Wondering

I spent the morning in the Juvenile Court serving on the citizens review panel. The panel, composed of citizens from the community, has the responsibility for reviewing cases regarding abused or neglected children to determine the best course of action for them: whether to recommend to the court the removal of parental rights and adoption, or to return the child to their parents.

Following these hearings, I am never fully myself, for I always feel that no matter what we decide that we have let someone down, that we have not truly "heard" the pain of the parents or the child. And I wonder how much my own middle class values get in the way of being able to purely look at particular situations preventing me from seeing (perhaps) the love the parents actually have for their child. And then, of course, there is always the question of defining "abuse" and neglect." Sometimes a definition comes easily when there is a clear legal matter; but sometimes it is rather subjective, and I feel as though I sit in judgment of those less fortunate who are struggling with what they have, or don't have, to make things all right.

The Rule of Saint Benedict, Chapter 48

On the Daily Manual Labor

Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
Therefore the brothers should be occupied
at certain times in manual labor,
and again at fixed hours in sacred reading.
To that end
we think that the times for each may be prescribed as follows.

From Easter until the Calends of October,
when they come out from Prime in the morning
let them labor at whatever is necessary
until about the fourth hour,
and from the fourth hour until about the sixth
let them apply themselves to reading.
After the sixth hour,
having left the table,
let them rest on their beds in perfect silence;
or if anyone may perhaps want to read,
let him read to himself
in such a way as not to disturb anyone else.
Let None be said rather early,
at the middle of the eighth hour,
and let them again do what work has to be done until Vespers.

And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty
should require that they themselves
do the work of gathering the harvest,
let them not be discontented;
for then are they truly monastics
when they live by the labor of their hands,
as did our Fathers and the Apostles.
Let all things be done with moderation, however,
for the sake of the faint-hearted.