the Weary Pilgrim

Shane Claiborne...the Simple Way...new monasticism

American Public Radio's , Speaking of Faith has an interesting program, Krista Tippet interviewing Shane Claibourne around the movement of New Monasticism. The program is just over 53 minutes and the conversation covers a broad spectrum of topics...The community " The Simple Way " he co-founded with 6 friends, social justice, evangelicalism, faith and politics, violence, community living, rhythms of life...and more. Interesting faith conversation weaved with a tapestry of great music of redemptive justice.

photo...Robert Terrell

In sort of a response to the podcast Mark Van Steenwyk writes an interesting post, " If you meet Christ on the Road, Kill him."  He reflects on the idea of sort of christian cult heroes, what happens when we try and emulate them...instead the fullness of Christ and the Gospel.  Again, I don't think Shane sees himself this way...more, I think Shane seeks to stretch small groups of passionate followers to live out the gospel in the poverty that surrounds them.

a faith community dreamt...

The poem quoted below names a vision for a life that gives expression to Celtic Christianity in the monastic tradition. That vision was first expressed by Saint Enda when he came to Aran at the end of the fifth century. It is a vision that was spread throughout Ireland by people who were influenced by Enda, and later it spread throughout Europe. That vision is still alive, fifteen hundred years later ó it still inspires and it still makes sense.

I wish, ancient and eternal King, to live in a hidden hut in the wilderness.
A narrow blue stream beside it, and a clear pool for washing away my sins by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
A beautiful wood all round, where birds of every kind of voice can grow up and find shelter.
Facing southward to catch the sun, with fertile soil around it suitable for every kind of plant.
And virtuous young men to join me, humble and eager to serve God.
Twelve young men ó three fours, four threes, two sixes, six pairs ó willing to do every kind of work.
A lovely church, with a white linen cloth over the altar, a home for God from heaven.
A Bible surrounded by four candles, one for each of the gospels.
A special hut in which to gather for meals, talking cheerfully as we eat, without sarcasm, without boasting, without any evil words.
Hens laying eggs for us to eat, leeks growing near the stream, salmon and trout to catch, and bees providing honey.
Enough food and clothing given by our Heavenly King, and enough time to sit and pray to him.

Celtic Monasticism...environmental faith

Jason Clark has a thought provoking post on Celtic Monasticism and the spiritual and theological connection, how they lived and cared for the environment around them. We as a people of faith have distanced ourselves from God the Creator and His words to us in the opening of Genesis;

26-28 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
      reflecting our nature
   So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
      the birds in the air, the cattle,
   And, yes, Earth itself,
      and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."
   God created human beings;
      he created them godlike,
   Reflecting God's nature.
      He created them male and female.
   God blessed them:
      "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
   Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,

The further we have navigated this long corridor of History, as people of faith those words are somewhere off in the distance, no longer audible...our responsiblity...is an environment in ruins.

Our legacy, a faith where redeeming souls is it's priority....and where a faith in redeeming God's creation just doesn't seem worthy. I have written on Celtic monasticism often, a faith life that concerned itself with earth just as much as heaven. Jason looks a Celtic Monasticism and asks questions...much needed questions that we as faith communities need to answer...

God is Green was recently aired on Channel 4. Presenter Mark Dowd put forward the premise that maybe the answer to our problems with the environment lay in the hands of the 4.5 billion followers of the main world faiths, that is Christianity, Islam and Sikhism.

I felt rather inspired by the Bishop of London and it inspired me to think quite deeply about God and the environment.

In this post I'd like to ask you your views on whether you think there a convergence of both the physical and spiritual ecological Christianity, particualry embodied in the growing popularity of the celtic christian tradition?

There has been a resurgence of all things Celtic since the early 1980's, none more so than that of Celtic Christianity.

This, I believe is an awakening call to the Christian in the street, to an environmental ethic and through this a recognition of the problems that our own planet faces.

The Celtic Church had a deep connection to the world around it. As farmers and labourers they would've understood the seasons, how to work the land which they tended and cared for. They could see the goodness of the creator in his creation; some early writings show a deep and vibrant love of the environment, an understanding of God at work in their surroundings and in their everyday life.

So taking those principles from Celtic Christianity how can we apply then to the twenty first century?

Read the rest of Jason's post ... Here.

