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Being Benedictine

Jodi Blazek Gehr, Oblate of St. Benedict

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September 2021

Enough: I Can Never Know It All

The Harvest Moon and Autumn Equinox this week, combined with a free Sunday afternoon, have ripened my desire for SoulCollage creativity and reflection. As often happens, intuitively the card comes together with images I am drawn to. Words follow upon reflection and using the “I am one who…” prompt. (See HERE for more info about How to SoulCollage.)

Card Name– Enough: I Can Never Know It All

I am one who has an appetite for knowledge that is never quenched.

I am one who loves to learn. I want to know more. I want to understand.

I am one who grows weary from my own desire to learn more and more and more.

I never want to be as uninformed as I used to be—about politics, about the suffering of others, about racism or poverty.

I can learn just a little bit more. More knowledge (of good and evil?) seems just a book, podcast, documentary, news article, or Facebook post away.

I am one who creates my own stress, anxiety and overwhelm because I never know enough.

When will I know ENOUGH, I wonder?

I know that I cannot know it all. I need to settle into that knowing.

Knowing is not all or none, one or the other. Authentic knowing is not a spectrum of “knowing nothing” on one end and “knowing it all” on the other. I can let go of dualistic thinking and rest in the balance of enough.

Always We Begin Again, John McQuiston II

I can take a break, stop seeking, and let what I do know move through me into a new kind of knowing.

There is no deadline for which I need to know more. I can give myself some breathing space, a letting go of the pursuit of more, a gentle moving from one season of knowing to another.

I can take a time out with a dose of self-compassion, knowing I will never know it all. I can love learning without letting it consume me.

Yes, that’s it—I give myself permission to not know it all, to not exhaust every source of information that promises more knowing. I can say ENOUGH.

I welcome a new season of unknowing, of revealing, of growing, of I don’t know, of enough.

A little help from my friend, Bailey.
Harvest (full-ish) Moon in Nebraska.

Written by Jodi Blazek Gehr ©

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Stewardship: Using Our Gifts as Co-Creators

September Lectio Divina and Oblate Discussion

Sources: Lectio Divina, Matthew 25: 14-30 The Parable of the Talents; Always We Begin Again-The Benedictine Way of Living, Stewardship, pages 49-51, John McQuiston II

Our Lectio Divina discussion focused on The Parable of the Talents viewed through the lens of stewardship. In the reading, three people are given talents of varying amounts.

The two servants who had received five and two talents had increased their talents two-fold. They were praised, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’ (Mt. 25:21)

The one who buried his talent was scolded, judged as wicked and lazy, and his one talent was taken away. “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

We assume wealth has to do with money. Often, we see talent and gifts as economic gains or monetary contributions. Advertisements encourage us to buy more, of course, but we seem not to know when what we have is enough. In the Rule of St. Benedict, everyone should get what they need, but this requires understanding the difference between needs and wants (RB:34). Sadly, our culture says the more we have, the better off we are. We desire what another has—in possessions, money, time, relationships, almost anything, afraid that someone is getting something more than us—but the talents in this story were not equally given—two, five, one.

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