Well, I guess you heard Timothy Radcliffe made a big issue of the Lord is with you in the angel's salutation, which is exactly the point. The Lord is with you. And Moses had the announcement after he was called and told what was wanted of him, and Mary was told first, I will be with you. I'm going to read from a mysterious passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Brothers, I want you to remember this. Our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. By the cloud and the sea, all of them were baptized into Moses. All ate the same spiritual food. All drank the same spiritual drink. they drank from the spiritual rock that was following them and the rock was Christ the rabbis had a tradition that the rock at Meribah where Moses struck the rock and water came out

[01:21]

that after that, that rock rolled behind them. It was the presence of God. And St. Paul picks up that interpretation and he says, the rock that was with them was Christ. Now the rock is a major biblical symbol for God. In fact, in the Psalms, and as we know in the Psalms, there are so many different ways of imaging God, so many different symbols or images for God. But the one that comes up the most is the rock. And the rock is especially the symbol of fidelity and presence. I will be with you. So Paul's use of that is very appropriate, even though it's, of course, legendary. The covenant virtues that define God in the Old Testament, probably that come closest to saying who God is, presents Himself as the virtues of love and truth.

[02:39]

Now, the virtues of love and truth, these words in Hebrew are very loaded words. Sometimes love appears as mercy or kindness, compassion, and truth appears as fidelity, faithfulness, honesty, reliability. When you put those two virtues together, which is often done in the Psalms and the Prophets, God is love and truth, depends on how it's used, You can think of it as loving faithfulness, if the emphasis is on truth, or faithful love, if the emphasis is on love. And that is what we are to look for in God, and also what we are to aspire to ourselves. Faithful love, loving faithfulness. But the rock followed them. The rock follows us.

[03:43]

The rock is Christ. I will be with you. Some years ago, Susan Muto, a spiritual writer from Duquesne University, did a series of articles in which she took the top ten classics of Western spirituality. and in a popular magazine and uh... in that list of course were confessions of saint augustine uh... at least one each of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux uh... something from Saint Bonaventure uh... i think the cloud of unknowing and the one that she put at the top of the list she said the number one most important I don't know if it's the most important book or the most important theme, spiritual theme, was one that I would not have expected.

[04:48]

It was Abandonment to Divine Providence by Cassad. But the more I thought about it, I thought that is very appropriate because the idea of giving yourself completely to God is probably the major spiritual attitude in the scriptures. Abandonment, as we know, that has appeared in different forms during the last few years, different translations, the sacrament of the present moment for yielding to the Lord, but the idea of at every moment abandoning yourself to God. I also think that the doctorate of Saint Therese is, in a way, an affirmation, because she is in that same tradition from Cassade, from St. Francis de Sales, the whole idea of living every moment in the presence of God, being convinced that God is with me even if I'm in despair, as she often was toward the end of her life.

[05:59]

We're still talking about control in the approach to God. And in the Exodus story, control is represented by Pharaoh, who thought he could control Moses, control the people, control God. And denial is especially in the attitude of the people, who when they first heard that they were going to be delivered were, of course, quite excited. but as soon as there was any problem they began to say that God hated them. In the same attitude of the rock that followed them, in the Exodus text, right after they are heading for the sea, we see that something else happens. The first time that we're told that there is a fire and a cloud. The Lord preceded them in the daytime by means of a column of cloud to show them the way, and at night by means of a column of fire to give them light.

[07:13]

Thus they could travel both day and night." Now this is a visual or even symbolic way of saying, I will be with you. I am with you, like the rock roll behind them, the fire and the cloud. And as this journey goes in the book of Exodus, there's really no rhyme or reason to when the fire and the cloud will be mentioned. They're mentioned different times. And right at the end of the book, after there's been a description of the building of the tabernacle for about five chapters, all of a sudden, right before the end, we hear again, In the daytime the cloud of the Lord was seen over the dwelling, or as at night, fire was seen in the cloud by the whole house of Israel in all the stages of their journey. Now the way this book ends is meant not to be ending, that the journey goes on and we're now in the journey.

[08:15]

But the fire and the cloud, the way they pop up at irregular times seem to be a pattern for us, that there are signs of God's presence which pop up in our lives from time to time, and they give us the courage to go on, because we can't see God. If good things happen, people tell us it's a coincidence. But there are things that cause us to go on. I think this is really, in a way, probably the remote background for the whole sacramental idea of the church, that there are signs of God's presence. Some of these are the highest level signs, like the sacraments. Church itself is the sacrament of salvation. But each of us has in our lives, and some are the same for all of us, some are different, We have fire and cloud in our lives as we move along.

