chris erdman

A regula serves not only as a sturdy walking stick while fording a rushing river, facing upstream and against the current; it can also give shape to the particular kind of life that knows holiness intimately, a life that harried people like you and me are otherwise powerless to create.

A Guide or Rule is both difficult and liberating.

Difficult, because the life envisioned requires hard work if we’re to avoid simply being carried along with the masses. A Guide does inhibit—it limits choices, it teaches us to say “no” as well as “yes”.

But it’s also liberating. By choosing a way of life, knowing what options we will choose and which we will not, embracing certain values and not others, we’re free from captivity to a passive life. We’re no longer being driven along with the masses. We’ve determined the course our life will take. We live with fewer illusions. And we learn how to spot those illusions when they blind us to what is truly real and good and holy.

Click here to read my Daily Guide.

Despite the enormous activism that marks these first decades of the twenty-first century, it’s quite possible to live an active life that’s really rather passive—a life in which I’m simply floating along in the flotsam of the mass insanity of our unruled, unexamined lives.

I can be active but unaware of the essence of life, productive but unconscious of God. I can have a bunch of friends and a lot of things that demand my attention, while I live essentially disconnected from others. I can own a mountain of money, move it around to make more money, even give it away to help a mountain of humanity, but that doesn’t mean I know what love is or am even moved by genuine love.

A millennium and a half ago, Benedict fled all this. Awakened from the great Roman dream, he saw clearly his own unconscious and passive loyalty to an unruly, loveless life.

His Rule was the reverse of repression, the opposite of inhibition.

It meant freedom from the mass illusion and collective insanity of his age. It gave him a firm foothold and a sturdy walking stick so that he could wade chest deep in the Tiber’s turbid waters without losing his mind or forfeiting his soul.

Click here to read my Daily Guide.

Years ago, when I first bumped into the tale of Benedict, and heard of his famous Rule, I was turned off. All this seemed more than a little fanatical. Rules and regulations, and the dour monks who attended to them, were neither attractive nor inspiring. The whole notion of a Rule conjured up images of a drab and colorless life, men who were austere, forbidding, cold.

I was naïve. I knew of such things only from books. More than that, I’d not lived long enough.

As a teenager, my father had wilderness rules that turned me off too. Sauntering across some high country glacier, dad could seem pretty austere, forbidding, and cold. I was young, and his backcountry rules often felt inhibiting, even repressive. I was too young then, too naïve to know that dad’s rules were a form of grace. They not only gave me tools to stay alive in a wide variety of situations, but they also modeled a way for me to encounter the world around me with reverence and awe, able to enjoy creation and revel in the wonder of God.

It’s true, the Latin word, regula, can mean rule, regulation, and regimen, but it can also refer to a model, guideline, or pattern by which we direct and measure our lives.

This latter sense of the word, I’ve grown to learn, is the true sense of St. Benedict’s regula.

Click here to read my Daily Guide.

Fifteen hundred years ago, a young man studying in Rome was awakened to see his life and the lives of those around him as mere illusion.

He, like so many others, was actively passive—unwittingly and uncritically being carried along by the flotsam of a society going essentially nowhere. Benedict, freshly aroused by a desire for a different way of life, took up residence in a cave outside the city.

He wasn’t the first to put legs on his fantasy of a holy life, but he was the most influential.  And his famous guide for daily life—the Rule of Saint Benedict—has given rebels in every generation a way to stand in the midst of the river, facing upstream, cross through it, and walk the land aware of the wonder of God, present to Mystery.

Rule comes from the Latin word, regula, and is related to words like regulation, regular, rectangle, rectitude, rules and ruler (both kinds: ruler-as-leader and ruler-as-straight edge).

To be who you wish to be—who you were made to be—will require that you too recognize how passive you are to the forces that want to pull you along.

A guide or rule of life is a sturdy walking stick to help you ford the river and go where you wish to go, be who you need to be.

Here’s The Daily Guide I, and many others, pray each day.

Can living life in community help us draw closer to God? “Come and see,” says Karen Sloan, Presbyterian pastor and author of “Flirting with Monasticism,” a book in which she takes readers through her personal journey with ancient Christian traditions.

