A Schedule Change

At the monastery we make most major decisions after discussion, and we try as much as possible to withhold making decisions until a genuine consensus has been reached. So sometimes discussions can go on for a long time, weeks, months, sometimes years. And, of course, once having reached a decision, it may after a time seem not the right one. Humility is a communal as well as a personal virtue. Sometimes something the community has decided doesn't work as well as we thought it would. So the humble thing is to acknowledge that and change it.

One of the seemingly eternal discussions is about our daily schedule. When to pray, when to eat, when to work, how much time to allow for personal prayer and study, whether to label (read: coerce) study and prayer times or let the brethren work out their own rhythms. In the time since I returned to the monastery the continual conversational theme of this perennial topic has been that we don't have enough time, that between five times a day in Chapel, the whole food service aspect of our large guest house ministry, necessary community meetings and activities, and the other work each of us has every day, we hardly have enough time to turn around, let alone the necessary time for significant prayer and study. And the thing is, it was often true.

Our schedule was:
7:00 Matins
7:30 Breakfast
8:30 Eucharist
9:15 Chapter
12:00 Diurnum
12:30 Dinner
5:00 Vespers
6:00 Supper
7:30-7:40 Corporate Meditation
7:40 Compline

As you can imagine, the Matins to Eucharist segment sometimes requires quite a dash to get all the breakfast dishes done and the refectory set up for dinner before the Eucharist. The Refectorian even had to leave chapel before Matins was over to get everything set out for breakfast. Similarly in the Vespers to Compline segment.

So after many months of low level discussion, we had a meeting and talked explicity about the schedule. In fact, we had done so much preparation in prior private and public discussions, that a decision we all thought would require lots of time and energy and probably some personal tradeoffs, was reached in just a few minutes. We decided to experiment with something different in Lent. We have made a couple of seemingly small changes: Breakfast is at 7:45; the Eucharist is at 9:00 am instead of 8:30; the Corporate Meditation has been moved to Diurnum; and Compline is an hour later, at 8:30 pm.

What a difference! Now the refectorian doesn't have to sneak out after the second reading at Matins to set up breakfast. There's plenty of time now to get the dishes done, the refectory cleaned up and the tables set, even when we have a lot of guests. And there's time now in the evening to have an evening session with a retreat group and end with Compline. And, since it's later, our day now really does end with Compline, as it should. Most of us have commented to each other after just a little more than a week what a difference it has made.

It has made my life surprisingly better, physically and spiritually. I am refectorian this week (the job rotates weekly), which means setting up for all the meals, making sure that the serving pantry is stocked with all the food and supplies we need from the kitchen and storerooms, turning on the dishwasher, keeping the coffee flowing, and so forth. I was dreading it. With this change, it seems to work with a lot less stress. The extra half hour in the morning has meant that I don't have to dash from food service to Eucharist (as appropriate as that might seem symbolically) but have some time to calm down, brush my teeth, get my head together better. Which is especially nice if I am presiding.

The evening change is even better. Now there is at least an hour, at most two hours, depending on whether I'm on supper dishes, before Compline. Considering that most mornings I wake up before 5:00 and so have an hour or more of study and prayer time then, with the ample evening time I now feel like a rich man! Time for prayer and study suddenly abounds.

And our retreat ministry ministry is positively changed too. This week a delightful group of people from Christ Church, St. Michael's, MD, was with us, and I was leading them. Our two evening sessions had ample time and the evening ended with Compline, as it should. The old schedule more or less forced us to have a session after Compline, ending at 9:00 pm, which defeats the purpose of that office. But now the flow is right.

And something even more wonderful has happened. When we had our meditation time before Compline, I could never concentrate. I ended up reading because I just couldn't be quiet interiorly. But now with that moved to Diurnum, I find I can. Something I thought I had lost altogether, the ability to sit quietly and meditate with a group of people, is returning. I realize now that I was so tired, physically and mentally, by the evening, that I simply couldn't do it. But at noon I have the energy and strength. So a whole new dimension to my prayer life is beginning to return.

Sometimes change is good.