Wisdom Distilled From The Daily
Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today

author John Chittister, OSB

HOUSE CHURCH
CONVERSATION
PACKET

John Dietsch
Fall 2003
Methodist Theological School in Ohio

Six Questions for the
House Church using
Wordless Words

based on the Rule of St. Benedict

John Dietsch

	The six questions presented ask us to drop the notion of defining faith.  Rather they call us as a house church to experience faith in action.  They are designed to enhance your “seeing” the presence of faith functionally, not philosophically.  It is my hope as your house church leader that you will use these questions as a way to gain an awareness of presence not only for today’s discussion, but also for your future days here at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio.  Try living the Rule of St. Benedict in the following:

Question #1
	The spirituality that emerges from the Rule of Benedict is a spirituality charged with living the ordinary life extraordinarily well.  Immerse yourself into this photograph and then consider where you are right now.  Can you sense a presence of your surroundings?  Describe.

Question #2
	Carefully consider the picture here and ask yourself, do you see objects or do you see relations?

Question #3
	Study this picture and think again where you are right now.  Is that place you are in now a holy place?  Why or why not?

Question #4
	Stand in the place where this photograph was taken and ask yourself, Does theological study make me a more holy person?

Question #5
	Can you recognize God working in your life in this picture?

Question #6
	The cornerstone reads “Preach the Word”.  How does that relate to where you are standing right now?

	The following conversation packet around Joan Chittister’s book Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, Living the Rule of St. Benedict is an experiential tool that demonstrates the wisdom found in this book.  How better to generate conversation that pertains to this book than to experiment with the actual content of the book in the context of that in which we, the house church, are in. The reason behind this experiential piece is the thinking that if we take anything of value from this book it has to be in the form of actual experience rather than “just another reading.”  To just read is to defeat the teaching that lies within.  “The spirituality that emerges from the Rule of Benedict is “a spirituality charged with living the ordinary life extraordinarily well.”1
	What this conversation packet attempts to do is to guide the house church through the book with attention given to the “raw material of average daily life” that Benedictine spirituality is made of.  By doing so, my hope is that the conversation that we have in the community of our house church will plant seeds of awareness and an eye for seeing the “raw material” in our own lives.
	I have provided each of you with a copy of Wisdom Distilled From The Daily.  In each copy I have gone through and marked the passages that deal specifically with “raw materials of average daily life.”  Please scan through and read these highlighted lines.  But before embarking on the first chapter please reflect on the picture below and read the very first line of the Acknowledgments.  Breathe in the picture and experience the space 

Insert picture here

between the trees and the grass of summer.  Carefully look at that picture and immerse yourself.  Begin to walk down the lane into the shadows.  As you disappear into the picture realize that you are looking at the site of The Methodist Theological School in Ohio in the year nineteen hundred and fifty eight.  Now breathe in the air around you and sense the present of where you are right now.  Slowly let your eyes harvest the “raw materials” of the space you are in – see with the eyes of the heart; the eyes of the present.
	My intent in presenting the house church this information in such a way is to not only provide a way in which the book can be understood, but also to provide a tool for each of you as you journey through The Methodist Theological School in Ohio.  In a context we all share together as students, by applying the teaching in this book, we can all see just how extraordinarily well we may or may not be living in the present.  After all, we are just ordinary people.
	The following is presented so as to give you a brief look at Benedict of Nursia.  The information here is taken from the basic resources for research in early church history as listed.  For further reading there is an excellent Appendix found on page 208 in the book provided for you.

•	Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-547)

•	Christian saint
•	Monastic founder
•	Spiritual leader

•	Best known as the author of the monastic rule still followed by Benedictine and Cistercian monks and nuns

•	Father of Western monasticism because of widespread influence

•	Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book 2 written in 593-594 only source of information on the details of Benedict’s life.

•	Born into a “family of high station.”
•	Sent to Rome to study liberal arts.
•	Repelled by immorality of the city.

