Uploaded bySister Edith Bogue
Love of Learning
The document discusses the 'love of learning' as an essential aspect of Benedictine monastic practice, highlighting its integration into daily life and the pursuit of knowledge. It incorporates themes from Rudyard Kipling's 'The Elephant's Child' to illustrate curiosity and the quest for understanding. Additionally, it underscores the importance of preserving intellectual heritage and the connection between living wisely and learning deeply.
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Love of Learning
- 1. Love of Learning: TheOverlooked Monastic Practice Sister Edith Bogue T4 Symposium St. Leo’s University July 21, 2017
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- 3. 3 What to expect… A mixture of content • Stories • Ideas • Factual knowledge • Images Various ways to process • Thinking and pondering • Creating and enjoying • Deep stillness
- 4. 4 http://www.abcu.info/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={94EFD1ED-B758-49CE-A3EA- 1688AFFC9AC7}&DE={DE32CC52-A685-4ED0-B088-13A8479A57AE} “At the heartof Benedictine life there is a powerful drive to integrate what one knows into life and to do so until our life simply bursts out of all that holds it back.” Br. Dietrich Reinhart, OSB (1949-2008)
- 5. 55 Rudyard Kipling, Britishauthor. Originally they were bedtime stories for his daughter Josephine. Language, references to a wide world, and wisdom intertwined. The Elephant’s Child
- 6. 6 The Elephant’s Child- 1RudyardKipling,TheElephant’sChild,fromJustSoStoriesat http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/elephant.htm N the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant--a new Elephant--an Elephant's Child--who was full of 'satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his 'satiable curiosities.
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- 9. 9 Willing to say,“I don’t know” .
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- 11. 11 The Elephant’s Child- 2 One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes this 'satiable Elephant's Child asked a new fine question that he had never asked before. He asked, 'What does the Crocodile have for dinner?’ Then everybody said, 'Hush!' in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him immediately and directly, without stopping, for a long time.
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- 13. 13 The Elephant’s Child- 3 By and by, when that was finished, he came upon Kolokolo Bird sitting in the middle of a wait-a-bit thorn-bush, and he said, 'My father has spanked me, and my mother has spanked me; all my aunts and uncles have spanked me for my 'satiable curiosity; and still I want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner!' Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, 'Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.'.
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- 15. 15 The Elephant’s Child- 4 That very next morning, this 'satiable Elephant's Child … said to all his dear families, 'Goodbye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever- trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.' And they all spanked him once more for luck, though he asked them most politely to stop. Then he went away, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up.
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- 18. 18 YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF ‘SATIABLE CURIOSITYAND JOY IlluminatedRuleofBenedict.Illuminationsby+SisterMary CharlesMcGough,St.ScholasticaMonastery,Duluth,MN
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- 20. 20 Education can bepainful
- 21. 21 Education can bepainful
- 22. 22 Love of Learning Preservingthe intellectual and material heritage entrusted to us by past generations. Transmitting the treasures of human culture to new generations. Creating scholarly, artistic and scientific works which enrich and enlarge human life. Integrating thought and action as complementary aspects of a full human life. College of St. Scholastica Benedictine Values
- 23. 23 “At the heartof Benedictine life there is a powerful drive to integrate what one knows into life and to do so until our life simply bursts out of all that holds it back.” Dietrich Reinhart, OSB “The Heart’s Deep Gladness and the Hunger of the World” Benedictine Pedagogy Conference, May 30, 2008
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- 25. 25 Reading the Biblewith St. Benedict Monastics learned scripture by heart. Memory was entirely according to meaning. SO: Quoting a phrase would bring to mind the entire passage related to it. Sister Irene Nowell taught an entire course on "Reading the Bible with Benedict" from which some of these ideas were drawn. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/1QIsa_b.jpg/220px-1QIsa_b.jpg
- 26. 26 Scripture at thetime of BenedictCodexClaromontanus:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Codex_claromontanus_latin.jpg Codex Claromontanus V, 4th or 5th century Latin manuscript of the New Testament. The text, written on vellum.
