On the Daily Manual Work, Part 2

Otiositas inimica est animae [RB 48: 1]
Idleness is the enemy of the soul.

Philosopher Josef Pieper's most famous work, 'Leisure, the Basis of Culture' was required reading when I attended the U of Chicago many years ago. In it, he draws a distinction between leisure and idleness. For Pieper, leisure is necessary for right action. In this he is proposing anew an idea as old as Aristotle. In my translation, I am reading this distinction back into Latin a bit. Romans were not overly fond of the idea of leisure during the golden and silver eras of literature. A pragmatic people, they tended to associate productive leisure with lazy idleness. Thus, Seneca found it necessary to defend the leisured life in his De otio. Monks have typically been advocates of otium divinum, the divine leisure that affords time for reading and prayer. Sunday, the Lord's Day, takes over the idea of rest and leisure from the Sabbath. Monks deliberately withdraw from worldly business, or 'negotiation' (nec-otium non-leisure), to be free for the things of God.

St. Benedict begins this chapter, however, with the word otiositas, a nominalization of the adjective otiosus, at rest, idle, unemployed. Perhaps we could say that 'unemployment is the enemy of the soul'. In any case, there is a sense in this word of idleness or laziness, a preference not to have to work. It is, as we say, the Devil's workshop. Not every monk is good at capitalizing on genuine otium. It can quickly degenerate into a space for the free play of all kinds of temptations: wandering outside the monastery, surfing the net, talking to others, etc. St. Benedict anticipates that leisure will stretch some monks even when offered only on Sunday. "If anyone is so remiss and indolent that he is unwilling or unable to read or study, he is to be given some work so as not to be idle (vacet)." [RB 48: 23]

How do we make use of our downtime? Do we compulsively fill it with 'make work' so as not to have to encounter ourselves or God? Do we systematically exclude it from our schedules? Does this harm our prayer? On the other hand, do we waste time on television, videos, internet, magazines, gossip and so forth? We will see throughout this chapter that a good, balanced lifestyle, with alternating times of prayer, work and leisure is part of St. Benedict's genius.

“Cut off from the worship of the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman.”
--Josef Pieper

Bad News for Professional Victims

Gregory of Nyssa, the mystic, is generally paired with his brother, Basil the Great, the organizer and pragmatist. There is much to this generalization, though it possibly short-changes Basil's mysticism and Gregory's ascetical works. Here is Gregory with some good practical advice:

"Do not accept the honors of this life; run in such a way as to conceal your struggles in behalf of virtue lest the devil, finding an opportunity to tempt you with worldly honors and having distracted you from leisure for good, lead you to vanity or error."
(from "On the Christian Mode of Life")

Let me add only two observations on this passage to explain my choice of a title for this post: where in Gregory's day, honor and fame were thought to belong to especially virtuous persons who sacrificed greatly for civic ideals, today, 'struggles' are more often for emancipation from civic duty. Perhaps worldly acclaim accrues from successfully prosecuting one's case on 'Judge Judy'?

Second, how much 'leisure for good' do we lose to mulling over gripes that we have with others? How much leisure for good do we cultivate, period? Leisure has a bad name in religious circles: It sounds like the privilege of an upper class. In fact, I don't think it needs to mean anything other than regularly taking time to turn our minds toward heavenly things so as not to fall into distraction and error, as Gregory warns can happen. If we take the time for a regular 'searching and fearless moral inventory' (to borrow AA's excellent phrase), then the possibility of us making a big show of our virtue is certainly less. Corresponsingly, our progress in spiritual warfare will be greater.