[09:18]

It may be somebody that just by the way they live encourage you to keep going. It may be a moment of prayer that all of a sudden it all comes real again. It may be a particular liturgy. It may be something in nature. Something that raises your eyes again and gives you hope. These keep coming. Of course, you have to be alert. You have to be in touch with God. You have to be in prayer to get those ears and eyes to see these signs. But it might be that you meet somebody that you needed to meet. or that your schedule was changed and you later look back and say it was a blessing that this happened. If you have the eyes of faith, you can see a pattern in these things. Otherwise, they can go right by, they can seem to be coincidences, they can seem to be accidents. But the small connections, being ready for the signs of God.

[10:21]

I've got a short section here on blame. Wilderness, the wrong way to treat the wilderness. If you're in the wilderness, the tendency is to blame somebody else. It's somebody else's fault. And determinism theory has come up with three main ways people blame others. One is genetic determinism. Genetic determinism says the reason I'm in such a mess is because of my ancestors. they uh... i've got their genes and i've got their problems close to that is the psychic determinism which says my parents emotionally scripted me to my compulsions and i can't be blamed myself i have to blame them uh... and most common is environmental determinism which blames it on things around us uh... the environment

[11:29]

the boss, the prior, a wife or husband, the community, the bishop, the pope, Colonel Ratzinger, whoever it is. People have different projections. They find in the environment the reason why they're miserable, and sometimes it is. I don't know if you heard this, this is something that's often quoted in monastic circles story, and it's always worth quoting again. The abbot of Ampleforth, Abbot Herbert, who was the abbot before Basmahim, once gave a conference to his community, and during it he said, brothers, I want you to remember this. When you die, someone will be relieved. So, we're the environment of somebody's wilderness. Of course, this is exactly what happened to Jesus, so don't feel too bad.

[12:34]

Whether you're good or you're bad, you're in somebody's way. That's the way it is. One of the teachers that I know said the reason that, in the way teachers talk, the reason that Jesus got killed was that he broke the curve, he ruined the curve, the grading curve. Now back to the story of Exodus again. I read that passage in Exodus 13, that God led them, instead of leading the people directly to the promised land, He led them in a roundabout way. And the reason, it says, was because He knew that if they had to fight, they would return to Egypt. And this too is a reflection on how God leads us. We don't always know why we're going the direction we're going. But it may be, we have to believe that it's the best direction for us, that maybe we couldn't make it another way. Now while they're going away, and this again is, these are all spiritual lessons.

[13:43]

As they were leaving, Pharaoh changed his mind. What have we done? Well, we have released Israel from our service. So Pharaoh made his chariots ready and mustered his soldiers, 600 first-class chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt, with warriors on them all. So often had the Lord made Pharaoh that he pursued the Israelites, even while they were marching away in triumph. See, the Israelites thought they had it made. Pharaoh changes his mind. And here, while they're marching away in what they thought was triumph, they're back in trouble again. So they're not escaping that easily. However, the Lord is with them. As long as they're with the Lord and stay with the Lord, they will be safe, as we see as the story unfolds. There's a story from the Desert Fathers of a monk who had a little hut in the desert where he made baskets. periodically would go into town and sell what he had and pick up supplies.

[14:49]

And one day when he was heading back to his hut, he had the feeling that somebody was following him. And so he looked behind him and sure enough, about 30 yards behind him was the devil. And so he picked up his speed, the devil kept pace with him. And he could see his hut in the distance and he tried to go a little bit faster. He couldn't get away from the devil, but at the last, he ran the last few yards and jumped into his hut and slammed the door. I was sitting there panting and he looked across the other wall and there was a devil laughing at him. And as the story went on, it was, the point was that he, the devil was, he couldn't get rid of the devil, but the devil couldn't hurt him. as long as you stay with the Lord. That you'll never kill Pharaoh when he's coming after you, but the point is you have to stay with the Lord. As they get to the sea, and now the people start to murmur.

[15:57]

They complain to Moses, were there no burial places in Egypt that you had to bring us out here to die in the desert? Why did you do this to us? Why did you bring us out of Egypt? See again, they're starting to blame Moses for their wilderness. Did we not tell you this in Egypt? When we said, now listen to this, this is purely illusion. We said to you, leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians. They didn't say that. Far better for us to be the slaves of the Egyptians than to die in the desert. And Moses could well say to them, look, I didn't even wanna come. Don't blame me. Moses answered the people, now here's a case of, this is the first great faith statement of Moses. And it's based on nothing that he knows, only what he believes. He says, fear not, stand your ground, and you will see the victory the Lord will win for you today. These Egyptians whom you see today, you will never see again. The Lord himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still.

[17:02]

he has nothing to go on. God didn't tell him that, but God did say, I will be with you and I'll get you across the sea. So he stands there, and then the Lord tells him to split the sea with raising his staff, and they go on through, and then they're, or before they go through, they have to wait the night, and the angel of the Lord surrounds them with a cloud that makes it too dark for the fill of the for the Egyptians to find them. Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us? And here is where murmuring enters the spiritual vocabulary and the source of the murmuring in the monastic tradition and in the rule. Murmuring in the wilderness. The highlight of it is in Numbers chapter 14 where He goes to this extreme. The people wailed in the night.

