No, I'm not checking into a monastery. But I've been reading from several of Joan Chittister's books the last few days. "The Monastery of the Heart" is an invitation to a meaningful life. Joan Chittister is an active peace advocate, a prolific writer and much more. But, as a Benedictine nun, she's also lived the last 50 years of her life in a monastery.She's not suggesting that we do this.
But she is suggesting that, if we work on a satisfying spiritual life, all else will fall into place. And she shares the Rule of Benedict. Here's a quote:
...the spiritual life lay in simply living this life, our daily life, well. All of it. Every simple, single action of it.
Now that sounds like fun, right? Joan says in another book, "The Gift of Years," about getting older:
Life is now. Only now. But who of us has ever much stopped to notice it? We did what we did in all those other years because those were the tasks of life then. The task of life now is simply - LIFE.
I experienced two huge examples of this on Wednesday when I met with my Power Rangers. First, I was deeply concerned about a sad and frightening situation. These women dealt with it instantly and perfectly. Then, another of us told about how she handled a delicate situation where someone hit her car. No, worse than that, hit her husband's car while she was driving it! She handled it in such a sensitive loving and strong way that I wanted to weep.
All this to say, LIFE is all around us. I want to live it well every day and not miss most of the good stuff like some folks seem to do.
Or, as Auntie Mame said:
Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!
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