The
Power of Vows
“Vows
shape a life.” Thomas Moore (A Religion of One's Own)
In
his book, A Religion of One's Own, Thomas Moore writes about
his early life as a Servite monk. He lived in a monastery for 13
years, from the age of 13 until 26, and he loved living in community.
Monastic vows include obedience, chastity, and poverty—intended not
to punish and deprive, but to focus attention away from the secular
world's appetites, inward, toward community and spirituality.
The
traditional marriage vows we take to love, honor, obey, and to be
faithful, regardless of circumstances are similar. They focus
attention away from the wider world, and toward the marriage
relationship as exclusive. These vows are designed to build a
communal life, one that is not lived as an individual but as part of
a duality. They shape the way we relate to one another.
We
tend to overlook the potency of vows. For instance, when one is
sworn-in to serve on a jury, one makes a promise to hear the facts in
a case, and to base the verdict only on the facts. That shapes the
information one can consider—not past wrongs, not whether you like
the persons involved or their lawyers, not whether you might do the
same thing in their situation, but strictly on the information
presented. It's harder to do than it seems. And, it burdens one to
make the “right” decision.
Now
and then, we might want to pull out the vows we've taken in our
lives, dust them off, and consider whether we have been able to live
by them, to allow them to shape our lives. We may want to consider
new vows for a period of time, for a month, or a year, and see how
easy or difficult it is to keep them. The world calls us away,
invites us to indulge our appetites, and to focus on the glittering
side of life. Spirituality calls us in the other direction—not
toward stark privation, but toward the riches of the inner life, the
communal life. It's worth taking seriously.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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