•	Went to live in a cave.
•	Lived on bread brought by neighboring monk.
•	Three years spent in cave as hermit

•	Became abbot of nearby community of monks.
•	Tensions grow.
•	Monks attempt to poison Benedict.

•	Benedict returns to Subiaco, where he lived in cave.
•	Followers were many.
•	Established twelve small monasteries.

•	Local opposition by local priest, jealousy.
•	Benedict moves eight miles south of Rome.
•	Built monastery with small group of Monks.
•	Monte Cassino

•	Was not ordained a priest.
•	His sister lived nearby with a group of nuns.
•	Spent the rest of his life writing the rules for monks.2

	Benedict’s life is set out in four successive stages.3
1.	Confrontation with evil or temptation
2.	Spiritual triumph
3.	A new situation
4.	A fresh confrontation with the power of evil
	It is in this way that Benedict’s life unfolds as:

1.		Searches for God
2.		Finding God in the midst of trials and temptation
3.		Invites the disciple to follow
4.		Enjoys the freedom to live in the wide expanse of God.
	What is significant is that Benedict took what he thought was good from existing rules and practices, evaluated that material in the light of his own experience, and blended the elements to form a balanced cenobitic form of monasticism.4  This differs from the eremitic form in that there lies within a communal ascetic.  Monastic life flourished in the fourth century and communal innovations became increasingly popular.5 The cenobitic is immersed into a shared life of work and worship in accordance with monastic rule and in submission to a monastic superior or abbot.6  The Encyclopedia of Early Church defines the four stages as follows, a spiritual journey of return to:7

1.	God through obedience
2.	Under guidance of Christ
3.	Love only Christ with humility
4.	Total freedom to conform to will of God
	The rule of Benedict promotes a spirituality that is both broad and simple.  Because of its flexibility and adaptability it is capable of incorporating various local traditions.  Whenever and wherever the rule is authentically incarnated in monastic men and women, both as individuals and communities, it results in a life that is biblical, contemplative, rooted in a community life of work and prayer, and productive of holiness and peace.8  The importance of this experience within community can be seen in the first stage of Benedict’s life as he confronted the chaos in Rome and found first, not a coexistence, rather he retreated to the cave.  He separated first in order that he gain the presence first.  It was through gaining the presence that gave him spiritual triumph over the chaos and immorality that so repulsed him when he first visited the city.  Therefore, with this spiritual triumph that was gained through a disengagement, he was then able to engage a new confrontation and overcome the obstacle by being first present.  The pattern of his entire life could somewhat be seen as the process that we might encounter today in everything we do if we can see it.