Redemption....Dostoevsky

Brothers, be not afraid of men's sins, love man even in his sin, for that already bears the semblance of divine love and is the highest love on earth.

Love God's creation, the whole of it every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love every thing.

And if you love everything, you will percieve the divine mystery in things. And, once you have percieved it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly more and more everyday.

And at last we will come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love.

(Father Zossima, Brothers Karamazov)

Merton...on neo-Monasticism

“The purpose of monastic renewal and reform is to find ways in which monks and sisters can remain true to their vocation by deepening and developing it in new ways, not merely sacrificing their lives to bolster up antique structures, but channeling their efforts into the creation of new forms of monastic life, new areas of contemplative experience.”

Thomas Merton from Contemplative Prayer

a rhythm of life...insecurity

Here is the spirituality of grace: living in the grace of God and living out the grace of God. The "caim" was the encircling prayer by which the Celts affirmed the presence of God with him in the circle. In other words, wherever he walked, God was with him, a reminder of God's presence and protection. The Celtic Way is rooted in the Incarnation, the deep awareness of Immanuel, "God with us." 

The "coracle" was the little craft by which they sailed from place to place. It is said that they would set sail and let the wind blow them, and wherever they landed was the next place for mission, blown by the wind of the Spirit. Here is a spirituality of trust and risk that is the very heart of living by grace.Theirs was a "spirituality and theology of the insecure". We need to become once again the people of the caim and the coracle, engulfed in prayer and moved by the Spirit.

An example of a Celtic caim (or circling) prayer :

Circle us Lord,
Keep love within, keep hatred out.
Keep joy within, keep fear out.
Keep peace within, keep worry out.
Keep light within, keep darkness out.
May you stand in the circle with us, today and always.

And a Celtic prayer that has always moved, from St.Brendan the Navigator as he set out on the stormy Atlantic, moved by the wind, tide and current...faithful God was with him, and God would be standing on the shores of a new land...

Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home?
Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?

Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy,
without silver, without a horse,
without fame, without honor?
Shall I throw myself wholly upon You,
without sword and shield, without food and drink,
without a bed to lie on?
Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke?

Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness,
tears streaming down my cheeks?
Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach,
a record of my final prayer in my native land?

Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict?
Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean?
O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?

O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?

monasticism...the power of context

Joan Chittester writes that Benedict intended to “...“to create a way of life immersed in the scriptures, devoted to the common life, and dedicated to the development of human community. It was simple, regular and total, a way of living, not a way of serving; it was an attitude toward life, not a church ministry. Benedict, in other words, is not trying to create a clerical system. He is trying to create a human family. He is not out trying to collect priests though he does recognize that a priest may well have a monastic vocation.”

Simple. Regular. Total. A way of living. Not a way of serving.

This nailed me with particular force this morning. Monasticism (the old or the new, cloistered or friar-ed) was never intended to be a program or an add-on. It is total. It is baptism. It is immersion... in a whole new way of being. This is a major part of the reason it has so much power to form us. It is what Gladwell calls the “Power of Context” in his book The Tipping Point. Context is powerful.

We can read all we want and study all we want and write all we want and blog until we are blue in the fingers but unless we have an environment that supports our formation we might as well be trying to push a boulder up a hill with a spoon.

As I think about monasticism, thanks to Kevin Rains for the above words...for putting it into context for me.

New Monasticism...MPR

Lighting candles as devotion. (David Silverman/Getty Images

My friend James Kingsley first gave me the heads-up about this over at " The Locals " here in Victoria. Minnesota Public Radio Host, Kerri Miller has a great podcast and conversation around new monasticism. It took awhile to come up with the link, due to MPR's audio site being down. But after an e-mail, and also discovering Kerri and her husband had treked around Vancouver Island last summer...we managed to get the link to the podcast...you can listen...Here.

A new generation of religious communities is springing up around the principles of "new monasticism," in which people live among and provide hospitality to those in need. Midmorning looks at how these communities work and their surprising influence on mainstream Christians.

Guests

Diana Butler Bass: has studied emergent congregations, including new monasticism. She's the author of "Christianity for the Rest of Us."

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: runs the Web site, New Monasticism.org, which outlines the 12 marks or principles of the communities. He co-founded, with his wife Leah, Rutba House in Durham, North Carolina. He's the author of the book, "To Baghdad and Beyond."

