Benedictine Monks and Your 'To Do' List

 

Bronze statue outside the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, entitled "Code of the West" by Herb Mignery.  Notice the fall leaves under the statue against the background of snowy Rattlesnake Mountain.  It's like getting two seasons for the price of one!

                                                    ***********

I have still been reading "For the Family's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macauley.  In chapter 10 she discussed the Benedictine way of life, and the influence "Benedicts Rule" (for monastic communities) had on European culture.  She states:

     "I've quoted Benedict's rule once or twice so far.  He was planning a community's life pattern, and then filled it out with wise lifegiving content.  As he based his rule on the authority of the Scriptures, it's ages-old wisdom and simplicity guide us with principles for planning life uncluttered by the confusing too-much that surrounds us today.

     It helped me no end to think on his advice to first of all set your necessary basic pattern of the everyday, and only then can you decide what, when, and how all the other demands can be fitted in.  He clearly emphasizes that the basic routine won't keep changing apart from the appropriate flexibility when age or health demands it.  This regularity is health-giving for the body, mind, spirit--for the individual and for a group such as a family." ("For the Family's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay).

Every morning I sit down with a notebook and do my "To Do" list for the day.  There is always more on the list than hours in the day!  I must be pumped up on all that caffeine to even HOPE, in my wildest imagination, that I will be able to complete even half of my 'to do's'!  But I was getting a lot done...do you know how?  It was by tossing overboard things like sit down family meals, Bible reading time, prayer time, reading for pleasure time, walks up at Beck Lake and a normal bed time that ensured proper rest.  I was skipping church on Sunday, and picnics.  In short, most of the things that brought zest to life.

Now I do things a little differently.  I still sit down with my coffee and make a 'to do' list, but the first things on the list are the things I mentioned in the paragraph before this one.  This is the frame for my day.  Then, and only then, do I piece in all the other things that need to be done.  The house may be a little messier, and the meal less elaborate...the fall leaves may still be lying on my front porch waiting for the broom...but I no longer resemble a snapping turtle around my loved ones because I am stressed, and when I hit the pillow each night I feel like I lived the day, instead of just existing through it.

How is it with your 'to do' list?  Are you running your life, or have you found that your life is running you?  Guess what?  Only you can change it!  DLB