An Unexciting Life with Money

This is one in a series of posts of meditations on the book An Unexciting Life by Michael Casey, a Trappist monk. For others in the series, click on "an unexciting life" in the list of topics on the right-hand side of this page.

The passage I want to comment on today is from the chapter, "John Cassian's Road Map". John Cassian was a 4th century monk (for a detailed description of his life, click here). The passage is a quote from his writings:

"Even one who has no money can be a victim to the disease of avarice so that his impoverishment yields no benefit to him." Michael Casey expands on that a bit by noting that external renunciation, which is expected of monks, will not bring freedom unless a person also purifies his interior affections.

Being a former financial planner and counselor, I was immediately drawn to this comment of Cassian's. In my years of helping people with issues relating to money (and most life issues do have a money component in there somewhere), the love of money (avarice) usually appeared cloaked in the guise of an inordinate concern about the financial factors of a given decision, even if the decision should not have been primarily about money.

As a simple example, many people subconsciously equate the optimal college education for their children with the university's tuition cost: the higher the tuition, the better the education provided, right? Wrong! Or how about the widely held belief that in order to have a happy retirement you have to have enough money to fund your existing lifestyle?

Because of such beliefs people often make poor financial decisions, like the client I had who, because he had not been able to put aside money for retirement, got into trading commodities futures (not for amateurs!) and ended up losing his house and ultimately his family. He succumbed to avarice - he wanted (even if his intentions seemed good) to amass more money than he could expect to do under normal circumstances, and rather than allowing his "impoverishment to benefit him", he fought against it and lost.

In general, my experience has been that people in the US are terrified of not having enough money. But as I continually said to clients, "It's not about the money!" Having a full, satisfying and meaninful life does NOT depend on money, as many studies attest. Poor people tend to be more generous than wealthier people, have stronger familial relationships, and describe themselves as being happy more often than rich people do.

That's something that always struck me about the stories people told of living through the Depression: the focus was on relationships, on community, and it produced many wonderful memories, even in the midst of great privation. Money, or the stuff that money can buy, is not the stuff of good memories.

Money, or what we tend to buy with it, is not what makes good memories. Think about the gifts you received for Christmas when you were a child - was it the most expensive gifts that bring back warm memories, or the ones that had special meaning for you?

Money enables you to "go it alone", and if you don't have much, you need the support of a strong family and community. That is very evident here in small-town Mexico, and it's one reason I love living here: people are more important than money, on a daily, practical, real-time basis.

This is a photo of a good friend of ours, his wife and one of his nine grandchildren, some of whom live with him (along with their parents) because the parents don't have jobs and don't have enough money to have separate homes (it's hard to find a job in our town). Tolin is the sole support for all of them and has multiple jobs to bring in enough money. On top of that, he is the leader of the worship team for our church and devotes a significant portion of his free time to that. And he's always upbeat, interested in things, learning something new. This is a man whose impoverishment has yielded many benefits in his life.

I have seen many happy outcomes when clients have let go of the importance of money in a situation and let their hearts and common sense guide them instead. When a person stops believing that having "enough" money is the only way to achieve something she greatly desires, her creative juices are freed up to find other non-monetary means of reaching the goal. That's enlivening!

An Unexciting Life: Friendship

Today's post is the latest in a series of meditations on the book An Unexciting Life by Michael Casey. For prior posts in the series, click on "an unexciting life" in the themes section on the right side of this page.

In the chapter "The Value of Stability" there is a section on friendship that this quote is from:
"Humility, service and amiability lay the foundations on which good relationships build. Good relationships prepare the soil from which friendship flowers...

To love another exposes one's own vulnerability...to care for a brother means bearing his burdens: his limitations, his hurts, his mistakes, and ultimately, if the relationship becomes truly redemptive, the crushing weight of his sins."

What struck me in reading this passage is that there is a distinction between having a good relationship (which one should strive to have with every person) and friendship. There is a distinction between loving a person (we are called to love everyone, even our enemies) and having a friend. True friendship (deeper than the pleasant acquaintances we tend to think of as our "friends") is precious because it is relatively uncommon. But if we cultivate good relationships with all, we are more likely to find that some turn into deep friendships.

I am blessed to see both my sons and their wives having thriving friendships with numerous people, people of different backgrounds and generations. This is a testament to the effort that they all make to invest in relationships, to be humble, amiable, and serve others. Of course, this is a perfect description of my husband as well (my kids got it from him).

