I’ve written before about the importance of Benedictine Spirituality in my walk of faith. One of the pillars of this spirituality involves punctuating the rhythms of each day with prayer – at morning, noon, evening, and at the close of the day. Using a website that offers liturgies that include readings from a daily lectionary, I pray the daily prayer offices using my iPhone, often on the parsonage side porch, or deck, or indoors in the parsonage, and often at noon in our church’s nave as a way of establishing a prayerful relationship with our building even when we are not worshiping there in person. Punctuating the day with such intentional prayer keeps me grounded in the objectivity of God’s scriptural word, with special focus on the psalms. Dwelling with God’s word in this way widens my vantage point on our troubled world as I seek to see with God’s eyes via scripture what is going on all around us.

Benedictine Spirituality also gives significant attention to the importance of manual labor in the lives of monks. Pastoral work is not known for its physical demands! In fact, it can be quite the challenge to incorporate into my routine physical activity. So, I endeavor to do a series of yoga stretches each day, and to take a longish walk in the neighborhoods surrounding the parsonage, seeking out the many natural walking paths in the vicinity. Incorporating such physical activity into my daily routines is a way of translating the Benedictine focus on manual labor into my own routines in ways that are contextually appropriate and natural. Both my yoga stretches and the walks tend to enliven my mind and not just my body, reducing stress in such a way that I can again regain and reclaim a wider-angle vision on the world.

The Rule of St. Benedict also has a lot to say about diet, prescribing portions of food and drink in humane ways that address the different needs of different monks. So it is that I pay attention to my intake of food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, for example, trying to incorporate into each meal fresh greens, even at breakfast. Like physical exercise, I find that fresh fruits and vegetables make me more alert of mind, and thus attentive to that which is needful. St. Benedict also recommends for monks a moderate serving of wine each day. In that spirit, I typically observe a “happy hour” before the evening meal which likewise brings its own perspective on things, often reducing my worrisome mental mountains to molehills. For wine, beer or spirits, in moderation, can gladden the heart.

Benedictine monks are encouraged in the Rule of St. Benedict to read several hours a day. I do a lot of reading – often political and social commentary – but I am best served by incorporating into my reading diet works of theology and spirituality, again in the service of widening my perspective on things through the written witness of saints and theologians.

Benedictine Spirituality balances solitude and community. This is my biggest current challenge in seeking to live my life in a Benedictine spirit. Pandemic-induced social isolation makes for too much solitude, and far less experience of community. Thus, it is all the more essential for me to seek out daily opportunities for conversation with others – with you as folk in my care, with family members, friends, and colleagues. I’m finding that good old-fashioned phone calls are the most life-giving to me when we are not able to meet face to face. Of all of the daily practices, it is probably conversation with others that is most helpful to me in helping me to regain and maintain a healthy, sacred perspective on that which confronts and afflicts us in nation and world.

So, this is some of what I do. I certainly don’t always do it perfectly or completely, and when certain features of my holy, ordinary routines are missing, I can tell the difference quite quickly. For the great genius of Benedictine Spirituality is to seek holistic balance in life, doing all things in humane ways that make for moderation and holistic well-being. Balance is not something you achieve once and for all. Rather, balance is pursued, experienced in fleeting ways until the experience of being off kilter drives us back to seeking balance and moderation yet again.

When it’s all said and done, Benedictine Spirituality honors the sacredness of ordinary routines. You’ll note that there is nothing extraordinary in what I do. This is not a spirituality that focuses on exotic, extraordinary experiences and complex, esoteric practices. Benedictine Spirituality sees holiness in even our most mundane habits. In this way, it resonates well with Lutheranism, which also finds God in the ordinary things of life. Some commonly quip that “the devil is in the details.” Well, Benedictines and Lutherans affirm that God is also in the details of life, holiness being present in the basic rhythms and routines of our days, often hidden in plain sight.

What do you do the preserve your sense of healthy and sacred perspective in your life? I’d love to hear from you, and to engage in conversation about your faith practices and life-giving routines.

With prayerful best wishes in Christ as you seek to navigate through the crises of our days with peace and presence of mind,

Pastor Jonathan Linman