The Spirituality of Repetition
On how monotonous and cyclical practice is truly a gift.
I don’t remember which monk it was, but one of the brothers at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Georgia once said to me, “Monastic spirituality is learned through repetition.”
Such a simple principle, and so deliciously countercultural.
I have a friend who refuses to watch the same movie or television show twice. He’s a great guy, an attorney who is involved in local politics and supports causes I find admirable. But I have never fully understood his aversion to repetition. I believe he thinks there are so many great films and programs out there, so why waste your time watching something you’ve already seen?
Okay, I can sort of get that logic. But I immediately think about the fact that no one could ever watch every new video that is produced anyway, even if we only limited ourselves to the ones getting the very best reviews. And you could extend this logic to argue that you should never have a dinner date with the same people more than once, never listen to the same song more than once, or never read more than one book by any particular author.
Maybe from the perspective of American consumerism, this all makes sense — after all, variety is the spice of life. But taken to its extreme, this obsession with what is new or as yet unexperienced would seem to work against human happiness. It could undermine the stability of healthy relationships or the human capacity to find nuances of new meaning or pleasure in something familiar.
Life in a monastery is organized around repetition. At their daily prayer, monks chant the same psalms and canticles over and over (some get chanted every single day). The liturgies of most monasteries I’m familiar with operate on a four-week cycle, so that means every single psalm gets sung at least 13 times a year by the monks: year after year after year. And the spiritual rituals are not the only kind of repetition: the rhythms of work, rest, meals, meditation, and contemplation form a predictable cycle of life that extends over the weeks, years, decades and centuries of the cloistered life.
Many people, like my friend mentioned above, might worry that this kind of life sounds dull, if not downright boring. But so many monks seem to be truly happy and at peace, that we cannot simply discount this way of living merely because it is so at odds with our entertainment culture.
Indeed, I imagine most people reading this article might agree with me that society at large could learn a thing or two from monks.
And the monasteries are not the only place where you can find a celebration of the spiritual wisdom found in repetition. Another proponent of this way of proceeding is Ignatius of Loyola, creator of the Spiritual Exercises (and the entire school of spirituality which bears his name). In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius often directs the person making the retreat to repeat some of the exercises (most of which involve praying and meditating with a particular story of the life and work of Jesus). Sometimes Ignatius will instruct us to meditate over the same passage two or even three times before moving on to the next one. Surely, he could have found plenty of other passages to keep the Spiritual Exercises more “interesting” — or should I say, “entertaining”?
But Ignatius, like the monks, isn’t interested in the power of spirituality to entertain us, or keep us interested. The common theme here is an understanding that the real power and promise of spirituality involves living life more deeply and intentionally, and that is a skill developed not through endless novelty and variety, but through careful and mindful attention paid to the basics of a life well lived — or a spirituality well practiced.
Yes, repetition can get boring. I’m reminded of a book with the title Meditation is Boring that came out some 25 years ago. The author is writing from a Hindu/Yogic perspective, and of course is trying to refute this common objection to a sustained spiritual practice. I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on it, but I remember seeing it when it was first published, and thinking to myself, “Meditation is only boring if you’re doing it right!” What I mean by that is a pun on the word boring — a truly meaningful spiritual practice bores into us the way a drill bores into wood. That may seem to be a violent metaphor, but it also evokes the notion of “drills” that are meant for safety or protection, like a fire drill or a military drill. Drilling is repetitive, and it takes us below the surface of whatever is being drilled, to find something desired within: whether it is creating a hole in the process of creating something, or establishing a new behavior that can serve us well in an emergency. In a similar way, a sustained meditation practice drills into our minds to open us up to the silence lying serenely below all the surface noise and drama. It’s a worthy goal of meditation (or contemplative prayer or any spiritual practice) but it is also something that requires… you guessed it: repetition.
The drill must spin repeatedly in order to bore into the wood. We must repeatedly surrender our addiction to following every random thought, in order to learn to rest in the spacious silence found deep within us. And likewise, we need to chant the psalms or consider the sacred stories of our tradition again and again in order to unpack the very many layers of meaning that are hidden within them.
I find myself repeatedly rereading several writings by the greatest mystics, again and again. Julian of Norwich tops the list, but I also love to revisit the words of Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing and others. Among more recent contemplative authors, I love to enjoy repeated visits with Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, Howard Thurman, Kenneth Leech, Cynthia Bourgeault, and Teilhard de Chardin, among many others. What all these authors have in common is an uncommon depth to their writing, a depth that can only be plumbed (bored into) through repetitive reading.
So sometimes spirituality is boring. Sometimes it’s all about the repetition (Centering Prayer is built on repeating four simple guidelines). Like going to the gym, we have to do our “reps” in order to maintain our optimal spiritual health. So I appreciate the monks and the mystics like Ignatius who point this out to us so explicitly.
