Health, Well-Being and Monastic Life: Conversio

Last October, at the end of a big two-year project, I took inventory was dismayed every part of my situation: health, energy, weight, fitness, work-life balance, spiritual well-being, community life, friendships – even my belief that I could change it.  Koyaanisqatsi described it well:

ko.yaa.nis.katsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.

Benedict Tells Two Monks What They Have Eaten (Wikipedia)

The monastic life is, of course, the other way of living to which I have been called; our Benedictine vow of conversio is one of fidelity (and constant re-commitment) to that way of life. St. Benedict offered encouraged me with the last of his tools of good works ”Never lose hope in God’s mercy.”  I started with small changes.

This little tracker has been at the foot of Monastic Musings for months as I tried several tools to improve my health – a measurable dimension – as a start.  I chose May 1 (a Feast of St Joseph) as a target for at least regaining my pre-project well-being. Today, I’m celebrating as my little runner reaches her first milestone.

Created by MyFitnessPal – Free Nutrition Tracker

Over these months, my appreciation for our monastic way of life has grown – again! Health and well-being are promoted, but not only for the benefit of the individual monastic. “Even your body is not your own,” St Benedict says to the person about to  make final profession. Our well-being (physical, spiritual, psychological, and in community) is turned over to God.

St Benedict tells us, too, that this journey is lifelong — and I certainly have quite a ways to go.  I hope to write about some of the tools – technical, spiritual, psychological – that are helping me along the way.

Related articles

• Embracing The Life (doohan.id.au)
• Benedictine retreat-in-a-book (catholictwentysomething.wordpress.com)
• The Flexible Ideal (doohan.id.au)

A sociologist’s prayer

African American author, educator, and political activist W. E. B. Du Bois. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently found this prayer by W.E.B. DuBois, a ground-breaking African American sociologist and one of the co-founders of the N.A.A. C. P.

Here in northern Minnesota with 2 feet of snow on the ground in late April as final exams approach, it feels just about right:

Lord of the springtime, Father of flower, field and fruit, smile on us in these earnest days when the work is heavy and the toil wearisome; lift up our hearts, O God, to the things worthwhile — sunshine and night, the dripping rain, the song of the birds, books and music, and the voices of our friends.  Lift up our hearts to these this night and grant us Thy peace. Amen.

Related articles

• #See# : W.E.B. Du Bois: Crusader for Peace (Picture-Book Biography Series) (defeated687dd.wordpress.com)

Pope Francis and the Way to Change

Much has been written in the last two month about the need for change in the Vatican. The consensus is not about change in doctrine, but the Vatican bureaucracy itself. The Wikileaks scandal was just one among many situations in which it seemed that an entrenched bureaucracy is in need of reform. Archbishop Vigano‘s leaked accusations spoke of a network of corruption, nepotism and cronyism. Time for a change.

Bloggers speculated about who Pope Francis would appoint to various posts to carry out the clean-up. Those writers revealed the old mind-set that presumes the Pope will always work through a strongly centralized system, the exact pattern that draws criticism and is seen as the source of the problem. Although he might appoint strong leaders for the clean up, this approach would not change the actual structure that allowed the network of power relationships to build up. It would do nothing to prevent the problem from returning — and the second version might be worse than the first.

Pope Francis’ decision to convene a kitchen cabinet — a small group of cardinals from around the globe, most seen as leaders of regional bishops’ conference but without strong ties to the Vatican bureaucracy — has been called a “step towards collegiality” as promoted by Vatican II. Perhaps he recognizes that he cannot use the methods and structures of the previous two papacies to cure the ills and dismantle the unhealthy relationships that were able to grow within that system.

I see a second dynamic at work –