....is a book put together by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild. The sub-
title is "Ancient Wisdom For Contemporary Living: A book of daily
readings."
I main purpose of this book is how to use monestic wisdom in our
everyday lives. Each month has a selected topic. For January it is
"Starting Out"
Of course, being an impatient sort, I could not bother with one entry
per day. So this last Saturday and Sunday I read all of January.
Lots of wisdom here. For example, here is what Joan Chittister, OSB
has to say for 9 January.
@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Modern Society has the idea that if you want to live a truly
spiritual life, you have to leave life as we know it and go away by
yourself and "contemplate," and that if you do so, you will get holy.
It is a fascinating although misleading thought.
"The Rule of Benedict says that if you want to be holy, stay where you
are in the human community and learn from it. Learn patience. Learn
wisdom. Learn unselfishness. Learn love. Then, if you want to get away
from it all, then and only then will you be ready to do it alone.
"There is, of course, an anchorite lurking in each of us who wants to
get away from it all, who finds the task of dailiness devastating, who
looks for God in clouds and candelight.
"Benedict himself set out to live the spiritual life as a hermit and
then discovered, apparently, that living life alone is nowhere near as
searing of our souls as living it with others.
"It is one thing to plan my own day well with all its balance and its
quiet and its contemplative exercises. It is entirely another rank of
holiness to let my children and my superiors and my elderly parents
and the needs of the poor to do it for me."
@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
in my case, my fellow human beings at the USPS and in AA.
So what groups do you have to deal with on your path to holiness? <G>
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