The Art of Running in Place t h e t r ea d m i ll o f sta b i li ty
by Br. Simon B aker
When committing oneself to the monastic way of life, a monk or nun professes three vows. That’s it; only three vows (and contrary to popular opinion silence is not one of the three!) So whatever be the content of those three vows, it stands to reason that the monastic charism lives or dies by them. Our first vow, obedience, in an Apostolic Church makes good sense. To give God everything, even our own wills, it is necessary to consecrate them to his legitimate representatives. After all, “none of us lives as his own master” (Romans 14:7). Vow two, fidelity to the monastic way of life, is even less controversial than obedience. This vow raises as many eyebrows as would a zoo keeper who promises to care for animals for a living. It is the final vow, stability, that is easily the oddest of them all. We live in a world that values frenetic activity and constant change so as to stave off boredom and safeguard what it calls “freedom.” In a world such as this, what sense does it make for a man or woman to promise to stay in one place for the rest of his or her life? First of all, let us bear in mind that while stability is staying put, it is not staying still, not remaining idle waiting for something to happen. That is the heresy of Quietism. That kind of stability leads to stagnation and decay. Water that does not flow freely quickly turns sour and unfit for drinking. Stability, therefore, needs movement to be life-giving. St. Benedict, the very man who so strongly demands that his monks live stably, tells those same monks that “we must run and do now what will profit us forever” (RB Prologue: 44). Abbot James, too, understands this imperative as is seen in his choice of abbatial motto, Currite Vitae Lumine (“Run with the Light of Life”). At this point you are not to be blamed if you find yourself asking, “So which is it, stay put or run?” Well, like most things Catholic, the answer is the paradoxical both/ and. Think of it this way. It is difficult to imagine a form of exercise more boring than the treadmill, yet we are told 50 million Americans use one! The treadmill’s design is such
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Kansas Monks