- 27. 27 “In the MiddleAges, as in antiquity, they read usually, not as today, principally with the eyes, but with the lips, pronouncing what they saw, and with the ears, listening to the words pronounced. hearing what is called the "voices of the pages." It is a real acoustical reading.” Dom Jean Leclercq The Love of Learning and the Desire for God
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- 33. 33 “For the ancients,to meditate is to read a text and to learn it "by heart" in the fullest sense of this expression, that is, with one's whole being: with the body, since the mouth pronounced it, with the memory which fixes it, with the intelligence which understands its meaning, and with the will which desires to put it into practice.” Dom Jean Leclercq The Love of Learning and the Desire for God
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- 35. 35 “But if thegreat ideas of the past are to remain young and vital, each generation must, in turn, think them through and rediscover them in their pristine newness.” Dom Jean Leclercq The Love of Learning and the Desire for God
- 36. 36 YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF ‘SATIABLE CURIOSITYAND JOY IlluminatedRuleofBenedict.Illuminationsby+SisterMary CharlesMcGough,St.ScholasticaMonastery,Duluth,MN
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- 38. 38 The Fruit ofLearning
- 39. 39 “Knowing, understanding, wisdom alsoflow from how we live. …Wisdom has to do with the interplay of knowing and living, it is a matter of character and virtue, and the Benedictine tradition manifests this in particular ways.” Bill Cahoy, quoted in Dietrich Reinhart, OSB “The Heart’s Deep Gladness and the Hunger of the World” Benedictine Pedagogy Conference, May 30, 2008
- 40. 40 “The external practices ofmonastic life are directly connected with our search for God. In and through these practices we express our spiritual values and ideals, & daily live out our commitment to God.” Cummings, Monastic Practices Obedience is not about rules
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- 42. 42 Passing on theKnowledge
- 43. 43 “Therefore I begyou, reader, not to rejoice too greatly if you have read much, but if you have understood much. Nor that you have understood much, but that you have been able to retain it. Otherwise it is of little profit either to read or to understand.” Hugh of Saint Victor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts
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- 46. Love of Learning: TheOverlooked Monastic Practice Sister Edith Bogue T4 Symposium St. Leo’s University July 21, 2017
Editor's Notes
- #3 Talk is organized into three parts. After the first two parts, there will be time for reflection and discussion, which Sr. Joella will facilitate. I did not build in any particular bathroom breaks. We have already spent too much of our lives waiting in line at the ladies’ room. Instead, during the times for reflection and discussion, you are invited to make use of the facilities as you have need.
- #4 My hope for this talk is that it have an experiential component. Talking about the Love of Learning is different from other talks I’ve done recently. Although there is a lot that has been written about it, and I could (and probably have) dredged up some new ways of looking at it as an idea, that’s not the purpose of T4. If you leave here knowing something about the Love of Learning, but without any new dedication or excitement to the Love of Learning, then we really haven’t advanced it very far. Just like The Rule itself, the Love of Learning is not something to be understood, but to be lived. So let’s begin.
- #5 At the heart of Benedictine life there is a powerful drive to integrate what one knows into life and to do so until our life simply bursts out of all that holds it back – to engage all the tough and painful demands of learning and the disjunctures that are part and parcel of faith until “we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.” The Rule is an extended invitation to dwell on the spiritual truths at the core of human life, by daily immersion in study, work and community life, mindfulness and prayer. [Later slide] Bill Cahoy frames this approach in stark contrast to “the modern, western, post-Enlightenment, scientific world, particularly the world of education, [where] we tend to assume that the relation between knowing and living, between what one knows and how lives is uni-directional and that direction is from knowing to living, from theory to practice.” He says that “the monastic tradition (wisely) recognizes that sometimes the movement is the other direction: knowing, understanding, wisdom also flows from how we live. Practices of charity, regular prayer, lectio, obedience, humility, and hospitality may yield understanding and not just be a product of understanding... [W]isdom has to do with the interplay of knowing and living, it is a matter of character and virtue, and the Benedictine tradition manifests this in particular ways.” The question, however is
- #6 I’m going to frame this talk within a story, one of the foundational stories of my childhood. I was raised in an atheist family – that’s another story – so I was not formed by stories and images of saints, scripture, prayers or devotions. In their absence, the story books and songs we sang had a strong impact on me. One of the earliest and most formative was The Elephant’s Child. You’ll quickly see why.
- #7 IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant--a new Elephant--an Elephant's Child--who was full of 'satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his 'satiable curiosities. He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich, why her tail-feathers grew just so, and his tall aunt the Ostrich spanked him with her hard, hard claw. He asked his tall uncle, the Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle, the Giraffe, spanked him with his hard, hard hoof. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity! He asked his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, why her eyes were red, and his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, spanked him with her broad, broad hoof; and he asked his hairy uncle, the Baboon, why melons tasted just so, and his hairy uncle, the Baboon, spanked him with his hairy, hairy paw. And still he was full of 'satiable curiosity! He asked questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched, and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him. And still he was full of 'satiable curiosity!
