Soul Enterprise
Can we find secrets to modern day balance in ancient monastic practices? Award-winning author and journalist Judith Valente looks to values and practices laid out in The Rule of St. Benedict in the 6th century to find balance in her own life. The following is an excerpt from her book How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community.
I
often say I suffer from two diseases: workaholism and over-achieverism. When I was in college, I took to heart the ancient Greek definition of success: the use of all one’s talents in the pursuit of excellence in a life affording scope. I decided that is what my professional life would be. I was like a champion sprinter in a constant race to claim my prize. And the prizes did come. They would feel good for a week, maybe two, then I was off again, glancing in the rearview mirror at my past successes as I sped toward the next achievement, the next big award. Friday nights would roll around and I wouldn’t have any plans for the weekend, because I was too busy during the week to make them. I often forgot to request time off at the holidays, and then it would be too late to get the time to visit my family. When I worked for the Washington Post, I often neglected to eat or get enough The Marketplace July August 2019
“Leisure — relaxation and rest — is necessary. I would go so far as to say leisure is holy.”
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rest. At one point, I had to be hospitalized for malnutrition and acute anemia—a truly ridiculous state of affairs for an otherwise healthy twentysomething woman earning a good salary. In short, I had a job that included my life, not a life that included my job. In many ways, The Rule is a plea for balance. Monasteries in St. Benedict’s day had to be self-supporting, and still must be today. Those who live in them have to work and work hard. In previous eras, monasteries functioned as operating farms, growing the food they needed to nourish the community. Today, they earn income making a variety of items. The Trappist monks of New Melleray Abbey in Iowa carve caskets. The monks of The Abbey of Gethsemani make a rather famous bourbon-soaked fruit cake and varieties of fudge. The Benedictine sisters in Clyde, Missouri, sell handmade soaps, gourmet popcorn, and—believe it or not—gluten-free communion hosts. Americans work about 1,835 hours each year, which is more than they did forty years ago when there was far less automation. Yet only about nineteen percent take their full allotment of vacation time. Fear of losing a job, but also just plain workaholism might explain why.
