A Zeal for Reverence

In the prologue to his Rule, St. Benedict counsels us, “If we wish to reach eternal life…then—while there is still time, while we are in this body and have time to accomplish all these things by the light of life—we must run and do now what will profit us forever.”

John Muir offered a different perspective on our journey to the “Holy Land” when he said, “Hiking—I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains—not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, 'A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."

Here we have a dilemma. Do we “run on the path of the Lord’s commandments,” as St. Benedict advises, or saunter along the path to eternal life with reverence? If we saunter, will we lose our zeal, our burning desire, to know and serve God? If we run, will we miss God’s presence in whatever is before us?

Perhaps one response to this dilemma is to have good zeal about sauntering! If we burn with a desire to reverence God and God’s creation, then we will take the time to saunter along God’s beautiful paths and respond with our attention and gratitude. Good zeal and reverence are both vital characteristics of the good life. To live in balance, we need to make room for both running and sauntering on the road to eternal life.