[18:10]

All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, the whole community saying to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt or that here in the desert we were dead. Why is the Lord bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword? To blaming God now. Our wives and little ones will be taken as booty. would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? So they said to one another, and this is the ultimate, let us appoint a leader and go back to Egypt. Let us go back to slavery, get rid of Moses, get rid of God, and go back to the safety of slavery. You know, most slaveries that we get into are initially chosen, whatever it might be. end up being an addiction. It might be smoking, drinking, drugs, work, whatever it is. Initially it's something chosen and then we get past the point where we can return.

[19:11]

Why is murmuring brought in here? Why is murmuring so bad? And why is murmuring such a concern of Saint Benedict? It's not mainly because murmuring upsets people or causes dissension, unrest, dissatisfaction. It's mainly because murmuring destroys trust, the faith of the community. And this is exemplified very well at The Rock, chapter 17. where they didn't have any water, you know the story, and then they quarreled and uh... the place was called Meribah and Masah and this is what it says, the place was called Masah and Meribah the place of quarreling because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the Lord saying is the Lord in our midst or not?

[20:12]

this is the opposite of I will be with you the opposite of trust Is the Lord in our midst or not? Now, any kind of murmuring in the wilderness is saying, in one way or another, God doesn't know how bad it is, God doesn't care, or God can't do anything about it. And so I have to take the initiative by telling everybody how bad it is. It's all right to murmur to God. but not to everybody else. Because murmuring to God is just telling God what he already knows, but it's not spreading the misery. And complaining to God may actually increase your trust. But if you let it get beyond that, it begins to destroy your own trust in God and the trust of the community. Because what you're saying really is, God doesn't know what a lousy bunch I've got myself tied up with and how ignorant these people are.

[21:27]

And God isn't going to be able to overcome the bad situation. So you have to get get beyond murmuring and this this is picked up in the New Testament Jesus in the gospel of John where murmuring is a is a Theme especially in the chapter chapter 6 Which is is a new exodus or back in and back in the wilderness where you have the the walking on the water crossing of the sea the multiplication of the loaves the man in the desert and then Jesus says that he is is the living bread. He is the true bread. And at this, the Jews started to murmur in protest. And they said to the disciples, or the disciples began to say, this sort of talk is hard to endure. How can anyone take it seriously? This is when he talks about himself as the bread of life. Jesus was fully aware that his disciples were murmuring in protest to what he had said.

[22:30]

And here's the question. Does it shake your faith, he asked them. That's exactly the point. It does shake their faith, and so they begin to murmur. Now, if you get a habit of murmuring, you can murmur even when things are going good. Because it makes you nervous to think things are going too good, that you're too naive and you must be missing the evil. So that you come into the dining room and you say, oh no, steak again. or you're like the guy that won the lottery uh... for fifteen million dollars and the only thing he could talk about was the seven million dollars in taxes he had to pay but he couldn't see the good part because he had the habit of murmuring and uh... a recent text has been discovered that at the rock when Moses hit the rock I'm talking something like Father Alexis did this morning, that there were, in the back of the crowd, there were two guys, and one guy said to the other, water, why not Dr. Pepper?

[23:42]

And the other one said, I hear the Midianites had beer in their rock. Now, it's all a matter, ultimately, of perspective. Is God in our midst or not? If you think God is not in our midst, that changes your perspective. If you think God is in our midst, then it puts everything in a different perspective. You can see it as a positive thing or a negative thing. And the issue or the circumstance may not change at all or doesn't change at all. There's an axiom that's put in this form by Stephen Covey. We see the world not as it is, but as we are. depends on our perspective. You know, people that are in the community, you've got people in your community who are more negative. You've got people in your community who are more positive. Same community, same events, perspective. Now, to see what is truly there, and the truth is that God is in our midst, is to face reality.

[24:55]

Reality is with a capital R, is God. And the truth is, if you believe the revelation, if you believe your faith, is that God is in our midst, that God is in charge, that God will see us through. I've got a couple of examples of how things can change depending on your perspective or how, if you don't face reality, what might happen to you. A few years ago, I happened to be glancing at a newspaper and I saw a headline which said, co-ed injured by a coke machine. So immediately I read to see what was going on. It said that this girl had gone up to get a coke, had put her money in, punched her choice, and nothing happened. She punched it again, nothing happened. She punched the coin return, nothing happened. She began to shake it, nothing happened. She beat on it, nothing happened. She got so angry that she began to beat on the thing and shake it so much that it fell over and gave her a concussion. This is called not dealing with reality. There's a perspective.

