Embracing the wisdom of monasticism:
transforming our relationship with time
“Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst,” observed the influential Quaker William Penn (1644-1718). (1)
Many of us have a difficult relationship with time.
We might wish we had more of it to finish that home project which never quite gets done. We might wish we were more efficient at using the time we do have, having chased our tail all day, before we fall into bed. We might regret the time we have spent on certain things in the past, or worry about what is likely to consume our time in the future.
It’s all too easy to feel like we are the victim of time. “In our culture,” notes the writer and lay Benedictine Kathleen Norris, “time can seem like an enemy: it chews us up and spits us out with appalling ease. (2)
Like Norris, I was raised with little or no idea of monasticism as a living wisdom tradition; and it wasn’t until I went to live with the Benedictines of Prinknash Abbey and participated in the daily rhythm of the Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office) that my relationship with time began to change.
I was unexpectedly reminded of this a few years ago. Not by a bell ringing out from a Cotswold hillside, but by the beautiful, undulating call to prayer filling the air of Istanbul with an invitation to acknowledge the Divine. Five times a day we were invited to pause our activity and participate in a rhythm of remembrance which Benedictines speak of as “the sanctification of time.”
“The monastic perspective,” says Norris, “welcomes time as a gift from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather than allowing us to be used up by it.”
Norris continues, “A friend who was educated by the Benedictines has told me that she owes to them her sanity with regard to time. “You never really finish anything in life,” she says, “and while that’s humbling, and frustrating, it’s all right. The Benedictines, more than any other people I know, insist that there is time in each day for prayer, for work, for study, and for play.” Liturgical time is essentially poetic time, oriented toward process rather than productivity, willing to wait attentively in stillness rather than always pushing to “get the job done.”
I’m fortunate to have the privilege of listening to people talk about their journey on the path of meditation.
In a culture which so often presents time as a relentless task-master, it’s wonderful to hear from so many how daily meditation has helped bring about a radically new perspective on so many aspects of their life, including time.
The time we give to meditation, like liturgical time, is essentially “poetic time.” Instead of trying to produce something, we participate within its gentle wisdom and healing process. Rather than trying to achieve anything, we learn to greet each moment with simple, open attentiveness.
“Good liturgy,” writes the Anglican solitary Maggie Ross, “provides a context in which our subtle senses, dulled by daily toil, can reawaken. It is not the liturgy that sanctifies our lives; our lives are already sacred, and liturgy tries to remind us of that. The hours of the Divine Office do not sanctify the day; they bring us to remembrance that the day is already holy and we have the privilege of living it.“ (3)
So too, with meditation. The simple practice provides a sanctuary in which we can release all that needs releasing and allow our subtle senses to reawaken. We learn to receive each day, each moment, as a gift from God that we can use well, rather than allowing ourselves to be swept along and used up by it. Saying our prayer word, following our breath, we are brought to remembrance that our life is already sacred, that the day is already holy, and we have the privilege of living it.
Eternity is our home, even in the midst of time. We already dwell in the silent eternity of God’s love, by virtue of God’s love indwelling us. It is only our noisy thoughts and distractedness that pull us away from this.
From a cultural point of view, we inhabit a world which is sustained by distractedness, which is out of harmony and out of balance. Our minds are crowded with unimportant information. The frantic speed required to simply hold our ground in our artificial world causes enormous anxiety. “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room,” wrote Blaise Pascal.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In the face of our relentless consumer culture, we have the freedom to make a deeply subversive decision, to see and act in a radically counter-cultural way. The opportunity to centre ourselves in silence instead of noise, to act with care instead of carelessness, is before us every moment.
We can choose harmony and balance.
We can live and love from the wellspring of silence “in which we live and move and have our being,” and make the most of the precious gift of time.
If you feel inspired to meditate, you’re very welcome to join one of our free online practice sessions or read one of our guides.