Nature takes time. There is so much in terms of cycle, seeds are slow to grow, and I so often want things to go quickly or have an expectation of what is possible, what should be possible now. And part of the journey is learning to be patient, learning to slow down, learning to change my expectations of what God is inviting. Sometimes I sense what God is inviting me to and, as my spiritual director told me, it may be something you are living into ten years later, when I am thinking it is going to happen next month, and I keep coming back to that. Maybe this is the thing that yes, I am working towards and maybe I will be there ten years later. What I am doing today is important and it is another step on the journey but I may not see the fruit now. That’s part of the process. I am trying to look to the future and wait for today.
– Br. Luke Ditewig
Today’s Question to Journal
What do you long for in your relationship with God?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise – My Garden Plot
Spend time now reflecting on your relationship with God. Use the exercise in your guidebook to map out how your garden is currently growing. Consider too, how you would like it to grow. Respond to the questions in each section with drawings and creative expressions. Start with the soil, move on to the plants, and end with the sky. Have fun, get out your art supplies, and let your creative spirit come alive!
I remember one day specifically we were reading from the Psalms and this little nugget jumps out at me and says, “Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides.” And when you think about that for a minute, if God is in us and God is a part of who we are and flourishes in us then he actually dwells inside of us. And so I am actually that dwelling place. And so sometimes, like when planting a garden, you plant the seed but there has got to be a time when things are happening beneath the soil that you don’t know what’s going on and what’s happening. But eventually there is going to be something start to sprout out of the ground and it is not by anything that you did really except to be the soil and to give it a chance. And yet something begins to flourish and something begins to bloom but we have to sometimes be patient and let that happen and remember that God in us is working what we cannot do ourselves.
– Br. Jim Woodrum
Today’s Question to Journal
Do you feel connected to God’s love on a daily basis?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise – My Garden Plot
Spend time now reflecting on your relationship with God. Use the exercise in your guidebook to map out how your garden is currently growing. Consider too, how you would like it to grow. Respond to the questions in each section with drawings and creative expressions. Start with the soil, move on to the plants, and end with the sky. Have fun, get out your art supplies, and let your creative spirit come alive!
So how can we come to know the love of God in our lives and in the lives of those around us? I start with the understanding that God is Himself love. God is love. And in a sense all love is God’s love and all love has its source, its ultimate source, in the heart of God. Like that very old hymn reminds us, “Wherever love is, God himself is there.” So we see God’s love all around us in the lives of those that we know, in their compassion, in their generosity, in their giving, in their acts of love and kindness, the way that they care for other people. It is all God’s love even though it is coming through those individuals. Even more immediately, we can come to know God’s love within ourselves because we too, like the people we admire and appreciate, we, too, are instruments of God’s love. We are Christ’s hands in the world, as it were. So God’s love is something that’s alive and present and active in and through us and so recognizing that in our giving, in our generosity, in our compassion, in our loving kindness and care for others, that that’s God living and active and working through us and through our lives.
Some of us have gotten very good at making confessions, you know, making a list of our failings and our sins. But sometimes I wonder if we are not very good at recognizing the good that we do and maybe we need some kind of sacrament, a confession of good deeds. A confession of the ways in which Christ’s love has been active and manifested in our own lives, in and through us. And so I think this is important to consider in a Rule of Life because a Rule of Life, of course, will include some kind of reasonable, healthy self-care plan, some ways to make sure that we are healthy in ourselves. But it also will include some opportunities for serving others and for some plan for giving to others so that Christ’s love can be manifest in and through us, and in an intentional way. I think it is a very important part of making our lives livelier still.
– Br. Mark Brown
Today’s Question to Journal
What makes you most aware of God’s love?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise – My Garden Plot
Spend time now reflecting on your relationship with God. Use the exercise in your guidebook to map out how your garden is currently growing. Consider too, how you would like it to grow. Respond to the questions in each section with drawings and creative expressions. Start with the soil, move on to the plants, and end with the sky. Have fun, get out your art supplies, and let your creative spirit come alive!
