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.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Chapter 26: Unlawful association with the excommunicated
There are strong descriptions being used in these chapters and this one in particular. Joan Chittister’s line defines this chapter a little better for me. “Meddling, agitating, distracting a person from the great work of growth at such an important time in a person’s life is a grave fault in itself.”(Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p. 148)
It’s just the ego on my part thinking that I have the word or words that will make a difference for that person and make them feel better or help them change or whatever. And I don’t. For me, at some point, there has to be the intuitive recognition of an “important time” for a person and the ability to pull back from wanting to interfere with self-perceived comforting words or actions. Silence is the atmosphere of the meditator, and listening with the ears of the heart is the only action. These are the reminders that I need as I step back and stay back.
Senpectae! Wise old man or woman. Abba, make me such, in your mercy. At eighty I certainly should be old enough! Teach me how lovingly to comfort the disturbed and equally lovingly, disturb the comfortable.
There are strong descriptions being used in these chapters and this one in particular. Joan Chittister’s line defines this chapter a little better for me. “Meddling, agitating, distracting a person from the great work of growth at such an important time in a person’s life is a grave fault in itself.”(Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p. 148)
ReplyDeleteIt’s just the ego on my part thinking that I have the word or words that will make a difference for that person and make them feel better or help them change or whatever. And I don’t. For me, at some point, there has to be the intuitive recognition of an “important time” for a person and the ability to pull back from wanting to interfere with self-perceived comforting words or actions. Silence is the atmosphere of the meditator, and listening with the ears of the heart is the only action. These are the reminders that I need as I step back and stay back.
Senpectae! Wise old man or woman. Abba, make me such, in your mercy. At eighty I certainly should be old enough! Teach me how lovingly to comfort the disturbed and equally lovingly, disturb the comfortable.
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