(5) Balance

"I was recently afforded the unusual privilege of joining a Benedictine
community in North Dakota for its annual retreat. The community is
a large one, over one hundred women, many of whom work outside
the convent. They are nurses, social workers, chaplains, professors.
Like many modern Benedictines, they try to strike a balance between
the active and contemplative life, and once a year they make a retreat
that returns them to the stillness at the heart of monasticism..."
[Kathleen Norris, DAKOTA: A SPIRITUAL GEOGRAPHY, Ticknor &
Fields, 1993, p. 183.]

Comment: A well-known Benedictine Oblate, Kathleen Norris brings
up the Benedictine propensity for *balance* in the life of not only a
community but also in the individual.

Just a guess on my part, but I suspect professed Benedictine women
live out more this balance between the contemplative and active life
than men. Still I was familiar with a community of monks--and some
of them did venture out into the world, mainly as religious scholars
however.

As for Benedictine Oblates, well they are considered the Benedictine
"Arm" out in the world. Again, just my observation, but on their part
I have mainly seen more the tendency towards the contemplative
life. Sometimes I see more "wannabe monks" than Benedictine
people who walk the streets of this world. It's maybe a bit out-of-
balance, focusing too much on the monks, on the life *in* the abbeys
and priories, on the liturgical services, etc. There's no doubt that
monastically drawn people, who are not professed, sometimes wish
they were. (I have been just as guilty of this.)

Perhaps this process towards the contemplative life is a neccessity
for a Benedictine Oblate. It could be about the "formation" process,
which originally is about becoming a monk, about learning the
"how and why" of being a monk, about *conversio morum.* The
whole point of all this is about developing the Christ Life within ones
self. So who could blame an oblate for trying!

Still, there seems sometimes a neglect towards applying Benedictine
wisdom out in the world--a poor world that desperately needs help.
It seems as if the Benedictine balance has not yet been clearly struck
when it comes to the oblates. Why? Maybe a harsh analysis, but
it could be that most "formation" is left up to the oblate. And, in turn,
perhaps many oblates just don't know where to begin. Of course they
usually have a monthly meeting at their attached monastery, but more
than often it is more along superficial and social lines. There's
spiritual direction, sometimes, but it likely is far more about soothing
ones soul. Necessary, surely! But how does such play into the
formation process for the oblate, in any systematic way?

However there's no doubt that there are seriously "real" monastics
out in the world, who must somehow create a formation process
for themselves! They are monastics who give fully their heart and
mind and soul to "God." They seek God in ways that can seem very
different from the way in a traditional monastery. They are groping,
trying to see with more clarity. And, if they follow the Benedictine
Tradition, they are trying to strike a balance between the contemplative
and active life.

It's a NEW situation for these new monastics. And, yes, they do
need borrow from the old traditions, and more particularly the
Benedictine Tradition. How? It would be wonderful if monastery
schools were open to these new monastics. There has been talk,
or at least wishful thinking, on the part of some Benedictine
professed that such might someday become the case.

On the other hand, professed Benedictine monks and sisters have
been publishing book after book over the past forty years, making
freely available the tenets of the Benedictine Tradition. These
books are now available in the bookstores, in the libraries, and
they are stock full of monastic wisdom. These books are like
little beacons for the new monastics, who need prepare themselves
for a new way to express the contemplative into the active. At
some point there's a realization that the *balance* in all this is
not "either/or" but rather "both/and." The balance is about the
All One.