But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart Luke2:19 RSV
In the verse above, from Luke’s gospel, we see Mary pondering on the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. In particular the shepherds account of what they had seen and heard out in the fields, that prompted them to hurry and find Jesus.
This week, we will be exploring our relationship with God. Out of all the elements of creating a Rule of Life this is probably the central part. Jesus came to offer us abundant life and through his teaching, through his life, death and resurrection he has offered us this wonderful way to come home to God, to receive that life, which is his promise to each one of us. And I think in my own experience my own relationship with God deepens in proportion to my own life of prayer. Prayer is the lifeblood. It is the very thing which binds me to God and God to me. And during this phase, we’ll be exploring ways in which we can develop and grow our own life of prayer with God.
I love the way that Jesus, who came to teach us about God and help us to come to know God, didn’t do that through very difficult theological concepts. Jesus preferred to talk about God and about the kingdom of God through very simple images, using the very ordinary things of life, which were so very familiar to his hearers. He would say, “Consider the birds of the air or consider the lilies of the field,” when he was trying to help them not be so anxious or not to worry so much. Don’t worry, consider the birds, consider the lilies. And what I like is that word he uses, ‘consider’. We see the word consider and we assume it just means think of them or just imagine them for a moment. But that word in the original Greek is a very special word and it actually means look at very carefully. Look at it and consider what you are looking at. Spend time looking at those lilies – and what do they say to you? What do they reveal to you about God and about yourself? I think one of the best things we can do, I think, in developing our own life of prayer is practicing simply paying attention. Actually look and consider and spend time looking at something in creation, looking at it and marveling at it, wondering at it, and allowing its deep mystery to come to you and change you and reveal something of a mystery of God the Creator. I think this is a wonderful way of deepening our relationship with God.
And during this phase, we’ll be offering various ideas, reflections, to help you in your own growth in your life of prayer with God. And at the end of the phase, we’ll be encouraging you to gather together some ideas or thoughts, which have come to you, and offer you some tangible ways in which you may incorporate them, so that you may enrich your own life of prayer, and enable you to receive in a new way the abundant life, which is God’s gift to us all.
– Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Today’s Question to Journal
Pick something in God’s creation to “consider” today. What did you notice or observe?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise – My Garden Plot
Spend time now reflecting on your relationship with God. Use the exercise in your guidebook to map out how your garden is currently growing. Consider too, how you would like it to grow. Respond to the questions in each section with drawings and creative expressions. Start with the soil, move on to the plants, and end with the sky. Have fun, get out your art supplies, and let your creative spirit come alive!
Over the course of this week we’ve introduced the idea of a Rule of Life and we’ve used the metaphor of a garden or a garden plot to think about our lives and think about the kind of plants that we want to encourage the growth of in these garden plots and perhaps also the kind of weeds that we might want to take out. So how can we make this garden plot flourish? How can we make it abundant and fruitful?
So at the end of this week you have a chance to look back over the week. We’ve talked about what a Rule of Life is and we’ve looked at some different kinds of Rule of Life. What are the ideas that have kind of stuck in your mind? What has grabbed your attention? And what are some of the suggestions or ideas or images or metaphors that have seemed useful to you? So gather them up now and think in terms of gathering these as “seeds” and putting them in a packet and you’re going to sow them in the weeks to come as we go through the process of developing this garden plot.
– Br. David Vryhof
Today’s Question to Journal
What ‘seeds’ have you collected for your garden plot?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise
Before we begin planting our gardens, we may want to take a stroll around and explore other gardens to see what works well and what doesn’t work well. Look at some of the examples of different Rules of Life.Use the blank ‘seed packets’ to jot down notes as you explore other Rules of Life. What inspires you? What ideas stand out that you could incorporate into your own Rule of Life? These are ‘seeds’ that we can consider planting in our own Garden Plots.
