This quote is credited to St. Benedict.  It sums up the simplicity of the Rule of Order he created for the Benedictine monks. A simplicity where much value was placed on balance – the balance of prayer, work, and rest lived through obedience, and humility.  

2023 began with an outdoor hike.  The woods are so very quiet this time of year and in the stillness, God always speaks.  As I walked I thought about this quote and the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, a servant who chose the example of St. Benedict, and his simplicity, to guide his life and Papacy.   I thought about his passing on New Year’s Eve – a crossing over from one life to the next. Always, we begin again.  

Always, we begin again….this is so much different than starting over.  Starting over, to me, has the connotation that we are sent back to do it all over again. To begin again is an act of choosing to return to something or Someone with all we have learned and experienced.  It is an act of trust; an act of hope. Believing in something that we cannot quite hold in our hand, but know in our hearts. 

Pen to paper helps me think and process.  I write daily and I like to use Sundays as my harvest day – harvesting my journal for a week or several weeks to see where the Holy Spirit is moving in my life.  What is God saying? At the end of the year, I try to review the entire year of journaling to see what or where I see patterns. What did I learn about myself?  About the world around me?  About God? Those patterns often highlight where new habits are needed. I also like to see how my word of the year – a word that helps guide me through the year – has shown up. 2022’s word was JOY.  Learning how joy directly corresponded to gratitude was more of a growth in awareness. In the midst of a very hard season, I felt God was asking me if I could be joyful….grateful for His provisions. 

As December progressed, I began asking God to reveal a new word for 2023. Nothing. Then all of a sudden before Christmas week, the word justice seemed to be all around me; always a clear sign that God is trying to catch my attention.  Justice?  Yuck!  This couldn’t possibly be my word. Of course, I protested and asked for a new one – but much to my dismay, it was being highlighted over and over again.  With this unusual word came an image of a mountaintop.

When I don’t understand, which here I clearly didn’t, I research.  In my search, a message was becoming clear – justice, around my life of faith, meant to give God His due.  Justice wasn’t just in the doing – making something right (as in what we do as Christians), but it meant giving God EVERYTHING. All we are and all we do must be directed to God, NOT just to be of service to Him, but to give all in order to know Him AND His love for me.  Mountaintops were a place where God’s people received revelation; where they experienced the tangible, felt the presence of God. Mountains are a symbol of steadfastness – solid and unmovable. It was here that God encountered His people, changed their lives, then sent them back into the world – strengthened.

The past several years have been difficult.  My journal revealed the immense loss suffered and my journey to understand and embrace what it means to surrender all.  Health, family, friends, finances, the littlest things that brought me comfort and safety – removed. Little by little God was prying my fingers from the grip I held on the things that took precedence over Him. Not that they were bad, just things that I placed before Him.  

No one likes to lose things – I’m certainly no different.  I’ve grumbled and complained along this path of learning, but I’ve also received so many gifts to carry me through.  Those close (and not so close) to me jokingly call me “Jobette”.  Job lost everything and wrestled with the question “Why all the suffering?”

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (1:21) and “With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding.” (12:13) 

Job 1:21, 12:13

Ironically, Job is often referred to as ‘Job, the “just” man’.  At the conclusion of Job’s story, the lesson we learn is not an answer to suffering, but an example of how we respond to it – with trust, praise, and humility – lessons learned from the simplicity of the Benedictine way of life – obedience and humility. Our suffering is meant to be lived, not hidden.  Feeling the emotions, asking for help, and working through grief and brokenness are to be done alongside God.  He illuminates what you need to see if you give Him the silence to show you.  To accept suffering is an act of faith; an act of trust, knowing that God is right there with you, in the midst of that suffering. We ask, “Where is He taking me? What have I learned?”  

“In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed”

(Peter 1, 6-7)

I return to my thoughts in the woods about the simplicity of the Benedictine Rule – obedience and humility sought through prayer and work.  I do not live a monastic life but my prayer and work can certainly stabilize me, like a mountain, for the world in which I live. 

So, welcome 2023 – you will be the year of hospitality of the heart; a year where Christ will be seen all around me and within me.  ALL will become sacred and lead to gratitude.  This is ALL that is due You.  This is Justice.  As I step out of 2022, I will choose to always, begin again, with You!