Maria Kenney: part of Communality in Lexington, Kentucky.

Again Kerri, thanks for going out of your way, digging up the link...and for making us aware of this interesting conversation around monasticism that is still reverberating around faith communities trying to live faith more authentically.

Listen to New Monasticism podcast Here...courtesy of Minnesota Public Radio.

Faith community...re-monked

For those who visit here from time to time you'll recognize this conversation as I've been down this road a few times, but " monasticism " continues to be a communal lifestyle that is in the minds of the emerging conversation, folks on the fringe of the church...passionate people trying live out christianity faithfully daily in post-modern culture. I'm meeting with a group of friends next week to pursue such a conversation, to look at monasticism and if and how it can be lived in the culture we find ourselves today. There is tons of information on monasticism, ( 1 of 10 of about 1,310,000 for monasticism ) in Google, enough to keep you occupied for months, if not years.

An article  I found of interest was compliments of the monks of Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico. It is a well written brief history of monasticism, Benedictine, Franciscan and Celtic. I found it interesting concerning the notion of Constantinianism, the beginnings of institutional church as it is sometimes known, and the motivations behind starting a new monastic community in Benedictine's day. It's interesting to use it as a lens to look through as amotivation as to why we pursue such an adventure today.

Following closely the cessation of persecutions and conversion to Christianity of the Roman emperors, steady growth of the Church quickly and inevitably led to what was perceived as a breakdown in discipline. Whereas, formerly, Christians had been identified as a minority group often at odds with the state, they now became in some cases the state itself. Under the Emperor Constantine, for example, few non-Christians could hope for advancement in imperial service. He himself took an active role in ecclesiastical affairs, and his household showered the Church with such favors as buildings and endowments. This massive injection of secular values into the sacred heralded the birth of the Church Triumphant, and it did not take long for ascetics to seek outlets that would contrast with what they perceived as mediocre Christianity. Thus would monasticism gradually evolve into a potent platform for social and religious reform.

But in Benedict's time such was far from the case. Through gross excesses and laxity the movement had been weakened considerably. An individual was needed who was strong and wise enough to adapt and discipline the monastic impulse and mold it to fit a crumbling empire crying out for the examples, teachings and spiritual consolations that a rational and orderly religious movement could provide.

And around the Benedictine Rule, I found this...

Benedict himself went on to found Monte Cassino where, in all probability, he composed his Rule. While there is controversy about the scope, sources and origins of this work, its importance is underscored by the intensity with which it has been scrutinized. In fact, the attention it has been given has in some cases been parallel with but not, of course, equal to that given the Gospels. It should be understood that Benedict did not write it for clerics; nor was it his intention to found a world-wide order. His Rule was meant to be for the governance of the domestic life of lay individuals who wanted to live in the fullest possible way the path that led to God. In other words, it was penned for those whose desire was to live in a radical imitation of Christ.

In any case, his Rule lays down no specific tasks for his organization, unlike later orders which specifically dedicated themselves to such charisms as preaching, teaching, combatting heresies, emancipating slaves or nursing the sick. Indeed, his admonitions were simply a ladder provided to aid a man in his search for God. For Benedict, a monastery was nothing more or less than:

"a school for the Lord's service. In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love. Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. Never swerving from his instructions, then, but faithfully observing his teaching in the monastery until death, we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom. Amen"
(RB, Prologue, verses 45-50).

The article is extremely interesting, as we engage in the conversation of monasticism today, trying to live life more intentional as a faith community in a postmodern culture. I was going to say "if" reform is needed, but, I'll re-phrase that, what reform is needed, how much...what gets chucked and what doesn't? The reality was, that Benedict was on a reform mission, but it wasn't to create a new religious order, a new institution...and it wasn't just for clergy. It was more like, hey, lets more from here over to there and be christians, and live in a way, we can actually live faithfully as christians. Interesting to note also, he didn't delete everything off the hard drive, throw the baby out with the bath water...something we really need to pay attention to as we engage in a conversation around monasticism.

From here on in, rather than talk about neo-monasticism. I'll talk about RE-MONKING faith communities, as talking about neo-monasticism waters down or dilutes the reality of those living monastically.