[25:59]

This is another. These are all true stories. This is a true story anyway. And this one about this lady a few years ago who lived in New York City. and was very much a workaholic. And she got herself so tied up and so busy, she started getting sick. And the doctor told her, if you don't quiet down, if you don't take some rest, you're going to have a heart attack or a stroke. And she said, I can't. I don't have any time, and this and that. Finally, he said, well, you've got to do it. So she was never one for, she was always one for extremes. So she decided, the only way I can do this is to get a room for the weekend in the Waldorf. And so she did. And so it's Friday night, she settles down in there and she says, this is gonna be great, I'm gonna take this week, I'm gonna sleep the whole time, not do a thing. Beautiful room, everything. So she goes to sleep Friday night. Saturday morning, about seven o'clock, she wakes up because somebody is playing the piano in the next room.

[27:04]

And she is furious. And so she calls the manager and she said, I paid a lot of money for this room and I expect a place where I can sleep and have silence and so forth. There's some idiot that's playing the piano in the room next to me and I demand that you make him quit or else give me another room. The manager said, Ma'am, I'm very sorry. We don't have any more rooms. And I can't make Mr. Poderewski stop playing because he has a concert tonight. And she said, Poderewski. So she immediately called up three or four of her friends to come and sit in her room and listen. So again, change of perspective for perspective change. One of my favorites, and I don't think this has actually happened, but it's a funny one. If I just have it here. Yeah, here it is. A girl in college was not making very good grades.

[28:10]

And her father, of course, he was paying some money to get her and keep her in college, and he was very concerned that she was wasting it all, wasting her time, not buckling down. And so he kept bothering, kept badgering her about, how are your grades? Are you studying? What are you doing on Friday nights? And all kind of things. And so all of a sudden, one day, he gets this letter. Dear Dad, everything is going well here at college this semester, so you can stop worrying. I am very happy now. You would love Jonathan. He is a wonderful man, and our first three months of marriage have been blissful. And more good news, Dad. The drug rehab program we are both in just told us that the twins that are due soon will not be addicted at birth. Her father was becoming red in the face and alarmed, and he turned the page over and he said, now, Dad, There is no Jonathan, I'm not married, nor pregnant, and I haven't ever abused drugs.

[29:13]

But I did get a D in chemistry, so keep things in perspective. I'm gonna have one more here as the final one. This was very interesting to me. This happened about five years ago. There was a special on TV interviewing women who were over a hundred years old and active and seemingly living very happy and productive lives even though some of them were 105 or 107 years old. So the point of the interview is to find out what is the secret of these women. Because it isn't something, it wasn't something genetic because their children were dying.

[30:17]

and they weren't. So what was it? And they found out it wasn't, it wasn't, the things that they expected to find were a big attention to exercise and diet. Now these people were obviously, they had a fairly good diet and they were active, so there was some of that. But that wasn't what it was. What they found out of the common theme was that these women had turned, had been able to learn how to say goodbye. they had learned how to deal with loss and so when uh... you know when their body started having problems they didn't uh... automatically give up they let it go when their friends started dying when they got different diseases when their even their children started dying their grandchildren had trouble they were able to face it and accept it and go on in fact in the midst of the interview one of these women who was a hundred and seven uh... the daily except for the interview was a wednesday and on tuesday her daughter who was i think eighty one and uh... they'd call her up and said uh... they would postpone the interview because they realize a very unfortunate time and she said no she said uh... we set it up and besides i need something to do to take my mind off of it so come on

[31:38]

and uh... i thought that was a very very interesting that they were not they were able to say goodbye and all of us have to say goodbye Ultimately, we have to say goodbye to this life in order to enter the next life. We have to say goodbye to the way things were, maybe even yesterday. Certainly in the church and monastic life, we've had to say goodbye to a lot of things over the last 30, 40 years. We have to say goodbye to family members, to community members, to our health, to changes in the economy, changes in the environment, whatever it is. But the ability to accept to face it and to let go. And in the ultimate sense, to trust in the Lord that all of this is preparing us for the long term, for the journey. It's a great secret. So for us, it's all, everything we let go of in this world, of course, is only a shadow of what we're expecting to receive in the next world.

[32:42]

So we go forward trusting in the Lord. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Okay, I took care of blame. Stephen Covey? Yeah. No, it wasn't. Well, I'm sure some of it... came out of that. That one that says we see the world not as it is but as we are, that comes out of that. Yeah, it's in one of those points. I think it's a very good point. It's like the story of the two boys that that the reaction of these two boys that were going to get a Christmas present, they went into this, you probably heard this one, they went into this big room, storage room, and they see your presents in there. And all that was in there was a big pile of horse manure.

[33:46]

And one boy was a pessimist, and he went around saying, oh, on that game, we were pessimists, we were a pile of shit. And the other boy went in there, and he was all excited, he was digging through there, and he said, it's great, it's great. He said, why? He said, with all of this around, there's got to be a horse. perspective. You know, we were in a part of Arkansas that we had a lot of this. Correspondence. Okay. The wilderness.

