Spirituality Theatre Philosophy Theology
Waking in the gloaming
Not knowing whether morning is nigh,
Or night is about enter;
Straining the eyes
For any clue, big or small
Seeing phantoms of signs.
Every movement
A potential indicator of stages to follow
As we wait for increasing darkness
Or light.
Gloaming sucks.
Bring on the night
Or morning.
Written as I watched my wife struggling to fight an infection in hospital during sunset on Friday 29th June 2018.
Written for The Big Bible Project on 28th April 2012.
Her beauty comes from a deep reservoir of wisdom, simplicity and character. Yes she is, in my subjective opinion, what our culture would deem ‘attractive’ (if we pay any attention to such things) but this pales into insignificance at the un-nameable, indescribable and mysterious ‘sparkle’ in her eyes. Oh that I could paint in words the sight of those silvery wells, the blue-ness that is ever changing, swirling and dynamic! Or to describe the sensation of the dissipation of fear, anxiety or concern when you gaze, for one moment, into them.
There’s this peace… yes ‘peace’ is the word… emanating from her always. This is not to say that she is never stressed, panicked, impassioned or whatever the opposite of ‘peace’ is. She possesses an acceptance, a foundation; a belief that shapes her, that directs her actions and her responses to all that life throws at her. She has attained at the tender age of 25 a deep understanding of a narrative, a story, which explains that ‘sparkle’.
My wife has always been ‘broken’, weak in the eyes of the world. With chronic C.F. (cystic fibrosis) she has always had an ‘abnormal’ life of medication, physiotherapy, visits to medical experts, probing, testing. She has always had the curse of death named over her. When she was first born, the hope of surviving past adolescence was small. When she finally reached that age, due to advances in medicine, her hopes of prolonged survival were improved, but with all chronic illnesses, her mortality is never far away.
The ‘curse’ of Death is a powerful one, one that cripples a person from ever attaining fullness of life. It’s a curse that our society is particularly stricken by; our crematoriums are always on the outskirts of populated areas, they are places only visited on the rare occasions when someone we know dies. People rarely witness or engage in the process of dying and death. The burial of a loved one is now paid for financially and delegated to professionals who hide all the difficult and ‘offensive’ parts of death from us. Even before we die we seem to spend our lives staving off the inevitable end. We want to be younger, we hide our difficult aging relatives and we praise those who maintain a ‘younger’ lifestyle.
But then it happens… We face it. We look into the cold stare of mortality and we buckle. The responses are many and diverse but maybe the one, for me, that is a) the most common and b) the most upsetting: “Death is nothing at all…” This poem, a classic in funeral services and an edited version of a larger sermon, suggests the best response to death is to ignore it, be strong in the face of it by not bowing to its demands that you weep or cry. So where is hope? Where is the power of the resurrection? The resurrection is seen in the narrative, which frames my wife’s existence.
Christ’s death and resurrection marked the conquering over death. What does this mean? That death no longer exists? No! Clearly not. The power of the resurrection doesn’t destroy death to the point of non-existence but does something far more powerful. It redeems the death event into one of blessing rather than curse.
I talked, in the past, about redemption not in terms of hiding the scars or removing them but rather changing the pain association of them into things of celebration; signs of weakness becoming signs of victory. Death, in the redemption of the resurrection, becomes the important agency by which we receive ‘new life’. ‘New life’ is the gift of resurrection. In order to claim this we must experience death.
The narrative that my wife lives within is that death is no longer a curse, something to be avoided or feared but rather an important event towards gaining ‘new life’ but not just at the moment of biological death. She experiences death now and, because it is no longer feared or avoided, she embraces more of life.
But this too is platitudes; an opiate of a different kind.
No. Within this narrative also we are able to embrace the wonder, the fragility, and the reverence of life (to quote Albert Schweitzer). It forces death to step into the light of our experience and be acknowledged. The misty unknown stretching before us is stared at and we call it what it is. We cry, but we now own our tears as a process of grief and we articulate to ourselves that the pain of separation is real but necessary and is now under the sovereignty of God. We can talk openly about it. We can laugh at it. We can proclaim, “Where, O Death, is your sting.” More than that. We stare at it and it now brings us to appreciate the power of life, to see, maybe for the first time the beauty of life. Not in an existentialist “Drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,” but in a realistic seeking of the life that is hidden; our eyes opening to see that the ‘life’ we thought we had is nothing but dry death. ‘New life’ is something wholly other than that. It is seen in my wife’s eyes; resurrection life.
So when my wife dies, I will cry. I will cry until my eyes sting and I struggle for air to sustain my weeping. I will, after my energy is spent, stare into space contemplating memories. I will catch myself holding onto her belongings for a moment too long, which then will grow, inevitably into a minute, an hour, a day? All this is part of the process and I will name it all. I will speak out the truth
She is gone and I am not afraid.
Do not call anything your own, but hold all you have in common. Food and clothing will be distributed to each of you by your superior, not equally to all, because you do not have the same strength, but to each one according to their needs.
Most of the first chapter of the Rule of St. Augustine centres on the sharing of property between members of the community. We will explore this across the next few weeks as we go through each verse. I want to focus this time on the issues of equality and equity within verse 4 to set us on a particular course of interpretation for the coming verses. A point must be made now, however, that will feed through the next few weeks’ reflections but is important to make now: sharing possessions is essential if we are going to share our lives.
In order for persons to give, they must have. I suggested last time that,
Mutual Flourishing will never work when the focus is to ensure our own flourishing but rather when we begin to sacrifice our own flourishing for the sake of someone else’s. My most powerful relationships are the ones forged in the crucible of radical, risky self-denial when we dared to decide to outdo each other in love and honour and thus dismiss our own compulsion to look after ourselves first. It is when we have served one another, not looking for our own needs to be met but to meet the needs of the other, that our needs do indeed get met and, often, I have found that my perceived needs were not needs at all but wants. It is in this mutuality of love that I have found peace in being gifted the care and wisdom of others over my limited understanding of my own requirements.
This form of relationship is indeed risky and is entered into with great daring! For it to take root in reality and for us to really rely on others in community we must trust that there is mutuality in sharing; otherwise power is abused and the will to give is eroded and ultimately lost. In order for persons to give love/trust, they must have love/trust. The sharing of heart and mind will cost us heavily as we sacrifice our own will for the will of the community. None of us can jump from isolation and self-reliance to mutuality and trust in community. The sharing of possessions is a good first step towards this ultimate goal. Those who can be trusted with little may be trusted with more.
The owning of resources and means of attaining resources is a position of power. This position becomes increasingly valuable when resources are seen as scarce or hard to come by. In abundance individuals are allowed to graze freely for themselves as the impact on the wider society is not felt in the short term. When there is much to go round, each individual can own equally as much as everyone else; the aim is to ensure everyone has the same amount of resources as others. When the resources become harder to come by, that freedom to take and have whatever we desire is challenged and we move into more legislated distribution. In more meagre times, the management of materials is an imposition which, if we have experienced the benefits of bounty, we may balk at. In these stricter times, society can’t ensure all the same stock. Decisions must be made, therefore, as to who needs resources and who can do without.
Imagine there is a harvest of 1040 units of wheat, and each unit of wheat is able to feed a person for a week. The community consists of 100 people. There is ample in that harvest to give to each individual double portions for each week of the year. Despite the person only needing 1 unit they can own 2 units, if they desire and it is the agreement with others. Now imagine that the harvest yields the same amount (roughly) each year for a decade or so. The members of the community will get used to having access to 2 units of wheat each week. Then the harvest only yields 520 units of wheat. This still ensures each member can have their 1 unit of wheat and survive. Some will complain that the life they were accustomed to is no longer around but there’s still enough to feed everyone. There may well be conversations about how to ensure fair distribution but there is enough for everyone to have their basic rations met. Now imagine that the harvest only yields 260 units of wheat! This means that there is not enough to ensure everyone has the 1 unit a week to feed themselves. It is in this situation (presuming no saving has taken place) that some will go without at some time. How do you choose who gets what?
