Читать книгу Listen My Son - Dwight Longenecker - Страница 15

And as the Lord seeks his workman in the mass of people, he again cries out to him in the words, ‘Who is the man who desires life and is eager to see Good Days?’ If you hear this and reply, ‘I do’, God says to you, ‘If you want to have true and everlasting life, keep your tongue from speaking evil, and your lips from uttering deceit. Turn aside from evil and do good; seek peace and follow after it.’ ‘When you do this my eyes will be upon you, and my ears will be open to your prayers, and before you call upon me I shall say to you: “Here I am”.’ What can be sweeter to us than this voice of the Lord as he invites us, dearest brothers? See how, in his loving mercy, the Lord points out to us the Way of Life.

Developing a thankful spirit in the home is one of the simplest and most effective ways of promoting an awareness of God's presence and constant love. One hears a lot about the power of positive thinking, but positive thinking on its own is little more than a kind of self-hypnosis. Thankfulness, on the other hand, is God-directed positive thinking.

This kind of spiritually-positive attitude is something Benedict stresses in today's passage from the Rule. The disciple is one who ‘desires life and is eager to see good days’. This kind of disciple keeps his tongue from speaking evil and his lips from uttering deceit. He turns aside from evil and does good; he seeks peace and follows after it (Ps. 34.12–15). Those persons who are running the path with Benedict have a positive outlook because they look for the good not the evil. They seek peace, not conflict. This is supplemented by their thankful attitude because thankfulness helps them see the good side of every person and circumstance.

This isn't to say that the monastery or the Christian home should be a saccharine centre of falsely-grinning Christians. Nothing rings more untrue than artificial religious enthusiasm, and there is no such thing as a community without conflict. However, some people do imagine that the suppression of all anger and bad-tempered outbursts make a home Christian. In fact, this only leads to a false peace and a deeper kind of evil. It does so because the suppression of all conflict and human unpleasantness is an insidious form of untruthfulness.

Benedict doesn't allow such an outwardly pleasant lie. While he stresses that we should keep our lips from speaking evil he also says they should not utter deceit. So conflict must be handled honestly. Anger must be acknowledged and dealt with. The parents who seek peace will also seek justice, knowing that much anger flows from a perception that justice has not been done. The family who seeks this combination of peace and justice, honesty and speaking no evil is bound to flourish. Spiritually speaking, God is right next to them, and promises to hear even before they ask (Isa. 58.6–11).

Benedict is optimistic and moved by the possibilities this promises. He has lifted much of the Prologue from earlier monastic writings, but here his own tender personality shines through in the words fratres carissimi – ‘dearest brothers’. So he calls us with simple and winning enthusiasm as his own dear brothers to listen to the voice of the Lord and to run with him in the path of Christ's abundant life (Ps. 25.10; John 10.10).