- #8 That first part of the The Elephant’s Child points to the newness of learning, of its root in curiosity. Learning is a verb. Actually, it’s a collection of verbs. It involves seeing, noticing, making connections, making comparisons, imaginining other possibilities. This is, indeed the stuff of childhood. And we love it. A science-teacher mom talked with her 12-year old son, who was trying without success to start a fire with a magnifying glass and some twigs. What might be preventing it from working? She speculated about teaching a semester-long unit on fire – images, stories, symbols, science – and asked him, “How many questions do you have, or think you could generate, about fire?” “A thousand,” he answer, “No, ten thousand,” he corrected himself. That’s the love of learning: ten thousand questions.
- #15 Learning is fresh and surprising
- #16 That very next morning, this 'satiable Elephant's Child took a hundred pounds of bananas (the little short red kind), and a hundred pounds of sugar-cane (the long purple kind), and seventeen melons (the greeny-crackly kind), and said to all his dear families, 'Goodbye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.' And they all spanked him once more for luck, though he asked them most politely to stop. Then he went away, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up.
- #19 Don’t you think that ‘satiable curiosity is, really, something akin to the roots of the love of learning? And don’t we all have it, or at least had it at one time? So we’re going to spend some time finding it again. This will be a two part process. In the first, I want you to remember a time when you were filled with this ‘satiable curiosity, with a joy of learning. Remember a specific time, not just a general sense. What were you curious about? Where were you? How old were you? Who else was there? What were the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures of that experience? Can you feel the excitement all over again? Take a minute to really recapture that experience. Then jot down just a few notes to help you remember it. After about five minutes, Sister Joella will give you some guidelines for sharing at your tables.
- #20 Where did that excitement go? We still have it in bursts, some more than others. But we wouldn’t have a T4 Project if every adult, every Benedictine were as on fire for learning as the Elephant’s Child, or any child. Why do we have to talk about it as a value, promote it, struggle to recover it? Sad to say, much of what we do in schools seems to take the joy out of learning and replace it with drudgery. Even those of us who do have bursts of the “love of learning” are not so likely to find it in the classroom. I think there are a few reasons for this, and there are some ways to recover that “novice fervor” that we had as children.
- #21 Now you must know and understand, O Best Beloved, that till that very week, and day, and hour, and minute, this 'satiable Elephant's Child had never seen a Crocodile, and did not know what one was like. It was all his 'satiable curtiosity. The first thing that he found was a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake curled round a rock. ''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but have you seen such a thing as a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?' 'Have I seen a Crocodile?' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, in a voice of dretful scorn. 'What will you ask me next?' ''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but could you kindly tell me what he has for dinner?' Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake uncoiled himself very quickly from the rock, and spanked the Elephant's Child with his scalesome, flailsome tail. 'That is odd,' said the Elephant's Child, 'because my father and my mother, and my uncle and my aunt, not to mention my other aunt, the Hippopotamus, and my other uncle, the Baboon, have all spanked me for my 'satiable curtiosity--and I suppose this is the same thing.' So he said good-bye very politely to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, and helped to coil him up on the rock again, and went on, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up, till he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees. But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the Crocodile winked one eye--like this! ''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but do you happen to have seen a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?' Then the Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of the mud; and the Elephant's Child stepped back most politely, because he did not wish to be spanked again. 'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile. 'Why do you ask such things?' ''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but my father has spanked me, my mother has spanked me, not to mention my tall aunt, the Ostrich, and my tall uncle, the Giraffe, who can kick ever so hard, as well as my broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, and my hairy uncle, the Baboon, and including the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, with the scalesome, flailsome tail, just up the bank, who spanks harder than any of them; and so, if it's quite all the same to you, I don't want to be spanked any more.' 'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile, 'for I am the Crocodile,' and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true. Then the Elephant's Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneeled down on the bank and said, 'You are the very person I have been looking for all these long days. Will you please tell me what you have for dinner?' 'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile, 'and I'll whisper.' Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful. 'I think,' said the Crocodile--and he said it between his teeth, like this--'I think to-day I will begin with Elephant's Child!' At this, O Best Beloved, the Elephant's Child was much annoyed, and he said, speaking through his nose, like this, 'Led go! You are hurtig be!'