The above picture of a two-dimensional community who only eat wheat helps us to open up a conversation on the difference between equality and equity. When resources are scarce the distribution of them becomes significant in the survival of the community. Sharing equally, giving everyone the same amount of resources, is fine when there’s enough to give basic necessity but when there is not enough, sharing equally is not good as everyone will suffer due to no-one getting their basic amount to survive. The people who burn off energy to attain the resource (net givers) may require more than those who do not (net receivers) in order to survive and potentially return the yield to abundance later. This, however, means that some who are unable to work don’t get to survive.
There is a famous image of the difference between equality and equity which shows three people of different heights trying to watch a baseball game over a fence. In the picture of equality they all stand on the same size box meaning that the shorter person cannot see the game and the medium sized person can only just see the game. In the picture of equity the taller person doesn’t need a box, the medium sized person requires one box and the shorter of the three needs two boxes to see over the fence. This is helpful to separate out the problem we faced with the wheat-eating community above and can be distinguished as ‘equality of opportunity’ and ‘equality of outcome’. Equality of opportunity ensures everyone starts the race at the same time. Equality of outcome ensures everyone finishes the race at the same time.
Equality of opportunity, where everyone receives the same, seeks to create a level playing field but it fails to take into consideration particular needs and the advantages/disadvantages each member has. It is unfair that the tall person gets help when they don’t need it and the same amount doesn’t even help the shorter person to see the game. Equality of outcome, seems much fairer on the face of it as it ensures everyone ends up with the same amount and that all advantages/disadvantages are actually eradicated. It is still unfair, however.
In the pictures, height is the deciding differential factor; height, therefore, usually represents pre-conditioned wealth or social status, but what if it represents talents/strengths, skill/experience? If you were to look at the image from the other side of the fence you’d see all three persons as equal in talent/strength without being able to acknowledge the help that one had particularly received. Imagine you were the tall person and you had worked hard to get that tall (the analogy breaks down, I know, but stay with me!) but then another person who had it handed to them on two boxes was praised equally for the results, you’d consider that unfair. It would affect how much you were willing to work if, the distributers of the boxes were going to ensure everyone ends up being seen as the same. This is the issue that arises when we reward all players of games equally whether they won or not.
I have been reading a fascinating book by Simon Sinek called, ‘Leaders Eat Last: why some teams pull together and others don’t’. This book explores the natural hormones that made our primitive ancestors survive and thrive in the wildernesses of pre-history. Sinek suggests that a balance of, what he calls, ‘selfish hormones’ (Endorphin – the pain-masking hormone and Dopamine – the goal achieving hormone) and the ‘selfless hormones’ (Serotonin – the responsibility hormone and Oxytocin – the relationship hormone) ensures we experience happiness and success. Serotonin is released when we are thanked/praised for efforts made or for good behaviour. In the example of equality of outcome, the reality is that the tall person who contributed the most on their own will not be given the relative praise they are due and thus will not receive enough serotonin to make it worth while. They will ask, “Why did I bother contributing all that when my colleague did little (excuse the pun) and was praised just as highly?” The shorter person, however, receives a great kick of dopamine as they have achieved something but it’s short lived and relied on unfair help. Sinek argues that the environments we live and work in effect our hormone release and we must remain aware of what hormones our culture is encouraging to be released in us. Our current culture runs on the release of dopamine, the quick fix of achieving at any cost. In pre-history, this hormone ensured the cavemen (and it was men) went out to hunt for food. In modern day we are rewarded for reaching goals and targets but this means that we seek to achieve to the detriment of other people; this makes us highly competitive and individualised. Whilst we continue to seek the kick of dopamine, the most powerful of our hormones and the hormone connected with addictions of all kinds, we will not begin to counteract the painful effects of the negative hormone cortisol, our internal alarm system.
When we experience trauma or pain our bodies learn to associate certain stimulus with pain. Thus when we experience those stimuli again our bodies release another type of hormone called cortisol which puts us on our guard and triggers our ‘flight’, ‘flight’, or ‘freeze’ responses. This is called ‘being triggered’. When you hear a noise in the night or you suspect someone is threatening you your body release cortisol to ensure you are alert. Cortisol, if not used/burnt off, sits in your body and does great harm to our internal organs. Our bodies are like a smoke alarm which can detect smoke but can’t differentiate between the smoke of a fire or the natural smoke created when cooking bacon under a grill. It will release the same alarm (cortisol) whether there is a real danger or not. If we imagine danger we get the same injection of hormone than when there is real danger. If our bodies release cortisol unnecessarily the hormone that counteracts it and hinders it from doing damage, is oxytocin (the relationship hormone). Oxytocin is released when we feel safe and protected within a group or community and the hormone that encourages us to seek out oxytocin? Serotonin. The importance of trust within an organisation cannot be overstated. It is the ‘circle of safety’, the feeling that others will ensure you not only survive but thrive, that will encourage and inspire you to co-operate, collaborate and to innovate to ensure the success of the organisation and, only then, your own success.
The main problem, however, with the illustration of the three spectators of baseball is that it presumes the three individuals a)need to see the game and b)need to see the game at the same time. What if there was only one box and not three? Not everyone could be able to see the game. The shorter person would not be able to even if they had one box because they need two boxes to see but the medium sized person would be able to benefit. Under the rules of equality of outcome, however, none of the people could watch the game as the taller person would be encouraged to stoop down to be of the same height as their shorter counterpart.
We are, in our highly individualised society, starved of oxytocin and addicted to dopamine. We are also riddled with cortisol as we continue to live stressful, anxious and paranoid lives. In this environment we have learnt that, in order to feel happiness, we must get that addictive high of the quick-release but short lived dopamine by fulfilling our goals and attaining what we value in our society; material wealth and power. When these are in short supply then we fight for them rather than consider the seeking out of the slow-release but long term high created by serotonin or oxytocin. When the three persons watching a baseball game begin to invest in relationship and start to consider themselves as a community, they would be able to collaborate, co-operate and ensure those of them who needed (not just wanted) to see the game could and they would no longer need to compete against one another for the resource of boxes and then the whole would benefit from the watching of the game.
St. Augustine, in his sermon on Psalm 132, writes,
If each person owned and held his own goods for himself alone, then he would have only his own. But when you share your own goods in common, then the goods of others become your goods too.(St, Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 132, cited in Tarsicius J. Van Bavel, The Rule of St. Augustine (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1996) p.50)
If we can begin to see ourselves not as isolated individuals but a part of one body in unity of multiplicity, then we can begin to share out the resources attained by the community in a way which benefits the whole not just a few. When the body receives nourishments from food it distributes the necessary items to the correct part of the body but every part of the body benefits from the nutrition. In this way sharing becomes a way of eradicating need but not just by satisfying that need.
Hugh of St. Victor, in his commentary on the Rule of St. Augustine discusses the New Testament’s description of the Early Church as a community where ‘there was not a needy person among them.’
So abundant was the outpouring of spiritual grace in the Early Church, that not only were the faithful content with little, but they esteemed it joy of the highest kind to feel that they had nothing of their own. “Having nothing, yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:10)(Hugh of St. Victor, Explanation, p.12)
He goes on to differentiate between want and need,
In this matter, then, regard must be had, not to the desire of the flesh, but to each one’s natural constitution. The satisfaction of the desires of sensuality involves much more than bare necessity. So that under the precept of providing what is needed for everyone, the practice to be adopted is that the flesh be nourished in such a way that it may be fit to give its due service, and on the other hand, that it be kept under so that it may not proudly revolt against the spirit.(Ibid.)
