A few spoilsports are tsk-tsk-ing about President Bush’s recent gift to Pope Benedict: a walking stick engraved with the 10 Commandments.

Some are taking issue with the fact that the version presented to the pontiff isn’t the Catholic version — and others are rolling their eyes because the President referred to His Holiness as simply “sir.”

The Anchoress has a few choice words for those people:

I’ve asked before – how do you receive a good? If someone gives you a gift that they’ve spent a good deal of time selecting for you, even if it is not to your taste, do you accept it and ask for the receipt so you can return it? Or do you accept it and then shove it away in a drawer? Or do you keep it nearby and consider it, use it, and try to figure out just what it was about the gift that made someone select it for you? Sometimes there is some self-discovery in doing that. You learn what you show to other people, for one thing. [snip]

In his Rule, St. Benedict tells us to “receive everyone you meet as Christ come before you.” Benedict began his prologue saying his Rule would lay “nothing harsh or burdensome” upon his monastics, but this particular order – to see Christ in whomever is before you – is a tall one. It takes years and years just to begin to acquiesce to it, even a little – it goes against every instinct. It is all about how one will choose to receive another; in the best way? Or the worst?

I appreciated very much her mention of St. Benedict. Just the other day, Rod Dreher was talking about Benedict’s rule — in particular one aspect of it, the vow of stability. He quotes Professor Gerald Schlabach:

It is no use rediscovering any of our church’s roots, nor discerning innovative ways to be faithful to our church’s calling, if we won’t slow down, stay longer even if we can’t stay put indefinitely, and take something like a vow of stability. Slow down — because postmodernism may really be hypermodernism. Stay longer — because there is no way to discern God’s will together without commitment to sit long together in the first place. A vow of stability — because it is no use discerning appropriate ways to be Christian disciples in our age if we do not embody them through time, testing, and the patience with one another that our good ideas and great ideals need, in order to prove their worth as communal practices.

We are a restless, rootless people, aren’t we? Read Dreher and I think you’ll agree: it may be better, especially now, to just stop, sit and stay.