- #22 Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said, 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.' This is the way Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk. Then the Elephant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled. And the Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer--and it hurt him hijjus! Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, 'This is too butch for be!' Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's Child's hind legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck' (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), 'will permanently vitiate your future career.' That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk. So he pulled, and the Elephant's Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled; but the Elephant's Child and the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake pulled hardest; and at last the Crocodile let go of the Elephant's Child's nose with a plop that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo. Then the Elephant's Child sat down most hard and sudden; but first he was careful to say 'Thank you' to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake; and next he was kind to his poor pulled nose, and wrapped it all up in cool banana leaves, and hung it in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo to cool.
- #23 This statement comes from my own college. I heard our Academic VP use it to welcome the NAABOD meeting at our monastery last Friday night. It sounded really good when he read it, slowly and meaningfully. But when I thought and listened to it more carefully, I’m not so sure. Except for the last sentence – which reminds of Brother Dietrich’s statement – it’s pretty dull. We’re preserving what was given to us, and transmitting it to new generations. Maybe we create new works. But: why do I want to do this?
- #24 [Earlier]: Benedictine life as integrated approach through study, lectio, work, prayer, contemplation to grow. [This slide] Bill Cahoy frames this approach in stark contrast to “the modern, western, post-Enlightenment, scientific world, particularly the world of education, [where] we tend to assume that the relation between knowing and living, between what one knows and how lives is uni-directional and that direction is from knowing to living, from theory to practice.” This style of education divides creation into specializations, atomizes our learning. It focuses on taking on the answers of previous generations. What is missing? The questions. Those treasures of the past are treasures because they answered the questions that people had. If we tackle the answers without arousing the questions, without asking ourselves, “Are these my questions too?” then it is just so much stuff. Maybe interesting. Perhaps we can see a use for it. But it doesn’t burn within us unless it connects to the questions in our lives. He says that “the monastic tradition (wisely) recognizes that sometimes the movement is the other direction: knowing, understanding, wisdom also flows from how we live. Practices of charity, regular prayer, lectio, obedience, humility, and hospitality may yield understanding and not just be a product of understanding... [W]isdom has to do with the interplay of knowing and living, it is a matter of character and virtue, and the Benedictine tradition manifests this in particular ways.” The question, however is
- #25 Our Benedictine tradition certainly gives us an image of someone who did not find traditional education helpful… [story] But Benedict did not reject learning. We have three types of evidence for this. First, in The Rule, he gives over the best hours of the day for reading. Not just lectio divina, a spiritual reading. The Rule also tells us that those who are not able to read should be learning to read. This is amazing in an age when most people could not read. Reading in Benedict’s time was not what we think of today.
- #27 These are two examples of scripture, of manuscripts from the time of St. Benedict. Notice that the only breaks are at the ends of line – the words themselves are not broken out separately.
- #33 We are all familiar with illuminations in medieval scripture, but haven’t paid as much attention to the texts. Even when words were broken up, as in this example, there are still no divisions of paragraph, chapter, verse, etc. The act of reading itself was a huge effort. The reader had to figure out where the words, sentences, and thoughts began and ended. This effort brought about an entirely different engagement with the text – one that we probably could not experience in our modern world. The medieval schools had wonderful tools for memory. At St. Victor, there was an amazing image of an ark into which all of human history known at the time had been written. The students learned history by reading, but also by learning this ark. When they wanted to remember the sequence of history, or the details, they could go – in their minds – to the place in the ark to recall what was there.
- #35 Second, Benedict’s writing reveals his own use of a variety of sources. And he refers to the monastic libraries. . We know that monastics read a wide variety of books. The huge monastic libraries of the middle ages, the scriptorium in which so many monks worked – all of these are evidence that the life and work of a monastic involved reading and knowledge Hildegard of Bingen was a scientist as much as mystic, with knowledge of herbs and healing. Gregor Mendel studied the properties of peas in the monastery garden. Dom Perignon worked for years to perfect a process that put bubbles into wine without bursting the bottles (and we still enjoy champagne today because of him). Double-entry bookkeeping was invented in a monastery, as were early forms of refrigeration. Monks studied mathematics, literature, languages, history…. The library at Monte Cassino was a center for medical research in the 9th-12th centuries. Both monks and lay people drew on books of remedies and theories. And third, he prescribed that everyone receive a book from the library and read the entire thing – remember how much effort that would be – during Lent. This reading would be in addition to the regular work of the monastery which – of course – continued.
- #36 Our lives are different. We have different tools now. The T4 project has used two different methods to make it possible for us to sit at the feet of great teachers, even across time and space, and to interact with each other about how this learning can become part of our lives. Take one minute to integrate this part of the talk, and then Sister Joella will facilitate a table discussion around the ways that we can work against re-experience the joy of learning in our own lives.
