“The jar of flour shall not go empty,
nor the jug of oil run dry.” (1 Kgs 10:14)
Today’s readings place before us the image of the poor widow who gives all. In the gospel, we get a hint from the description of the scribes, who “devour the houses of widows” that this widow is a poignant figure. Is she an icon of heroic generosity, or someone bled dry by unscrupulous religious leaders? Perhaps both. The passage from the Elijah cycle, however, is humanized by the fact that the prophet who asks the widow for her last piece of bread is himself in dire need, and what’s more, he promises her by divine oracle that there will be enough.
Enough
My tube of toothpaste is getting low. I tell myself I’ll be needing a new one, but every day I come back to my room without it, my mind lost somewhere on the way. Will I have enough for another day? I decide to ration, to get every scrap out and make it last. So I take just a little, just enough. Every day I expect that this will be it, but then, miracle of miracles, each time I squeeze, I find just enough toothpaste for the occasion. It keeps coming, and coming, and coming for a whole week! Once I get my new tube, spoiled by the abundance of it, I stop noticing. I stop noticing what is enough. I stop noticing the minor miracle of more every day. But this is where a deliberate choice to live at the edge of one’s comfort zone opens us up to the deeper questions of life.
Do I have enough? - Enough to keep body and soul together, enough to feel secure and comfortable, enough to live a meaningful and happy life?
Will I be enough? - Enough to give to those who need me, enough to fulfil my hopes and dreams, my expectations and those of others?
Giving all
This is not just about things but about life itself. Where the gospel says the widow gave her whole livelihood, the Greek has the more evocative “her whole life.” All giving is a symbol of this one call to give one’s whole life in imitation of Christ and in response to God’s gift. Our embrace of monastic life is itself an attempt to respond to that deeply rooted desire to be wholly given and received. And yet when we live in a situation in which self-gift is both expected and moderated within a community setting, we face certain temptations. We are tempted to feel taken for granted, to resent those with less responsibility or who appear to be less busy. We are tempted to feel guilty about leaving work undone and taking time for prayer, reading and self-care. We are tempted to be saddened by our weakness or the seemingly unimportant contribution we make to the community. We are tempted to be angered at those we judge not to be doing their fair share. In a word, we are tempted to compare ourselves with others, whether favorably or unfavorably. We seem to be hard-wired for judgment and comparison, and yet it does no-one any good.
At our retreat a few years back, Fr Elias of Gethsemani quoted a poem by Kay Ryan to illustrate the point that we cannot judge another’s lot in life by looking in from the outside:
Spiderweb
From other
angles the
fibers look
fragile, but
not from the
spider’s, always
hauling coarse
ropes, hitching
lines to the
best posts
possible. It’s
heavy work
everyplace,
fighting sag,
winching up
give. It
isn’t ever
delicate
to live.
The differences between people is something St Benedict emphasizes in his Rule. He is reluctant to specify the amount of food and drink for others because: “Everyone has his own gift from God, one this and another that” (1 Cor 7:7, RB 40.1). Goods are to be distributed according to need; the stronger are called to be grateful, not jealous of the weaker who receive more, and the latter are called to be humble, not proud of their privilege, so that everyone will be at peace (RB 34). What is called for is great reverence for what the other is carrying and giving. As for ourselves, we stand before God in regard to our giving.
I remember as a junior, Sr Mariann gave a class on the Rule in which she pointed out that the word “onus,” meaning burden is used two ways in the Rule. It can mean either the appropriate burden of service to the community, or a burden that is too much to carry. The former is to be embraced with courage and prayer. The latter, to be brough to the attention of the abbot. In other words, discernment is key in finding the right way through a life of self-gift – a discernment that each one of us is responsible for practicing.
The canal and the reservoir
St Bernard’s Eighteenth Sermon on the Song of Songs is of special importance here. He speaks of the gifts of the Spirit which are intended for our own benefit and growth, and those which are intended to be given away for the benefit of others. It all comes down to discerning which is which:
“At this point we need to be warned not to give away what we have received for our own welfare, nor to retain for ourselves what must be expended for others. For example, you keep for yourself what belongs to your neighbor, if…through fear or sloth or ill-judged humility, smother this gift of speech that could be of help to so many, in a useless and even pernicious silence.… On the other hand, you squander and lose what is meant to be your own if…you rashly proceed to pour out your unfulfilled self upon others.” (Song 18.2)
“The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself.” (Song 18.3)
“You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God…. The reservoir is not ashamed to be no more lavish than the spring that fills it.” (Song 18.4)
The ultimate goal is a lavish pouring out of our fullness in imitation of Christ’s gift. But not all of us are there yet, or not there at every moment. The point is that trying to give what we do not have can be damaging to ourselves and useless to others. Our responsibility is to discern this.
Responsibility
Sometimes bearing responsibility in the community can lure us into believing a big lie: that the community/my superiors/God expects me to kill myself in order to accomplish my designated task. False. What the community/superiors/God expects is that I will be responsible for carrying out my duties while also taking care of my physical and spiritual well-being toward the goal of growth in Christlikeness. What we have to be conscious of is our inalienable responsibility for taking the means to nourish ourselves. We cannot control the flow of grace into our reservoir – this is God’s business. But we can open wide our gates to his grace and guard those fundamentals which keep body and soul together, namely prayer, lectio and good reading, time to be and to ponder.
Trust
Now this prudence and discernment doesn’t mean we should hoard our fat tube of toothpaste all for ourselves, just in case. We do not often feel like full reservoirs, or a full tube of toothpaste, for that matter. But this does not mean that we are not able to give. The art of giving is learned in the midst of life, by trying, by giving that tube a squeeze to see if anything comes out, by looking at the fruits. We are called to live with what feels like an almost-empty tube of toothpaste that keeps giving – today, perhaps just a little blob, tomorrow, a gushing stream. If we live this in faith and trust, there will be something to give, day after day, to our utter amazement and joy.