It is tragic to see families in which the parents are don't place much value in having good relationships with those around them. When their children grow up without a sense of the importance of relationships, they end up making life choices that leave little room for relationships to grow, and their lives become more and more distant from a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Because mankind was created to need relationships, people are not, in a sense, complete as humans if that essential element has not been well-developed in their lives.

I am thankful that in Mexican culture, as in many other parts of the world, relationships are valued more highly than they are in the US. It is quite rare for a person to move so far from his or her family that they can't get together often. It is common for neighbors and even non-neighbors to offer help where they see a need. Amiability is one of the most noticeable characteristics of Mexican people, who are invariably friendly to strangers. And the humility that shines through so often is quite marvelous to us gringos who have difficulty in letting go of our unintented arrogance.


"If you want a friend, be a friend"

An Unexciting Life: The Value of Consistency

This is one in a series of meditations on passages from the book An Unexciting Life, by Michael Casey, a Trappist monk. For the rest of the series, click on "an unexciting life" in the Topics section on the right side of this page.

Today's passage from the chapter "The Value of Stability" is about the ongoing challenge of maturing in the faith, or as we Catholics describe it, ongoing conversion.

"This mature and ongoing formation comes about chiefly by our wholehearted embrace of conversatio [continuing fidelity]: liturgy, prayer, lectio divina, work, community involvement. These are the unexciting buttresses that support our commitment. To keep practicing them, in turn, involves a fair degree of fidelity to the elements of traditional discipline that safeguard and protect the way of life: regularity, silence, self-denial, and obedience."

This was written for monks, so might seem a bit severe for those who don't live in such an ordered environment. But it does point us to the things that can help us to grow in holiness. To the degree that we take note of the level of regularity, silence, self-denial and obedience in our lives, we can strive to improve our experience of them. How often do we allow ourselves a time of conscious silence? How often do we consciously practice self-denial or obedience? When we do these things consciously we reap the reward of deeper faith, of greater stability. That should be a positive motivator to practice these things more often!

Anyone can create a Rule of Life to help them reach a greater level of internal stability. By attempting to be obedient to my Rule of Life (I'm by no means perfect at it!) I have found a much deeper level of peace, and a greater discernment as to what is important in a given moment and what is not.

To the degree that we seek to include liturgy, prayer meditating on the Word, work and community involvement in our lives we will grow in righteouness, or as we say in spanish, rectitud. This is, of course, a lifelong process. Perhaps my own example might be helpful to one of you readers. An old friend recently asked me how I have managed to be consistent in prayer and after some thought I told her that my prayer life improved tremendously when I learned the habit of praying the same prayers every day before I even get out of bed.

I start by orienting myself to God through the Church - that is, thanking him for creating the church to be our teacher and guide - and then focus my attention on thanking him for creating me, adopting me into his family, and surrounding me with his love. Then I offer my life to Jesus to do whatever he wants with it. I thank Mary for being a role model for me, and Joseph for being a human father for me (I never had a relationship with a human father, so now I'm learning how to have one through my relationship with Joseph). I pray for my husband, for the specific things he asked me to pray for, and end with asking God to grant me what I dare not ask for myself. Then I get out of bed.

Because I don't need to come up with new words every day I am freed to enter into the spirit of these prayers, and I often start praying before I am fully awake. Amazingly, even if I fall asleep again, I remember exactly where I was in my prayers before I drifted off, so it's a perfect start to the day. Once I've gotten up and done some "first thing in the morning" tasks, I sit down and spend time meditating on the Word, using the morning readings from the Magnificat. Then my husband and I read the day's scriptures for the mass together.

Even if I don't follow my Rule of Life for the rest of the day, that has gotten me off to a great start, orienting me toward God every day. And it doesn't even take any extra time - just the time you'd otherwise spend reading something while having your morning coffee.

I'm sure that you readers can think of many instances in your own lives of the rewards of faithfully practicing one or more of the things mentioned in this passage. What treasures they offer! May these treasures be embedded deeply in our lives.

An Unexciting Life: Monasticism for a non-monastic

The Pirate has gone to the States for more than a month to help our son remodel his house (the one the Pirate built in 1969 when we were hippies). That leaves me alone with the garden and the dogs, and an opportunity to practice more fully the monastic life that has always lurked in the back of my heart.

Before the Pirate left I revised my Rule of Life (email me if you want to know what a Rule of Life is or how to make one, and I'll send you a PDf from the CS Lewis Institute on it). I wanted to make sure that I had set times for doing all kinds of different tasks each day, including maintaining the vegetable garden (which is the Pirate's domain) and focusing on all the things to be made for the vacation rental house before we can start renting it. Things like bedspreads, curtains, dish towels, etc. Without having fully scheduled days I knew I was likely to space out, since the Pirate is the core around which I do everything (imagine a May pole - the Pirate - with me weaving whatever I do each day around that core).