Please see preceding posts if you’re just entering this story . . .

“Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home.  Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me.  Therefore the most important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself, and the most important pursuit was to help me.”

“Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spent dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him.  Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound.”

“Remember that there is only one important time and that is now.  The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.  The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future?  The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.”

THE END

A note on this series

This post is part of a short series of postings taken from Tolstoy’s short tale, “The Emperor’s Three Questions.”

The tale is a remarkable meditation on mindfulness, the awakened life, the practice of living from a prayerful center. Along with other Russian literary giants, Tolstoy wrote from inside nineteenth century Russia which experienced a revival of the Jesus Prayer among ordinary peasants who sought to live well in hard times.

I see Tolstoy’s tale as a popularization of the spirituality of the Jesus Prayer for ordinary people. Reviving this story during our tumultuous century may serve to give us guidance for living well in the midst of the new challenges facing our daily lives.

Take time to ponder this little section of the tale and seek for ways it might guide your day today.

Don’t hurry, there is real gold here.

You might also enjoy the award winning 2006 Russian film, The Island, which explores the ethical impact of 19th century Russian spirituality, and in particular, the Jesus Prayer, on our modern world.

Please see preceding post if you’re just entering the story . . .

The emperor was overjoyed to see that he was so easily reconciled with a former enemy.  He not only forgave the man but promised to return all the man’s property and to send his own physician and servants to wait on the man until he was completely healed.  After ordering his attendants to take the man home, the emperor returned to see the hermit.  Before returning to the palace the emperor wanted to repeat his three questions one last time.  He found the hermit sowing seeds in the earth they had dug the day before.

The hermit stood up and looked at the emperor.  ”But your questions have already been answered.”

“How’s that?” the emperor asked, puzzled.

To be continued . . .

A note on this series

This post is part of a short series of postings taken from Tolstoy’s short tale, “The Emperor’s Three Questions.”

The tale is a remarkable meditation on mindfulness, the awakened life, the practice of living from a prayerful center. Along with other Russian literary giants, Tolstoy wrote from inside nineteenth century Russia which experienced a revival of the Jesus Prayer among ordinary peasants who sought to live well in hard times.

I see Tolstoy’s tale as a popularization of the spirituality of the Jesus Prayer for ordinary people. Reviving this story during our tumultuous century may serve to give us guidance for living well in the midst of the new challenges facing our daily lives.

Take time to ponder this little section of the tale and seek for ways it might guide your day today.

Don’t hurry, there is real gold here.

You might also enjoy the award winning 2006 Russian film, The Island, which explores the ethical impact of 19th century Russian spirituality, and in particular, the Jesus Prayer, on our modern world.

Please see preceding post if you’re just entering this story . . .

“But what have you done that I should forgive you?” the emperor asked.

“You do not know me, your majesty, but I know you.  I was your sworn enemy, and I had vowed to take vengeance on you, for during the last war you killed my brother and seized my property. When I learned that you were coming alone to the mountain to meet the hermit, I resolved to surprise you on your way back and kill you.  But after waiting a long time there was still no sign of you, and so I left my ambush in order to seek you out.  But instead of finding you, I came across your attendants, who recognized me, giving me this wound.  Luckily, I escaped and ran here.  If I hadn’t met you I would surely be dead by now.  I had intended to kill you, but instead you saved my life!  I am ashamed and grateful beyond words.  If I live, I vow to be your servant for the rest of my life, and I will bid my children and grandchildren to do the same. Please grant me your forgiveness.”

To be continued . . .

A note on this series

This post is part of a short series of postings taken from Tolstoy’s short tale, “The Emperor’s Three Questions.”

The tale is a remarkable meditation on mindfulness, the awakened life, the practice of living from a prayerful center. Along with other Russian literary giants, Tolstoy wrote from inside nineteenth century Russia which experienced a revival of the Jesus Prayer among ordinary peasants who sought to live well in hard times.

I see Tolstoy’s tale as a popularization of the spirituality of the Jesus Prayer for ordinary people. Reviving this story during our tumultuous century may serve to give us guidance for living well in the midst of the new challenges facing our daily lives.

