5/13/2026 – Listen. We need more silence. Our society is too loud and disordered. It is in decline. Like Rome approximately 1,500 years ago, there is only one way out of our degraded state: regular people choosing a different way of life, one of integrity and restoration. St. Benedict was a layperson, an ordinary person. He was not a priest or even a religious person at the time that he created the Benedictine Order.
First, he went into the desert, not in Egypt, in Subiaco, Italy. He was rooted to his land yet sought distance from its chaos. He sought silence. He listened with the ear of his heart for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Then, he created the Rule and the Order. He found clarity in the silence, put it down in words in the Rule, and changed history forever. One person. One simple life.
One of the great privileges in life is caring for your own community. Minneapolis showed us the power of loving one’s neighbor. Ordered resistance is not found in the foolishness of propaganda of the deed or in The Assassin’s Delusion. It is found in God, in faithfulness to morality and order, in Staying Without Surrendering Your Soul. Our ammas and abbas have great wisdom to impart to us. Our ancient friends can guide us through the tumult of our times just as they guided themselves through their own of their time, but only if we are willing to stop talking, to listen, and to understand them.
“Stability, he taught, is how love survives collapse.” How do you remain centered in a destabilized world? If you bring more chaos and noise, you’re not helping. If you post outrage on social media, you’re not helping. If you engage in lawlessness, you’re not helping. If you engage in selfishness and justify it as others are also doing it or what does it matter, you’re not helping.
Nonviolent resistance has its place, but what was most impressive about Martin Luther King Jr. was not his speeches or his movement; it was his life and his commitment to doing God’s will. This is true of every saint. They listened to the Spirit and they heeded God’s call.
Our society desperately needs reform. It needs to come through lawful means and through our own lives. We have to restore our weakened institutions and our morally degraded society, but we cannot do that until we first restore ourselves. We have to first order ourselves to God. Stop with the noise and chaos. Silence. Structure. Surrender to God’s will.
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