But I believe from following the conversation in the blogosphere, and the emerging conversation and in home churches there are many who have been inahabited by a yearning to try and live in a faith community more intentional, more authentic...alternative communities revealing the reality of the Kingdom culture Jesus spoke of, providing an alternative to the culture that suurounds us.

It is also worth a look at monastic rule, if we are looking a re-monking faith communities...Benedictine Rule, Franciscan Rule, Celtic Rule...as we engage in the monastic conversation what will be the rule of life in our faith communities? What values will be used to formulate the rule? How rigid will the rule be? Can we can we have a mix of rule from different expressions of monasticism in order to best express the life of our faith communities?

After listening to Garreth Powell of Moot Community recently in a conversation around monasticism and the emerging church, I wonder if there might be an alternative to the Rule, more of a rhythm of life...maybe similar to Celtic Monasticism. If we are going to try and live monastically in a postmodern culture...I think we have to be real. Many of us, are in realtionships, married with kids, jobs...a little unrealistic to think we are going to drop all that, gown ourselves in a habit and head to some remote monastery. We have to try and develope a community, and lifestyle that can be lived right where were at.

I think of the Celtic Monastic Pilgrims, the great wanders Aiden, Cuthbert and Brendan, reminders to us that the life spent pilgrimaging towards God is also a life spent pilgrimaging to those living in and around us...both inside the cloister and outside it, for we journey together not in isiolation.

Maybe rather than being bogged down in formulating a written rule and enforcing it...maybe a communal rhythm is a way to live. Garreth Powell evisions it as life being lived in rhythm, not a full course concerto with every instrument written up, but rather the background beat that keeps everything else in order, that calls things back on the scale when they deviate, that reminds us the type of music we are wanting to play...or perhaps more accurately the life style the community wants to live.

Maybe when formulating rhythms of life, simplicity is the key. Rhythms of life that have worked and continue to work are those that are easily understood and grasped by everyone...this does not mean they are simplistic. Simplicity means they are easier to work them into our everday life. Maybe it is a rhythm that can be reduced to a few words, that provides the heart-beat the pulse of the community...behind which lie the core ideas, and hopes of the community.

Most monastic rule can also be seen in part as a reaction against the prevailing culture of the day, monastic vows of poverty, chastity, obedience were clear reaction to money, sex and power...issues that had begun to dominate the church from the time of its alignment to the state in the 3rd centurt AD. Monks were those who sought to rid themselves of these tempations and instead chose a life dedicated to following in the way of Christ.

Interestingly in the Northumbria Community, " availabilty " and " vulnerabilty " are their two simple rules. They were a reaction to the way people hid their true selves from even their closest friends, and were unable to be vulnerable, instead preferring to live life essentially on their own. The Northumbria communities emphasis on being available to others to listen to them and allow them to share with you and the emphasis on being vulnerable in trying to be honest with each other are reactions against the privatization of life. This didn't mean forcing people to share with each other, but rather that each person desired to live alife that was open to the wisdom of others, and that they desired to create relationships with people where they could be open and honest with each other.

Maybe as communities, friends engage in the conversation around monasticism re-monking faith communites...we will develop simple rhythms in which we can live more faithfully revealing the beauty, the grace, the mercy, and the hope...of the Kingdom Jesus revealed and gave us glimpses of. But more than that, the Kingdom he asked, and called us to build with him.

sometimes its not the distance...but, the depth

Anyone who as wandered the landscape of Strathcona Park, the arduous journey into the high places. The grunting, and the endless switch-backs, leaning forward gazing at the toes of your hiking boots...the mind constantly playing against you. The little voice, " your not going to make it." But suddenly it seems you break through the trees to mounatain vista that takes your breath away.

In my journey of wandering around the blogosphere, my journey took me to one such vista, " The Sacred Art of Living ", the space of Christine Valters Paintner. It is a place of beauty captured in word and image. She always manages to reveal vistas that take my breath away. I suggest wandering in that direction and enjoy the view.

The following quote is from a recent post, that just seem to capture where I seem to have found myself...where I'm discovering that in my faith journey it is not always the distance traveled that is important...but the depth of the journey.

If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things…
If we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action,
when will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi?
Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary?
For each of us, there is a desert to travel. A star to discover.
And a being within ourselves to bring to life.

-Author Unknown