It is not often that the Sunday Mass readings and the daily portion of RB suggest a single theme as they do today. "Contentment" is not a word to inspire flights of oratory or deeds of derring-do. There is something undeniably domestic and vaguely middle-aged and middle-class about it. Perhaps we are inclined to dismiss contentment in this way because we have become lazy thinkers or have been seduced by the language of ambition, which urges us always to want more whether we are capable of more or not. If we look at the roots of the word "contentment", we get a better idea of what it means: not mere containment of desire (which could be rather a struggle), but the satisfaction of desire, happiness in fullest measure —tellingly, however, a happiness and satisfaction found in what is rather than in what might be. Of course we need our dreams and ambition or we'd still be running around in animal skins and grunting, but the art of being content is a skill very necessary to civilization as well as human happiness. It is tougher than it looks because it makes bigger demands than we might think. It is certainly not to be equated with complacency. We are reminded by today's gospel (Mk 10: 2-16) that marriage is more than serial monogamy, and by today's section of the Rule (RB 7.49-50) that the monk must learn to be content "with the meanest and worst of everything" if he is not to dissipate his spiritual energy. Both marriage and monasticism require whole-hearted and persevering commitment if they are to work, but it is surely no accident that a happy marriage and a happy monastery tend to shed a little welcoming glow around them. Contentment as welcome is slightly more interesting than contentment as containment. At least, I find it so. Our podcast will go up sometime later today (we had another power cut yesterday).