Explore The Monastic Rhythms That Make for Healthy LeadershipSample

Seeking and Incarnating a Heart of Wisdom

Let’s do a quick overview. The monastic community of the Benedictines embraced three core principles and five core practices in their prioritization of spiritual gravitas: the principles (vows) were stability, conversion, and obedience while their practices were prayer, study, work, hospitality, and renewal—that’s where we’re headed over the remainder of this series.

Today we’re talking about study, but unless you are actively in school, you might feel a disconnect on this topic. Yet King Solomon invites us in today’s passage to be a lifelong learner, to pursue wisdom and pay attention to the lessons of life. It’s easy to look at the elderly among us and recognize two different paths: those who have bent their years to the accumulation of wisdom and those who have not. We are drawn to the counsel of the former, while the latter draw only pity, for theirs is a great loss.

In my book Gravitas, I use this line: “Good leaders study their industry. Really good leaders study other leaders. Great leaders study themselves.” Every day offers us lessons, and primary among the lessons is who we really are in our true and false selves. We will never understand the effect we have on others until we understand our relationship with the three core human needs: power, approval, and security. God planted these needs within us because he intends to be the source for meeting them. This is the essence of wisdom. When we attempt to meet these needs outside of Christ, we cause damage to others and ourselves.

Wise women and men undertake a regular practice of self-reflection that Saint Ignatius called the “Daily Examen.” Experiment this week with taking a few minutes at the end of each day to prayerfully discern the movements of God across the landscape of your day. Such is the path of wisdom.