1.	Recognize God in the situation
2.	Retreat from the situation in order to see it or have a presence.
3.	Live side by side the situation in humility and look for God always in the daily.
4.	Grow into recognizing God in the next situation.
	There is a reciprocity within the Rule that continually enables the re-visioning of the vision.  The profoundness of this Rule is that what we might look at today and be able to at least understand the basic concepts, the actual discipline and living out the rule took this man an entire lifetime to experience and an entire lifetime to see.
	The core theme that grows from Wisdom Distilled From The Daily is the opportunity that is given the reader to see.  The book is a re-vision.  To read it is to re-vision the manner in which one sees the uncompromising realism of the everyday.  Simply put, “if we are not spiritual where we are and as we are, we are not spiritual at all.”9  However the emphasis is not placed on the spirituality of some high unobtainable pedestal of glimmering perfection.  Rather the emphasis is on first, the place of where we are and as we are.  The reading takes us from “object-minded” into the realm of “relation-minded.”  In relation with the presence around us and not standing above or over our surroundings.  Life is not about ‘me.’  Life is about God.”10  
	For the purpose of a summation to illuminate the principle points of Wisdom Distilled From The Daily, a critique of Beth Hansen’s photograph on the front cover will be sufficient.  So profound is that small photograph as to be the “object” that speaks for the “relation” contained within the book.  So profound is the small photograph that one easily opens the book without first “seeing” the book.  Much like the much touted line “Where would God hide wisdom so humankind would never find it?  With the answer of course being inside humankind; that is the function of Rule of St. Benedict.  I am convinced that photograph was chosen because of its seemingly “everyday” appearance.  There is somewhat a rejection of anything impractical or visionary.  There is a seemingly banal quality that in today’s graphics somewhat pales in comparison.  However, inasmuch as the photograph functions as a book cover, seemingly out of step with the digital image spirituality that permeates our culture today, the photograph so beautifully tells the story.  The story of the Rule of St. Benedict.  A wisdom that functions below the surface of the picture.  As it has been said the picture always lies.
	In the general composition of the image the viewer is led down a path that grows out of the foreground and wanders on into an unknown destination.  To live a life of Benedictine awareness we must come to see what we cannot.  The concrete sidewalk, made grey with a coalition of different particles, speaks to community of relationships that is present in the Rule of St. Benedict.  Covering the sidewalk is pigeon droppings as to address the messiness of the raw.  The seeming lack of refinement of the woman sitting among the pigeon droppings, yet in an act of giving serves the scavenger birds that beg.  An outstretched hand directs our eyes to see the person who quietly reads.  There is a coarse nature to the openness in which both subject themselves to the daily grind.  They both are courageously persistent against a backdrop of cityscape that again speaks to the separateness yet the togetherness of community life.  Both persons are immersed into the life of community.  Both are subject to the chafed surface of raw materials that make up daily life.  It is in this place that the person grapples with themselves as they are that bridges them to the realm of spiritual matters.  There is a separation from the object of place to the relation of place.  The separation is the wisdom distilled.  The separation from first the headlong business of the everyday rawness so as to understand that it is God that is seen.  The presence of dis-engagement in order that the re-engagement can be seen.  There is a disciple in that intentional dis-engagement. The realities of life are uncompromising; however, the Rule of St. Benedict allows not the transcendence of that very life but rather the transformation of that life, by first insisting that you be present in that life.
	It is a common life, a shared life of growth and risk.  A life of nakedness and untested devotion that lifts up place first, then as you are in that place, that leads to presence.  The presence of knowing life is about God.  The clamor of self diminishes in this presence and fades into the currents of being rather than doing.
	Inasmuch as this process or Rule sounds easy the photograph again attests to the difficulty.  Both persons are seated among the distractions of the city.  There is the delicacy of the quiet interior walled garden that nurtures the ongoing process of making more nature against the manmade city that lies just outside the wall.  But the garden is not outside the city, rather it exists within the city.  The garden thrives in the city.  The woman’s coat suggests the temporal element that things can change, but we are present underneath the coat or layers of meaning.  The lack of a flag on the flagpole invites the viewer to drop the mediated symbolism that marks the labeling or judgements that exist if presence is not had.  To live a life of Benedictine awareness means we must come to see what we cannot.
	This is the re-vision of the vision and it comes with a high price.  And that price is the willingness to want to do the work of being present amid the torrents of insincerity that cloud the spiritual landscape.  The clouds that cast a shadow in this photograph will give way to blue skies.  The leaves will fall and the grass will dry.  The sounds in the city will fade only to rise the next day.  The rhythm of the everyday provides the red in the flowers that will soon fade and give way to skeleton of nature.  The separation or distilled presence gives way to the freedom of knowing God is already in our lives.  Our task is simply to recognize that.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelo Di Berardino, Ed . Encyclopedia of the Early Church.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Catholic University of America. New Catholic Encyclopedia.  New York: Thomson-Gale, 2002.

Joan Chittister, OSB. Wisdom Distilled From The Daily.  San Francisco: Harper, 1001.

F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingston, Eds.  The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.  Third Edition.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Mircea Eliade, Ed.  The Encyclopedia of Religion.  New York: Macmillan and Co., 1986.

Everett Ferguson, Ed.  Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.  New York: Garland Pub., 1997.

Joseph Kelly.  The Concise Dictionary of Early Christianity.  Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992.

Johannes Quasten, Patrology.  Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950.