I don’t believe that the Christian community in Acts 4 all had abundant resources and no need, rather, I interpret it as the community found satisfaction in what they shared and understood that all available resources were available to them and each was given resources according to their need. I am often reminded, when we pray ‘give us today our daily bread’, of Shane Claiborne’s teaching on this phrase.
…we are to pray this day for “our daily bread.” We are not to pray “my daily bread,” as if I can separate my own sustenance from my brother’s or sister’s…”our” means “us”. We are not to pray for our daily steak, but for the simple nourishment of bread. We are not to pray for tomorrow’s bread or next week’s bread…just today’s.(Shane Claiborne and John M. Perkins, Follow Me To Freedom: leading and following as an ordinary radical (California: Regal, 2009) p.156)
To counteract our competitive, consumerist and individualised society the Rule of St. Augustine, and the monastic life in general, challenges our personal understanding of what we need and what we deserve. It raises our heads from the scarcity of our solitary possessions set in the story of seclusion and exposure to the sustainable setting of shared social safety. We must, if we are to enter into this united life of simplicity, look carefully at the cultural environment in which we live and ensure that it encourages the balanced release of the all four happiness hormones and that includes oxytocin – the relationship hormone.
Why is it so difficult for sisters and brothers to be of one heart? Because they are struggling among themselves for possession of the earth…They must strive after possessions that cannot be divided, then they will always be of one heart. For what is the reason that discord arises among sisters and brothers? What is it that interferes with love? All people have indeed come forth from the one womb. Why, then, are they not of one spirit? For what other reason than that their spirit is concentrated upon themselves and everyone is mindful only of his own share.(St, Augustine, Sermon 359,i-ii, cited in Tarsicius J. Van Bavel, The Rule of St. Augustine (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1996) p.51-2)
Before all else, the reason that you are gathered together is that you live in harmony in one house, being of one heart and mind in God.
In an introduction to the Rule of St Augustine, Tarsicius J. Van Bavel OSA suggests,
Pachomius, Basil and Augustine all laid great stress on community life. The reason for this was that they were convinced that the orientation to one’s own self and individualism formed the greatest obstacle to the realisation of the gospel.
For those who have been reading my blog for some time will not be surprised to hear that I agree wholeheartedly with Pachomius, Basil and Augustine. It is the pervasive perversion of the gospel by our increasingly narcissistic culture that must be addressed before all else and it is this which Augustine (after some short preliminary sentences) begins his Rule.
Chapter 1.3, quoted above, is filled with ‘oneness’; the community is gathered ‘as one‘(tr. together), to live in ‘one spirit'(tr. harmony) in one house being of one mind and one heart in God. This oneness, however, is rooted in reality of plurality of persons within community. This is not about being single or unique, cut off and divorced, as if we are to achieve some atomised autonomy; rather the complete opposite. The oneness Augustine is alluding to is a simplicity of life, for him, achieved only in community. In his sermon on Psalm 4, Augustine concludes,
…singleness is observed among the saints: of whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, “and of the multitude of them that believed, there was one soul, and one heart.” (Acts 4:32) In singleness, then, and simplicity, removed, that is, from the multitude and crowd of things, that are born and die, we ought to be lovers of eternity, and unity, if we desire to cleave to the one God and our Lord. (St. Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 4,x)
It is in sharing a single-mindedness in God which is the source of unity. We are to, if we are to achieve the oneness expressed in Acts 4:32, cast off the multiplicity of this world, all things temporal and transient and seek the eternal, the things of our totally united, one God. It is the trinitarian unity that is our goal not some individualised peace.
This touches on an important lesson I continue to learn in our current debates on unity within the Church. We have adopted the language of tolerance which is a poor attempt at unity. Tolerance asks us to accept the presence of difference as a necessary price for peace but fails to demand the movement into true relationship with another. Tolerance says, “You’re ok as long as I don’t have to interact with you.” Tolerance keeps difference at a distance, small as that may be. Peace, the kind given by God, brings difference into a unity. This is impossible for us humans to achieve because we are hardwired to self-protect. Tolerance is an outward peace; we are to seek an inner peace of perfect unity.
In another sermon, this time on Psalm 132, Augustine observes,
Only those in whom love for Christ is perfect truly live together in unity. For those in whom love for Christ is not perfect may well live together, but they are unpleasant, troublesome and rebellious… Many sisters and brothers in religious communities are like this; only to outward appearances do they live together. (St, Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 132, 2 and 12, cited in Tarsicius J. Van Bavel, The Rule of St. Augustine (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1996) p.44)
It is not sufficient for Augustine for people just to live together side by side sharing an outward life together. If there is not a shared conviction that they seek to be united in mind and heart then there outward unity means nothing. Hugh of St. Victor suggests, ‘it is of no avail that the same walls encompass us if difference of will separate us.’ (Hugh of St. Victor, Dom. Aloysius Smith (tr.), Explanation of the Rule of St Augustine (London: Sands and Company, 1955) p.3) Our attitude to difference in the church interests me immensely. We seem to use the celebration of difference as a form of ‘get out of jail free’ card. This is not to say that I dislike difference or believe it should be eradicated; no. We do, however, too often claim ‘the celebration of difference’ when we feel the challenge to engage with it in our inner life. In celebrating it we hold it up as an object outside of our heart. We can continue to be us, separate from the other without any compulsion to relate intimately with them. Our celebration avoids the discomfort that should compel us to love as Christ loved us, at great cost.
This causes me to speak briefly on ‘Mutual Flourishing’.
I serve a parish in the diocese of Sheffield which, last year, was gripped by fierce division over the appointment of +Philip North as Diocesan Bishop. +Philip North is a traditionalist bishop who does not agree with the ordination of women. How would a Diocesan Bishop preside over the ministry of the Church in communion when they do not recognise the ordained ministry of nearly half his priests and deacons? As people protested and everyone shared their opinion, demanding one thing or another, a conversation on the 5 principles of mutual flourishing arose. It seemed that these principles, the single piece of legislation which enabled women to be ordained into the episcopacy, was good if it achieved the desired outcome (women flourishing as bishops) but when the principles impacted us negatively (those who disagreed were allowed to flourish) we began to question their validity.
I don’t agree with +Philip North on the issue of the ordination of women. I need to say that in case I’m pigeon-holed! I did, however, support his appointment and was willing to work with him in discovering with the whole Church how we worked towards ‘Mutual Flourishing’. I was deeply pained, therefore, with the way in which he was treated and the way in which many brothers and sisters spoke to, and about, one another. It was clear, throughout the sorry process that our love for Christ was not perfect. The form of political discourse that now runs rampant within God’s Church is unbecoming of the Bride of Christ and destroys her unity with each manoeuvre made by opposing polemical forces. For me, again and again, it is not the legislation which needs the work but the inner hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples. Our outward unity (the little scraps that remain) means nothing if we are not intentionally seeking an inner unity.
Hugh of St. Victor writes,
For what chiefly conduces to concord is that each one study to do the will of another unto good, rather than his own. This is the sign of great humility… if I seek my own will and another is intent upon following hers, forthwith divisions arise and quarrels, anger and dissensions spring up, all which are the works of the flesh.(Hugh of St. Victor, Explanation, p.4)
As Christ’s Church we must seek to learn, in humility, what it means to work towards other people’s flourishing. Mutual Flourishing will never work when the focus is to ensure our own flourishing but rather when we begin to sacrifice our own flourishing for the sake of someone else’s. My most powerful relationships are the ones forged in the crucible of radical, risky self-denial when we dared to decide to outdo each other in love and honour and thus dismiss our own compulsion to look after ourselves first. It is when we have served one another, not looking for our own needs to be met but to meet the needs of the other, that our needs do indeed get met and, often, I have found that my perceived needs were not needs at all but wants. It is in this mutuality of love that I have found peace in being gifted the care and wisdom of others over my limited understanding of my own requirements.
