Thirteen years ago I was drawn to one of the chaplains at the University of Indianapolis, Sr. Jennifer’s model of a balanced life:
· Hospitality--welcoming to all
· Health Boundaries--knew what she valued and kept it that way--God/community/family/friends/fun--
· Stability--Did not immediately say yes to good events but prayerfully considered how it will work with her community
· Prayer--the community prays together three times each day
· God is in everything
· Obedience to God and community. Everyone should do the work needed to make the community survive. Even washing dishes is sacred work
· There are a lot of fun things to do that are free or low cost.
· Each year take a week of retreat to be with God and away from the world
· Hospitality - prayers- obedience - work - poverty - community
The balance she modeled I wanted for my life. Sr. Jennifer is a Benedictine nun and lives by the Rule of St. Benedict.
For several years, I have been studying the Rule of St. Benedict. In 2017 I became an Oblate of Our Lady of Grace monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana. I now live a life of Benedictine spirituality.
Have you ever noticed stacked rocks along the road, in the woods, by a creek and wondered what they were? They are called cairns. Many people stack the rocks as a spiritual practice.
Find some rocks and try to stack them on top of each other. While you are stacking the rocks think about your life and how you can make it more balanced so that it does not fall over like the rocks will do when they are not balanced on top of each other.
“Achieving a harmonious balance” does not come easily just like balancing the rocks is not an easy task.
“Benedict was quite precise about time. Time was to be spent in prayer, in sacred reading, in work, and in community participation. In other words, it was to be spent on listening to the Word, on study, on making life better for others, and on community building. It was public as well as private; it was private as well as public. It was balanced. No one thing consumed the monastic’s life. No one thing got exaggerated out of proportion to the other dimensions of life. NO one thing absorbed the human spirit to the exclusion of every other. Life was made up of many facets and only together did they form a whole. Physical labor and mental prayer and social life and study and community concerns were all pieces of the puzzle of life. Life flowed through time, with time as its guardian.” Sr. Joan Chittister.
“When making choices for balance in our lives we need to consider our whole self--
· our spiritual
· intellectual
· physical
· emotional
· social
· creative needs.”
What are some signs that your life is in harmony and balance?
What do you feel like when you are out of balance?
How can you make a plan, a Rule of Life, that will help to keep you more in balance and in harmony?
