"Your Time Is Not Your Own"

So said Brother Abraham of St. Gregory's Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan. He was explaining to us why their day was interrupted so often by a call to prayer and worship. The lesson is economy, stewardship, and the idea that nothing, NOTHING, belongs to us, though we like to think most things do.
There is something attractive about the monastic life to me--specifically the ag. projects, though these monks only maintained a garden and harvested the copious raspberries on their property--it's probably just a romanticized ideal. The regementation, the deliberate time for study and prayer. And yet. . . I would tire of their plainsong worship. A proper reaction to God is a solemn hush--sometimes. Sometimes it should involve falling on your face weeping, others hurling every bit of energy from your diaphragm in an exultant shout. My point is, and yes I know I'm commenting on a tradition around 1,600 years old, is that our relationship with Christ is not static and neither should our response to His story.
I appreciate the monks, but I'll take a red-winged black bird over a crow any day.

Comments

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property. --Hilaire Belloc ...

Independent Women?

During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust . The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI. The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said. The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character. He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture. He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing." This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point. I would counter with "How far we've fallen." To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has m...

Mystery Meat indeed!

During my grocery shopping today I was asked to pick up some hot dogs for some meal or other. Now I am not an aficianado of the 'ot dog, but will usually have a corn dog or BBQed version of one or two during the summer. If my children like them, so be it. The trouble came when trying to find a package that didn't arrive from a chemistry lab. Nitrates and nitrites, sugars (including HFCS), the preservative sodium benzoate, and other fun substances littered every package I picked up. Even Hebrew National which "Answers to a Higher Standard" was doped. Apparently Kosher doesn't mean it can't be injected with a chemical cocktail. So-called "Natural Casings" were prominently displayed to catch my eye. As if sheep or pig intestine somehow offsets Agricorps tinkering. I ended up buying the brand "sold at Tiger Stadium" not because it was chemical-free, Hell no! It was merely the brand with the least additives. Why does a hot dog need su...

I Am Not Hamlet

Search This Blog