Obedience Revisited

I’m loving the book I’m reading now— Music of Silence: A Sacred Journey Through the Hours of the Day, by David Steindl-Rast and Sharon Lebell.  What I appreciate most is that the authors make the otherwise ordinary, extraordinary.  This morning I came upon their discussion of the term, “obedience.”  The first definition that springs to mind is that obedience is the practice of following a set of orders, even if blindly. 

Not at all so, we are told, in the context of the vows that monks take.  In monastic life, obedience means “loving listening: listening to the Word of God that comes to us moment by moment, listening to the message of the angel that comes to us hour by hour.”

That just takes my breath away.  Today I set my intention to open my heart and mind with the hope of experiencing—if only for a moment—that rather exquisite mode of obedience.

“The opposite of that obedience is absurdity, which means being deaf to life’s challenges and meaning.”

“Disobedience is not so much not doing what you know you should do, as not even listening to what the situation demands and calls you to do.”

“There is a message in everything that happens, in every situation in which we find ourselves, whether we like it or not.  If we make the right response, it will be life-affirming and life-giving for us and for others.  It’s in those moments that our character is decided.”

All quotes from this book.

Enjoy your day!