A Peace That Doesn't Collapse

How Benedictine Community Forms a Peace That Holds in a Fractured World

A Spirituality I Can’t Escape

I’ve been studying the Rule of St. Benedict for over seven years now, and I’m approaching my one-year anniversary as an Oblate at Benet Hill Monastery. People often ask why I would commit myself to something so ancient, so rooted in another time. What draws me to this particular expression of spirituality in the modern world?

While there are myriad reasons why I consider myself Benedictine and follow this particular way, there is undoubtedly one thing that has stuck out over the last few years more than others.

For over fifteen hundred years, the Benedictine way has endured. Empires have risen and fallen. Cultures have shifted. Wars, plagues, political collapse, economic upheaval and downfall. Yet, in the midst of all that can happen over the course of fifteen hundred years, this particular community has endured. They still exist and thrive. That alone keeps me paying attention.

A World That Feels Too Hard To Hold

The modern world can feel exhausting in a way that is hard for any of us to fully explain. Socially, politically, emotionally, and spiritually. Every second that ticks we are presented with another reason to panic. Another fracture, another reminder of how unstable things are. You can’t help but wonder what kind of life can boldly hold off of this without completely turning cynical, numb, or chronically afraid.

The Benedictine community I’ve spent the last seven years with is not naive. People sometimes assume monks or nuns have checked out of the world, that they’ve escaped into silence while the rest of us deal with reality. That has not been my experience at all.

These sisters are deeply aware of the suffering in the world. They care about the poor, the environment, and marginalized people. They read the news and pay attention. They carry grief and live with an awareness of the uncertainty our world brings.

But there is a difference between them and the rest of the world,

By and large, it seems that people who are aware of the spinning nature of society tend to respond in two ways: either they shut down and numb out just to survive, or they become so consumed by fear and outrage that it spills into everything around them. You can feel it when it enters a room.

In the West especially it feels like the tide of fear, both on the right or left of the political spectrum swells with an unstable panic every time something of significance happens. It’s definitely not reserved for one side or another, and while the reactions are different, they carry the same effect. A slow drift out of love and into panic and reaction.

And while the sisters are not unaware of the world around them, they are not consumed by it.

I’ve been around them long enough to know it’s not just a show. I’ve seen the ups and downs the community can bring. I’ve heard them share their fears and frustrations. I’ve seen them have disagreements and express sadness and fear. They are just as human as the rest of us. But there is a stability among the community that is hard to find out in the world and, of course.

And to me this is what makes their peace so trustworthy.

It is not built on ignorance or avoidance. It is a peace that exists alongside the chaos of the world. A steadiness that can look directly at reality without collapsing under its weight. There is a softness to them, a kind of grounded peace that feels lived in rather than imagined. Not the peace of denial, but the peace that comes from building a life strong enough to hold reality.

That is what first drew me to them. Whatever that is, I want it. I’ve wanted it. And I still need it. I need their stability amidst the chaos of existence.

What Actually Holds Them Together

Whatever they do works. And of course I’ve been drawn to wonder what actually makes their steady peace possible. It’s worth noting that whatever their method is, it’s a tested example of how to live and not let the world bring you down.

It’s not just a, “We made it through eight years of this president,” or “We survived another economic downturn.” They have remained rooted, coming back to peace, and not fully broken for fifteen hundred years. Every war, every president, every conflict, all economic chaos, they have remained stable. Something here is different. Something here is true.

In short, what I’ve come to believe, and what I’ve committed myself to following the Benedictine way, is exactly that… community.

Benedictine community is formed by a small volume called The Rule of St. Benedict. Many assume that the rule is a spiritual text or a theological volume, outlining St. Benedict’s theology and what to believe. But this is not the case.

Significantly less of a spiritual text, The Rule is a blueprint for how to live together. It’s a guidebook for the community. Sure, it has some theological persuasions, but largely this text is centered around how one can live among another and stay committed and peaceful for a long period of time.

This is profoundly transformative in ways I believe if we truly allowed ourselves to embrace, we would see peace enter into our presence once again.

Community Teaches Us How To Live

I think Saint Benedict knew that authentic communal experience would be the best teacher, far outweighing a rigorous prayer practice or unified theology. This is why his book is written the way it is: a guide for living among one another rather than an outline of shared beliefs and perspectives.

What community actually offers is chaos. Rubbed shoulders, different views, annoyances, and difficulties. But when one is committed to a community in this way, you are not afforded the lazy luxury of simply getting angry and spouting off on the internet about why you are right. You are forced to lean in, work through it, and find peace anyway.

Could it be that after living in community this way for fifteen hundred years, the Benedictine rhythm has formed these people to live the same way in the world? Not to be tossed to and fro by the whims of the world, but to have learned, through their communal way of life, to default to the peace that God actually offers?

I believe this is precisely the case.

It’s the very lack of authentic community that has led much of humanity away from the ability to live well when the world isn’t. We’ve skipped the university of communal living, and we are suffering the consequences.