This unity of mind and heart, for Augustine, repeatedly is stated as being ‘in God’ for it is in true relationship with him that we have access to the eternal unity of his very being. It is in the way the Trinity interact with one another that we are to be shaped. Perfect love is modelled in the self giving of each person to the other. Each receives honour from the others and, in their difference, unity in love is outpoured.
This is the kind of love that the world so desperately needs to see and know. It begins, not with those other Christians understanding and growing in love, but me. The judgement which I pass on those mistaken Christians who selfishly push their own will on to others, demanding to be heard and to have an impact, must be turned and used to remove the log of pride which blinds me. I must set my will on seeking the growth and flourishing of my brothers and sisters and trust that the Lord will honour my attempts at love and surround me with a mutually loving community. This community must, therefore, be intentional at sharing this single-minded will to be formed into the likeness of Christ, the image of God, Trinity in unity. Without this unity as the epitome of life the rest is useless.
Since the Psalm says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant is it, that brethren should dwell together in one”, why then should we not call Monks so? For Monos is one. Not one in any manner, for a man in a crowd is one, but though he can be called one along with others, he cannot be Monos, that is, alone, for Monos means one alone. They then who thus live together as to make one man, so that they really possess what is written, “one mind and one heart”, Acts 4:32 many bodies, but not many minds; many bodies, but not many hearts; can rightly be called Monos, that is, one alone (St. Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 133,v)
I read a quote recently which struck at the heart of my thinking and its implications for the Church and the world.
There was a common concern at the time, and especially in the period from 1100 to 1160, with the nature of religious life and the ideal of personal perfection. A set of values as well as a way of life, embodied in various institutions, was at the heart of the movement of reform, which can be seen as an effort to monasticize first the clergy, by imposing on them a standard of life previously reserved for monks, and then the entire world (Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p.6)
I found the quote in a book on the theology of Hugh of St. Victor who was a canon regular in Paris during the twelfth century renaissance. Canon Regulars are priests who live together and follow a common rule and share their property in common. Most, but not all, follow the Rule of St Augustine written during the fourth century over 100 years prior to the Rule of St. Benedict. Carolyn Bynum, in her article on the spirituality of the Canon Regulars saw these priests falling between the clerical reforms of Pope Gregory VII and the Cistercian reforms of monasticism taking place at the same time. This movement saw a shift away from the monastic ideals of shared property and common life to embrace a more pastoral and evangelical ideal. Bynum distinguishes three characteristics of the canonical movement:
Hugh of St. Victor is a fascinating writer whose work centres on the theme of reformation, both personal and ecclesiastical. Again and again he writes on our need to seek God’s restoration of our nature from the fallen state that we find ourselves and to allow God to build within us a dwelling place for Himself. For Hugh this was an ordered and systematic work of prayer, study and active service. In his time the Church needed a total structural overhaul and Hugh saw this starting with a disciplined life of learning and teaching within the Church. Discipleship was an ordered way of life aimed at creating people who participated in the wisdom of God.
I am an ordained priest in the Church of England serving in a parish with a history with The Company of Mission Priests. This is important as this parish has a history of ‘monasticized’ clergy who took the service of those suffering in poverty seriously. I have been asking myself what it might look like to return to that form of ministry. I have been exploring and studying the New Monastic movement for many years, with a particular interest in the historic examples of how the monastic tradition has led the Church through renewal and reform in the past. I have a deep sense of vocation to a form of monastic life but, being married, I am limited in the way I can engage in this vocation through traditional paths. I have explored tertiary and oblate schemes as well as dispersed new monastic communities but it is the sharing of common life that is at the heart of my calling. A deeply sacramental model of parish ministry and a commitment to a social gospel, particularly in areas of deprivation, is emotionally demanding. I often feel alone in the pressures of living with such immediate and unavoidable pain and suffering. I have been praying for a community to share with me in this radical and sacrificial ministry. I am not alone, either. I have a few ordained friends who are crying out for a life of living and working alongside others, sharing the joys and struggles of ministry among the most needy in our society.
I also have a particular focus on reformation and restoration within my ministry. At this time of ‘Renewal and Reform’ I often ask myself how much are we genuinely seeking to listen to the monastic tradition as our forebears did (often after a struggle!) Hugh of St Victor’s methodical approach to the construction of an inner Ark to house the presence of God and to his commitment to the monasticizing of the clergy and, indeed, the world strikes me as deeply important and relevant to our urgent need at this time.
Whilst I served my curacy I reflected on the Rule of St. Benedict, asking myself what it might look like to live out a Benedictine life in the parish context. Many people found these reflections helpful and interesting but by the end of the project I was more convinced of my monastic vocation and, therefore, more grieved by the lack of community to share my life with. Having now moved to a new context and started a new ministry, I am returning to those deep questions of what it is God is calling me to. My journey in Parish Monasticism? was a personal one, asking questions of the individual things I could do to engage in this monastic spirituality. I am now asking more structural questions and the increased urgency for reformation causes me to think beyond the personal and seek to challenge the Church wider to take seriously the fading ‘fad’ of new monasticism.
Renewal and Reform are not new to the Church of Christ. We would be foolish to miss out on Hugh of St. Victor’s extensive writing on the subject. I want to start to explore this theme using the Rule of St. Augustine which he lived under and used to shape his life and of which he wrote an excellent commentary/explanation on. The Rule of St. Augustine is small treatise on the life within community but it is, compared to St Benedict’s later Rule, relatively bare on details. Augustine rather uses it to flesh out his major theological themes in lived relationships. Hugh and Augustine share many ideas and concepts; they share a love of urban environments, a distress at the fallenness of humanity and an appreciation for the beauty of order. I hope to sit with them both and listen to what they teach. As I learn from them I hope to pass on the wisdom and thus embrace a more canonical approach. Bynum observed,
Canonical authors see canons as teachers and learners whereas monastic authors see monks only as learners. (Carolyn Walker Bynum, “The Spirituality of Regular Canons in the Twelfth Century”, Jesus as Mother: studies in the spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) p.36)
Once more unto the breach, dear friends. I pick up the Rule of St Augustine this time and, rather than ask ‘Parish Monasticism?’, proclaim ‘Monasticize the World’. I do hope you will join me.
The Lord has led me into a new season and has begun a deeper work in me. He has placed me in a context which suits me. He has been clear on His call to this particular place at this particular time. Daily life is no longer such a battle and my sense of vocation is being affirmed by most. All of this has given me freedom from fear of local, daily external threat of abandonment and critique and given a capacity and strength to turn to the internal critique of my own broken psychology.
A few friends have asked me about the Enneagram recently, which, in the past, I have been apathetic about. I have been more suspicious of any personality testing before because of my deep concern of our increasingly individualised identity obsessed culture but I now can better distinguish between a cultural use of a tool and the tool itself. In the Myers-Briggs schema I generally fit into the INTJ type, which generally means I tend to build an internal world which I judge my external world by, I process conceptually first, I value thought and reason above feelings and I seek out workable outcomes and results rather than leave stuff in indecision. I approach this ‘insight’ not as an identity marker but as a pattern of behaviour that I revert to. I try to maintain an openness to it in order that it does not act as a justification for harmful (re)actions in daily life. As usual I want to remain aware of my freedom of choice in it so I don’t enslave myself to the comforting lie of ‘destiny’/’Fate’!
