STORY:
[MUSIC BEGINS/CONTINUES]
If you've ever gotten bored, then found yourself in some very dark corner of the internet and noticed at least some connection between the idleness and the trouble. Or if you've ever started some controversy or spent money irresponsibly just for entertainment. Or, if you've ever looked back and mourned because the period of opportunity for you to chase some challenging dream is forever gone, or I guess since we're really after a principle, and not just calling out particular behaviors, we could just say if you're human, then you are primed to feel part of the truth of the line St. Benedict's wrote to open the chapter of his Rule dealing with work, quote: "Idleness is the enemy of the soul."
But before we move on, let's clear away a potentially deadly misconception. When St. Benedict talks about "idleness" here, he's not talking about genuine rest, as we'll see more fully in a later episode that will be completely dedicated to his teaching on down time. For now, let us just point out that when Benedict outlined a typical day, he suggested more, and more purposeful, downtime than most of even the hippest young corporations will allow their employees. He suggested significant time in the middle of every day after lunch for his monks to lie on their beds. And a good power nap will rejuvenate any mind and body more than an hour of doomscrolling at your desk.
So when St. Benedict says "idleness," he doesn't mean rest. He's naming a spiritual condition that will show in both our emotions and our actions. It's the hind of internalized lack of hope that robs us of the vital energy that makes life purposeful and makes us into the kinds of people who can really contribute to good in the world.
And this idleness – especially when extended into weeks or years – can be such an enemy to our souls, Benedict says, quote, "the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading." We should treat it as such a dangerous enemy that we are willing to actually habituate and structuralize a regimen for work that will guard our souls from this threat.
So the Saint lays one out.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Now, as I describe it for you, remember that this was written in the 6th century, way before electricity and air conditioning. So Benedict and his monks and nuns lived and worked with the natural rhythms of the days and seasons.
So from Easter to October 1st, or in the warmer months with longer days, Benedict says to work from sunrise, or about 6 am, until 9 or 10 am. Then to dedicate a couple of hours to reading before the midday prayer, meal, and rest. Work should then resume at about 3 pm and continue until dusk.
Then from October 1st to Lent, which comes in late Feb or early March each year, or in the colder winter months with shorter days, Benedict says to spend the first few hours of the day reading. Then, when it begins to warm up, to work from about 9 am to 3 pm. Then to dedicate the later hours again to reading.
Adaptability is one of the key features of Benedict's Rule that distinguishes it from earlier, more rigid monastic Rules. But it's not just the daylight and weather that leads Benedict to adapt his rhythms for work. He also shifts to conform our habits according to the life of Christ. So during Lent, which is a season of 40 days dedicated to self-examination and repentance meant to help us experience something of the 40 days Jesus spent fasting and praying in the wilderness before he began his ministry, Benedict says to spend the first 3 hours of the day in reading and reflecting, then to work until about 4 pm, extending the time of the evening work in months that still tend to be cold as part of our penance.
Now, not only were there no phones and social networking to disrupt their focus, but there was also an Abbot or some other monk assigned to make sure people were using the time as they should. So, in contrast to much corporate culture, understand that those hours assigned for work are actually used for work, and that's a lot of time each day not wasted on idleness. Which is indeed a decent guard for souls.
[MUSIC]
But, please note, in the opening lines of this episode I said you're primed to feel part of the truth of Benedict's line, "Idleness is the enemy of the soul." Because Benedict wasn't just trying to reduce the negative effects of idleness. If he were, he wouldn't have much new wisdom or insight to give us – because we've all already felt the shame that comes after we've abused or squandered time. We know the negative. And, on the other end, most of us have felt the tyranny of working somewhere that's obsessed with productivity to the point that their structures for work don't really provide anything better than our idleness could simply because they run people ragged. So how does Benedict offer us something genuinely new and better?
To see the fuller truth of Benedict's words, we must remember this Saint wasn't primarily about upping profitability or calling out bad practices and people. Benedict was about making good people. So he wants to help us see that this kind of idleness doesn't just lead to something bad, it restricts us from something good.