What’s the difference, though? And how does this impact our modern world? Aren’t there communities all over the place? Furthermore, we can’t all be monks and nuns, let alone Catholic or Benedictine—so how does this actually matter for us in the modern world?

What Builds An Authentic Community?

Most communities are held together by radically shared beliefs or more accurately, shared opposition. Who is in or out? Who is right or wrong? We like to say it’s centered around love or God or scripture, but an honest search of the soul or the communal core often reveals otherwise.

Community shaped this way can make you feel passionately part of a tribe, something bigger than yourself for a short time, but it rarely produces the fruit of the Spirit. It most definitely does not produce beauty in the world. Look outside, the evidence is everywhere of how many modern communities are insular and are (in the name of their community) throwing stones at others.

The problem with building community around an ideology, person, or political agenda is that these things change. Your perspective changes, the needs of the world change, people change. And as these shift, the community fractures. Once centered on something unstable, it eventually breaks.

The Benedictine community shows us a different way. Saint Benedict offers a more holistic and enduring vision of life in the midst of chaos, one that can hold the ups and downs of life.

It begins with a commitment to community itself. Not to theology, or belief, or doctrine, but to communiy.

To build community for the sake of community, and nothing else. Have you considered that most communities are not actually rooted in community? There is often a hidden agenda beneath the gathering. What I learned in my formation with the sisters at the monastery is that this is not the heart of Benedictine life.

When I took my vow to become an oblate at this monastery, I was not committing to their theology or ideology. I didn’t have to become Catholic or adopt their way of life. The commitment was to the community itself.

This is the depth of community I’ve been studying for the last seven years, and it is this approach that has changed my family’s life, allowing us not only to have the most rich community we’ve ever known, but also to not be tossed to and fro by the winds of change.

What This Looks Like In Real Life

Almost ten years ago, a small group of us decided we were going to build a committed community. Not just friendship, but something deeper. At the time there were three kids between us. Now there are more than ten.

We’ve shared dinner almost every Thursday night for ten years. We’ve taken trips together around the country, gone camping each summer, had an annual fall retreat, guys’ weekends in Vegas, and so much more.

People often ask us about the nature of this community and how it has become what it is. It sounds simple, but it is harder than it sounds. Almost like joining a monastery. We made a choice, went full tilt into that choice, and protected that choice. At some point we made the stark decision that this matters enough to work for.

This is the part most people resist. We want community, but not the cost of it. We want belonging without obligation, connection without inconvenience, depth without the slow work of staying when it gets uncomfortable. But that kind of community does not hold.

We also didn’t build this community around a book or belief system, or even around radical similarities. There are political differences. All the couples but one are bi-racial. We attend different spiritual communities. In many ways there are more differences than similarities. But this is the point.

That, in many ways, is what the Benedictine tradition has always known. Community is not comfort. It is not something that happens on its own. It is formed through repetition, through staying, through choosing one another over and over again.

In a world that is more connected than ever but often deeply lonely, this matters. We are not formed in isolation. We are formed in relationship.

It is the commitment and diversity that has formed us. It hasn’t always been easy. There have been conflicts, misunderstandings, seasons where it would have been simpler to drift apart. But because of our commitment, we didn’t. We stayed. We talked. We adjusted. We kept showing up.

The Fruit of This Community

A lot has happened over the last ten years, both in society and in our personal lives. There has been deep loss and grief, big wins, dreams chased and shattered. We’ve gone from two kids to ten in the group. And in the world around us, so much has changed. We’ve endured a lot together, and it has not been easy.

And yet I think we’ve begun to taste something of what I’ve seen in the sisters as well.

Learning how to endure pain and conflict, joy and celebration with one another has helped us endure the same in our wider life. And knowing we can endure together gives the comfort of knowing we are not alone. Because this community is built around community, not ideology, not ambition, not money. And because of that, even as everything around us shifts, the foundation holds.

Not long ago, I had dinner with a couple who have been part of a film club for over twenty years. Once a month, the same group gathers—film, meal, conversation—across decades of changing life. When I asked what held it together, their answer was simple: commitment. Just people choosing to keep showing up.

I’ve seen this in a small way in my own life, what the sisters have lived for fifteen hundred years. They have watched the world rise and fall again and again, and learned that a rooted community allows you to witness chaos without being undone by it.

Things rise. Things fall. Life changes shape. But when you are not alone in it, you do not meet it with panic.

Our Invitation

What I’ve found amazing about the Rule of St. Benedict is that while it is shaped by Scripture and a particular Christian tradition, it is not only for Christians. There are communities of all kinds that have adopted the Rule as part of their communal practice. Even more than that, it is not just for monks or professional religious people. It is a communal invitation for all of humanity into a simple, rhythmic way of life.

The invitation is not to become a monk or Benedictine. The invitation is to grow in commitment to community, and commitment to people. Not to political or religious ideology or charismatic leaders, but to the community. This becomes the common thread that can hold through the chaos of the world.

A kind of portal to a peace that transcends understanding.