Wow! Really? St. Benedict even micromanaged the sleeping arrangements in his communities? Those are the cynical responses of my western cultural upbringing. The initial reaction is to criticize these apparent constraints on one of my most fundamental freedoms – how I sleep! However, when I step away from my contemporary life and reflect on my childhood then a very different picture emerges. Growing up in a two-bedroom house with five older brothers, the boys shared two beds in a single room. That arrangement made for some interesting times. There was laughter and fights, scary stories told by older brothers to scare us who were younger, and many restless hours due to wrestling for common quilts as we tried to stay warm on winter nights or positioning to be near the open window to catch a breeze during the heat and humidity of Alabama summers. We would have welcomed the separate beds prescribed by St. Benedict.
However, the lessons of this chapter are much greater than simply how we arrange ourselves for sleep. There is encouragement to learn from elders, as well as to teach youth. There is a call for constant readiness to respond to the needs of others. There is support to overcome struggle to rise from sleep and engage the labors of the day ahead. These lessons are as valuable to us living outside of monastic walls as for the cloistered living inside monasteries.
Visiting remote villages in India offers a glimpse into the lives of communities in sixth century Italy. The monks who followed St. Benedict were often poor and lived in austerity. I recall visiting several village homes in northern India. Typically, the home consisted of two rooms. One served as kitchen, dining, and family room. The other was their sleeping area where they spread bedding on the dirt floor and slept together. The bathroom, if one existed, was communally shared by the villagers. Separate beds and bedding was a luxury available only to a few. St. Benedict created an environment to teach new monks healthy ways to appreciate greater quality of life. The older monks lived among the young postulants. There was no hierarchy of privilege based on seniority. Even in sleeping, there are opportunities to learn from one another. There are considerations for safety; candles provided night lights and tools were set aside. Those arrangements provided for both interdependence and personal care. There was space provided for the balance between community and privacy. That space was wrapped in robes of modesty.
Monks slept in their tunics, their work clothes. Sr. Chittister explains that they did this as a way of preparedness, always ready “to respond to the will of God at the first sound of the call.”[1] Attention given to wearing our work clothes to bed misses this point, how do I live my life in constant readiness to respond to God’s will at the sound of the call? That is the neo-monastic quest. That question is the ageless learning edge for the modern citizen of God’s community.
One of my grandchildren is an avid anti-morning person. Perhaps you are familiar with others like him. Waking him each morning is an exhausting task. Gentle encouragement gives way to various degrees of physical struggle (including taking away covers and various amounts of water poured onto the disgruntled boy). Eventually, the agitated youth arises to meet an irritable adult. The beauty of the day is eclipsed by the skirmish ritual of waking the child. St. Benedict recognizes that challenge, but gives the responsibility to the community to “quietly encourage each other.”[2] It is a practical lesson for use personally, in family, and when we find ourselves in community.
Sr. Chittister summarizes the lessons of this chapter, “Personal modesty, simplicity, readiness, and encouragement in life may well by the staples of community living, of family life, or decent society even today. What after all, can shatter any group faster than the one person who is dedicated to being conspicuous, overdone, resistant, or self-centered?” I must always ask myself, “Am I that one person?”
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[1] Joan Chittister, The rule of Benedict: a spirituality for the 21st century (New York: Crossroad, 2010), 140.
[2] Fry, Timothy (ed.), The Rule of St. Benedict (In English), Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1982. pg. 49.
