his bike instead. I was impressed. The man was far from young, although it was hard to discern his exact age. I thought seventy; maybe even eighty.

We chatted for a long time that morning. Because his accent was so thick, I had to ask him to repeat himself numerous times. He told me he was Pakistani; his name was Mohammed. He had five children; his wife died several years ago. He lived with his son here in Lincoln.

“Do you like Pakistani food?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever had it. Is it like Indian food? I really like Indian food.”

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head and waving his hand dismissively. “Pakistan and India, very different, very different.” Mohammed seemed annoyed, although it was a little hard to tell because he never smiled anyway.

Only much later did I realize he probably didn’t appreciate the fact that I’d lumped Pakistan together with its arch-enemy India. I’d managed to insult Mohammed in the first five minutes of our conversation.

After that first meeting, Mohammed and I talked on the path at least once a week. One of the times we chatted he mentioned he was Muslim, but had been attending the Mormon church in town. I couldn’t quite figure that one out.

Whenever I saw him, Mohammed always asked me the same question, “How far you are walking?” And I always had to bite my tongue from answering, “Does this look like walking?” as I wiped sweat from my brow and heaved like a Clydesdale.

One day, about a month after our first conversation, when I stopped to talk to Mohammed he wanted to discuss food again – it was a popular topic with him.

“So you’ve never had Pakistani food?” Mohammed asked.

“Nope,” I answered, shaking my head. This time I didn’t mention my love of Indian food.

“You need to come then. I make you Pakistani food. Your husband and children come, too.” Mohammed proceeded to give me elaborate directions to his house, only a quarter of which I could make out through his accent.

“Okay, sure. Yeah. That would be great. Maybe we’ll come to dinner sometime. Thanks for asking,” I stuttered.

Mohammed took a slip of paper and a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Here,” he said, handing them to me, “you write your address.”

Now I was confused. The whole language barrier thing was making this exchange terribly complicated. Had I misunderstood? Had I just inadvertently invited Mohammed to my house for dinner?

“Oh, um, okay,” I said, stalling. “Well, how about just my telephone number? You can call me, okay? I wrote my cell number on the slip of paper and handed it to him.

Had I just made a date with an eighty-year-old Pakistani on the bike path?

Later I announced to my husband and kids that we might be going to Mohammed’s house for dinner. I also mentioned there was a chance he might be coming to our house; I wasn’t totally clear on the details. “What?” Rowan yelled. “Pakistani food? What’s Pakistani food? It sounds gross! What if I don’t like it?”

As it turned out, we didn’t go to Mohammed’s house for dinner, and he didn’t come to our house either. Mohammed never called. In fact, more than a year went by before I saw him again. For a long time I looked for him every time I ran. I missed his grumpy, unsmiling face and his high-five wave.

Back in the sixth century a monk by the name of Benedict of Nursia had a lot to say about hospitality. So much, in fact, he wrote what’s now known as The Rule of St. Benedict, a guidebook of sorts on how to live a spiritual life in community with others.

Among his many words of wisdom, Benedict conveyed to his monks that the notion of hospitality extended far beyond a home-cooked meal served on fine china and fresh hand towels laid out the guest bathroom. Benedictine hospitality was, and is, centered on the act of receiving a person as if he is Jesus himself:

“All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, who said: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’…By a bow of the head or by a complete prostration of the body, Christ is to be adored and welcomed in them.”

Think about this for a moment. As awkward and downright bizarre as it would surely be to bow your head to Christ in every stranger who appeared at your front door, or who stood in line ahead of you at Walgreens, or who sat next to you in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, can you imagine the radically transformative power of such an approach?

Can you imagine, for a moment, the possibility of seeing Christ in everyone, even in the people you might least expect to see him? I don’t think we’d ever be the same, which is exactly what Jesus, and Benedict, intended.

This was the kind of hospitality Mohammed showed me. He could have brushed me off after I’d demonstrated my complete ignorance of his native country and culture. But instead, he went above and beyond expectations by continuing the dialogue every time I saw him on the path and by inviting my family and me to his home for dinner.

Mohammed offered love, respect, community, camaraderie, and above all, the gift of Jesus in a stranger, exactly where I least expected to see him.

I saw Mohammed on the path again yesterday. It had been a long time.  He gave me a high-five wave as he road past on his old-fashioned bike, his winter coat flapping open in the breeze. I doubt he recalls the dinner invitation, or perhaps even who I am. But I smiled big when I saw him, remembering how he’d unexpectedly extended Jesus’s grace and hospitality, remembering how he’d shown me what it looks like to be Christ to a stranger.

Filed Under: blogging Benedict, hospitalty Tagged With: hospitality, Mohammed, St. Benedict's Rule

Blogging Benedict: How to Stop Speed-Reading the Bible

March 8, 2013 By Michelle

I’m a speed reader. I skim and scan and tear through text, whether it’s a blog post, a magazine article or a novel. Blogging, tweeting, texting, Facebooking and Internet surfing have all exacerbated that tendency.

