I was thinking about things and it struck me that the Rule is less something we do, than a thing that works on us, forming and changing us.
It feels as if the Rule’s larger program has much the same effect as our “doing” its instruction for praying the Hours through the day – within our offices of prayer, cycling through the Psalms, we don’t “do” the Psalms: we let their Holy Music wash through us and bring us to wholeness.
This seems also to be the nature of the Rule. Its power is in our experience of it.
Opening ourselves to its voice, we remove our masks, experiencing the radically compassionate shepherd, who coaxes us, working in our deep, inexplainable parts.
It is prescriptive. Sort of. Yes, through it we “do”. But even more, we _are_.
And accept its space to practice wholeness.
Even if we try to “do” the Rule “perfectly”, we will miss. For, as Saint Benedict points out in Chapter 73, the Rule is a place for beginnings, not attainment.
So, maybe it is more a tool, like the starter in a car – or this paper on a clipboard & my sharpened pencil; or how I use my body as I pray.
Our prayer, in its beginnings and endings bleeds into the rest of our lives.
With disruptive power, we breathe our worship for the Creator of all.
~ Heidi +