The 4th of July has been celebrated in Philadelphia in the manner I expected. The military men . . . ran away with all the glory of the day. Scarcely a word was said of the solicitude and labors and fears and sorrows and sleepless nights of the men who projected, proposed, defended, and subscribed the Declaration of Independence.
[Benjamin] Franklin was also among those Deists who remained open to the possibility of divine intervention or special providence in human affairs. . . . Unlike radical, or anti-Christian Deists, Franklin perceived that organized religion could benefit society by encouraging public virtue as well as by promoting social order.
To discuss the religion of the founding fathers means to discuss religion in the United States of their time. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were born and baptized in what Virginians of the time called “the Church,” “the Church of England,” “the Established Church,” or “the Church of Virginia.”
I can illustrate an important part of what I have learned from Simon Peter in a story about something that happened to a friend of mine. His young son had eagerly begun kindergarten and, in October of his first year of school, the teacher said to his class, “Would you like to make something with your own hands to give to your folks for Christmas?
Nobody knows where Saul is, although it is said he has changed his name to Paul. Now he appears in Jerusalem, asking to meet Peter. If we can trust the second-century write Onesiphoros, the figure who entered the room that day and walked forward to meet Peter and James was not impressive.
Benedictine life is full of reminders that each monk is a sacrament of the presence of God to his brethren. The times of community prayer, for example, are a daily affirmation of the commitment of the community’s members one to another. Sheer physical presence—something that abbots always have to nag monks about—matters immensely.
Many and various are the things that are made. When you take them in detail they are mutually antagonistic and discordant. But, taken in connection with the whole creation, they are agreeable and harmonious. Just as the sound of the harp, composed of many different notes, makes one symphony.
I suppose my greatest curiosity about the afterlife is whether I will continue to be me. I want to continue being me, of course. I want not only to see all of those creatures that I have rescued through the years; I also want to see the loved ones whom I have lost. I want to lay my head on Grandma Lucy’s lap again.
This is the least prayerful chapter in the Rule. It is fairly bristling with tension. Perhaps because of his own personal experience, Benedict is wary of the office of prior, probably because of the problems arising from the appointment by an outside authority and the dangers of a power struggle that it carries. The ideal, of course, is what we have been given in the previous chapter, a community of “peace and love.” But Benedict is completely realistic about human nature and its weaknesses and what happens when the spirit of pride enters in. . . .
All religious groups I know about seem to have many people who are afraid of conflict. They cannot distinguish in their minds between disagreement and condemnation. Afraid to say “no,” they live with things they cannot agree with or do jobs they do not really want to do. One day they explode.