Week One – Day Six : We need Help!

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.