One thing that I committed myself to doing during this period is to write a post every Sunday on the book An Unexciting Life, because I have MANY more highlighted segments to go before I allow myself to finish reading this book...and I just bought another of Michael Casey's books, Seventy-Four Tools for Good Living which I won't allow myself to read until I've completed the current book.

So, from the chapter "The Benedictine Promises", in the section "The Promise to be a Good Monk", is a single sentence that is elegant and simple in its description of the life devoted to God:
"Each day one allows oneself to be converted a little more, by attending to the Word and allowing it to shape one's options".

I spent my professional career helping people to identify their options and learn how to be wise (or at least prudent) in deciding which ones to pay attention to. Some of my clients were christians; many were not. But God had put me in a position to impart good sense and recognition of virtue to people who live in a society that has lost its ability to recognize or practice either one. For that I am deeply grateful. But how do I put this concept into practice? What do I do to allow God's light into the dark recesses of my soul, that they might be converted?

In general, it's best to approach a significant issue by figuratively walking all the way around it. There is the first, most obvious, perception to keep in mind, but wisdom requires that the more difficult or uncomfortable possibilities be considered as well. For instance, the other day the Pirate made a remark about how much time I've been spending playing solitaire. I seem to go through seasons of doing this - over the years I've had periods where I waste a huge amount of my days playing solitaire, and then I'll completely ignore it for long periods. This time, in response to that remark, my first thought was "So what? I spend more time praying every day than most people, so this is my acceptable mindless relaxation".

On further thought it seemed to me that what I'm doing when I play solitaire is in a certain way "girding up my loins" to do something that is daunting, but that I know that God is wanting me to do. I thought, "I'm basically doing what Peter describes in his first letter: 'Therefore gird up the loins of your mind; be sober...' I'm psyching myself to face the daunting task". That's okay, I guess, and true enough, but then I read the second half of that passage: "and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy'".

Now the issue is clearly not one of sin, but of increasing holiness. How much do I want to increase in holiness? Enough to change the little, non-sinful things in my life when God's light shows them for what they really are? What my solitaire playing really is, as I have come to realize, is a substitute for coming before God and admitting my inability, my weakness, my lack of confidence to do whatever it is that He is calling me to do at that moment. I am girding up my loins, NOT by resting my hope fully upon His grace, but by zoning out until my conscience can't stand the dithering any more and forces me to act.

I thank God that He is faithful to answer my prayer that I could see myself as I really am - not as I hope or fear that I am - and that He has the power to change me, if I offer myself to Him to do so. As St. Therese of Lisieux described it, God has an "elevator" that will lift us up to holiness quickly, and that is offering ourselves to Him in love and confidence, as little children. As they say here in Mexico, asi sea, let it be so.

If you want to read my past posts on An Unexciting Life, click on "an unexciting life" in the list of topics on the right side of this page.

An Unexciting Life: corporal works of mercy

From An Unexciting Life


This post is one of a series on passages from the book. You can read the others by clicking on "an unexciting life" in the list of topics on the right side of this page. I've read a LOT of books over the years that are meditations on the holy life - both Catholic and Protestant - and this is my favorite.

FROM THE CHAPTER "Strangers to Worldly Ways":
"Attention to the things of God leads us to tend the needs of our brothers and sisters. Hence [we are reminded] of our obligations to the poor, the needy and the unwell. By offering ourselves in service, by putting ourselves out for others, we are freed from the domination of our own immature need for comfort. This has always been one of the puzzles of the Christian way: why is it that a person makes greater progress on the way to God through self-forgetfulness and service than through teeth-gritting determination?"

The man on the right is a neighbor who has a profound mental disability and is unable to speak intelligibly. Everyone calls him "Jefe" (boss), and he is a fixture at the neighborhood gringo cafe, where he sits on the steps and waves at everyone. He is watched over by the Mexicans in the neighborhood, who treat him like a family member. He attends mass at our neighborhood chapel and shakes everyone's hand as he goes up to receive communion.

I think we would all be mucher richer for it if we all had a "Jefe" in our neighborhoods, someone whom we can't ignore because he hangs out at our local cafe or grocery store. Someone who needs the whole neighborhood to make sure he's okay, getting enough to eat, not getting run over because he doesn't know not to walk in the middle of the street. In the US the strategy has been to keep the sad, broken, desperate people as far from our view as possible. But WE NEED THEM! We need them in order to be fully human ourselves.