This Week’s Podcast Episode
Rules of Life and the Rhythms of Nature – Br. James Koester
Why live by a Rule? For most of us, it is a matter of necessity. Living by a Rule and the desire to live by a Rule is the equivalent of acknowledging the fact that we need help, which is the beginning of spirituality. It is the greatest prayer. And so many of you know that Evensong is the first prayer of the day because in keeping with the Jewish tradition the new day starts at sundown. The first prayer of the Evensong is, “O God, make speed to save us. O Lord make haste to help us.” The first word of the day is, “God, help me.” It is the beginning of spirituality. God cannot enter into a life that does not acknowledge the need for God or acknowledge that on my own I can’t do this. And so we set out to write a Rule, recognizing that we need a little something to give us the impetus to get on with our lives, to sort of set parameters on what we might like to achieve and do and the way we might like to live our life, because most of us would have to admit that we need a lot of reminders about how we want to live. It is easy to fall back into old habits or to become… rest on our laurels, so to speak, and sort of let up on – whether it’s going to church, or praying every day, or whatever it is – those things that we know we desire deeply,but somehow find ourselves cutting out or not able to stick with the program, and the Rule sort of sets a backdrop as a sort of reminder. Remember that this is how you want to live. Remember the benefits of living this way. So keep with it, stick with it, continue to do it, and always having that Rule there to fall back on and to look and say, “Yeah, this is the way to live.”
– Br. John Braught
Today’s Question to Journal
When you connect with nature, what makes it meaningful?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise
Before we begin planting our gardens, we may want to take a stroll around and explore other gardens to see what works well and what doesn’t work well. Look at some of the examples of different Rules of Life.Use the blank ‘seed packets’ to jot down notes as you explore other Rules of Life. What inspires you? What ideas stand out that you could incorporate into your own Rule of Life? These are ‘seeds’ that we can consider planting in our own Garden Plots.
This Week’s Podcast Episode
Rules of Life and the Rhythms of Nature – Br. James Koester
In this series we are growing a Rule of Life, using gardening as our primary metaphor. What is it like to garden, to plant something? Imagine you are planting flowers or vegetables, something you planted last year or perhaps something new. Where are you planting? How much space do you have – a full yard or maybe you are in an apartment? What is the climate you are in, what is the season, what can grow where you are now? Then once you do plant, how do you help things grow? What do they need to survive – water, nutrients, sunlight? How do you protect what you have planted, perhaps with a fence? Perhaps things need to be cut back at times, pruned, in order to produce fruit. And then you get to enjoy and harvest and look forward to sustained further growth for next time.
Here as we consider Rule of Life we are looking at practices – what’s most important to us and how to plant them and help them grow. So what is a life practice you want to include? You may have many you want, but what space do you have and what climate or season are you in? Then what does it take to help nurture that? What will feed your practice and what boundaries do you need to put in place in order to actually grow? What must be let go of or cut back in order to produce fruit? Then how do you enjoy and how do you also sustain and consider what you might plan next?
– Br. Luke Ditewig
Today’s Question to Journal
In the garden of your life, what is thriving and what is not?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise
Before we begin planting our gardens, we may want to take a stroll around and explore other gardens to see what works well and what doesn’t work well. Look at some of the examples of different Rules of Life.Use the blank ‘seed packets’ to jot down notes as you explore other Rules of Life. What inspires you? What ideas stand out that you could incorporate into your own Rule of Life? These are ‘seeds’ that we can consider planting in our own Garden Plots.
This Week’s Podcast Episode
Rules of Life and the Rhythms of Nature – Br. James Koester
The scriptures say, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.” And we believe that in the natural world around us there are lessons to be learned from the patterns and rhythms of nature that we see around us, patterns that can inform our own patterns of living and our own ways of structuring our lives. Jesus often drew from the natural world when he spoke in parables or used examples in his teaching. He talked about sowers sowing seed, and vines and vineyards. He talked about the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, and he drew spiritual lessons, spiritual truths from these.