And in leading people to work this way, he wants them to experience this greater good. So if we come to understand and actually follow something of Benedict's advice, he can help us come to know the positive benefits of consistent work, not just for our minds or bank accounts - for also for our bodies and souls.
Benedict's Rule can help us achieve productivity and sustainability, sure. As St. Benedict says in this chapter, "living by the labor of their hands" allows the monasteries to sustain themselves. And this sustainability made them very attractive options during seasons where political and economic realities were tough and stable food and housing were hard to come by.
But, don't miss what being part of this kind of community and structure does to the person's heart, body, and mind. On the personal level, Benedict's Rule can also aid the development of our own character and extend our capacity for seeing and participating in the good. Because following Benedict's regimen for work makes someone the kind of person who can mentally concentrate on a task for hours at a time. And habituating this kind of rhythm gives a person the physical stamina that enables them to make good on their deeper inspirations and dreams.
And just like a future athlete drilling the form of their jumpshot or a future musician running their musical scales or a future scientist repeating their multiplication tables expands their ability to comprehend movement or music or natural principles, this kind of repeated exercise makes the monastic into someone who is able to reason more fully about their labor. It makes them into someone who can Understand what they are doing, and commune with the materials they are working with at a deeper level.
[MUSIC BEGINS]
This is why you hear people who really practice their craft say things like, "I don't build tables, I facilitate connection." Or, "If you listen to it, the wood will tell you how it wants to be cut." It's only nonsense if your labor hasn't extended your senses and understanding to make you into someone who can make sense of it.
And this, is really good work. But, it's still not the fullness of the good that Benedict knows is available and wants to help others come to experience.
So, in the discussion that follows, Julius, Kevin, and I talk about why Benedict wove this routine for work with habits for study and prayer, so the monastic could gain more than mental or instinctual insight into theology or their craft, but could experience God flowing through and uniting all the moments of their days.
[MUSIC TRANSITION TO:]
DISCUSSION
Julius: Alright, good day to you listener.
Wilson: That's your best opening in, in maybe like 20, 30 episodes.
Julius: Thank you, I tried to switch things up. “Good Morrow to you fine listener."“ We're trying to reclaim a tradition, right? Old English is what I'm going for today, but, um, all the silliness aside, um, thanks for listening to all things. Um, once again, this is Julius will and Kevin not going to do the round table thing cause I did that the last time, but we're a well into the series on St.
Benedict's. Now the last one, we talked about prayer and. As is fitting for the Benedictine motto of ora et labora, we are in the “labor” portion, which talks about, um, the kind of. How Benedict's theology of work and study, um, is central to the way of life that Saint Benedict, um, uh, the way of life at St. Benedict, uh, tried to practice and in these communes, So getting right into it. Um, how can we talk about, um, how do we understand the Benedictine approach of study as distinct from other just intellectual pursuits and how does it connect with prayer and flow into, as we talk about laborda right. As, how does that connect to work?
Wilson: Th the short version is study was just considered part of work. There was a. All around like that. The key theme here is, is integration. Um, and what, what Benedict understood from his theology of creation, his understanding of God as creator and the incarnation in Christ. You know, I mean, Jesus worked for 30 years and, um, Implicitly understood for like centuries and the best streams of Christian thought.
Wasn't just like the first 30 years were kind of a throw away or a, or a musical rest. And then the cross did all the work. The F the 30 years of Jesus's life made the cross. What it was. Every moment of Jesus' existence is integral is Ooh, that was good. I like, we're talking about integration as that was integral to our salvation and it's what made the cross.
What it was cause I mean, thousands and thousands of Jewish people were crucified. What, what made this different wasn't that a Jewish body was tortured and killed on a cross. It was who this was and the life that, that culminated in that kind and that kind of sacrifice. And so each and every moment of Jesus's life is, is key to our salvage.
This is the story that shapes Benedict. It's the story he's trying to reconnect reintegrate the whole life of the church in. And so like, you just wouldn't see Benedict going, like kind of like we do, Hey, take four to six years to just study before you go work. The study was part of the work. And so while some people might be.
Actually hoeing rows in the fields and others would be picking the fruit and others would be clearing out, you know, trash and preparing the food for dinner that night, others will be laboring over a text. I gave, well that's, I think something key to tease out. The whole thing is why is that kind of labor just as important.