[34:52]

To get through the wilderness, we have to know the guide. To know the guide, we have to pray. To know the guide personally. And to trust the guide, we have to pray consistently, every day, ourselves. Now, the reason that all these things, I think, work together, we can know the guide in a roundabout way. It's like the translation of Psalm 15, and the grail says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God above. Somebody added that word above, I don't know who did, because it just says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God above. The fool says in his heart, there's no God here. Everybody says there's a God above, which is easy.

[35:58]

But to say there's no God here, that's when you're a fool. And so a lot of people believe in God. A lot of people pray when it's fourth down and inches. And you see people gathered on the sidelines praying. They do that about once a game. but they don't know God. They know there is a God, or at least they feel there is, but you have to know God personally, and so you have to consistently come back to God every day, certainly in community, but If you come in community and you don't pray within community personally, you still don't have it. So somehow you have to get a personal relationship with God. Usually that takes, as we know in monastic life, a consistent daily meeting with God. And this is also the best way to increase our trust.

[37:04]

Because everything else we do has another product. The work we do, the hospitality, even our communal prayer, even our mass. There's always something happening and we know what it is. Part of it. But in our private prayer, we don't know exactly what's happening. We can't prove anything. We can't see the product. maybe over a long period we may have ecstasy one day and nothing the next we never know but to keep coming back faithfully day after day the only thing that keeps bringing you back is your trust in God and the more you do that the more your trust takes hold I want to talk about, move a little bit in a different direction taking off from the uh... the wilderness theme in scripture, I'm going to take a particular issue that Saint Benedict emphasizes out of that tradition, which is murmuring.

[38:15]

Murmuring in the wilderness. I'm going to read from Ephesians. We read several things from Exodus and Numbers. This is from Ephesians chapter 4. Never let evil talk pass your lips. Say only the good things people need to hear, things that will really help them. Do nothing to sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every kind. in place of these be kind to one another compassionate and mutually forgiving just as God has forgiven you in Christ now we know from years of reading of it and hearing of it that Saint Benedict is against murmuring actually the two great enemies in the rule to the monastic life are murmuring

[39:25]

and private ownership and both of these in both cases the danger is the same i read uh... what the people said in the wilderness uh... at the rock they struggled, they quarreled at Meribah saying to one another is the lord in our midst or not so it's a it makes you question, it's a way of questioning God's presence, and that's the ultimate sin, in a way, not to believe that God is present. You know, there's a little book on the rule, it's by an Anglican named, I think, John McQueedy, or something like that, very small book, and I can't remember the name of this is always we seek him or something like that and it's a it's a paraphrase of the rule and Somebody gave me a gift. Oh, it's a very small book and you may have in your bookstore.

[40:28]

I don't know We had it in ours for a while till I got it out of there because it was a paraphrase the rule very very beautiful language and the trouble was i was reading this book after i got about twenty pages and this is rolling in a dispute and recognize the the uh... images recognize the i'm a bit something was but we're bothering me something was bothering me and then he'd let himself i knew what it was because all of a sudden he said something made it clear that this author did not believe in the presence of a personal god he was kind of a deist and that takes the complete heart out of the rule because the presence of God is everywhere, you know, we see Christ in the abbots, we see Christ in the guests, we see Christ... so uh... and that's what happens if you murmur you're really saying in your heart God is not present in an active real way and if you're seeking to protect yourself with private ownership this is Hebrews 13 uh... five

[41:32]

Do not love money. Of course, love money means make money first. But be content with what you have, for God has said, I will never desert you, nor will I forsake you. And that's out of the desert tradition, it's out of Deuteronomy. If you have to take care of yourself, then you don't believe this, I will never desert you, nor will I forsake you. The rule takes speech very seriously, and it quotes Proverbs, the tongue holds the key to death and life. For some reason, Benedict does not quote James. It wasn't in the Master, so I guess he didn't pick it up, because James has a lot to say about the tongue, and whoever is without faults in speech is perfect. The Desert Fathers have a saying, they are good, They're good monks, but their house has no door. Whoever wants to may enter the stable and loose the ass.

[42:38]

There's a saying from Oscar Wilde which says, if you don't have anything good to say about anybody, come sit by me. Benedict says that murmuring is the opposite of obedience. This very obedience, chapter 5, will be acceptable to God and agreeable to others only if compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or grumbling, free from any grumbling or reaction of unwillingness. And if someone does what he's told, his action will not be accepted with favor by God who sees that he is grumbling in his heart he will have no reward but will incur punishment unless he makes changes and makes amends. Of course, murmuring or grumbling is not only by words, but it's by whispers, or shouts, or in your heart, or by looks. Now, what are some ways I thought I would