FROM THE SAME CHAPTER:
"[Let us consider] the monk's reactions to the fact that the ideal life is rarely achieved and the consequent existence of conflict, disharmony and even violence. His response is a generous, unflinching patience - quite at odds with the anticipated secular response to being victimized. He does not return evil or initiate it. He bears it patiently and loves his enemies."

Our culture, among other distortions, has elevated victimhood to an exalted position. This, of course, keeps many lawyers busy but it does nothing to strengthen society, which depends on people taking responsibility, not only for their own actions, but also for their own responses to the actions of others. Think of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, or Blessed Titus Brandsma, or Corrie Ten Boom - all put in German concentration camps, two of whom died there. But their lives testify to non-victimhood. They all were exemplars of love conquering evil. And of course there are many such stories (if you have a favorite, please leave me a comment with the name or names of people who showed the same refusal to be victims).

I take comfort from these paragraphs because there are so many examples of people who have lived in service to others with self-forgetful love. It is possible to be a saint! And it's clear that even in the face of extremely stressful circumstances, people who put the well-being of others before their own are given the strength and joy that we all long for. As our former priest used to say to everyone about everything, "animo!" Take courage! Be encouraged! And give encouragement to others...

An Unexciting life: Fasting

From "An Unexciting Life"


For past posts on thoughts from this wonderful book, go here and here.

HERE'S THE PASSAGE I'M REFLECTING ON TODAY:
…we need to become free of the pleasure principle. Thus we are called on to practice fasting and more, to love it - really to appreciate that the way of the desert is a good and noble thing. To walk it is not an achievement but a privilege and a gift…There is no question here of masochism nor of a mindless puritanism, but a clear assertion that if the monk is to make his way to God he needs to disembarrass himself of whatever will slow him down and will have to be abandoned eventually in any case.

As has been said many times by many holy people, we need to empty ourselves so God can fill us up. That's what fasting is about. And it's a challenge to cling to that purpose, because (at least for me) my carnal nature wants to make fasting into a way to lose weight. But if I allow that thought to have any place in my fasting times, I lose the reward that God has for me, much as Jesus warned us in Matthew 6.

If, when I feel those hunger pangs, I am reminded to pray for the people or situations that God has given to me for that purpose, I am being a co-worker with God. If, on the other hand, I have allowed the idea of weight loss to enter into the equation, when I feel hunger pangs it's pretty easy to tell myself that a little "something" can't possibly make any difference. And maybe it won't, on a physical level. But it will rob me of the joy of working alongside God in establishing His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, because I have lost my opportunity to be united with Him in sacrifice for his people.

This Lent has been a particularly challenging one for me. I'm thankful that I didn't set any high goals for myself since God has seen fit to provide many small and large tests for me this season. But testing is the point of Lent - are we capable of holding firm? Of clinging even more strongly to our Father in the midst of the storm?

I hope that I am learning how to be more realistic in my fasting. My tendency has always been to do total fasts (no food at all and only one or two glasses of something liquid in a 24 hour period). But God has been gently reminding me that the key to fasting is the turning of the heart to prayer instead of food, and that my test is in learning how to eat LESS rather than NOTHING, offering Him the sacrifice of that harder discipline (why is it harder to be moderate than it is to be radical?). And of course, to be consistent in prayer.

What is Lent? It is following Jesus into the desert - letting go of our "right" to a comfortable and secure life, voluntarily uniting ourselves with Him in the sacrifices He made for us.

Reflections on an Unexciting Life: stability of mind

This is the second in a series of posts on the book shown above. This book is full of passages that have deepened my awareness of the landscape through which the path of fulfillment lies - the path that leads to God's presence. Today I want to share a passage that speaks directly to our culture. The emphases are mine:

"Benedict did not desire his monks to be anything else but 'unworldly'…He wanted them to breathe the atmosphere of the Kingdom of God rather than be the playthings of human opinion and desire. To make progress along this way, stability was of the utmost importance. This was…a solidity or steadiness of mind. It was the opposite of mobility of mind. Separation from the world is thus seen to be more a matter of working toward an evenness of life in which prayer becomes possible. It is in the avoidance of meaningless mental stimulation rather than a question of bodily location…To advance in prayer, inner quiet is needed."