As part of my move into this new season I have, due to geographical circumstance, had to change my Spiritual Accompanier. My previous Spiritual Accompanier I met with for five years and we built up a good relationship which helped me immensely to traverse the season I was in at the time. He was a mentor, who shared a lot of similar experiences to me, e.g. caring for a spouse who struggled with physical pain and restriction, being ordained, having some ‘monastic’ vocation. Our relationship was that of an elder sharing their experience and knowledge as way of guiding a younger through well walked territories avoiding pitfalls and preventable pain. Primarily, though, he was able to affirm me and counteract my internal critic who, at the time was being bolstered by perceived multiple external critics. I needed, in that season, someone I trusted and who knew me and my context to challenge the lies I told myself and my internal distortion of external criticism. my Spiritual Accompanier, therefore, never felt he needed to give me ‘work’ to do because he knew that I already demanded so much ‘work’ myself. He just needed to allow me to be and to externally process my internal battles and to shine a light on it and to send me home having released the ‘demons’ and blessed me.
As I said, since moving contexts and the Lord leading me into a new season, I have been forced (by my geographical circumstance) to change my Spiritual Accompanier and opted to be open and obedient to a Diocesan process of matching. My new Spiritual Accompanier is very different to me, holds very different views to me on many issues but we share enough interests (poetry and monastic spirituality amongst other things) that we can begin conversation. My new Spiritual Accompanier is a teacher on the Enneagram; a fact that, when I first learnt of it, I had a strange internal baulk at. I took note of that response and investigated further.
When friends began asking about the Enneagram and then others asking me about my approach to Spiritual Accompaniment I felt God was trying to lead me to spend my time with my new Spiritual Accompanier to use the Enneagram as a tool to begin to acknowledge some reality to response to the world around me.
I have said before that I have a reoccurring dream that wakes me feeling rigid with frustration, anger and anxiety. In this dream I find myself in a situation where I am being asked to speak to or lead/manage a group of people but no one will listen to my instructions. No matter how much a shout and scream no words come out of my mouth. This fear transforms, very quickly into violence as I battle to take control and stop the chaos. My need to impose some order is met with no change to the situation. I start to shake people who refuse to do what I want. I feel impotent and unable to make an impact on my environment and this expresses itself in a deep anger. It often climaxes on me biting or punching particular people who, in my mind, I see as personifying a lifestyle of carefree, consequence free selfishness who refuse to behave in a way I see as helpful. These people are people from my real life who I hold great frustration that they don’t play by the rules and don’t care about what other’s think. They are people who I now hold as totem for unbridled chaos!
For those of you who know something of the Enneagram, you will already be beginning to see which ‘type” a tend to exist within; Type 1.
If you click on this link you will find a general picture of Type 1s.
I brought this ‘insight’ to my Spiritual Accompanier along with my reoccurring dream and asked him, with his understanding of the theories behind the Enneagram to unpack what might be going on for me. This ‘insight’ does suggest some understandable reasons why I see the world in the way I do and why I respond to certain things so strongly and destructively. It explains my struggles and what makes me stressed/anxious and it certainly explains this vivid dream I continually have.
Each ‘type’, so Christian practitioners of the Enneagram suggest, have an innate truth about the world that is their gift to others. With the Fall and sin this truth has been distorted and now manifests in a twisted version of it. For Type 1s this truth is that God created the world and it was good. The Fall/sin has distorted this gift by persuading Type 1s that it was good but it no longer is and they are being asked to return it to perfection. This gives them a profound drive to perfection and improvement and is why they are characterised as ‘reformers’. This deeply held conviction that it is their job to fix the world and create systems that will lead people to perfection means that they can easily become hyper-judgemental on themselves primarily and then on others around them. They are naturally seeking out the broken parts of the system of the world and tinkering with them.
Type 1s have high sensitivity to right and wrong. They are hungry to know what is good and what is bad. This means that Type 1s struggle with postmodern thought which states that there is no universal system to judge right and wrong. That, in its extreme articulation, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and it is wrong to judge so. It is this reason which opened my eyes to why I feel so out of place in postmodern liberalism. I have been wired, through experience and circumstance to crave order and clear rules. As these rules are questioned and put in flux I get severely anxious and my response is to push harder to return to structure and order. I become more judgemental and my inner critic goes into overdrive causing me deep and painful tension and causing physiological symptoms such as I.B.S., headaches, panic attacks, etc. It is why I get so deeply frustrated and anxious with ignorance, particularly in people of power. It is why I see something of myself in the Mitchell and Webb’s ‘bad vicar’ (click here to watch.)
So where is the hope?
The Enneagram also reveals how ‘types’ ‘disintergrate’ (respond to stress) and ‘integrate’ (grow). Type 1s disintegrate into introspection and anxiety, they become moody and self detructive and finally aggressively dogmatic and angry. When they are encouraged to integrate, however, they can become spontaneous and creative high achievers. As I reflected on this I suddenly realised the reason why I respond so strongly to the fabled Pablo Picasso’s quote,
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. (citation not found)
When Type 1s feel free to grow, they can move from being systematic learners and judgers to being creative reformers. It is Type 1s, when they are integrating healthily, that can do the work of genuine ‘social improvement’; they creatively and systematically review the structures and legislation, deeply understand how things work and why and then innovate by reformation rather than revolution. Type 1s struggle with ‘revolution’ because they perceive revolutionaries as being too driven by fallible feelings which are too subjective. Revolutionaries reject the rules thus creating chaos in the world of Type 1s. Type 1s agree with the assertion of Jean-Francois Lyotard that,
if there are no rules, there is no game. (Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: a report on knowledge (Minnesota, The University of Minnesota Press, 1984) p.10)
They reason why Type 1s feel they can change the rules is because they have learnt them to tested them like an expert and can then, without lived insight make specific changes. I am deeply troubled when rules are changed by people who have not learnt how and why the rules were there in the first place. It is blind folly, in my mind, to change things on knee jerk response rather than properly testing and exploring the brokenness in a system.
I have spoken before about a profound moment in my life at Soul Survivor camp listening to Mark Russell speak on bringing change in the Church. He asked whether some of us are called to top down change (reformation) whilst others are called to bottom up (revolution). At that moment I seemed to feel a physical finger poke me in the shoulder. I was being called to sit on committees, boards and governing bodies to do the slow, careful and deliberate work of reformation not ‘reckless’ reactive revolution!
I have, as we approach the 500th anniversary of the protestant Reformation, been reflecting deeply on the person of Martin Luther. I connect deeply with him (he too can be seen as a Type 1 INTJ!) particularly with his motivation and then with his personal, inner struggles. Luther deeply desired unity and was moved profoundly when people took his thoughts and ideas and used them to enact violent revolution. His heart desired a correction of damaging ideology that had distorted the Christian faith and experienced deep tearing within him as he was judged as wrong despite his conviction of ‘rightness’. He could not match up his internal conviction with the external world and this was the source of great anxiety.
As I begin this journey in this new season I am learning to better acknowledge the distortions of the person that God desires me to be but not in undue judgement but safe in the knowledge that God alone can transform me to perfection. He requires only that I stay still and allow Him to do His work in me and the world he loves. There will be times when He will call on me to work with Him in the reformation of His creation but I must be wise to ensure it is His voice I’m following and not my twisted internal drivers.
I have also been encouraged by my new Spiritual Accompanier to embrace my spontaneous, poetic, fun and creative side… so I’m going to go and play lots of games and perform some improvised comedy (safe within the rules!)
General Synod is an addiction for me; I know it’s bad for me and causes me great harm but yet I can’t resist engaging in it!
The latest gathering of Synod, like the recent gatherings before it, was rife with painful discord before it had even begun. As I prepared myself for social media outlets to fall into confusion and bitter rivalries (as it seems to do daily now!) I looked at an item on church vestments and thought
“At least there’s a relatively trivial debate on frocks!”
