Stability: Not Just for Monks
The other day a friend of mine asked about my stability. I hasten to say that it was not mental stability that concerned him. Rather, the stability in question was the distinctive vow that Benedictine men and women have taken for centuries. What is that all about?
First of all, people seem genuinely surprised to discover that Benedictines do not take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. If we don’t take those vows, then what do we promise in their stead?
The better-known vows of poverty, chastity and obedience came centuries after Saint Benedict outlined the three commitments that we Benedictines do make. In the first of them, conversio morum, we promise to live a monastic manner of life. That includes life in community, simplicity in our life-style and a balance of prayer and work.
The second vow, obedience, can seem straightforward, but it is more nuanced than you might expect. What it is not is blind obedience to an arbitrary authority. What it really is is thoughtful obedience to the abbot, who is our father and whom we believe holds the place of Christ in our lives.
The third vow, stability, is the real puzzler. What is it and why is it such a big deal for Saint Benedict? Well, the logic behind it is simple. Unlike those religious orders which organize themselves into provinces that allow superiors to shift personnel to suit the need, we monks commit ourselves to life in a particular community, in a particular place, and we do so for life. Benedict prescribes this because his paradigm for monastic life is the family. In this family the abbot is father and the monks are brothers to each other. In one another we strive to see the face of Christ, and we support one another in the life-long search for God.
Within these parameters Benedictines seek to grow, and we hope to grow in many ways. To cite but one example, experience taught Benedict that we all must face our personal demons, and if monks try to escape then the demons are sure to follow. It’s better to confront them headlong with the help of many brothers. In that struggle monks are accountable to one another, and in a stable community there is potential for measured growth as well as measured backsliding. But as a family we help one another deal with the challenges of life.
There is no denying the occasional inefficiencies in this way of life, and unequal distribution of talents among monasteries can be one of them. At Saint John’s we’ve been blessed to have several gifted organists over the years, as well as several monks who love woodworking. By contrast, for generations we’ve been short of plumbers. Despite that, we thank God for whatever talents that monks have, and we make the most of the opportunity.
There is also a certain culture that stability can create in a community. Visitors usually find monasteries to be well-tended, serene, and lovely places, and the reason for this owes something to our vow of stability. We live here for life, and if we trash the place then we are stuck with it. So we cultivate a reverence for the land, for the buildings, and for the landscape; and we do so in the conviction that these will shape the kind of lives we will lead.
Creating a place that shows the work of God among us takes daily effort. Failure is not really an option, because if we leave the place a dump then the next generation will rightly scold us for poor stewardship.
Finally, our culture tends to prize escapism and a wanderlust that discourages the formation of rooted communities. That’s a subject for another day, but it is something that we should mull over nonetheless. Civilization in the monastery depends on the willingness of monks to live and work together in harmony, both for their own sakes as well as for the sake of generations to come. For that very reason I suggest that stability may be something we want to cultivate not only in monasteries, but also in our homes, neighborhoods, cities and even countries. From experience monks can tell us that it can actually be a force for good.
NOTES
+From June 1st through the 5th we had our annual retreat for monks in the abbey. Delivering the retreat conferences was Abbot Jeremy Driscoll, abbot of Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon. The retreat was notable for at least two things. First, Abbot Jeremy delivered his conferences via Zoom, which was a first for him and for us as well. Because of the need for social distance we monks had to make additional adjustments to the situation, and that included provision for lunch and dinner. Rather than having us crowded in the abbey refectory, we decided to hold them outside in the monastic garden.
+On June 5th I participated in my first meeting of the advisory council of Saint John’s Outdoor University. The Outdoor University creates and implements educational programs that introduce our students as well as the public to the abbey arboretum and the other natural resources at Saint John’s.
+Today’s post presents photos of the monastic garden, which was built in the late 1920s. I have always found the stone walls there mesmerizing, and we are fortunate that they still stand sturdy and strong today. The walls pictured in this post were built in 1929.