[43:43]

separate out a few things. There are different ways to be constructive in your criticism and destructive. What are some ways to murmur? Well, a very obvious one in the rule is murmuring against the task you have been given in obedience, even if only in your heart. so that you do it, but you do it with a murmuring heart. And in chapter 58, we have the chapter on impossible tasks. That if you see something is really beyond your strength, then you need to go to the superior and let that be known. And then if you're told to do it anyway, you trust God. See, that trust keeps coming. You trust God and don't murmur. and go ahead and do it and if it kills you, you go straight to heaven. You just trust God. Bow your head. Now, there are all kinds of impossible tasks. For example, some of these would be crazy if you were told to learn the Hebrew Psalter by heart or you had to feed the prior's pet rattlesnake or

[44:58]

something, and the ultimate impossible task for most monks is clean your room. But anything sinful you can't obey. But then there's one criticism of the needs of others. This is an easy one to fall into. What people get by with, and especially what the superior lets them get by with, now the danger here is the equality principle that everybody should get the same treatment this is uh... this is a staple of uh... american political argument you know entitlement everybody should get the same have the same rights have the same have the same things uh... however and in fact in the rule of pacomius There's an indication that this is what he would like. Benedict is quite different. Benedict says, it is written, chapter 34, distribution was made to each one as he had need.

[46:06]

By this we do not imply that there should be favoritism, God forbid, but rather consideration for weakness. Whoever needs less should thank God and not be distressed, but whoever needs more should feel humble because of weakness, not self-importance because of the kindness shown him. In this way, all the members will be at peace. First and foremost, there must be no word or sign of the evil of murmuring, no manifestation of it for any reason at all. If anyone is caught grumbling, let him undergo more severe discipline. Now this is the... Benedict picks this out of Acts and presents it, and I think he's right, as the biblical principle. Not that everybody gets the same thing, but that everybody gets what he needs. Not what he wants, but what he needs. And this principle, equality, is an easier principle.

[47:10]

but it's unjust, because not everybody should have the same thing, not everybody needs the same thing. But this principle, though it's just, is more difficult, because everybody has a different judgment about what everybody else needs, and nobody is ever satisfied that the superior is giving everybody what they need, and you can't prove it. so it calls on a great amount of trust so if you you know it you think about equality this would be equality one monk comes in and he has very bad dyslexia and he can't read so he can't go to college therefore in our monastery no one goes to college in order to be fair or a monk comes in and he says I've just been to the dentist Then it says, my teeth are rotten. I have to pull them all.

[48:12]

I have to have dentures. And so the superior says, OK, false teeth for everyone. Only being fair. So equality is not fair. pure equality is not just and certainly is not the gospel principle but it is it's something where we feel is the American principle and we know what it gets us into where people who have millions of dollars get Medicare and uh... you know it doesn't make sense but everybody's entitled to the same thing that's not the principle of the rule and so the the art of distribution is an art and it's not a science and therefore there are constantly every day and every hour grounds for dissatisfaction either what I'm getting or what the other guy's getting and so again the wilderness this is a great test to be able to walk through that wilderness trusting God that God will take care of it take care of me take care of the other guy and we just have to think of Jesus in the gospel

[49:24]

Think of how Jesus had to handle these different characters in his own group. He couldn't treat Peter and the beloved disciple the same way. He couldn't treat Simon the Zealot the same way he treated Matthew the tax collector. They were completely different characters, different political spectrum. And so Benedict makes the stakes high. He says if anybody's grumbling because of this, they should receive severe discipline, because you can't ever tame that down. It's such a sinister thing, such a poison in the community. Then there's a third way of murmuring, is complaining about our hard work in serving others. And this often comes up in the menial chores we do for one another, and so Benedict has a special chapter on the kitchen servers, and all of you involved in kitchen serving.

[50:28]

So what does he say? Well, one way he does it, and you say, well, this is a strange way of taking care of it. He gives them something to drink ahead of time, give them a little wine, let it tone them down a little bit, soothe them. But he's dealing with human nature. before, so they don't have anything to gripe about. So that at mealtime they may serve their brothers without grumbling or hardship. And if you, you know, somebody's coming in there and serving you real angry, that's no hospitality. Now, we had something happen at our monastery. It wasn't anybody's fault, but it gave a very deep insight into one of the monks. We had these, we were serving gravy, these little brown bowls, hot gravy, and we had some of the monks, we had people on both sides of the table, some monks had their back to you, you know, as you went around. I was on the crew, and one of the guys that was carrying this gravy stumbled just as he got to the table and poured a bowl of hot gravy down the capuche of one of the monks.