Having said that, despite the two larger decisions to be passed at Synod, it was this ‘trivial’ one that causes me to reflect most theologically about the state of the Church of England at present. As a mixed tradition mongrel of Roman Catholicism and Charismatic Evangelical I have already thought deeply about my use of vestments and, although many would say I am conflicted in my current practice, choosing to wear vestments at times and at other times not, I do know where I stand on this issue (see my post on vestments here.) This piece of legislation, for me, was going to be merely a naming of my current practice but has caused me to reflect again on that practice and the implications it presents.
My current practice is that for baptism and Holy Communion I robe for anything else I don’t. I’m Roman Catholic for their sacraments, charismatic evangelical the rest of the time! It’s not fool-proof but it’s what I have settled with for the moment. The other thing I’d want to stress is that I am, of course, contextually sensitive; if a context demands or requests I wear robes I do and if they would cause the congregation distraction I don’t.
The reason this decision has caused me to reflect, however, is an ecclesiological one. This albeit minor decision betrays the current confusion and division over the Church of England’s understanding of church and authority. This small, ‘harmless’ legislation again highlights the underlying conflict at the heart of Anglicanism in the 21st century and like the turmoil 500 years ago which caused the Great Reformation and 500 years before that the Great Schism and 500 years before that the establishing of the Great Councils it is caused by a lack of clarity on authority.
The cause of this uncertainty of authority stems from several sources sweeping across Synod and disrupting, distorting and severing fellowship and peace. One source is the individualising of society by our subjective post-Enlightenment libertarian/liberal philosophy. I have written on this so much I don’t want to unpack it anymore (if you’re interested read any other blog post and it’ll be there!) This is truly a massive problem when it comes to our understanding of Christian community.
The second source is, on it’s own, not a negative force (in fact it is quite the opposite): the rise in charismatic evangelical theology of which I am a son.
The charismatic movement began with the Pentecostal revival at the start of the 20th century and came to prominence in this country during the latter parts of the century. One aspect of this theological movement is a more egalitarian ecclesiology. If all God’s people are able to be filled with God’s Spirit, be used by God and receive prophetic words and pictures then power is no longer placed in one specific person but within the Body. The understanding of the priest as a kind of conduit for prayer and worship is dismantled. This is a good and proper challenge for the Church.
The prime time when this is exercised is in charismatic worship/prayer events where the gathered community wait on God and speak out words of knowledge and prophecy, speak in tongues and (often forgotten) interpretation of tongues. To keep in line with St Paul’s deep desire for order in church services there is a suitable place of weighing up words and pictures but ultimately everyone is encouraged to encounter God and share what they hear from Him. All voices are given a hearing. St. Paul emphasises in his important discussion on worship in 1 Corinthians 11-14 the necessity for order and the need for ‘one to interpret’ and to ‘weigh what is said’. (I don’t want to go into the exegesis of the refusal of the female voice in this context!)
In these events the ‘leader’ may well be a lay worship leader assisted by another ‘leader’ or vice versa. That ‘leader’ does not have to be ordained and they become, quite rightly, more of a facilitator. This role is key but is rarely trained with the gravity and import it deserves. People are released to lead these gatherings and imitate others without any rigourous understanding of authority. This enabling of lay leadership is rightly to be encouraged, however, but it is in this context that vestments becomes a potential stumbling block.
Vestments, historically, have sought to be signifiers of authority within the worshipping life of a congregation. The clothing is, in this respects, uniform, identifying the person in a particular role. This has meant that bishops, priests, deacons, lay readers, etc., all of whom have specific roles in a worshipping community have had these visible signs of those roles. In the new context where lay leadership is being encouraged vestments are a sign of restricting power to ordained/licensed individuals. To truly allow the laity to thrive we must, understandably, remove the vestments from the ordained but in so doing we must also remove sole authority too.
The charismatic tradition, particularly when wedded to the evangelical tradition, within the Church has really flourished over the last few decades and is one of the largest growing traditions in the Church in England. I want to stress how indebted I am to this inheritance and believe God is using it for His glory in His Church but…
It is not hard to see that within a culture where authority is placed solely on the individual and their perceived experience of the world the charismatic evangelical tradition has a lot to offer. The evangelical tradition gives, if not carefully taught, a highly individualised faith experience; salvation is for the individual, it is not a communal experience. Mix that with the charismatic tradition where the emphasis is on the personal experience of God we have created worship which is, collective in that it is expressed best with others but the experience remains rooted in the individual. The ecclesiology of the charismatic evangelical tradition is individualised, experiential and struggles to present a truly communal reality.
In his article “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, John Zizioulas outlines the difference between traditional philosophical thought on personhood and the unique Christian understanding.
…Western thought arrived at the conception of the person as an individual and/or personality, i.e., a unit endowed with intellectual, psychological and moral qualities centred on the axis of consciousness.
For the Christian, however,
…being a person is basically different from being an individual or ʻpersonalityʼ in that the person can not be conceived in itself as a static entity, but only as it relates to. Thus personhood implies the ʻopenness of beingʼ, and even more than that, the ek-stasis of being, i.e. a movement towards communion which leads to a transcendence of the boundaries of the ʻselfʼ and thus to freedom. (John Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood”, T.F. Torrance and J. K. S. Reid (eds.), Scottish Journal Theology Vol 28 (1975), p.406)
I have argued repeatedly that the UKʼs capitalist liberal democracy has shaped the way we participate in Christian community, i.e. limited us on the individual participants own experience of God. It is in this view that Zizioulasʼ statement is important.
Zizioulas’ ʻopenness of beingʼ lends itself to the charismatic experience seen in many of the growing churches in the UK. Charismatic theology emphasises the importance of a transcendent experience and is achieved by creating an expectation of receptivity to God’s gifts. The challenge comes when attempting to be open to God, allowing others to be used by God to speak to you whilst remaining an autonomous individual; the central authority in our post-modern philosophy.
Samuel Wells takes this idea of receiving gifts and discusses an improvisational device called ʻoveracceptingʼ as a potential tool for Christian ethics.
Overaccepting is accepting in the light of a larger story. The fear about accepting is that one will be determined by the gift, and thus lose oneʼs integrity and identity. The fear of blocking is that one will seal oneself off from the world, and thus lose oneʼs relevance and humanity. Overaccepting is an active way of receiving that enables one to retain both identity and relevance… Christians imitate the character of God to the extent that they overaccept the gifts of creation and culture in the same way God does. (Samuel Wells, “Improvisation in the Theatre as a Model for Christian Ethics”, Trevor Hart and Steven Guthrie, Faithful Performance: Enacting Christian Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) p.161)
Within this framework we can go someway in achieving both communion with others whilst remaining unique enough to have an identity. Zizioulas’ further development in his understanding of personhood challenges individualism by suggesting we must de-individualise Christ.
In order that Christology may be relevant to anthropology, it must ʻde- individualiseʼ Christ, so that every man may be ʻde-individualisedʼ too. (John Zizioulas,
“Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, p.438)
Christʼs de-individualisation is, for Zizoulas, pneumatologically conditioned because it was only ʻof the Spiritʼ that Christ united the human, one individual, and the divine, another individual. In this way the Spirit makes it possible for one to be many and so constitutes, for Zizioulas, the church.
…the mystery of the Church is essentially none other than that of the “One” who is simultaneously “many”. (John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton Longman and Todd) p112)
Zizoulas goes on to suggest that
If the Church is constituted through… Pneumatology, all pyramidal notions disappear in ecclesiology: the “one” and the “many” co-exist as two aspect of the same being. (Zizoulas, Being Communion, p.139-141)
Zizioulasʼ belief that this will ʻremove any pyramidal structutures’, as understood by our current culture, is undermined, however, by his continued assertion of the importance of the presence of a bishop, as representative of Christ, within the community. This order of precedence raises the “one” above the “many” and thus creates, for our culture, a hierarchy. Indeed, it is the role of bishops and, to a certain degree, clergy in general that has been seen as the undermining of the full realisation of an egalitarian, flat leadership encouraged within charismatic theology and the wider culture. It is the vote on vestments that deconstructs further the role of clergy within the church which have held sway over the Church, for better or worse.
