By Gary Bouchard and Bob Lindquist

Editor's Note: A research study led by the college this year revealed that a balanced experience is a key factor in many high school students' college selection process. It just so happens that balance is rooted very heavily in the Benedictine tradition and therefore Saint Anselm College's foundation. To learn more about what this influential tradition means, Portraits met with four individuals in the college community; Abbot Matthew Leavy, O.S.B., chancellor of Saint Anselm College, Elizabeth Fouts, associate professor of Spanish studies, Natalie Mullen, alumna, Class of 2002, and Brian McKernan, a senior criminal justice major. We asked each how they integrate balance into their diverse but equally hectic lives.

Matthew Leavy, O.S.B, Abbot of Saint Anselm Abbey
There are two leather-bound books on the desk of Abbot Matthew Leavy, O.S.B.: one is the  monastery's copy of St. Benedict's Rule for Monks, kept by the abbot and placed upon the casket of each deceased monk at the beginning of the funeral liturgy; the other, thicker and more imposing book is his Franklin Planner. "The monks joke that when I die they're going to put my Franklin Planner on top of my casket." No doubt when they do it will contain unfinished business.

The idea of the balanced life is something to which Abbot Matthew has devoted considerable study and thought. It is also something, he notes, which is currently in vogue, something that new age spirituality and wellness programs are teaching. "People today are striving for a balance that they don't have," he observes, but he doesn't think they'll find it in their Franklin Planner or the self-help section of Barnes and Noble. For in the end, he insists balance is not just about the externals, and not just about helping the self, but caring for the needs of others. He prefers to speak of the integrity of life: "People are seeking to balance the exterior—another hour more of this or less of that, fewer calories, more exercise, less cholesterol—all of which is well and good, but ultimately narcissistic if it remains merely about improving the self. Balance is not an end, but the fruit of something else. If I consider myself 'in balance' but the people around me are in need, there's something wrong."

"An integrated life," he notes, "is never static, but always in process." It is not, therefore,  something one achieves, but something one pays attention to: "I am really in balance when I remember who I am, my origin, and my destiny, and I do this in prayer, in consecrated time that orients me back to where I came from: to God." An avid hiker who has reached the top of 37 of New Hampshire's 4,000 foot peaks, Abbot Matthew insists that the most important instrument for measuring one's life is not an odometer, but a compass: "Balance is the result of remaining centered, centered in Christ."

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