I continue to break what might be the most important rule in this place. Let me explain.
You see, what we’re interested in, eventually, in the CMT is a rule of life app (more on why an app might be an appropriate companion to a rule of life in another post). So it seemed like a natural fit, when I was looking for a quiet place to spend a week learning how to write code for the iPhone, to live for a week in a community with a robust and well-integrated rule.
Indeed it has been, more so than I could imagine. People at Richmond Hill have been generous with their thoughts on community life, keeping a rule, making technology personal and local, etc. It’s been great fun and great learning, and I’m so fortunate to be working in such a nurturing environment.
The problem is that I’m not very good at working in the environment, at least on its own terms. For me, programming is a very immersive activity; it doesn’t lend itself well to well-defined blocks of time–which is how all work has to happen in this quasi-monastery. Even though the prayer bells can be my salvation (it’s always good to walk away from your code for a bit), I tend to greet them with hostility, because they’re almost always interrupting either my work or my sleep. I’m driven by urgency (the shortness of this precious time away) and joy (it’s so much fun to get things working in my app) to keep going: fix one more bug, add one more feature. But the rhythm of the rule at Richmond Hill chimes ever onward as well.
I’m certainly not alone in my computer programming habits; this is how many of us tend to work, and it’s part of the joy and frustration of this particular charism. But I can’t help but wonder, as I fight the fatigue of a late night of programming in my retreat room, what spiritual practices I’ll need to help support further app development when I’m outside the walls of this quasi-monastery and will have plenty more interruptions than thrice-daily prayer bells.
So even though I’ve struggled against the rule of stabilitas (stability) while I’ve been here, I hope my time in this community will help me take some of that spirit back with me.