So as this course continues we’re going to invite you to reflect on the natural world. Particularly we’re going to focus on the metaphor of a garden thinking about our lives as “garden plots” and thinking about what we choose to plant there, and how we can nurture those plants and help them come to their full expression.
– Br. David Vryhof
Today’s Question to Journal
How might the rhythms you observe in nature inform the way you live?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise
Before we begin planting our gardens, we may want to take a stroll around and explore other gardens to see what works well and what doesn’t work well. Look at some of the examples of different Rules of Life.Use the blank ‘seed packets’ to jot down notes as you explore other Rules of Life. What inspires you? What ideas stand out that you could incorporate into your own Rule of Life? These are ‘seeds’ that we can consider planting in our own Garden Plots.
This Week’s Podcast Episode
Rules of Life and the Rhythms of Nature – Br. James Koester
Now when you hear “Rule of Life” part of you may say, “Oh, I can’t deal with one more rule.” But we want you to think again. “Rule,” as in Rule of Life, comes from the Latin regula, from which we get our word “ruler.” And having a Rule of Life is a way of sizing up and getting the right kind of measurement and proportions, the right kind of model, the template, for you to live a life that allows you to be fully and freely alive.
In the monastic tradition, Rules of Life have come into being for two reasons. One is because life is so precious and it’s also fleeting. We don’t know how long we will be alive. We do know that we only have today to live today; there will not be another day like this. And so having a Rule of Life allows you to attend to what is most important in life as you steward the life that God has given you.
In monastic tradition, the other reason why Rules of Life have figured in so importantly is so that you don’t live your life regretfully, with lots of “should” or “I only wish that…” or “I really need to…” But to front-load what your priorities are in life by having a Rule. If you were to think, “Well, how would I begin thinking about a Rule?”, think about it in terms of relationships – how you relate to yourself, how you relate to others, how you relate to God. How do you relate to yourself, body, mind, spirit? What do you do to stimulate your mind and body? What do you do to recreate your mind, your body? What do you do with money? Think about it also in terms of relationships with others – with other people, with family and friends, neighbors, co-workers, people whom you choose to relate to, people whom you cannot avoid relating to. What about people who get under your skin in not a good way? What about your enemies? Also think about others in terms of creation – the created order that surrounds us, things big and small, air and water, the creatures that fill the earth. And then think about your relationship with God. Jesus promised that he would be with us always. So how is it that you practice the presence of God as you navigate your way through the day?
I think of a Rule of Life as like a nozzle that you would put on a hose. That nozzle will give the water that’s coming from the hose direction and focus to hit the target, whatever that may be, rather than the water just flaying out all over the place. In that way a Rule can really bring you focus in life. I would say if you are going to start working on a Rule, do it in pencil. Try out some ideas, sleep on them, and then try them out, not just for a day, and not even just for a week, but try them out for a few weeks, what you’ve got in your Rule of Life.
Something else that is really helpful, perhaps from the get-go but certainly along the way, is invite someone who knows you and loves you, whom you trust, someone who says their prayers, to take a look at your Rule. What do they see in it? What’s present and what’s missing? I think you would find that helpful.
– Br. Curtis Almquist
Today’s Question to Journal
How could a Rule of Life be helpful to you right now?
This Week’s Workbook Exercise
Before we begin planting our gardens, we may want to take a stroll around and explore other gardens to see what works well and what doesn’t work well. Look at some of the examples of different Rules of Life.Use the blank ‘seed packets’ to jot down notes as you explore other Rules of Life. What inspires you? What ideas stand out that you could incorporate into your own Rule of Life? These are ‘seeds’ that we can consider planting in our own Garden Plots.
This Week’s Podcast Episode
Rules of Life and the Rhythms of Nature – Br. James Koester
