Sweeping the Floors . . . Again!!

While at the Benedictine monastery in Pecos a couple of weeks ago, several of us from Chapelwood decided to enter more fully into the rhythm of the monks' lives, not only by joining in their daily rhythm of prayer, but by spending some time each day in manual labor.

The monks live a rhythm of prayer and work. Unlike those of us who live outside the monastery, their work is put aside regularly when the bells ring for prayer. They don't have a manic need to accomplish in their work or to hurry to the end of it. They do what they can, then they pray together, then they do a little more work, then they pray together, and so on. Each day is like that. And tomorrow is like that, too. It is a wonderful ordering (and weaving) of prayer and work that is much healthier than most of us live.

So one morning, Gene Davis and I decided to give one hour to working in the monastic chapel, sweeping the tile and grout floor. With snow, slush, and mud outside, this room which is the main prayer and worship space for the monastery got dirty rather easily. Gene and I gave an hour to cleaning the floor. We swept. We scrubbed. We did a pretty thorough job, working for an hour without conversation.

[Sidebar: The hour spent working in the same room with Gene in silence was holy time. We've known each other for nine years and consider each other friends, but that one hour spent working together in silence brought us to a deeper place of friendship and companionship than we had experienced with one another . . . at least, that's what I sensed from my end. That was a significant learning for me.]

At the end of the hour, we put away our tools and went into the rest of the day, content that we had been faithful to that small task. The floor was clean.

Then, at the mid-day prayer time in that very room, you can imagine how Gene and I looked at each other when we entered and found that already persons had tracked dirt and mud into the space! And you can imagine my shame when that evening, I came straight into the chapel from outdoors and brought in my own mud and dirt!

So the next morning during our work time (10:00 - 11:00), Gene and I took up our brooms again, and started all over. We spent another hour doing exactly what we had done the previous day.

I'm guessing that I don't need to connect the dots for you. My life-experience with God is so much like this. I seem to come back to the same issues over and over again. Just when I've dealt with some part of my life that God wants to heal, when I celebrate some small ground gained, I find myself right back where I was.

How often have I said to God (and to myself): "But I dealt with that interior issue ten years ago!!" Yet, it seems always to come back around.

So at least for me, much of the spiritual journey is about sweeping the floors . . . again!