August 13, 2010
Breakfast and Benedict
Dr. Greg Finch
Many of us lose our way amidst the strong rhythms of a world addicted to adrenaline, fear, and excess. We need a place to begin, again. A place to listen for the powerful rhythms of sanity and wisdom. The Benedictine way calls us to listen for and embrace the rhythms of stillness, silence, renewal, intention, wisdom, work, and hospitality. And this way insists that we can, and must, attune ourselves to these rhythms in the midst of our everydayness if we are to have “the best possible life.”
Just a few weeks ago, my summer getaway with old friends to a B&B overlooking the shining harbor at Provincetown, Massachusetts drew me into a delicious pattern of leisure, renewal, and awareness of the rhythms that can impact our lives. My regular DC evening commute surrendered to long walks surrounded by sounds of crickets in the cool night breeze. Watching the nightly news was exchanged for a nightly, panoramic moonrise on the horizon viewed from the deck. Afternoon planning sessions at work gave way to power naps on the chaise and bicycle rides to the beach. And breakfast… oh the rhythms of breakfast.
Every morning a new feast “appeared” on the deck. With whisk, oven, and griddle our breakfast chef re-calibrated my “raisin bran” view of the breakfast ritual, re-centering it to become my most appreciated and highly anticipated meal of the day. Breakfast became a sacred, culinary anchor around which vacation began to shape itself. My traveling companions and I talked about breakfast, repeatedly and endlessly. How good it was. How beautiful it was. What we might have for breakfast the next morning. We made certain that our walks and bike rides made room for breakfast.
Evenings became peppered with expectant conversations discussing what culinary delight might unfold in the morning. And each dawn, rising to walk the town or the beach, I found myself genuinely and gleefully anticipating breakfast. Returning to the sun drenched deck for the next culinary surprise— blueberry pancakes and cranberry muffins dusted with sugar, glazed tomatoes drizzled in oil and red cornbread breakfast pizza, bacon and chive frittatas and maple walnut French toast became delicious expressions of the renewing rhythm. And effortlessly, the breakfast rhythm became my own.
Sunday evening, on our drive back home I discovered just how significant the rhythm had become to all of us. A travel companion sighed loudly and then lamented, “Hey, how are we going to face breakfast tomorrow morning?”
Monday morning, in the midst of preparing my raisin bran and oatmeal, I was greeted with stark reality on the heels of a potential answer revealed in the following text.
TXT “Hi Greg, guess what? When I got up this morning, Bear (my friend’s Chow Labrador mix) had breakfast ready and waiting on the deck... Not!”
Yep, we had all become “rhythmed.”
As I reflect on my effortless attunement to the savory breakfast rhythms of vacation, I am reminded of the vast kaleidoscope of rhythms that can shape our day. Patterns of renewal, wisdom, and intention waken us with purpose and good humor. Cycles of worry, stress, and scarcity can draw us into spirals of un-health and dis-ease. Text after relentless text of A.D.D. producing twitter can kidnap our eyes from a moon-filled horizon and the aroma of the next dollar can lure us away from simple, genuine contentment. Our rhythm choices can waken and energize as easily as they can weary and destabilize. And they are all of our choosing.
Many of us lose our way amidst the strong rhythms of a world addicted to adrenaline, fear, and excess. We need a place to begin, again. A place to listen for the powerful rhythms of sanity and wisdom. The Benedictine way calls us to listen for and embrace the rhythms of stillness, silence, renewal, intention, wisdom, work, and hospitality. And this way insists that we can, and must, attune ourselves to these rhythms in the midst of our everydayness if we are to have “the best possible life.”
I invite you to join the Community this fall as we all “begin again.” Bring your friends to a Welcome to the Community gathering. Experience a reflection retreat on the Cathedral close or attend a Creating a Life Rule workshop. Explore practices of renewal at a Sunday afternoon Benedictine Rhythms of Wellness workshop. Set aside time for a monastic quiet day or a weekend celebration of intention. Set aside the demands of the commuter journey for a respite hour of reflection and renewal at a Benedictine Life and Prayer gathering.
The Community of Reconciliation offers us all profoundly simple rhythms that can re-center our lives in the holy and transform our world. I hope you begin again with us this Autumn as we wade into the rhythms of Benedict.
Cranberry muffins dusted with sugar or raisin bran?