These two simple understandings about human relationships help to restore what has been lost through a lifetime of betrayals, pain, isolation, disappointments. My experience in community has taught me otherwise. As any else, monks endure language that is never intended to result on any action. They hear the empty promises. They see opulent hierarchies claiming the preferential option for the poor.
Monks watch politicians and nepotism jockeying for positions of power at the expense of millions.
And monks sense intensely the fear that drives this panicked machinery. Benedict scholar Esther de Waal is known to say that Benedict and his Rule provided a corrective for the Church, not an alternative. Perhaps at the start of this new millennium, as society and the Church struggle to find direction and even purpose, this gentle voice from the sixth century continues to offer a fresh harmony in the cacophony that surrounds us. Perhaps many years ago, this was what that young woman was really asking. Last updated February 2001.