Our Anglican tradition provides us with tried and tested practices that, if lived into, profoundly shape our discipleship. These spiritual practices, or disciplines, are specifically enumerated in what’s often called a Rule of Life. Such a Rule provides coherence and shape to our daily lives. The consistency created by a Rule creates space for us to rest in God, to listen in obedience to God’s word for us, and thus to be open to the continual conversion of our life so it may be lived, as St Paul says, “not for ourselves, but for Christ Jesus.” So variety, novelty, and surprise aren’t helpful in a Rule. They’re the last things we need. When such things don’t distract us, we have the capacity and space to listen to God, which is a needful thing if we’re to live as disciples of Jesus.
My friend, Fr Ken Leech, loved to tell the story of Fr Neville who was a long-serving chaplain at a theological college in England. Fr Neville was quite committed to his Rule of Life and its spiritual discipline. His Rule shaped the whole of his life and ministry. He was much loved by the college’s students and faculty for his gentle demeanor and good humor. While they found him to be a bit of an “odd duck,” they cherished and valued his witness to them of a life given over to God. Every afternoon, part of Fr Neville’s daily spiritual practice was to take a nap from 2 pm to 4 pm. Regardless of what was going on in his life, in the life of the college, or in the life of the world, at 2 pm he’d stop whatever he was doing, retire to his quarters, and take that nap.
One morning, the dean of the college received an urgent message that the bishop of the diocese needed to see him that very afternoon. This presented the dean with a dilemma. He was hosting a visiting bishop from Africa and this bishop was scheduled to speak and then to lead a symposium for the entire student body and faculty that afternoon. The dean couldn’t stand up the bishop (hear, hear!), so he went to Fr Neville and asked him to host the visiting bishop for the rest of the day, introduce him at the symposium, and close the gathering with prayer. This visiting bishop was scheduled to speak at 2 pm.
Fr Neville readily agreed to stand in for the dean. The dean, much relieved, made plans for his trip to the bishop’s office. That day after lunch, Fr Neville met with the visiting bishop, and after a good visit during which they became acquainted, he escorted him to the auditorium for the symposium. Fr Neville welcomed the students and faculty, gave a warm and thoughtful introduction of the esteemed visiting bishop, and as the bishop came to the podium, Fr Neville quietly excused himself and went to his quarters to take his nap. He arose, as was his custom, at 4 pm and returned to the auditorium just in time for the symposium to conclude. He stepped to podium, thanked the visiting bishop for an outstanding presentation, and closed the symposium with a prayer.
While I’ve always found this story “laugh out loud funny,” I’ve also appreciated what it’s taught me about my own spiritual practice. As Jesus helped Martha see in Luke 10: 40-42: We are “worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, doesn’t he? A Rule of Life helps us all to create the capacity to choose what Jesus clearly called “the better part.”
+Scott
The Rt. Rev. Scott Anson Benhase was the tenth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia from 2010-2020. This website serves as an online archives for the weekly email reflections, the eCrozier, he wrote during his episcopacy.