And, and, and I'm trying not to use the word integral yet. Again, you got one more. So central to not just, and again, don't just think like hitting a certain peak of productivity or even like a consistent increase in just productivity, but in a much larger sense, uh, that sort of consistent daily. Work in study being key to allowing a good, the good human work to expand and flourish.
And, and as, as we're more integrated in this to allow us, you know, through activity through the work that we kind of do to become the integrating agents that bring larger and larger portions of all of creation into harmony with.
Kevin: My mind went to, uh, what was it in physics class that we learned that like energy plus something else he goes, work
Julius: work is, uh, F uh, force times distance force, times distance, something like that.
There's something
Kevin: scientific. Remember
Julius: not a science podcast,
Kevin: but I remember it was a energy was included in that. And even in the scriptures, when Paul says like this, the spirit is at work within you, or even work out your salvation, the ener the Greek word, there is like energy, energy, and kind of essentially.
Energy is what produces and makes work possible. Oh yeah. And so it's this, uh, so even just thinking and pondering about the question of what is work and we'll kind of tease it out for us is, is this integral aspect of our lives that somehow, also God is involved in that that work is not just merely human participation and action that coming from, oh, I'm doing this for God while I'm doing.
To serve somebody else, but actually I'm doing it in God and God is working with me and in me to make even worse.
Wilson: Yeah, you were pretty close. It it's force times displacement, displacement, but there's, I, I see why your head goes there. Kevin, because of what I was trying to begin to visualize and articulate was that treating regular study, that like the, the increase of your mental capacities, the expansion of your mental abilities, uh, also it allows us to expand the certain kind of work, uh, and you know, and so it, it allows.
If, if a central part of our work is like our energy and that's like just the purely, like the calories we're burning, but a huge part of that is we're burning those calories to even think, you know, our mind is one of the biggest and like engines burning that fuel that if, if we're able to think better, if we're able to think, and this is especially, and you know, this wasn't just like, Hey, just go chase down.
Anything you're interested in, right? This is why every it's understood. In a monastery, there might be some with particular giftings. And so they clear they lead the way in theology, but everyone's at theologian. Right. And that's something, again, one of the there's a it's tangential, but that's another soap box that it's right here by my feet, but it's a good thing I'm sitting so I can launch up all the way on it.
But. Yeah, everyone is a theologian. The number one place is local pastors. Please, please do not think you're not a theologian. And please don't get up in the pulpit and tell your people, well, I'm no theologian, but, but in a implicitly, everyone is the way you assume things. Matters of ultimate worth and the final goal, the whole purpose of what you're doing and why that's, that's a theological question.
So cultivating that each day and expanding your ability to think theologically allows you to farm. Christianlly allows you to write Christian the allows you to take the barrels of oil to town and trade for some goats, more Christian.
Julius: Yeah. If only if only that was the economy still, maybe. I mean, I love that.
What you both have mentioned already, um, Where it's bringing in my mind to. And the connections that are happening is that this theology of study and work is so rooted in the incarnation in the life that Jesus lived. Uh, it made me think of that passage in Luke, where it talks about how Jesus grew in wisdom and stature.
So Jesus also, he studied under rabbis. Like in an intellect and that was integrated as he grew in wisdom and stature. He, and that you, you mentioned Jesus like committed himself to a trade. Like that was part of his life was working like with his hands, with wood, working with the earth and making something.
And so it feels like this is. Benedict is kind of just like, uh, this flows out of Benedict chasing down, like keeping what's important, important, and he's looking at Jesus and he's looking at Jesus studied and worked. And how do we incorporate that in like an actual way of life? And I'm one of the things that, um, that I really loved.
Um, I was listening to another podcast on Saint Benedict and they pointed out that, um, in the Latin that aura at LA Bora, that it's kind of like a word play that. Or, uh, like prayer right. Is, is, is in that latter word. Laborda so as if to suggest, like we pray and then we pray again through working.