[51:39]

It was an old monk, and he sat there and his eyes lit up, And he stood straight up. He didn't say anything. He just backed up and went out. Somebody went out to see him, and he said, OK. So he came back in. About five minutes later, he comes back in, goes in, sits down, and eats. And he never said a thing about it. He just took it and went on. He was never angry. And we all were awed at this guy. He was an older guy that didn't ever say very much. We thought, this is finally going to make him explode. It didn't. He was cool. Now, the rule of Pacomius has this remedy for murmuring. It's very old. It's a couple of hundred years older than Saint Benedict. And it probably has never been improved on. the monk who is in the habit of murmuring and speaks as if he is oppressed by heavy work shall be admonished five times that he murmurs without cause and shall be shown the clear truth but if he continues to murmur he shall be treated as one of the sick and placed in the infirmary where he shall be fed sparingly until he returns to the truth so that's one of the Pacomian remedies

[53:07]

Another thing that Saint Benedict talks about as a way of murmuring is griping because of lacks and shortages. Again, whether real or imagined doesn't make any difference. chapter forty where local circumstances dictate them an amount much less than what is stipulated above or even none at all those who live there should bless god and not grumble above all else we admonish them to refrain from grumbling uh... as i said you know you might come in and say oh no steak again you know you get in the habit of murmuring and it's always there another uh... Number five way is complaining when you're treated unfairly or unjustly. Now, this is the major leagues. If you get into this level, you've gone into the all-star lineup, because most of us have a very big difficulty with this.

[54:12]

The fourth step to humility, this is number four, and for me, I don't think there are any of them any higher than this. is that in his obedience, under difficult, unfavorable, or even unjust conditions, his heart quietly embraces suffering and endures it without weakening or seeking escape." Cardung in his commentary says that in this implication here is that the superior is out to get you and is treating you unjustly, and even then you accept it. Of course, we know that a novice is to be tested not only for obedience and the work of God, but for trials. And this, again, is a gift, because it's the wilderness. If you can't see that these things are not going to stop, I mean, your whole life is going to be filled with trials on this part of the way. If you think that once you get past the novitiate, everything's going to smooth out, you know, well, You're going to learn differently.

[55:13]

Might as well learn now. But quietly embrace the suffering. Now, I have never, I don't think I've ever, I could possibly have ever gotten this far because I don't think I've ever been treated that way in my whole life by a superior. That somebody was purposely treating me wrong, treating me unjustly. Maybe circumstances have been unjust, but that somebody was out to get me, and a superior, I don't think so. So I haven't made this one yet. 1 Peter 2.19 says, "...when one can suffer injustice and endure hardship through his awareness of God's presence..." This is the work of grace in him, you see? That's a very, very Benedictine... Benedict picked it up. That's a very Benedictine idea that you put up with endure hostility or bad circumstances because of God's presence. That's why. Because God is with me. Because God is in the monastery.

[56:14]

This is a place of God, even though at times it doesn't look like that to me. You probably have this happen. It happens at our monastery all the time, where all kinds of things are going on, running their rich way, there's problems, the boiler breaks down, or somebody gets mad at somebody else, and then there's somebody in the in the guest house they stay there two or three days and uh... and and it's like a storm is constantly going on in the monastery and these people come by and they say we're so grateful it's so peaceful here and and that is very striking to me because it's true the peace that they're experiencing is the peace of christ it's not the peace of our tranquility underneath it all is the peace of Christ. If we tried to manufacture peace, it would be like a funeral home, you know, and they would say, oh, how peaceful it is, you know. But it's real peace.

[57:14]

It's not something that we're producing. God is producing it in the midst of everything else as we struggle. Evagrius has a saying about murmuring, which is, this is a very powerful image the monk who hides memory of injury in his soul is like one hiding fire in chaff you bury your injury but you don't give it up the monk who hides memory of injury in his soul is like one hiding fire in chaff and then there is a way of gossip just the regular idea of constant chatter. It keeps us from being able to hear the first word of the rule or take the admission of listen because we're always talking. The rule has this, a talkative man goes about aimlessly on earth.

[58:19]

Sort of like your tongue is leading you astray, wagging all over the place. There's a saying, the difference between a man and a dog is that a dog wags its tail and a man wags his tongue. Talking leads to gossip, which leads often to detraction, to suspicion, and to division. During the reading, see that there is no brother so apathetic as to waste time or engage in idle talk, to the neglect of his reading, and so not only harm himself but also distract others. There's a saying, and this is a very interesting commentary on the United States, great minds talk about ideas Average minds talk about things. Small minds talk about people. And if you go through the airport, as I did the other day, you'll see that most of the magazines there are about people, even People magazine, that people are, we're just concentrating on these people that

[59:24]

come and go, come and go, come and go, and don't think about the deeper things, the important events of the century, or the great ideas. Now, when is talk about others and about the conditions of the monastery, or the world, or the church, when is it murmuring, and when is it constructive criticism? Now, I think that the best norm is that Ephesians 4.15, which is often translated, speak the truth in love. You can't, just because you know something doesn't mean you can say it, even if it's the truth. Now we have this information explosion which the idea is that anything that is known must be said. We know that's not true. Speak the truth in love, actually the the Ephesians doesn't actually say, speak the truth in love, and sometimes you'll see it translated, do the truth in love, because the Greek has a verb for truth, to truth, and what the thing says is, truthing in love, to be the truth, or to act the truth, or to say the truth, but always in love.

