There is a quote often attributed to the old pitcher Satchel Paige: “sometimes I sits and think and sometimes I just sit.” This is foreign to our current culture. We have to be doing something. Our value is in what we do.
I am a lay monastic and when I visit the Abbey the one thing I never see is a monk in a hurry. I am pretty sure that a “hurrying monk” just doesn’t exist. And that is not so much a rule as it is a choice for the monks. And yet each has work to do. A monastery doesn’t run itself.
To truly be a monk, St. Benedict said that they have to earn their own way. Every Abbey produces something: jelly, fudge, honey, or even caskets. So work matters but doesn’t define the monk. They pray at my Abbey seven times per day but that is not all that they do. They cook, pray, and study as well.
And yet not one of those activities defines those monks. They simply are monks. The secret, as I see it, is living in the moment and being fully present to each moment. Now, that sounds easy but it takes a lifetime to learn how. And, the monks do not live in a world that is full of hurry.
We live in a hurrying world and we usually hurry with it. What if we just quit hurrying? Instead, what if we become deliberate, focused, and fully present to each moment? Perhaps we would just Be.
Being sounds calm, slow, and well, special. I think I will continue to just be….me.
TMM