Kevin: No. I love that Ora, et labora, that even prayer is found in the word work where, I mean, English language is kind of sucky in a lot of ways, but you can't really see the connection convoluted, but perhaps, I mean, it is a side note. The way we speak in our language does have an impact on the way we think.
Maybe that's a side note and I wish, I wouldn't say
Wilson: that's not like a big fatty right down the middle of the plate, but we're not playing baseball right now.
Kevin: but Andrew, anyways, uh, perhaps Latins, uh, can see that connection with oral Lamara. But seeing also as a will mentioned that work included reading and also just studying, uh, one of the cool. Uh, aspects of the rule of St.
Benedict is in chapter 38, where Bennett, it gives instructions about lunchtime. And I just love this. And so he says whenever, so every day the brothers are living together doing life together. And so there comes a time where you have to eat because you're living in community and at lunchtime, he gives these instructions.
He says, quote, let there be complete silence, no whispering, no speaking. Only the reader's voice should be heard there. And what he means by that is so essentially the brothers come together in community around, uh, you know, probably multiple tables, eat something together, and there's a designated. That reads as the brothers are eating.
So no one speaking it's complete silence, but you're eating and someone's reading, maybe irony is says against the heresies or Augustine's confessions or something about the fathers or a piece of scripture. And it's just literally the whole entire time of lunchtime, which is. I assume we all agree that lunchtime is like a break time.
It's like our, we call it our lunch break. It's
Wilson: eating Tai.
Kevin: Ooh, there
Wilson: you go. What all are we
Kevin: chewing on? Exactly. It's a feeding and in multiple dimensions, but even there like lunchtime to see that this is also an opportunity to feed our souls, to feed our minds, to beat our hearts. And also literally.
Wilson: The marinade it to steep. They think about like all the, all the cliche metaphors we use for studying a text.
Now I want to steep myself in the text. I let it marinade before I preach it. Right.
Kevin: But even the, the notion. I mean, I don't know how you guys eat, but when I eat, I'm paying attention to my food. I'm not really paying attention. That's a good way to do. If someone's like reading over me, I'm not necessarily hundred percent attentive to that.
But what I mean, well, I think Benedick would say, like, that's not the point of it. It's like, as long as these words. In the environment being steeped, you're steeping yourself. And even just like indirectly, you're hearing these words, it's almost like an indirect way of working as you're eating as you're paying attention.
And so it's almost as if at the subconscious level, this, these words from the fathers become, you know, inserted there.
Wilson: I think a huge, uh, maybe another helpful strand to lay down here is to look at, um, Benedict is seeking to reintegrate stuff through prayer study work, um, and in his monasteries, in the common life there that he's providing structure for with his rule.
And that does lead to slowly arduously, uh, period of reintegrate. And then w we sit at 2022 on the tail end of a massive epoch in history called modernity, which would be we in the last series that we call disintegrated. We traced in some key ways, things that had been tightly held together largely as a result of Benedict and the work of people like him and largely across the board monastics as like the soul and conscience of the church through all sorts of ups and downs for, uh, um, A good long while.
And then as it begins to disintegrate, a big part of this was even like the shift of the end goal from overall flourishing to wealth and productivity. And when in maternity, and this is you see this, uh, mirrored in all sorts of different sectors of society. When this becomes the implicit philosophy, the driving goal, this is what shapes our understanding of ourselves and our desires that you start to see.
It shapes our businesses. So here's the invention of factories. Here's the industrial revolution. Here's an, a more and more. A picture on the human side, we start to think of humans more and more like machines. Right. And so different parts of our bodies are treated like the engine, the cog, right. The conveyor belt.
And now, you know, we think of our brain as a computer, which again, another soap box, but your brain is not a computer. Uh, take your brain out and. Connect everything perfectly to some other electronic system and your brain will not think without your body it's. Um, so we, we think of people in more and more, uh, mechanistic terms.
And then we think of work and productivity in the same way. So you have factories with conveyor belts and you have people plugged into these machines with the goal being productivity and efficiency and profits. And so this is, this is where you first really get. Just totally the kind of menial work we're talking about, like sure.
