Dear Benedict
In chapter 70 of your Rule you write about physical violence between monastics. Clearly not something to condone, you complete the chapter with the quotation: ‘Never do to another what you do not want done to yourself’.
I’m not sure what size your community was or how many monastics gathered together in a community following your Rule in general through the ages. Some reports suggest early communities of about a dozen, but later ones rather bigger. Probably it varied and probably the interpersonal dynamics couldn’t necessarily be predicted either. But essentially your Rule on this is for a community gathered in one limited place under a leader. In our time it’s common to speak of the global community. For this fortnight the world is attempting to gather as a community in Glasgow for COP26, a very different sort of community, but it is this one I am thinking of when I read chapter 70 this week.
You were concerned about the way monastics treated each other. To make community work, physical violence needed to be contained. To back up this part of the Rule you used the quote I mentioned. But in our world we are constantly behaving like this, especially in respect of climate change. None of us wants an uninhabitable earth but we all contribute to the warming of the planet, thereby inflicting harm on each other: like a slap in the face.
It’s a difficult subject because it requires insight and self reflection; not something we all welcome. Those who say ‘I used reusable milk bottles when I was a child so it’s not me’ may genuinely believe that they are faultless when it come to contributing the carbon emissions. Unfortunately each of us belongs to a bigger community and through our shared membership we are inheritors of its history for carbon emissions and other planet warming activities. I may not take long haul flights every week but I still have a part in my country’s carbon footprint. My personal commitment to reuse and recycle is important but we also have collective responsibilities.
Most people think they try to be kind or helpful to others. It is rarely enough. The Rule is not about some bland inoffensiveness that will get us all through life. It’s about a positive choice to live with others and see them thrive. And as far as climate change is concerned it is not enough to smile and suck our reusable straw. We must work on what it means to not do to another, country or continent, what we do not want done to ours. Rising sea levels: no thanks. Not for my island home or yours.
Our shared sense of community needs to get bigger and bigger.
From the remembered bible: Love one another.
Enlarge my understand that I may act justly.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay community of St Benedict.
PS: The blue trousers have walked many miles, including taking part in at least 2 End to Ends.