Earlier this month, a friend asked for my opinion regarding a possible move. Knowing my friend well, and the difficulties the move entailed, I advised against it. Later that day I found myself reflecting on movement vs. stability.
It seems that running away is a tendency imbued in our modern culture. People seem to seek refuge anywhere but in the present place and moment. Often it is an escape into the world of social media, endless video games, or ‘doomscrolling.’ But all these activities represent a flight from the here-and-now. Is there a solution to this situation of constant flight?
Returning to Saint Benedict
Saint Benedict recognized the fight problem in his own age. He founded the Benedictines and, in a sense, all the communities that follow his rule (such as the Cistercians, the Trappists, the Camaldolese, the Sylvestrines, and the Olivetans).
His famous “Rule,” written in the 540’s, starts, not with a discourse on monastic virtues nor a summary of services to be performed by the monks. Rather, it begins with a description of four classes of monks to be found in the West. Two of these classes are good, one is bad, and one is terrible, he says.
The good monks, says Benedict, are the cenobites and the anchorites. The cenobites (from Greek words meaning common life) are your average, run-of-the-mill monks: they live in a monastery under the direction of an abbot. The anchorites, on the other hand, are hermits.
The anchorites, writes Benedict in Chapter One, “have come through the test of living in a monastery for a long time, and have passed beyond the first fervor of monastic life. Thanks to the help and guidance of many, they are now trained to fight against the devil. They have built up their strength and go from the battle line in the ranks of their brothers to the single combat of the desert. Self-reliant now, without the support of another, they are ready with God’s help to grapple single-handed with the vices of body and mind.”
In other words, these hermits live on their own, not because they can’t stand living with other people, but rather because, they have been strengthened by the trials of living in community. They trials of community living have thus prepared them to live alone.
Benedict does not downplay the difficulties. The anchorites, he says, are “ready … to grapple single-handed with the vices of body and mind.” For them the war with vice hasn’t ended. Rather, it enters a new and lonelier phase, one that can be undertaken only after years of experience.
The bad monks
Unfortunately, Benedict also denounces two classes of monks who are troublesome. The first are the sarabaites. The origin of the word is unclear, but it might derive from the Aramaic word for rebel. This would be appropriate, since these monks are precisely that: rebels.
Living in groups of two or three, these monks, “. . . have been tried by no rule under the hand of a master, as gold is tried in the fire; but, soft as lead, and still keeping faith with the world by their works, they are known to belie God by their tonsure. Living in two’s and three’s, or even singly, without a shepherd, enclosed, not in the Lord’s sheepfold, but in their own, the gratification of their desires is law unto them; because what they choose to do they call holy, but what they dislike they hold to be unlawful.”
Could anything be worse than this? The answer to this question is yes. Benedict finds the fourth class even worse.
The fourth class of monks are the gyrovagues (literally, one who wanders in circles) or landlopers. As he describes them, these monks “who keep going their whole life long from one province to another, staying three or four days at a time in different cells as guests. Always roving and never settled, they indulge their passions and the cravings of their appetite, and are in every way worse than the sarabaites.”
What makes a bad monk, and Benedict’s solution
The sarabaites were bad, but Benedict claims that the gyrovagues are “in every way worse.” It seems that what Benedict finds so offensive is precisely their movement. They do not remain fixed in a place, but, instead go about relying on the charity of different monasteries. Perhaps for this reason, Benedict’s Rule introduced a vow of stability.
This vow is one of his most important contributions to Western monastic life. By this vow, the monk or nun promises to remain in one place for their entire life, under obedience to their abbot or abbess. This superior can decide to send them elsewhere, for instance, to begin a new foundation, but the expectation is that they will enter, live, grow old, and die in one monastery.
The point of this is clear: it allows the monk to grow in holiness.
David Robinson, in his book “Christian Paths: Discover Christian Formation the Benedictine Way,” quoting a Desert Father (pg. 130), puts it this way:
‘Just as a tree cannot bear fruit if it is often transplanted, so neither can a monk bear fruit if he frequently changes his abode.’ As gardeners know, plants require healthy root systems to grow to full maturity. Uprooting a plant too often stresses the health of the plant and limits the potential for growth and fruitfulness. When Benedict called monks to a vow of stability, he understood such a life-commitment would plant an individual monk into the root system of the monastic community where he would mature in faith, hope, and love. In Benedict’s understanding, stability is more about community than geography, more about a commitment to people than to a place.
Stability in our lives
Our world is full of instability: everything in our culture is wrapped up in the transient and the passing. Fashions, TikTok trends, online gaming . . . everything is based on escaping from the concrete reality. Yet, in so doing, we reject the stability that would bring us happiness. A Trappist monk might put it this way:
‘By our vow of stability, we promise to commit ourselves for life to one community of brothers or sisters with whom we will work out our salvation in faith, hope, and love. Resisting all temptation to escape the truth about ourselves by restless movement from one place to the next, we gradually entrust ourselves to God’s mercy experienced in the company of brothers or sisters who know us and accept us as we are. Trappists have learned that if a person is steadfast and true in his relationships with one’s brothers or sisters, then one will grow to be more and more faithful in one’s friendship with God.’
That paragraph is filled to the brim with monastic wisdom. When we run away, we fall into the temptation “to escape the truth about ourselves.” Only by staying put, by living in a community and opening ourselves up to others, can we come to experience God’s mercy through them.
What about us?
In his excellent book, “St. Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule & the Little Way,” Fr. Dwight Longenecker notes that in the sacrifice that is stability, the monk is detached from his desires: “Detachment makes the monk realize that other things will not make him happy, and stability forces him to realize that other places will not make him happy either. Spiritual fulfillment is not found elsewhere, but here. This is the lesson of stability: if you cannot find God here, you will not be able to find Him anywhere.”
What does he mean: if you cannot find God here, you will not be able to find Him anywhere? The author means that I need to be able to find God here, where I am now. If I can’t find Him in my schoolwork, my job, my family and children, or my church, I won’t be able to find Him anywhere. This is not because God isn’t there, but rather because I don’t know how to look for Him and find Him in all circumstances. The problem isn’t with “here,” but rather with me.
Our choice
There are, of course, moments and situations in which we must move on. To move on when God asks us to is not to be a gyrovague, but rather to be an obedient son or daughter. However, many of us, it seems, remain physically in one place, while we are mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually wandering the world, looking for new experiences and solutions. However, as the Trappist above noted, we cannot escape the reality of ourselves. God is to be found here, in this place, with these people. Escaping into a virtual reality is simply that: an escape from the truth and from the God who loves us.