I think of like brother Lawrence, like, would this, would this have been when he, when he just went to the kitchen and did his dishes right, right. Is that the, that's not the same as the menial work, because there, that was his kitchen, how he moved, how he arranged the things, how he, you know, even from, from dirty to in-process to clean, to drying, that was his, he had agency and, and he took in actually paying attention to what you're doing.
Struggling with that. He learned to do it more and more found more and more value. And that was integral to how he came to commune with God. And he writes this whole book, a great book called practicing the presence of God, talking about communing and praying, even just in the act of Washington. That's so different than sticking someone in a factory where their brain is.
I mean, for it's for their own sanity, their brain has to like disengage and go somewhere else as their body just re just repetitively goes through the same action over and over and over again. This is like the picture here. It's like. Uh, it mirrors the move and how we come to understand things and study things in maturity.
This is when dissection becomes like so much more, it plays such a central role. And so in junior high, you dissect a frog. And I was like to point out to my students. When you dissected a frog, you learn things about the parts of a frog, but you learn very little about a frog because the frog had to die for you.
To learn about the parts right now. If you were, if you can conceptually put that back together, carry what you learned about the parts and go watch a frog in a pond. Do what a frog does. Now you're learning about a frog. Um, and so from the advent of the industrial revolution towards moving that we push that experiment.
Just, I mean, obviously not as far as you can because we're, we're still seeing if we can get to like totally destroying the planet, but we we've pushed that like to a place where more and more people are going, whoa, something is unbalanced here, something's off track. And I remember I read a book about.
12 years ago now called joy at work by I believe his name was his last name was Becky, uh, B a K K E. I believe his first name was Dennis, but in enjoy at work. Uh, a whole, like a large, the whole point of the book was how do you keep your employees? Not just happy. Right? He was trying to take it beyond just the F like if you're still thinking mechanistically, and in terms of efficiency, you're trying to think about employee retention, but just like, if you can have a cog that doesn't break and runs for 20 years, your machine stays more efficient.
That's still thinking about people mechanistically as a cog, but he was driven. And he, he admits it, not in the book itself, but because of his faith, he was saying, I'm trying to, to think about beyond just having a profitable, sustainable company. How do I create a company where the people find joy in the work where the people come alive?
And so he he's searching. He chases this question down for a long time, writes this book called joy at work, and a huge part of that, that he's as a central piece of what he learned is people have to be, they have to be challenged. They have to be given enough where they've got to learn something regularly.
And given that, um, the, the agency, uh, to, um, to, to make their own goal, to be something that requires them to learn more than they knew yesterday to, to consistently have to grow intellectually was integral. was integral to creating a, a workplace and giving them a job where they actually found joy in the work.
Right. And so, and again, I think this is yet another place where, uh, in, in the turns and the. Coming some, some of the stuff maybe has been broken up that could create an opportunity for us to rediscover what people like monastics people that have lived deeply integrated lives before already knew. And then from that to learn how in 2021, can we creatively reappropriate that, that same sort of holistic picture of life and flourishing.
And that is like, we've part of that is don't just think of it as study is for college. And then, you know, everything you need to know and you just need to go work. You know, instead of just a season of preparation and a season of work to think about pulling those things that we've pulled apart, you know, put the pieces of the frog back together and how do we find, uh, a work that could, or, or job labor that could lead to joy?
A big part of that is it's going to be a job that requires you to constantly learn. And so the learning, the study is part of your labor is part of your work.
Julius: Did he start to kind of move towards the close of this conversation? I want to carve out some time to, um, kind of, so to speak, zoom out and, and illustrate what watching that frog looks like in, in real life, in the flesh, in the S in the slimy flesh.
Wilson: But this is a, this is a pious Christian frog, right?
Julius: It's a monastic frog.
Kevin: I think I just found the name of our neck. Uh, what do you call it? Coffee, bean,
Wilson: coffee beans, thinking, minimize the frog. Avant garde album title,
Kevin: no cooking through the hours. Coffee beans that are named after animals. And so. Like
Julius: crooked. Yeah. So what helpful
Wilson: thing are you trying to get a stump
Julius: anyway, watching the frog?
