Pachomius was a fourth century monk in Egypt. He was the first to conceive and execute the idea of gathering the formerly solitary monks into a community, what we know as monasteries. His community followed a rule of life that stressed common life, common prayer and common work.
It wasn’t until I started the process to get ordained that I’d ever heard of the concept “Rule of Life”. We were expected to create one. How does one do that, when you don’t know what it is? A little internet research and questions to smarter people answered that. Basically, a rule of life is a commitment to live your days in a particular way. Currently there’s talk about morning routines, or miracle mornings. Add prayer and discernment to the process of creating a routine, and you’ve got a rule of life.
It is so easy to float through these days without purpose and without a plan. At the end of the day, it’s easy to wonder where the time went, even though I’ve got many hours ‘free’. It’s easy to look around my house and imagine what I need to be doing. Dust here, new pillows there. Perhaps a new porch. But I’m wondering if there’s something to be learned from those early communal monks.
They didn’t care about their environment, or their clothing. To be clear, I’m not suggesting they were without these temptations, but by virtue of their choices, they overcame them. They didn’t worry about what was for dinner, whether it was going to be tasty fancy. Unlike them, I’ve become incredibly focused on all sorts of things that don’t really matter. And at the same time, my focus has shifted from things I know that do matter. I believe I need to spend some time discerning a new rule of life.
For these pandemic times, it seems my rule of life needs to include something about moving my body or exercise. Maybe not at the gym, but regular, creaky-body-soothing movement. Daily. I need to return to daily morning reflection and writing. To be honest, it’s suffered at the expense of another value of mine which is sleep. I’ve had more 9+ hours of sleep in the past few months than in years. And I don’t want to lose that, so I need to make a commitment to sleep. And I need to spend time in silent, prayer time, not reading or writing, or reciting. Just communing.
Once I’ve figured out what I want to include in my rule of life, my next task will be to construct it – how often, how frequent, what time, what will be sacrificed to get this done (like mindless scrolling). Then I’ll write it out in my planner. A rule of life, I feel, will give me a little more structure in my day, and personal accountability for making it through my days. At the end of the day, I hope to be able to reflect and see shape, purpose, form, and a life lived according to what I genuinely value. Today, I’m thinking about creating a pandemic rule of life, to help guide and shape my otherwise formless hours.
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