The problem, of course, is that my speed-reading has carried over to the Bible, too. I find myself skimming it, reading it just to get through it so I can move on to other items on my to-do list. Or, worse, reading whole paragraphs while simultaneously obsessing over the fact that the wet laundry sat in the washer all night. I’m not thinking about God. I’m thinking about mildewy underwear.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Benedict’s advice to “listen with the ear of your heart” – a kind of deep, attentive listening for God’s presence in your daily life. One way to do that, says Benedict, is through a close reading of Scripture, called lectio divina – literally translated from Latin as “divine reading.”

I admit that I have to work at this, and I don’t always do it very well. I have Bible Attention Deficit Disorder. That said, lectio divina is a valuable practice, and I’d like to think I’m getting better at it.

Here are some tips for practicing lectio divina (there are a few different methods – this is one I’ve tweaked a bit here and there so that it works for me):

1. Choose a very short passage (just a few verses) in the Bible, and read them through several times. If you are just beginning lectio, you might start with the Psalms, the Gospels or Paul’s letters – don’t head straight for Revelation or Leviticus or you’ll throw in the towel after 30 seconds flat.

2. Read the verses aloud– usually I whisper, because I’m the self-conscious type, even when I’m the only one home. While I’m reading, I try to listen closely for words or phrases that jump off the page or seem to speak to where I am or the challenges I am facing at the moment.

3. Write it – If something resonates, I jot those particular words or phrases in my journal, as well as my reaction to them. This is not eloquent prose. Usually I don’t even write in complete sentences. It’s simply a stream-of-consciousness reaction from the heart.

4. Mull over it – I try to take a word or phrase from Scripture and carry it with me throughout the day, repeating it to myself like a mantra while I’m driving the kids to school or emptying the dishwasher. I like the way even a single, small piece of Scripture can inform my daily life.

Don’t fret if you don’t have a dramatic epiphany during lectio divina. It’s not perfect or foolproof, and there will be days when you simply can’t move beyond your obsession over the wet laundry. I’ve had a couple lectio lightning bolt moments, but they are few and far between. Mostly this practice simply helps to remind me that God is indeed present in my everyday life.

Do you practice lectio divina? If so, what are some tips that work for you?

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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Filed Under: Bible, blogging Benedict, lectio divina Tagged With: Benedictine living, how to read the Bible, lectio divina, St. Benedict's Rule

Blogging Benedict: Learning the Practice of Humility the Hard Way

March 1, 2013 By Michelle

This Lent I am reading and practicing some of the exercises in Jane Tomaine’s book St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living. Benedict was a fifth-century monk who founded the Benedictines, a Roman Catholic order that still thrives today. He wrote what he called “the little rule,” a manual to help his fellow monks live a spiritual life in community.

I figured this week’s theme, obedience, would be a piece of cake. After all, I’m a rule-follower, always have been. As a teenager I never once broke my curfew. I always did my homework and got good grades. Even today, I write prompt thank you notes, visit the dentist twice annually and get my oil changed at 3,000 miles. I’m the quintessential annoying good girl, so I figured I could nail Benedictine obedience, if nothing else.

I should have known Benedict’s take on obedience would require more than simple rule following.

According to the Benedictines, humility is at the center of obedience. “The reason humility and obedience are linked,” explains Tomaine, “is that we cannot listen or respond if we believe that our way is the only way.”  Humility, in a nutshell, is placing God first, often by placing others before ourselves.

Because Benedict knew practicing humility would challenge his monks, he broke the concept down into twelve steps, one of which is this:

To believe in your heart that others are better than you.

Did Benedict mean we should believe everyone is better than ourselves, or just some people, I wondered. What about the people I don’t like very much, for instance? Or the person who’s spending a life sentence in prison? That person is better? Or the person whose lifestyle choices are markedly different than mine? Or the person I simply think is wrong.

This is what makes humility and obedience so tough. Benedict did mean everyone – not just the saints and the heroes. Not just the people who think like us and believe the same things we do. He meant even the annoying people. The people who have wronged us. The ones with whom we disagree.

I have a confession. While I was writing this column, I shot off a curt email to my dad. He had done something that had irritated me, and I wanted him to know that I disapproved. Frankly, I wanted him to know that he was wrong and I was right. Several hours after I’d hit “send,” in the midst of writing this column, I realized that I had demonstrated a distinct lack of humility with my dad. I could have said what needed to be said with grace rather than condemnation. I could have chosen humility over arrogance. I could have chosen my dad’s feelings over my own need to be right.

Benedict may intended his rules for his fellow fifth-century monks. But today, it seems his advice on obedience and humility was meant especially for me.

Have you ever learned a real-life lesson in humility?

: :

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.

This story ran last Saturday in the Lincoln Journal Star.

Filed Under: blogging Benedict, humility Tagged With: Benedictine living, St. Benedict's Rule

Blogging Benedict: Rooted

February 22, 2013 By Michelle

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.]

: :

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.

Filed Under: blogging Benedict, Lent Tagged With: Benedictine living, Jane Tomaine, Learning from St. Benedict, St. Benedict's Rule

Blogging Benedict: Listening with the Ear of Your Heart

February 15, 2013 By Michelle

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.

: :

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.

Missional Women

Filed Under: blogging Benedict, Lent, listening for God, looking for God Tagged With: Benedictine living, Jane Tomaine, Learning from St. Benedict, St. Benedict's Rule

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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