- #37 Don’t you think that ‘satiable curiosity is, really, something akin to the roots of the love of learning? And don’t we all have it, or at least had it at one time? So we’re going to spend some time finding it again. This will be a two part process. In the first, I want you to remember a time when you were filled with this ‘satiable curiosity, with a joy of learning. Remember a specific time, not just a general sense. What were you curious about? Where were you? How old were you? Who else was there? What were the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures of that experience? Can you feel the excitement all over again? Take a minute to really recapture that experience. Then jot down just a few notes to help you remember it. After about five minutes, Sister Joella will give you some guidelines for sharing at your tables.
- #38 One reason that “the love of learning” does not seem to be central to Benedictine life – to religious life – is that we do not see it as a God-centered activity. That is completely different from Benedict’s point of view. We have all been inspired by the phrase, “The Love of Christ must come before all” or “Prefer nothing whatever to the love of Christ.” The only real qualification for entering the monastery is “whether the novice truly seeks God.” The monastery is to be a “school” – a training – in the Lord’s service. How does learning accounting or French or biology fit into this?
- #39 'What are you doing that for?' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. ''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but my nose is badly out of shape, and I am waiting for it to shrink.' 'Then you will have to wait a long time,' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'Some people do not know what is good for them.' The Elephant's Child sat there for three days waiting for his nose to shrink. But it never grew any shorter, and, besides, it made him squint. For, O Best Beloved, you will see and understand that the Crocodile had pulled it out into a really truly trunk same as all Elephants have to-day. At the end of the third day a fly came and stung him on the shoulder, and before he knew what he was doing he lifted up his trunk and hit that fly dead with the end of it. ''Vantage number one!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Try and eat a little now.' Before he thought what he was doing the Elephant's Child put out his trunk and plucked a large bundle of grass, dusted it clean against his fore-legs, and stuffed it into his own mouth. ''Vantage number two!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Don't you think the sun is very hot here?' 'It is,' said the Elephant's Child, and before he thought what he was doing he schlooped up a schloop of mud from the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo, and slapped it on his head, where it made a cool schloopy-sloshy mud-cap all trickly behind his ears. ''Vantage number three!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Now how do you feel about being spanked again?' ''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but I should not like it at all.' 'How would you like to spank somebody?' said the Bi- Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'I should like it very much indeed,' said the Elephant's Child. 'Well,' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, 'you will find that new nose of yours very useful to spank people with.' 'Thank you,' said the Elephant's Child, 'I'll remember that; and now I think I'll go home to all my dear families and try.'
- #40 [Earlier slide]: The Rule as invitation to dwell on the spiritual truths through study, work and community life, mindfulness and prayer. [Earlier slide] Contrast of monastic and modern, divided, theory-to-practice education Bill Cahoy is more edifying than The Elephant’s Child, or at least more educated sounding. Bu [This slide] He says that “the monastic tradition (wisely) recognizes that sometimes the movement is the other direction: knowing, understanding, wisdom also flows from how we live. Practices of charity, regular prayer, lectio, obedience, humility, and hospitality may yield understanding and not just be a product of understanding... [W]isdom has to do with the interplay of knowing and living, it is a matter of character and virtue, and the Benedictine tradition manifests this in particular ways.”
- #41 Our monastic practices are interlinked. Disciplines work together But only when we keep the focus on the search for God, and not on the practices themselves.
- #42 This thought, from the authors of Freakonomics and Think Like a Freak, is very Benedictine. St. Benedict does not describe a spirituality. He tells us how to live, what to do, how to behave, knowing that the spirituality will come from it. His instructions give us long times for reading – note that this is not just lectio divina, but reading from the library. He gives us time for reading every day. Another modern author said, “If you want to know what a person really values, look at where she spends her time and her money.” Well, individually, we don’t have all that much money. So we have to look at where we spend our time. What I’m going to say now is challenging, but also important. In many ways, we are losing – we may have lost – the practices that support the love of learning. While we have a spirituality of lectio, the entertainment culture has come into many of our monasteries. And I am speaking of that great demon, the television. When we sit down to watch TV, we think we are relaxing. We deserve it at the end of a hard day. But really, we become passive and absorb whatever it puts out. For the most part, it is flabby thinking, entertainment that may be humorous, or scary, or dramatic, but rarely meaningful. And – the part that we think about the least – the ads. In 2015 (last year for which I could find figures), prime time TV averaged 15 minutes of advertising per hour. Those minutes are designed to make us think our bodies may be failing, our lives are not complete without some new product or experience, and that those who do not have these things are somehow failures or miserable. (Studies show that the more we are exposed to advertising, whether on TV or social media or elsewhere, the less satisfied we are with our lives. No matter how much we have.) There are good things to be seen: but are we intentional, choosing “the thing that will be most edifying to do this evening is to watch ‘Call the Midwife’”or do we decide we want to watch TV and then (perhaps) choose the most edifying thing that is on? The 24-hours news cycle makes us think that we have learned something, but really – much of what passes for news is mere gossip about who said what. The media promote the person who says the most surprising or outrageous thing, and we fall prey and give them our eyeballs, If it’s free, you’re the product. [Story of being saved from TV by anxiety. ] True examination of conscience. Think back over the last week. If you didn’t have time for something edifying – reading something that increases your knowledge and understanding, exploring a question to really find out more – was there time with television, with social media, watching sports or even news – we think we’ve learned something when we listen to news, but usually, there isn’t much to it. Our current president has found a way to get us to say surprising things that get us tuned to his voice all the time. Could we cut that cord?