Yeah, I w I wanna, um, just give some time for fleshing out. Like, what does that slash what has that looked like for you, for you both and for myself, I guess, um, can we flesh out what it looks like for, I mean, for the listener to kind of have, um, Yeah to connect that so that we together can have our imagination expanded for what that kind of engagement with work and the integration between work, prayer and study looks like, um, in real life,
Kevin: I can go for a sec.
I or. My mind goes. And my heart goes, when thinking about this question, how is prayer work and how are they, you know, essentially UN two ways of saying the same thing. Um, as in the practice of being a pastor there's many times where you're meeting one-on-one to people and you're doing counseling sessions or spiritual direction, or even practicing confession and hearing people's confession, there's a certain sort of.
Prayerful posture that is required in all of those circumstances. And for me personally, it was like, I don't want to say like a bad thing, you know? And so in my heart I'm like, Lord, would it, when the world do I say, uh, pay attention to this person? Uh, helped me extend words of grace and love, um, and help me also just be fully present in this moment.
Like nothing else. I can't think of anything else. I can't worry about anything else. Like I have to be here for this person who is bawling their eyes out for whatever circumstance they're going through. Relational hardships, they're going through a crisis in their, in their lives. And so you are face-to-face with this person, and this is where for me, prayer studying work.
Come together at a forefront for, because in order for me to have a prayerful posture, I would have to have, uh, practices and times behind me already preparing me to be in a prayerful posture and this person, and it was. Just to even extend words of grace and love, like you need, I would need theological training and study to even say like, okay, how does Jesus feel about this person?
Or what does Jesus think about this person who has just committed this sin? Um, or, and so all those things are kind of floating in this one act of counseling direction or even a confession. And so that's for me, how kind of integrates.
Julius: Yeah. Um, yeah, I throwing to you will, but kind of framing, um, specifically what, what that makes me think of on the other end of the spectrum for people who aren't in like pastoral ministry or whatever.
Cause I do feel that those of us who are like pastors and artists have a certain, um, privilege of an opportunity. To see those integrations more, maybe more easily in our work. But what about like people who are working like nine to five jobs? What does it look like to engage in work that like, maybe we don't care about?
Or like, honestly, like what does it look like to engage in work in a job that kind of just sucks.
Wilson: I was, I was right. I was right on with it till that last one. I was like, no, there was a season in my life where now, but this is the, for me, the job didn't suck. I was actually, I was in, I was in a pretty vulnerable place and, and the job was an incredible blessing to me, even though I knew it was not my long-term vocation, but also know a lot of this would, this, would this anecdote, this personal story would, would connect with people that do feel like man, I've been stuck here for 10 years and this job I.
I'm going to hate it. Yeah, that's what I mean. Um, I don't know if. You guys, I know you guys are, but listener like going to college and spending over a hundred grand to get a bachelor's degree in Bible and theology, doesn't exactly put you in like the best place in the marketplace when you know, when you're, and especially when you're like 23 years old and have no experience and you suddenly need to figure out housing and health insurance and everything.
I had a very gracious person, give me a job at a mortgage company. You know, so working on the tail end of processing loans for new home buyers and all of that, and my job was pretty repetitive because entry-level, and I was not trained in finance or mortgage or real estate or anything. So gave me a job there, but this person also knew I had a vocation and my vocation was not to sell loans to larger banks.
So, what I would do is I would carry a book with me. Um, and I had, I had recently made a commitment to read at least 25 pages of a challenging book every single day. And so whatever that book was, I took it with me to work and I kept it up and like the shelf of my cubicle. And whenever I had a 15 minute break, I would go to the London.
The lunchroom, uh, I would eat my snack and I would read a few pages of that book. And then, because my work was repetitive work and once I had it down, I could, I could do it and let my mind run on something else. That is how I learned to read slowly and actually learn to read a hard book because I couldn't sit down and blow through my 25 pages to just check it off.
I had, I had a 15 minute break back, right. So I would read for 15 minutes and I would try, I would do my best at the end of that. Try to say to myself, this is what you just read. And then I would let that sit for a couple hours while my body was moving through the motions. And that's when stuff started to click for me.