Jürgen Motlmannʼs ecclesiology offers us a helpful addition.
The doctrine of the Trinity constitutes the church as a “community free of dominion.” The Trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord. Authority and obedience are replaced by dialogue, consensus, and harmony… The hierarchy which preserves and enforces unity is replaced by the brotherhood and sisterhood of the community of Christ. (Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) p202)
Moltmannʼs social Trinity is a communion free from dominion and authority and offers an ecclesiology for our generation who are hungry for the intimacy of community whilst maintaining autonomy of individualism.
Moltmann outlines three different paradigms of the church: The Hierarchical paradigm of God the Father, the Christocentric paradigm of God the Son and the Charismatic paradigm of God the Spirit. He suggests that in the Early Church there was a monarchic social structure seen through the authority of the Father and manifested itself in Papal supremacy. This caused a social rebellion in the form of the Reformation, which replaced such a view with a brotherhood of believers based on the centrality of sola scriptura. Moltmann admits,
Of course, practically speaking the distinction between trained theologians and people without any theological training has taken the place of priestly hierarchy. (Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) p23)
Tony Jones, an ecclesiologist writing about Moltmannʼs theology, suggests,
While Moltmann admits the christocentrism did not entirely overwhelm the hierarchical church, he fails to acknowledge… that hierarchy has been just as prevalent in his own Reformed tradition.(Tony Jones, The Church is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement (Minneapolis: JoPa Group, 2011) p144)
In the last of these paradigms, it is God the Spirit that brings unity whilst encouraging plurality. In the charismatic congregation, Moltmann suggests,
no one has a higher or lower position than anyone else with what he or she can contribute to the community.
In this context vestments become void of any purpose and all symbols of hierarchy and power can be dismissed. This paradigm, however, can be, and, as I am arguing, has been, too easily adopted by the individualism of our age as Moltmann goes on to say,
…all are accepted just as they are…Everyone is an expert in his or her own life and personal calling. (Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) p23-25)
And there it is: the mantra for the Church at the present time. No one can tell anyone what is right or wrong. All must be accepted and placed as equally authoritative and by so doing authority is displaced and no longer shared.
The Church of England is currently facing a new social rebellion akin to the Great Reformation and again it is about power and authority. The Reformation caused authority to be placed in Scripture and thus power/authority was placed in the hands of any who could read and interpret the text. Richard Hooker, who I would argue is the the architect of Anglican ecclesiology, later stated the need for three authorities: Scripture, tradition and reason, with Scripture having a form of primacy.
I believe we have seen an ascendance of reason as the primary authority under which the others must fall but, with the advent of charismatic theology, there is a need to rightly emphasise the Holy Spirit’s authority in the Church which has morphed intellectual reason to ‘experience’. I would say that the Holy Spirit is in all of these but I understand the move from reason to experience and it comes down to semantics for me. I would argue, however, that this ‘experience’ has been adopted by our individualised culture, abandoning objective truth and making ‘reason’ subjective experience and this is now our sole authority. It is the individualised experience, by way of the charismatic evangelical tradition being allowed to continue without rigorous ecclesiological questions being asked, that is now seen in Synod debates. The vast majority of decisions now are made on the basis of individualised experience which is a distorted understanding of reason and from this Scripture is re-interpreted and tradition is changed.
The decision on vestments opens for us the gaping hole in our ecclesiology and the social rebellion occurring in the church will only end in division if authority is not placed somewhere safe to bring about St. Pauls’ order and decency.
This is the text of a paper presented at the first Postgraduate Research Morning hosted at St Hild’s College in Sheffield on Monday 5th June 2017.
I want to talk about discipleship today from within, what many are calling, ‘the New Monastic Movement’ of which I am part. This movement has emerged out of a protest against the steady increase of individualism prevalent in our Western culture. Many would argue that the individualisation of our society began in the Enlightenment with philosophical thought becoming more introspective and focussed on the subjective interpretation of reality famously summarised in René Descartes, “I think, therefore, I am.” The Church has not been immune to this social deconstruction and this has led to a powerfully individualised faith experience. This erosion of the corporate understanding of faith has impacted the Church’s discipleship and life together.
With the secularisation following on from the Enlightenment project and the further mechanising and fragmenting of all aspects of our lives, the place of community has diminished. In the late 20th century, with the Church increasingly unwilling or unable to offer intensive forms of Christian discipleship, some have gathered together to re-discover what it means to live out the communal life as described in the New Testament. The faithfulness of the monastic and mendicant saints throughout history became wells around which these small groups were nourished, inspiring them to live counter-culturally. These ‘pioneers’ discovered that the shared life they dreamt of had long been practiced by communities like the Franciscans, Benedictines and the Jesuits, among many. Others arrived at a similar place by a different route, having sought, in the first place, to rediscover the spiritual fortitude and charisms of the very same saints of old and so to re-dig wells of Grace in the ‘places’ where God has worked for generations before. Regardless of the path towards a contemporary articulation of the monastic way of life, they all learned that the historic forms were in need of some re-imagining for the new context in which we now live. In this way these expressions of communal discipleship can all be reasonably described as ‘new monastics’.
The term ‘New Monasticism’ was first used by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a letter he wrote on 14th January 1935. This is what he said,
the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Testament to Freedom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), p.424)
Two years later, Bonhoeffer published ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ in which he seems to expand on his view of classic monasticism. He writes,
The expansion of Christianity and the increasing secularization of the church caused the awareness of costly grace to be gradually lost…. But the Roman church did keep a remnant of that original awareness. It was decisive that monasticism did not separate from the church and that the church had the good sense to tolerate monasticism. Here, on the boundary of the church, was the place where the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship was preserved…. Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) p.46-47)
This ‘toleration’ of monasticism by the Church, however, relativized the discipleship lived out in the monastic houses. The Church was able to avoid the criticism of secularisation by living the life of holiness vicariously through the achievements of these monks who obeyed the radical call to forsake all earthly things and follow Jesus Christ in discipleship.
Bonhoeffer argues that Martin Luther’s journey through the monastic life led him to see how the monastic life had failed the Church by perpetuating this lie that Christians could pay others to be ‘disciples’ on their behalf. The monastic houses had become, by the time the Reformation began, propped up by the financial donations by the Roman Church paying a select few monks to be obedient for the rest of God’s Church. Luther’s protest was an attempt to release the radical obedience to follow Christ, found in the charisms of monastic life, and invite all Christians to participate in this form of devoted life of monasticism.
I say all this, yes, in order to justify the New Monastic movement as a continued protest for the Church to embrace the way of life outlined in the founding documents of the Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits and others. But I also say it in order to acknowledge and outline the popular portrayal of monastic life and the criticisms that it therefore receives. I want to argue that it is the early monastic life, articulated most purely in the Rule of St Benedict, that holds the key for us todayas to how to live as ‘a living protest against the seculariztion of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.’
