The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 19
In my experience, there comes a point in the practice of praying the Daily Office, after processing and deconstructing all of the ways in which the Psalms challenge our personal and cultural notions of prayer and propriety, when my mind feels restored to childlike trust in the words. I move among the verses like I move among a forest, breathing deeply the scent of pine, climbing over rocks, drinking from a brook, resting on a log. I am free from my need to understand the details of the ecosystem. I don't pretend that I am a tree or let my body decompose into the topsoil in order to belong here. I am a part of the same creation. It is made for me, and I for it.
Our Father Benedict uses the word "harmony" to describe the intended relationship between our mind and our voice when we chant the Psalms. He could have used the word "unison" or implied a clear hierarchy between the psalmody and our mind, but he did not. Harmony is a good fruit of a relationship between distinct entities. We are not to pretend that we are not who we are when we pray. We are to be precisely who we are in the sight of the Godhead and all Angels, and we are to walk slowly and deliberately into the forest of verses like a child among the pines, without apology and without excuse, but with wonder and peace.
Br. Chad-Joseph
In my experience, there comes a point in the practice of praying the Daily Office, after processing and deconstructing all of the ways in which the Psalms challenge our personal and cultural notions of prayer and propriety, when my mind feels restored to childlike trust in the words. I move among the verses like I move among a forest, breathing deeply the scent of pine, climbing over rocks, drinking from a brook, resting on a log. I am free from my need to understand the details of the ecosystem. I don't pretend that I am a tree or let my body decompose into the topsoil in order to belong here. I am a part of the same creation. It is made for me, and I for it.
Our Father Benedict uses the word "harmony" to describe the intended relationship between our mind and our voice when we chant the Psalms. He could have used the word "unison" or implied a clear hierarchy between the psalmody and our mind, but he did not. Harmony is a good fruit of a relationship between distinct entities. We are not to pretend that we are not who we are when we pray. We are to be precisely who we are in the sight of the Godhead and all Angels, and we are to walk slowly and deliberately into the forest of verses like a child among the pines, without apology and without excuse, but with wonder and peace.
Br. Chad-Joseph
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