Today I thought I’d do something a little different and share a short poem I discovered recently. This particular poem is by Robert Frost, and since it reminded me of the Abbey (and you can never have too much poetry in your life), I thought you might enjoy it on this lingering, summer Friday:
“Devotion”
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean –
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
There’s a yearning in the poem, and a humility. When I read through it for the first time, I liked the image of a vast ocean and a faithful shore, but the more I thought about these four, short lines, the more they reminded me of our own monks here at the Abbey – or any Benedictine community.
When someone takes on the Benedictine way of life, they commit, not only to prayerful obedience, but also to stability. The monks at Belmont Abbey belong and hold firm here as a meaningful part of their vocations, and Belmont Abbey College has always depended on the Abbey fathers and brothers as central to the spiritual life of this remarkable place. They teach, guide, and encourage students, certainly, but their prayers, their lives of stability, community, and love, also permeate campus in ways that transcend the visible.
As a community, these monks model the shoreline in continuous devotion to God, whose power, like the ocean, is beyond our comprehension but also intimately close, even touching our lives. The Abbey holds a faithful curve, a shape receptive to the ocean, and prays continually, in litany repetitions that may seem, on the surface, monotonous, but which accumulate as “counting” does, and which, by holding still to the ocean waves, allow these waves to slowly transform it.
Our relationship with God, too, is one that never arrives at a complacent or static boundary. Sometimes we might encounter the waves as challenging, even painful, in the ups and downs of our lives. Though we find stability in daily acts of faithfulness, this doesn’t always mean an easy or direct path. As we live out our particular vocations, however, God tirelessly shapes our capacity to receive Him, so that, rejoicing in His infinite goodness, we will never stagnate, but only exult in the never-exhausted discovery of His beauty.
I can think of no greater devotion than holding still in trust, as close to Him as the shore is to the ocean. So this week I invite you to consider: how does this emerge in your own experience? Where might you recognize the shaping presence of God, and what quiet response does it invite in your life? We each have our own, endless repetitions, our daily acts of faithfulness to a particular vocation. May they continue to form us for ever greater joy in Christ.