- #43 So the Elephant's Child went home across Africa frisking and whisking his trunk. When he wanted fruit to eat he pulled fruit down from a tree, instead of waiting for it to fall as he used to do. When he wanted grass he plucked grass up from the ground, instead of going on his knees as he used to do. When the flies bit him he broke off the branch of a tree and used it as fly-whisk; and he made himself a new, cool, slushy-squshy mud-cap whenever the sun was hot. When he felt lonely walking through Africa he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise was louder than several brass bands. He went especially out of his way to find a broad Hippopotamus (she was no relation of his), and he spanked her very hard, to make sure that the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake had spoken the truth about his new trunk. The rest of the time he picked up the melon rinds that he had dropped on his way to the Limpopo--for he was a Tidy Pachyderm. One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up his trunk and said, 'How do you do?' They were very glad to see him, and immediately said, 'Come here and be spanked for your 'satiable curtiosity.' 'Pooh,' said the Elephant's Child. 'I don't think you peoples know anything about spanking; but I do, and I'll show you.' Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head over heels. 'O Bananas!' said they, 'where did you learn that trick, and what have you done to your nose?' 'I got a new one from the Crocodile on the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River,' said the Elephant's Child. 'I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.' 'It looks very ugly,' said his hairy uncle, the Baboon. 'It does,' said the Elephant's Child. 'But it's very useful,' and he picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon, by one hairy leg, and hove him into a hornet's nest. Then that bad Elephant's Child spanked all his dear families for a long time, till they were very warm and greatly astonished. He pulled out his tall Ostrich aunt's tail-feathers; and he caught his tall uncle, the Giraffe, by the hind-leg, and dragged him through a thorn-bush; and he shouted at his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, and blew bubbles into her ear when she was sleeping in the water after meals; but he never let any one touch Kolokolo Bird. At last things grew so exciting that his dear families went off one by one in a hurry to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to borrow new noses from the Crocodile. When they came back nobody spanked anybody any more; and ever since that day, O Best Beloved, all the Elephants you will ever see, besides all those that you won't, have trunks precisely like the trunk of the 'satiable Elephant's Child.
- #44 The love of learning is foundational in our monastic tradition. That means that, if we let the foundations get weak, so will the structure. Our monasteries are growing smaller, more like the monasteries that St. Benedict himself started. That means that we cannot let a few people carry the task of carrying the monastic tradition forward – we each have to do our part. The T4 project has been a wonderful boost, especially for newer members, to take up this role which has been, perhaps, undervalued or even forgotten.
- #45 We have lost sight of the medieval mindset. It can be stated, but it’s hard to live into it. Here is the logic: I want to seek God, to know God in every way I possibly can. The quest to know the mind of God is the core meaning of my life and the essence of my being. But how can I know God except through what God has revealed to me? That revelation comes through scripture and the Church. That revelation, though, is in nature. When I look at the created world, when I examine its most minute detail, I am seeing something that comes directly from the hand of God. The varieties of rocks, shaped by forces built into the core of the earth. The amazing, surprising wildness of all of creatures. zoos gardens When I want to get to know a person, I look at all the things that she does, the way he puts his house together, as well as the things that she says or does. The medieval scholars were seeking God.
- #46 When we recapture this part of our heritage, when we explore the world as a way of seeking the mind of God, when we rejoice in the way that God makes things work, and can participate with God, to make new things because we understand, then we are truly seeking God May it be so for you.