it was good to join in with moot’s service of commitment to their shared rhythm of life. it was in one of the chapel’s in the basement of st pauls cathedral – the chapel of the order of the british empire(!) – and led by the bishop of london. moot’s rhythm of life is encapsulated in 6 words – presence, acceptance, creativity, hospitality, accountability and balance. it’s similar to what we call our ethos in grace. members of moot stood and affirmed their commitment to live out this rhythm. i like the rhythm and i like the way they are commiting to this ethos/values rather than to a set of practices. the way the rhythm is lived out can be flexible. each member of moot was given a book – a wonderful idea – with some reflections on the rhythm and lots of blank pages to add their own reflections for how it is lived out in practice through the year. then they can compare notes and see whether it is proving to be life giving and affirming and adapt it accordingly. they published the book via lulu. here’s a quote from the intro on how they see the rhythm…

it would be easy for us to get bogged down by the enormous amount of detail that we could go into in writing a rhythm of life but this is a danger that we want to avoid. a rhythm of life should be exactly that, a rhythm, and not a concerto with every instrument written up but rather the background beat  that keeps everything else in order, that calls things back on track when they deviate, that reminds us of the tyope of music we are wanting to play or more accurately the type of lifestyles we are wanting to lead.

i couldn’t find a link to the rhythm on the moot site but if there is one, perhaps a mooter could leave it in the comments and i’ll add the link. i was invited to pray for moot and chose to use the wonderful beannacht by john odonahue

[update: download pdf of the rhythm here]