For the past five or so years I have been enamored, intrigued and maybe a bit obsessed with things benedictine. There is something about it that just “feels right” to me. There is something about the push toward “always changing” and stability; prayer and work; and this intensive spirituality that is both mystical and everyday that is alluring. I have had the pleasure of visiting with benedictine sisters and have also read extensively from their great tradition. I am even considering following this “passion” into a more official relationship (becoming a benedictine oblate).

I was reading the other day and came across this interpretation of Benedict’s view of silence, and I must say I find it to be one of the most profound, relevant and challenging paragraphs I have had the pleasure of reading. Michael Casey quotes the following in Strangers to the City as he considers the topic of “Leisure”.

Silence, however, stands outside the world of profit and utility; it cannot be exploited for profit; you cannot get anything out of it. It is “unproductive.” Therefore it is regarded as valueless. Yet there is more help and healing in silence than in all the “useful things.” Purposeless, unexploitable silence suddenly appears at the side of the all-too-purposeful, and frightens us by it very purposelessnes. It interferes with the regular flow of purposeful. It strengthens the untouchable, it lessens the damage inflicted by exploitation. It makes things whole again, by taking them back from the world of dissipation into the world of wholeness. It gives something of its own holy uselessness, for that is what silence itself is: holy uselessness.” - Max Piccard from The World of Silence pp. 18-19

Casey builds on this by saying - “[The tradition of Benedictine leisure] means living gently; it is the opposite of being driven or obsessed It involves getting on with the job at hand and detaching oneself from it when it is time to move on to something else. To some extent leisure invites us to cultivate the virtue of inefficiency.”

Holy uselessness… the virtue of inefficiency… what a prescription for 21st century westerners (and churches) who seem to lift up and celebrate being driven by purpose, vision, effectiveness and efficiency.

Them benedictines! What a breathe of fresh air… breathe it in - leisure, silence, doing nothing, holy interruptions that move us into holy uselessness.