[60:47]

This is, in today's society, If it happened, I have a right to publicize it and to comment on it. And nothing is privileged except the communication between a lawyer and the client. That's the only thing privileged. Even some places, it's very hard even for a confessor to get that right. Now, we know, however, that some things must be kept secret for the good of the individual or for the wider good. your family, your health, your early life, nobody's business. It doesn't do anybody any good. I gave a retreat some years ago to a group up in Massachusetts you may know called the Dominican Sisters of Bethany. Dominican Sisters of Bethany I think only have one small house and they were founded from France. Their idea is to be hospitable

[61:53]

Bethany, they have a very monastic core group, but their ministry is in women's prisons. So they have two or three or four external sisters, that's their job, and the others are praying behind them. Well, what has happened, what happened when they did start that over the years, what's happened is that sometimes their ministry in prisons leads to attracting candidates for their monastery from prison and so that they have a mixture in their community now they have a mixture of very debutantes from society and people from the streets who have a very very checkered background and they're all living this life together well they have a rule in their community no sister can talk about her past life to anyone except the superior and her confessor.

[62:57]

And no one can ask a question of any sister in the community about anything in her past life. So they just say, we start from when we came. And it doesn't make any difference whether you were in jail or in college ten years ago. Well, actually, that's a very good principle anyway, you know. that we are, just like it says in Washington, the past is prologue. You know, we got here, God got us here some way. It doesn't make any difference. Maybe your psychologist needs to know, but other people don't. So it's a good way to keep stuff from getting out of hand. But the U.S., as I said, that might sometimes leak into us our policies. In the 1970s, you remember that President Ford Well, there was an assassination attempt on President Ford in San Francisco, and a young man saw this happening and jumped in and saved his life.

[64:01]

And so he was in the papers, and somebody, one of these reporters, revealed in the paper that he was gay. Now, this was nobody's business except his. He, I don't know if he may be living a late gay lifestyle, maybe so, but he'd gone to the papers. His family was stunned, shocked. All his friends, they didn't know what to think of it. His life was wrecked. And so he sued the paper for invasion of privacy. And he lost. And the reason he lost, the reason the judge gave was that he was a private figure until he intervened for the president. Then he became a public figure. And anything in his life was accessible. See how harmful that is? Another one is Arthur Ashe. Arthur Ashe had AIDS. He got it from a blood transfusion. And nobody knew this.

[65:04]

He was keeping it very quiet. He had a young daughter and he didn't want everybody. But one of these newspapers broke the story. And it was extremely unjust. Very harmful to him. And he came out later and explained in his autobiography of how that had made it so difficult in his life and trying to explain to his, I think, seven-year-old daughter what this all meant. So there is something about speaking the truth in love, only in love. Sometimes you don't speak the truth at all because it can't be done in love. You don't tell a lie. There is a wicked zeal of bitterness that separates from God and leads to hell. And Murmuring does this. Van Zeller has this. Murmuring is a spreading disease. A community can suffer its spirit to be wrecked by the presence of a minority of active grumblers. To see false and remain uncensorious is virtuous.

[66:06]

To look for false and talk about them is vicious. There is nobody so dissatisfying in a religious body as the sour, querulous, self-pitying monk or nun. Ultimately, the reason why religious murmur is that they are lacking in trust. The soul that can say and mean, and you I hope, O Lord, has little to fear from the temptation to malicious criticism. It always keeps coming back to trust, the presence of God, all of those virtues that Saint Benedict encourages. The last thing I have on this is a story, it's not a story, it's a maxim from the Sufis. They say, The Sufis tell us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate we ask ourselves, are these words true? If so, they pass through the second gate. At the second gate we ask, are these words necessary? If so, we pass them to the next gate.

[67:11]

The last gate we ask, are these words kind? And they say, in order to be a right, just, good statement, they have to pass all three gates. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, and is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. The question of justifiable murmuring is a difficult one. When you decide something is not being done, it should be done. And that happens all the time. So really, the next step is, what do you do about it? And one of those issues is, who do you Who do you involve? And the mistake that most of us make is to start at the wrong place.

[68:15]

You know, we take it to the wrong place, and eventually it may get to the right place, but we've already caused a lot of trouble by the time it does. And that's why St. Benedict has that chapter 68. You take it to the superior, and in his theology, in his spirituality, at least in things concerning yourself, If it doesn't change, you suck it up, you know, and trust God. And there are a lot of other types of things that don't go exactly that channel, but... So if one of the monks is spending too much money, who do you tell? Yes, the question, where's the right place to take that? And often people take it to each other, you know, and then causes all kind of... There's a right place to take all that stuff.

[69:15]

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