Post Script | August 15, 2022
Writing a Rule of Life (Comments OPEN!)
Last Friday afternoon, my mother, my oldest daughter, Audrey, and I hopped into the car to head to a local coffee shop. On the way, Audrey said something about being in a “foreign country,” and my mom registered shock. “A foreign country? The United States?” It is sometimes hard for her to remember that we spent eleven years in Toronto, that “home” will remain for us an elusive concept.
Here are some of the strangenesses of “home” I’ve noticed after a month in Cincinnati. People are comfortable to leave their cars idling in the parking lot, running into Starbucks for the latté they’ve ordered ahead. I can log onto my Kroger app in the morning, ordering groceries to be delivered the very same day. The doctor can promise someone will call to schedule speech therapy for my mother—and that afternoon, they do. People drive mammoth SUVs. Parking lots are vast. People show up to events in athletic wear. It is murderously humid.
When we left Toronto, it wasn’t without grief. We had chosen to stay in Canada long past the initial three years of our first visa, and our love for Toronto makes moving to Cincinnati hard. But I had decided when we left Toronto that I would be best served to embrace whatever Cincinnati had to offer rather than pining for some imagined paradise lost. And there are certainly things that I’m coming to appreciate about my new city. Cheap parking. Light traffic. Grocery delivery. Midwestern friendliness.
As the landscape of life has changed, I’m trying to flexibly change with it. There’s a paradox here, of course—and I’m sure you’re not surprised to find me suggest such a thing. I want to accommodate myself to this change AND hold fast to convictions I’ve gained over the last eleven years.
In other words, even in this new place, with new responsibilities and new routines, I want to keep practicing the rule of life I’ve been working to set down over recent years.
For some of you, this will feel like an unfamiliar idea. Rule of life? What does that mean? It’s been two years I’ve been reading lots of resources of how to write a rule of life (see some of those titles below). Despite many drafts, my “rule” is still very much a work in process, and I’m shy about sharing it with people, at least for now.
A rule of life is borrowed from the monastic tradition, beginning with Saint Benedict. In his rule (which I finally read for the first time at the beginning of the pandemic), he writes, “Are you hastening toward your heavenly home? Then with Christ’s help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners.” A monastic rule, then, was about setting down ordinary patterns of life to which an entire community committed for the sake of obedience to Christ. Benedict’s rule involved regular practices of truth-telling, forgiveness, hospitality, and bodily self-discipline. The idea of a rule was that you didn’t wait to be in the mood for transformation. You set your intention in advance, and you did that with a degree of specificity.
Benedict’s rule is wonderful and odd, all at the same time. There is something incredibly beautiful about the idea of receiving every guest as if Christ himself. There is also something a little excessive in the interdiction against too much laughter. I would recommend reading the rule if only to be reminded of the idea that apprenticeship to Christ involves faithfulness in every aspect of life, including the care of kitchen tools. “Whoever fails to keep the things belonging to the monastery clean or treats them carelessly should be reproved.”
(Phase 2: Get my teenagers reading the Rule of Saint Benedict.)
As I prepare to release my next book, In Good Time, in December, I’ve thought about offering additional content related to writing a rule of life. That might be bonus content for those who pre-order the book, or it might be (paid) content for those looking to delve deeper into the topic.
I’d love to ask you, as regular readers of Post Script, how you’d like to see this kind of content offered. What do you want to know about writing a rule of life? And what format would best serve you? I know those are broad and vague questions, but I’m opening comments today to see what might best serve you, my readers. Fling open the doors and get creative. And thanks in advance!
Yours,
Jen
Some Rule of Life resources I’ve benefitted from:
At Home in the World: A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us, Margaret Guenther
Seeking God, Esther De Waal
Recapturing the Wonder, Mike Cosper
Practicing the Way (online resources), John Mark Comer
The Common Rule, Justin Whitmel Earley
8 Habits for Growth, Darryl Dash
I agree with other commenters that it would be helpful to hear other real-life examples. (For example, I heard on a podcast interview that an author decided to start the day by going outside first thing, even in bad weather, instead of looking at his phone. He remarked at how much that simple decision had formed him. How easy to implement!) Since it seems that many of these questions require some thought, maybe a resource as a half-day personal retreat?
I've been interested in this for some time and have a bit of knowledge. I use a planner that encourages you to create one and then review it annually. The problem I've always had is not having concrete examples of how it looks in basic, everyday terms. I don't want to flat copy someone else's as they should be personal to your own situation, but it would be helpful to see what kinds of things people include. I suppose Earley's book would be helpful in that regard - if I ever get it off the TBR pile. (I need a rule of life for my TBR pile alone!)