In particular this vice is to be rooted out of the monastery: that anyone... have anything at all as his own. ~Rule of Benedict

We are now a society that counts our steps and fusses that praying four times daily is too hard. We walk laps around the kitchen at 10 p.m. to make sure we hit our goal for the day while our prayer books and Bibles stay unopened on our nightstands. We hoard “me time” and lose hours to social media. We overschedule ourselves.

In these often hard, strange, dark, confusing and divisive times, the temptation to stay busy and distracted is powerful. But it’s not what we were made for. We were made, like Abraham, to sit in the heat of the day and wait for the Lord. We were made to sit still at the feet of Love and worship together. When the world seems to be coming apart at the seams, it is time to stop all our Doing, counter~intuitive as it is, and begin to practice Being.

Waiting. Silence. Solitude. Stillness. These are not the same as relaxing or being lazy, as Martha suggested to Mary all those years ago. Being still isn’t just a physical act. It is an internal act as well. Stillness and Silence are about being present. Present to God and to each other. They cultivate the humility to say, “This isn’t all about me or what I can do or say; this is about what God is doing among us.”

The spiritual practices of Stillness and Silence can help us become aware that this life is not ours alone; we are part of a greater whole. When we practice Being over Doing, we open ourselves up to what is beyond us—beyond our abilities to fix, mend, solve or do on our own—making space for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of our wider community to lead us toward lasting change.

For Reflection

Part of being in community with others is sharing time and space, often going at a slower pace than we would like. How do you cultivate a posture of humility that allows others to lead?

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