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• We will remain in prayer through work and presence of spirit.

• Prayer takes many forms: listening, reflective reading, dialogue, reconciliation, intercession, work, writing, and contemplation.

• We pray not just with our hearts and minds, but with our hands and feet as we tend and cultivate the land, as we care for our flocks entrusted to us, as we build and create, and as we clean and serve. 

• We pray with gratitude not contingent upon expectation. 

• We will recognize the provenance of our food and all that sustains us, partaking with thanks as an act of prayer.

• We will keep the hours. 

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• We will strive to maintain a contemplative stance in our inner lives in order to be present to God, our community, the world around us, and ourselves.

• We will be hospitable to those who come to the Abbey. We will hold their needs and comfort as a special priority that they may receive the gift of presence while they remain with us.

• We will be hospitable to the Abbey community through participation in services, fellowship, and mission. 

• We will make every effort possible to be present for every hour and service, recognizing that the garden of the Abbey will only bear fruit if tended with presence.

• At times, some of us will maintain an outer presence in the larger community for the purpose of service, and long-term survivability for the common good. We understand this community extends to the entire network of life. 

• The Abbey is part of the local food system, and we celebrate our presence in that system by feeding our community as we are able. Additionally, we commit to ethical and local food sourcing. 

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• We will honor and care for the gift of the earth and its resources, practicing ecologically responsible living, striving for betterment of the land and resilience for the future. 
  We will practice generosity in sharing our material resources, within and beyond this community. And live in common within it.

• We will use our spiritual gifts, talents and abilities to serve God within and beyond this community. 

• We will nurture our gifts and grow new ones, learning and expanding new and old skills. 

• To the extent we are able, we will cultivate and practice a gift economy, with an eye to untangling this Abbey from the fetters of capitalism.

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• We will serve God and neighbor out of gratitude for the life we are given.

• We will seek always to see those things which need to be done, and do them with joy. Knowing that good work is a gift. 

• We will practice mutual accountability within the community, for how we serve God, the Abbey, and our neighbors.

• We will practice mutual aid in the broader community for those who serve life, neighbor and stranger alike. 

• We will practice regular Sabbath.

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• We will practice reconciliation, and eschew the punitive urge.

• We will resist evil and injustice, shrewdly and decisively.

• We will pursue peace within the walls of the Abbey and commit to reconciling with each other even when difficult or tensions are high.

• We will share redeeming, healing, creative Love in word, deed and presence as an invitation to others to experience the fullness of being.

 

 

 

This Rule is a covenant and living document, given life through those present in the Abbey, and guided by the weaving hearts and minds of the abbesses. It is meant to open us to the breath of life from Spirit, and guide us through changing times, so that we may be constant in our commitments and vows.  
I commit to this rule of life and to the well-being of this community.

May my life be a blessing within and beyond this Abbey.