“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. (Mk 10:15)
We have been listening to the autobiography of Simone Biles, Olympic gymnastics champion, in the refectory. Probably one of the most striking aspects of her story is the extent to which her young life was given up to learning the art of gymnastics. At 8, she was spending 25 hours a week in the gym, by 11, it was up to 30, and by 14, 35 hours a week, which necessitated choosing home school over public high school – an agonizing choice for her. I can scarcely imagine living as she did – her day divided into several hours of practice, followed by four hours of schoolwork, followed by hours more practice – every day. If we do the math, 30 hours times 50 weeks times 10 years gives 15,000 hours: all to become a champion in her sport.
A few years ago, a monk of Portsmouth Abbey, Fr Gregory, came to give us classes. He spoke of art – his lifelong passion – and the path to God. The point he hammered home was that it takes ten thousand hours to make an artist. After getting past the basics, you go through a period in which everything is awful, you can’t do anything right, and your goal seems unreachable. His point was that you need to persevere through this desert, believing in a Promised Land in which what you sought at the cost of blood sweat and tears – in vain – will finally be given to you as a gift, “the fruit of another’s toil”. His invitation to us as monastics was to reflect on the ten thousand hours we put in on the road to God. No less is asked of us as we journey toward our goal.
John Cassian opens his Conferences by speaking of the goal of monastic life:
“All the arts and disciplines…have a certain scopos or goal, and a telos, which is the end that is proper to them, on which the lover of any art sets his gaze and for which he calmly and gladly endures every labor and danger and expense….Our profession also has a scopos proper to itself and its own end on behalf of which we tirelessly and even gladly expend all our efforts. For its sake the hunger of fasting does not weary us, the exhaustion of keeping vigil delights us, the continual reading of and meditation on Scripture does not sate us. Even the unceasing labor, the being stripped and deprived, and, too, the horror of vast solitude does not deter us… Tell me therefore, what is your goal and what is your end, which drives you to endure all these things so willingly?” (Conf 1.2.1, 3)
Cassian gives examples drawn from worldly experience:
The farmer seeks comfortable prosperity.
The businessman seeks profit and wealth.
The soldier seeks honor, power and rank.
Each of these persons must identify suitable means to reach their end:
The farmer must till his field.
The businessman must undergo the risk of investment.
The soldier must accept the danger of injury or death.
Here we can add another example: the gymnast sacrifices so much of what makes up a normal childhood and adolescence to put in ten thousand plus hours in the gym and become an Olympic champion and a role model for so many.
A simplistic summary would look something like this:
Just as the farmer, the businessman, the soldier or the gymnast identify their end, choose suitable means and prepare for sacrifice, so the monk seeks as his end the kingdom of heaven, eternal life, God, identifies the means to this in purity of heart, tranquility of mind, holiness or perfect love, and gladly accepts the hard and harsh things the litter the road of conversion.
I am not sure that this does justice to Cassian’s intent, or to the real dynamics of our spiritual journey. I have to ask whether this is in fact what we are doing. The words of Martha Karolyi at Gymnastics camp: “We’re seeking perfection here” has an ambivalent ring to it. On the one hand, yes: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” – we desire nothing less than to be filled with God, which implies being empty of a lot of other things. And yet, the most enduring legacy of Simone Biles will probably not be her amazing successes, but her poise and dignity at these most recent Olympics when she found she was not able to perform up to the expectations and desires of others. What she discovered was that her own person was more valuable than her performance as a gymnast. Her moment of failure before the eyes of the world, far from destroying her, put her in touch with her identity as a child of God.
I remember speaking with Fr Gregory about the desire to be an artist. I told him I had felt this in many areas of life – visual art, music, dance, writing, academics – and had seen before me the ten thousand hours, the sacrifice required to become an expert in one of these areas. I had desired it. I had even fleetingly thought myself capable of it. But then, in each case, I had set aside the dream. Why? Because something told me that putting in ten thousand hours for any of those goals would not have satisfied me. It would only have been building a tower of Babel or a house of cards. What I wanted, deep down, was not to be good at something, no matter how noble or nourishing a project it may be, but to belong to someone; to devote my whole being to seeking God.
St Bernard famously asked himself every day: why have I come here?
Why did I enter the monastery? Why do I stay? What is my goal and my end?
Ecclesiastes takes this to another level: “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” (Eccl. 4:8). Not for what but for whom.
Fr. Gregory of Portsmouth has a page on their abbey website in which he tells his story. He concludes with a statement that tells me his time with us was not only something we received, but he went away with something too. Can you tell who he’s referencing here?
“Benedictine Nuns are smarter than Benedictine Monks.
They are also holier.
I once heard one say this:
“Why did I come? Him”.
Who do I seek? Him.”
Why do I stay? Him”.
I can’t say it any better than that.
So I won’t try.”
The point is not: if you want to achieve something in life, be clear about your goals, identify the means and be ready for sacrifice. This is all-too-worldly wisdom.
Rather, the point is: if you want to find meaning in life, seek to discover your true goal, your deepest desire, fix your gaze upon it and allow your life to be shaped accordingly. This may ask more of you than you feel capable of and ultimately cost you everything, but in the process, you will become the person you were made to be, and in this you will find happiness. What you seek will not be earned by all this hard work and sacrifice, but placed in your empty hands, long after you have stopped trying to grasp it by your own power.
I think this is what it means to receive the kingdom as a little child.