Take time to ponder this little section of the tale and seek for ways it might guide your day today.

Don’t hurry, there is real gold here.

You might also enjoy the award winning 2006 Russian film, The Island, which explores the ethical impact of 19th century Russian spirituality, and in particular, the Jesus Prayer, on our modern world.

Please see the preceding post if you’re new to this story…

The hermit lifted his head and asked the emperor, “Do you hear someone running over there?”  The emperor turned his head. They both saw a man with a long white beard emerge from the woods.  He ran wildly, pressing his hands against a bloody wound in his stomach.  The man ran toward the emperor before falling unconscious to the ground, where he lay groaning.  Opening the man’s clothing, the emperor and hermit saw that the man had received a deep gash.  The emperor cleaned the wound thoroughly and then used his own shirt to bandage it, but the blood completely soaked it within minutes.  He rinsed the shirt out and bandaged the wound a second time and continued to do so until the flow of blood had stopped.

At last the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for a drink of water.  The emperor ran down to the stream and brought back a jug of fresh water.  Meanwhile, the sun had disappeared and the night air had begun to turn cold.  The hermit gave the emperor a hand in carrying the man into the hut where they laid him down on the hermit’s bed.  The man closed his eyes and lay quietly.  The emperor was worn out from a long day of climbing the mountain and digging the garden.  Leaning against the doorway, he fell asleep.  When he rose, the sun had already risen over the mountain.  For a moment he forgot where he was and what he had come here for.  He looked over to the bed and saw the wounded man also looking around him in confusion.  When he saw the emperor, he stared at him intently and then said in a faint whisper, “Please forgive me.”

To be continued . . .

A note on this series

This post is part of a short series of postings taken from Tolstoy’s short tale, “The Emperor’s Three Questions.”

The tale is a remarkable meditation on mindfulness, the awakened life, the practice of living from a prayerful center. Along with other Russian literary giants, Tolstoy wrote from inside nineteenth century Russia which experienced a revival of the Jesus Prayer among ordinary peasants who sought to live well in hard times.

I see Tolstoy’s tale as a popularization of the spirituality of the Jesus Prayer for ordinary people. Reviving this story during our tumultuous century may serve to give us guidance for living well in the midst of the new challenges facing our daily lives.

Take time to ponder this little section of the tale and seek for ways it might guide your day today.

Don’t hurry, there is real gold here.

You might also enjoy the award winning 2006 Russian film, The Island, which explores the ethical impact of 19th century Russian spirituality, and in particular, the Jesus Prayer, on our modern world.

Please see preceding posts if you’re just now entering the story . . .

The hermit listened attentively but only patted the emperor on the shoulder and continued digging.  The emperor said, “You must be tired.  Here, let me give you a hand with that.”  The hermit thanked him, handed the emperor the spade, and then sat down on the ground to rest.

After he had dug two rows, the emperor stopped and turned to the hermit and repeated his three questions.  The hermit still did not answer, but instead stood and pointed to the spade and said, “Why don’t you rest now?  I can take over again.”  But the emperor continued to dig.  One hour passed, then two.  Finally the sun began to set behind the mountain.  The emperor put down the spade and said to the hermit, “I came here to ask if you could answer my three questions.  But if you can’t give me any answer, please let me know so that I can get on my way home.”

To be continued . . .

A note on this series

This post is part of a short series of postings taken from Tolstoy’s short tale, “The Emperor’s Three Questions.”

The tale is a remarkable meditation on mindfulness, the awakened life, the practice of living from a prayerful center. Along with other Russian literary giants, Tolstoy wrote from inside nineteenth century Russia which experienced a revival of the Jesus Prayer among ordinary peasants who sought to live well in hard times.

I see Tolstoy’s tale as a popularization of the spirituality of the Jesus Prayer for ordinary people. Reviving this story during our tumultuous century may serve to give us guidance for living well in the midst of the new challenges facing our daily lives.

Take time to ponder this little section of the tale and seek for ways it might guide your day today.

Don’t hurry, there is real gold here.

You might also enjoy the award winning 2006 Russian film, The Island, which explores the ethical impact of 19th century Russian spirituality, and in particular, the Jesus Prayer, on our modern world.