Zeal

Dear Benedict

I’m still working backwards through your Rule and that has bought me to zeal. Like other words and concepts in the Rule, it’s not all that commonly used now. I remember zeal, it sort of rhymes with congeal, from a song in my childhood – but that all I remember about the song.

Zeal is a word for religious or spiritual enthusiasm, or commitment to a cause. You distinguish between good and bad zeal, but I think there’s probably also lukewarm zeal and fluctuating zeal, or at least there is in my experience. I expect you’d have them on the bad side of the zeal continuum but their presence is a sign that zeal is not clear cut, not one thing or the other but like most of our motivations, wanders about a bit.

I’m familiar with fluctuating zeal having moved from being highly zealous to indifferent and exhausted. In my experience, my mental health has a significant effect on my zeal. Tiredness also always decreases my zeal.

In your Rule, zeal should be directed towards love and service of others. In a community this can create a web of good zeal that holds everyone together. When a community becomes dysfunctional then the connections made by good zeal begin to fray and come apart. Some members may still be practising good zeal but not everyone. Gradually those members will find their good zeal drains away and as that happens the less good zeal builds up resentments, apathy and so on. These take over and it’s no longer a community, just a bunch of people who have lost their zeal.

At the moment the autumn migrants are coming into the valley: geese, swans and redwings amongst others. A local group alert me to their sightings each day. I walk along the local paths where a lot of fungus are now bursting out. The migrant birds hold together in their zeal. One by one they pass the leadership of the group onto the next bird who swings on ahead to guide them all on the next leg of their very long journey. Occasionally I see one of two birds fall off the back or sideways, tired and looking to rest.

May it be so with us, each taking a turn at guiding and encouraging, and may we live together in zeal in the valley of hope and love.

From my remembered bible: Look at the birds of the air.

The zeal of the Holy One will do this…….

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.