Right. And that also is what I would even now point that as the place where my, my real desire to learn birth, because it came with, you know, the desire was there, but that was when I started to finally get the confidence that dude you could in, in small chunks, if you work at it diligently, Uh, in a, in an intelligent way, dude, you could, you could read it.
And you can have something to say about it. This is, this is the first time I really started to believe, like I could actually do what I felt like I was called to do. And that was through taking. And that was one, it's just getting a little bit of clarity on what your vocation is, and then using the time that you do have to, to grow yourself, to expand and to, to know like you are, you are expanding.
You are plastic. And so your current capabilities say little to nothing about who you can be 15 years from now, but if you've got that desire and you think, well, that's exactly how through that kind of labor laboring over a text or laboring over whatever it is. That's part of being and doing like who you want to be and what you want to do that you're not yet capable of that's that's the work that gets ya.
Julius: I resonate with you a hundred percent. I mean, I've grown to love. I've, I've re I really love coffee, but like I was when I was, when I was working shifts that like, um, entailed all the difficult parts that aren't. Um, the fun parts for me of like dialing in an espresso shot and like getting the taste new coffee of just like sweeping and mopping floors.
I was a closer, so I always had all the closing desks.
Wilson: How many boxes of filters do we have
Julius: all of that
Wilson: stuff. He's got to answer that question.
Julius: I actually, well, actually one of my favorite parts of the job was, um, when I got to go to the back and wash dishes, cause it was like, uh, it was like the quiet space.
Um, but there was something that. I feel like in some of those moments, like of just where, where I had to sweep and mop or like, uh, wash dishes, there was something happening. And like that's where a lot of ideas clicked for me either like musically, creatively, or theologically, there, there is something to like physically with your body, moving through the world and moving through your emotions and working through it that like, I think it's part of being human, where we're not just meant to just sit down in one place and think about ideas, but we are to move through the world.
And like, I feel like even this past week, some of the, some of the most fruitful moments where like a lyrical click for me, or like an idea for a song is like when I'm sitting with something, but then I have to drive and like it's in the car that when I'm moving through something or I'm walking, like taking a walk, putting away dishes, making my bed, like there is something to integrating that part.
That I feel like, um, I think it's probably just about being a whole person.
Wilson: Put the frog together.
[MUSIC TRANSITION TO MEDITATION]
MEDITATION
[PAD AND MELODY SWELL AND FADE THROUGHOUT]
Getting to the depths of anything requires love and attention. And paying attention isn't just a tool we can use whenever we want, for as long as we want. Its a skill that must be developed through practice. And expanding our ability to pay attention expands our capacity for love.
There are studies that have shown that the ideal time frame for a human mind to focus intensely on one challenging subject is at most 90 minutes. This is a sweet spot for human attention.
And St. Benedict's rule and those who keep it helps us see that work, especially work done in these kinds of blocks of time devoted to one thing are about so much more than productivity. They play a central role in who we become, and what we can know. You can say that Albert Einstein became Einstein and Mother Teresa became Mother Teresa during intervals like these.
But not all of us have total, or even a lot of say over how we spend much of our time. So this exercise if for those of us who cannot regularly implement every bit of Benedict's regimen for work, but who still want to know something of what the monks and nuns know about it.
First, grab your calendar or a notebook, and fill in your schedule with the events and commitments that you cannot change. Since you have not control over these, we'll work around them.
Now, prayerfully think about the week ahead of you, and as you think about your time, also think about who you know God to be ...
... And who you desire to know God as ...
... And your primary relationships and commitments ...
... Now name some things that make you curious or passionate ...
... And finally list some of your biggest dreams, and then your actual opportunities ...
Now, holding all these things in the background, what is one thing you'd like to explore in greater depth?
And start listing tangible things you could do or work on to explore this.
Once you have a decent list, look for spots in your where where you have an open block of time ranging from 50 to 90 minutes. And dedicate a few of those to doing this work.
Who you can become in Christ might seem like an overwhelming and unattainable goal. And 90 minutes might not seem like a lot in comparison. But a block or two like this, carried out regularly over months and years, won't just help keep you progressing toward who you were created to be. They also make the journey rich.
And as you taste more and more of that richness, you also begin to lose your taste for idleness.
[END]