Once upon a time a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came along and devoured them. So he put his seed pouch down and spent the next hour or so stringing aluminum foil all around his field. He put up a fake owl he ordered from a garden catalog and, as an afterthought, he hung a couple of traps for the Japanese beetles.
I remember seeing this parable [of the sower] acted out in the stage production of “Godspell,” a good-humored play based on the gospel according to Matthew. . . . Watching all of that, I had the same response I always do to this parable: I started worrying about what kind of ground I was on with God.
We are frequently told that we live in an age that doubts the wisdom, perhaps even the possibility, of commitment. At the same time, we can see a profound yearning for the values of community in the society of our times: the stability and sense of identity, the rootedness, that is so often lacking for those who live in the modern city.
Benedictine harmony and balance and awareness call us all to life drunk deeply. And, interestingly enough, there has probably never been a better moment in history to do that. We have information that has never been known before.
The ancient monastic practice of rising sometime between midnight and two in the morning to pray sanctifies the night hours. To me the idea of nuns and monks rising from their beds in the middle of the night and shuffling down a darkened hall in pairs by candlelight, half asleep, to sing and pray in a cold chapel is both appalling and comforting.
Hospitality is a particular Benedictine virtue, “Let all who come be received as Christ” is perhaps one of the most familiar aphorisms of the Rule. And yet the final paragraph is quite clear: “No one is to speak or associate with guests unless he is bidden; however, if a brother meets or sees a guest he is to greet him humbly as we have said. He asks for a blessing and continues on his way explaining that he is not allowed to speak with a guest” (53.23, 24).
My Dear Child,
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. Something about the prospect of battle moves me to write you a letter. I’m sitting here in the tent. The flaps are rolled up on the sides, and I can see out across the desert to where the sun is sliding down into the sand. . . . I suppose war has a way of helping a person see what is really important in life. . . . It makes me think of you.
If you have traveled around the world or even if you have read National Geographic from time to time, you know that there are two basic kinds of yokes that can be used to bear burdens: single ones and shared ones. The single ones are very efficient.
This morning’s reading contains one of the great consolation passages of all time. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest.” It is a passage you can find etched on tombstones or worked into stained glass windows or maybe even stitched in needlepoint and hung in the church parlor.
Thomas Jefferson epitomized what it meant in America to be a man of the Enlightenment. At his estate of Monticello, he displayed busts of Bacon, Locke, and Newton. Incredibly broad in interests and abilities, Jefferson was sufficiently interested in religious matters that one scholar has described him as “the most self-consciously theological of all America’s presidents.”