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| Our School Motto of the year on a wall in the dining room. |
But it's the similarities, not the extreme differences, that make me smile. I wouldn't try to change where I am... I simply embrace the differences to ground me in the joy of here.
I've got my "monastery bells" in the night bringing me back to the desperation of prayer. The voices of darlings that might ring less on tune. Those are the times when I gasp to pray the psalms, but I instead get to cling to something more simple.
"God help me, I was just up one hour ago."
There is no longer anything I own. It's all become part of this domestic communities possessions. I'm learning that things are temporary, but people are eternal. I can't be partial to my favorite material stuffs.
"Just why has my favorite eyeliner been used to draw on the walls of the bathroom?"
There isn't a room in the house that isn't occupied by another. I share my space constantly.
"Please close the door to the bathroom while mom is taking a shower!"
Decisions are no longer mine to make. It takes scheduling creativity to make sure each persons needs are seen as important when there are eight of us.
Ding, dong.
"Mom, there's a man at the door to see you."
(slump. I've got a houseful of women and daughters here to talk about a girls book...and I also scheduled the insurance man to come? fumble. fhume. slump.)
But in all reality there is much from the Benedictine Rule that we can apply to our lives, our domestic church.
Have you read THE RULE? It's something you can read a little of each day, year after year. Although written for monks, it has so much that fits into the domestic life.
I read books about bringing some of the basics of Benedictine Rule into our family life often. Lots of people have written their impressions of how to bring the Rule into the home.
Have you seen The Family Cloister by Robinson? I've been reading this book slowly for about 10 years. There are suggestions for family meetings that I have still yet to try with our family.
When I began reading this book, I had two children under 4. Less of the book had deep application then, but instead created a great foundation of philosophy of family life together.
The author is a protestant pastor who has spent time in Benedictine Monasteries around the USA including Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. (me too!) Now that I have one teenager and another quickly approaching, we apply more and more.
So what do we try to apply in this house?
A rule of prayer. No, we don't rise at 3am to sing in the morning. But we pray together in the morning and in the night. Each family member is given "Prayer time with Jesus" as part of their school work. We have a small room at the top of our stairs in which students take their individual quiet prayer time each day as part of their school work. It's a room full of icons, bibles, prayer books and holy cards. This site is also where we gather at night to share prayer as a family. It's quite cozy when all 8 of us squish in there.
Hospitality. Our home is open to many, often. We host persons for meals on a weekly basis. We host neighbors and friends weekly in unplanned gatherings. We are also working to be more hospitable to those that live in this house! We can become lax at times in going the extra miles for those we live with. (Do I always rise in the night with a smile when someone calls for a drink of water?) I often think of Hebrews 13:2 "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it." We don't get many strangers around our dinner table. (I believe the time for that has passed.) But I DO see many people in a day when outside of this house that we can give a smile or a kind word to. This is the kind of hospitality we can give to strangers.
Obedience. I may have thought that I'd do things my own way once I was grown up. But there is always some kind of authority that I choose to obey. Obedience thought processes have been in this house for years. I tend to refer back to those verses from Ephesians when considering how to respond. The verses that make me think I would never be asked to do something unreasonable. I try to keep this in mind when I ask things of those under my authority in this monastery.
more to come...