Listen, my son, and with your heart hear the principles of your Master. Readily accept and faithfully follow the advice of a loving Father, so that through the labour of obedience you may return to Him from whom you have withdrawn because of the laziness of disobedience. My words are meant for you whoever you are, who laying aside your own will, take up the all-powerful and righteous arms of obedience to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ. (RB Pro:1-5)
Thus starts the Rule of St Benedict. It begins with an unswerving command to obedience, not a popular command in our individualised, self-autonomous culture but the monastic life centres on the vow to stability, obedience and conversion of life. Columba Cary-Elwes helpful highlights that ‘the very word obedience has a treasure hidden in its history.’ She writes,
If you unpack it, ob audiere, to listen intently is the language of love. When you really love, you listen intently to know what the one you love wants to happen. (Columba Cary-Elwes, Work and Prayer:the rule of St. Benedict for lay people (London:Burns & Oates, 1992) p.182)
This understanding of obedience is acceptable in the context of our personal relationship with Christ but it becomes problematic for many in our post modern, subjective culture. To love and obey another is seen by our self-autonomous society as oppressive and open to all manner of abuse. In outlining the role of the abbot in his Rule, St Benedict, on more than one occasion, however, quotes Christ, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me.” Christ imparts authority to his disciples in order that they may speak on his behalf to others. The abbot in the monastic community is to represent Christ to his monks. The risk of abuse to that kind of power is real and Cary-Elwes acknowledges as much when she states,
No doubt also an abbot can go beyond his rights, and what is wrong or evil should not be obeyed. Yet all that happens is under divine providence and God’s wise guidance of the world, and this includes commands of superiors. (Cary-Elwes, Work and Prayer, p.40)
St Benedict spends many chapters portraying what an abbot should and should not do; he spends so much time that it begs the question, “why is it so important?” It is important because the role of the abbot directly impacts the discipleship of the rest of the community. ‘The first thing that defines the abbot,’ Esther de Waal writes, ‘is not the position at the head of an institution but his relationship with sons’ She links this with the model of discipleship undertaken by monks.
The learning process is more analogous to that of apprenticeship by which one person learns a skill from another. In the ancient world skills were handed down from father to son, and so apprenticeship also carries with it the implication of a father-son relationship. It involves imitation and long, patient watching and copying, a shared learning that owes much to the fact of daily living together.(Esther de Waal, Seeking God: the way of St. Benedict (London: Fount, 1985) p.130)
Discipleship, within the monastic tradition, begins with obedience; to listen intently to God through His Spirit and His people under authority. Rowan Williams paints a beautiful image of this model of discipleship as he suggest that being a disciple ‘is a state of being in which you are looking and listening without interruption.’
You are hanging around; you are watching; you are absorbing a way of being that you are starting to share. You learn by sharing life; you learn by looking and listening. (Rowan Williams, Being Disciples: essentials of the Christian life (London: SPCK, 2016) p.3)
‘Obedience is not an imposed subservience to an external authority but a condition of inward growth,’ as Dominc Milroy writes,
The monk who is not authentically obedient to his abbot and his brethren will not be a happy monk; the carpenter who is not obedient to the laws of governing joints will make an unreliable table. All disobedience represents, in this sense, the pursuit of illusory freedom which obstructs the acquisition of real freedom. (Dominic Milroy, “Education According to The Rule of St. Benedict”, Ampleforth Journal, no.84 (Autumn 1979) p.4)
As well as obedience, discipleship, within the monastic tradition, also begins with stability. Brian C Taylor says,
The Benedictine vow of stability is a vow to a community of people… In this sense it is a marriage…The grass is not greener “over there”: one must work out one’s problems with this person because, if one doesn’t, one will have to work it out with that person. This is precisely what is so freeing about the vow of stability, both in monastic life and family life. To have to work it out is to demand growth, as painful as it is, and that is freeing. Faithfulness is a limit that forces us to stop running and encounter God, self, and other right now, right here. (Brian C. Taylor, Spirituality For Everyday Living: an adaptation of the rule of St. Benedict (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1989) p.17)
Or to put that more succinctly, Meister Eckhart wrote: ‘The meaning of stability: God is not elsewhere.’
If obedience is about listening intently, then stability aids our silencing of unnecessary distractions ‘for stability says there must be no evasion.’ There must be no escaping into a fantasy world or the day dreams of how we’d do great things if only… ‘At the heart of stability,’ Metropolitan Anthony bloom suggests, ‘is the certitude that God is everywhere, that we have no need to seek God elsewhere, that if I can’t find God here I shan’t find Him anywhere.’
Both obedience and stability combine with the commitment to seek out the conversion of our lives and gives the framework within which discipleship occurs in the monastic tradition. Conversion of life is about life-long, inner transformation which ensures discipleship is not a course to complete but a way of life to journey deeper into. Thomas Merton argues that a commitment to total inner transformation is to be regarded as ‘the end of the monastic life, and that no matter where one attempts to do this, that remains the essential thing.’
The Rule of St Benedict is immensely practical and pragmatic and can be used as a manual for a devoted life to following Christ. What we need to learn from it and the wider monastic heritage is the communal necessity of this way of life. Discipleship for Benedict, Francis and the other monastic fathers and mothers can only be done with others. Love can only be practised in the cut and thrust of community life. If the vows to stability, obedience and the ongoing conversion of one’s life can be seen as the soil in which monastic discipleship is rooted and from this the tree of discipleship can bear good fruit then we must acknowledge that all three require other people to be faithful and obedient to and to be changed by.
The monastic tradition has always rejected a form of life that attempts to replicate the religious life outside of a communal setting. John Cassian describes a type of monk called Sarabaites in a derogatory manner,
They… go on living in their homes just as before, carrying on the same work; or they build cells for themselves, call them ‘monasteries’ and live in them as they please… Shirking the austere rule of a community: living two or three together in a cell; under no direction: aiming above all else at having freedom from the elders, of going where they like, and of satisfying whatever passion they like. (John Cassian, The Conferences of Cassian, “Conference 18: Conference of Abba Piamun on the three sorts of monks”, Owen Chadwick (trans.), Library of Christian Classics Volume XII: Western Asceticism (London: SCM Press, 1958) p.268-269)
St Benedict also depicts this type of monk as,
…unschooled by any rule, untested, as gold is by fire, but soft as lead, living in and of the world… They live together in twos or threes, more often alone, without a shepherd in their own fold, not the Lord’s. Their only law is the pleasure of their desires, and whatever they wish or choose they call holy. They consider whatever they dislike unlawful. (RB 1:7-9)
The monastic life, I would argue, is still ‘a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.’ But in our modern context this requires us embracing the challenge of community life as outlined in the Rule of St Benedict. In this portrayal of community life discipleship is intrinsically linked with the submission of our self wills to the discipline of the larger community’s apprenticeship training. This is not the romantic, sentimental community life that we all easily describe in our dreams of missional communities but a very real and costly life which demands obedience and stability in order to enter into the inner change of discipleship.
Without this ultimate commitment to the other monks, to wife or husband, to child or parent, change is difficult at best because it lives under the threat of abandonment. With a commitment to stability, change is no longer a threat but something to be undertaken together. One can change or ask for change in the other when one knows that one is loved and that this request will not drive the other away.
What the monastic tradition offers the Church today is a communal way of life that challenges our cultures hyper-individualism by demanding the sacrificing of the idol of self and ‘a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ.’ We must discover that on the boundary of the Church today the monastics still preserve ‘the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship.’
Stables smell and stables sweat,
Stables get what stables get.
There’s no choice in type of mess,
Mess is mess and it’s all a guess.
In this place of dark and grime,
God Almighty came in Time.
To live the life we fail to live,
To live beside, to give and give.
To empty himself for you and me,
To be here for all to touch and see.
So when we’re tired of work and sweat,
When we’re told to receive what we get.
When there seems no choice in our mess,
Remember God chose you for nothing less
Than the life of His Son who paid the price
For all the riches that have been lost in vice.
God lived a life and can live ours too,
To walk and guide and carry us through
Not out of the mess but to stability
He’s here for all to touch and see.
Written for the advent season 2016 when the publicity strapline was “Do you live a stable life?”.