BBC 1: Longing - An Assignment...

...should you choose to accept it (Give me a break, a little cheese never hurt anyone).

Benson makes the statement in chapter one that "...in order to begin to see your life as a whole, you must first take it apart." He goes on to describe the retreats he leads where he challenges the retreatants to make a grid with each of the following four categories in its own column: prayer, rest, community, and work. Each person is then asked to evaluate their lives, placing the many acts that make up their days into one of the four categories.

"People in the retreat are drawing these little charts and asking where to put stuff, and I try to be as unhelpful as I can, as kindly as I can, of course. It helps not to be a scholar or a teacher at this point, because then I can more easily say that I do not know where those things go on your charts. What I do know is that you have to take all of them into account. What I am sure of is this: All of the bits and pieces of our lives, large and small, must be held up in the light of our longing to live for and with God."

For those of you who are reading along in the book, taking the time to process through what Benson and Benedict and God are inviting us to taste and see, namely a good life, I challenge you to take one hour over the next six weeks of our book discussion to evaluate the living of your life according to Benson's schema. As we have been talking about in worship at Jacob's Well for the last two weeks, this is an opportunity to "fill the jars," to "sit, listen, and ask." When you have done this, I invite you to come back to this particular blog post and share what you have discovered. I will do the same.

"'The Lord waits for us daily to translate his teachings into action,' wrote Saint Benedict in his Rule. 'How we spend our day is, of course,' writes Annie Dillard, 'how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends us from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.'"