Now, I am well aware that God does not require us to have a quiet spirit before He'll hear our prayers. If that were true we'd all be sunk! But this passage, for me, reminds me of how valuable quietude is. By quietude I am not referring to outward quiet, but to that stability of the soul that doesn't seek continual distractions, that is content when not engaged in activity to fill the spaces in one's life.

When I was newly married and we had recently moved to the forest to homestead, we had chickens. The Pirate could sit for long periods of time just watching them, while I would be in the house, looking for ways to be distracted from my discomfort at being a city girl in a country environment and from my own sense of inadequacy. I wished then that I had the inner peace that he had, to be able to sit quietly without feeling as though I were wasting time or that my lack of activity showed dullness of mind or that our life was too uninteresting.

Thankfully, at least in that characteristic I have grown more like my husband over the years, and I am perfectly happy now to just sit and look at chickens, to create the quiet inner environment which invites God to speak directly to my spirit. That's the part from the passage about "advancing in prayer" that my own experience confirms. Yes, God stoops close to hear us when we're surrounded by noise; He's intent on being in conversation with us. As the Catechism tells us, He is the initiator of prayer, we only respond to His tugs at our heart. But, Oh, He yearns for us to yearn for Him! How patiently He waits for us to put aside all our distractions so He can hold us tenderly!

Here is a photo of the view from our last home in Alta California, in an enchanting place called La Honda. We thought that we would live out our lives there. The deep peace that seemed to rise out of the ground; the quiet - so quiet that quail lived all around us (they like the deep country). I spent many hours just sitting, basking in the quiet. And it wasn't because we had an amazing view - we've had amazing views almost everyplace we've lived.

This was the place where I learned to be quiet enough on the inside that I could actually soak in the view. Despite going through the most painful trial of my life there; despite being without the anchor of a faith community; despite having a very challenging professional practice to run. Inner quiet isn't dependent on outer stability, or everything going smoothly. We give our attention to whatever we value, and inner quiet is the result of valuing the "air of heaven"…I want to breathe that calm, pure air that sustains me regardless of outward circumstances. Now THAT is a treasure worth seeking!

Reflections on an unexciting life, 02/02/14

I've been reading a book called An Unexciting Life by Michael Casey, who is a Trappist monk in Australia. It is a very thick book, a compendium of many scholarly essays he has written over the years about the Rule of St. Benedict. At this point I have so many post-it arrows pointing to passages that in self-defense I decided to write posts on as many of them as I can in order to process my thoughts and get rid of the post-its without compunction (Wow! I used the word compunction in an actual sentence!)

The name of the book is taken from the reality that the monastic life is deliberately unexciting in its physical consistency, so that the focus can be on the richness of the inner life. His point is that those of us who seek quiet lives based on regularity of activities, lacking in diversity and distractions, aren't necessarily boring people. On the contrary, a quiet, regular life is the perfect soil for creativity and imagination if you nurture them.

The first quote that struck me from Casey's book is "The monk's center of gravity is not susceptible to exterior pressures so that he is not easily bowled over. Gravitas [in the monk] suggests a certain removal from real or manufactured storms that move life in the direction of soap opera. There is a tendency to develop a spirit of calmness, a certain imperturbability and a sage sense of proportion that transcends temperament and has its source in a firm faith in God."

I have always been attracted to the monastic lifestyle, maybe because I am, like Jen Fulwiler, an INTJ, a personality which can be quite comfortable living life totally inside the head. In fact, when I first became a christian, in a classic 'I got saved' situation after reading the first paragraph of the Gospel of John and realizing that it was LIVING TRUTH like nothing else ever written, my first thought was, "Oh no, what do I do now? I can't be a nun because I'm married and have a baby!" Happily, my neighbors across the road, a wonderful christian couple, took me under their wing and showed me how to aim for holiness as a wife and mother.

The primary sign of holiness that I have aimed for in my life is that spirit of calmness. No wonder my 'life verse' is 1 Timothy 6:6, "Godliness with contentment is great gain". I am deeply grateful to God that He has led me on a path that has brought me to this place, where I have the privilege of living according to Benedictine principles. I doubt that this path seems attractive to you extroverts out there, but for my introvert sisters in Christ, it holds great satisfaction and richness. And of course, since there are more extroverts than introverts in the world, that probably holds true for monastic communities as well, so an unexciting life must be attractive to some extroverts as well!

And for those of you who aren't particularly interested in having an unexciting life, no se preocupen (don't worry), this is not the only topic I plan to write about this year. But I do plan to have it be a recurring theme for awhile, interspersed with other things in my life here in paradise!