stability: to stay and not run -- December 18, 2009

It's known as the Benedictine triangle: stability, obedience and conversion of life. Stability, which is the title of Chittister's 12th chapter, is the ability to stay and not run. To stay with the situation, the problem, the confusion, the feeling -- to stay with it and learn the truth from it. The temptation is to move on or move away -- or seek a distraction, or give in to a temptation.

One notion of freedom suggests that we are free to move whenever and wherever we want to move. Often, that notion of freedom is more escape. A deeper notion of freedom suggests that if we stay in a situation, and are willing to learn the truth in it -- we become free from the forces that ensnare us psychically and spiritually.

Because those forces no longer have the same power over us.