What Motivates You to Live and Work as You Do?

[[Dear Sister O'Neal (Laurel?), I also really enjoyed our conversation on hermits and friendship. I did not want to drop it but I haven't seen similar conversations on your blog. Too, it was holiday time and I had family to prepare for, shopping to do, and I wanted to help around my own church.  When you write about the hermit vocation I admit to being really surprised at how you describe it. I had always thought of hermits as people-hating, bitter, isolationists, who said some pious things about God in an attempt to salvage what was very unhealthy. Nothing about it seemed to be "edifying" (this is your word and one I never heard, much less used, before this!); I could not envision anyone wanting to becomes a hermit unless they were emotionally unwell.

So, you can imagine how I felt when I read what you had written about the importance of friendships or the kind of inner work you are doing with your Director.  You stressed wellness and the connection between holiness and wholeness. You talked in terms of reconciliation with God, self, and others and of the importance of being known and knowing others. And you talked about solitude in terms of community while you rejected isolation. Really, it just blew me away!! Do you think part of the church's renewal of this vocation opens the way to re-envisioning it or experimenting with it? Can you do something new with it because your bishop said what he did at your profession (you wrote about this recently but I could not find it to quote)? What motivates you in this? Some people would say what you write rejects traditional values, so what motivates you to write about eremitism in the way you do? Thank you in advance for your response!!]]

Thanks again for your follow ups. I left this one mainly intact rather than cutting and pasting as I usually do because it expresses so well things which have interested me for a long time now: stereotypes and combatting these, my sense of the prophetic quality of eremitical vocations today (and always when these are authentic), the importance of the life codified in canon 603, the distinction between eremitical solitude and personal isolation, the importance of ecclesial standing in such a vocation, etc. What struck me (what blew me away) in what you wrote is your summary and also the way you asked the crucial question in every case, viz., what motivates me -- especially in relation to the comments Abp Vigneron made during his homily at my perpetual eremitical profession re exploring the breadth and depth of contemporary eremitical life.

You see, there are so many really bad reasons for pursuing eremitical life and so many disedifying examples of this throughout history. I believe the ways I live, or think and write about eremitical life reflect some of the important ways eremitism can be a witness to the Gospel and assume real relevance in today's world. I also believe that not all instances of "hermits" in the history of eremitical life have been healthy or authentic instances of eremitical life. Even today, not all glorify God or provide a key to understanding the dignity of the human person with and in God alone. Not all reflect a loving life or a life of relative wholeness, nor are they interested in growing towards these. Some seem instead to be or have been little more than instances of misanthropy, escapism, narcissism, and so forth. The journey I am on with God and with the assistance of my Directors is about living a life both deeply loved and loving, profoundly rooted in the Gospel, and generally edifying to the Church, but especially, to those within the Church who are isolated in one way and another and who have no apparent way out of such isolation.

As to your specific questions, I am not much motivated by a need to re-envision or experiment with eremitical life. It is true that most of the time I am aware of contending with stereotypes and considering authenticity, but even in these, my overriding motivation is simply to live well this vocation to which God in (his) Church has called me in light of canon 603 and the Camaldolese tradition. What this means for me is to live this call in a way which leads to the abundant and abundantly loving life God promises all believers. The eremitical vocation is meant for this and it gains flexibility because of it. As a result, for instance, I define solitude in terms of personal wholeness, genuine freedom, and individuation in and with God; I understand the silence of solitude as the physical environment, but also as the personal goal, and charism (gift) of this vocation to the Church and world. I understand this vocation speaking most powerfully to those who are chronically ill, disabled, or otherwise isolated from others in ways they cannot change, but which God can indeed transform and transfigure in light of a deeper healing!

I also understand this vocation as speaking to those who, because of life-circumstances, believe they have nothing to offer the Church or world, and I try to witness to the fact that their own life with God is a supremely important and precious gift that can be offered to others even when, for instance, they cannot undertake active ministry. I believe that a hermit's life can give hope to those who lack it and a sense of meaning for those who have been unable to see this in their own lives. I think this is true because, as important and necessary as these things are, this life is not about our own talents and gifts, but instead it is about the way God loves, values, and completes us. When we really allow God to love us in this way we are empowered to love ourselves and others. Our life comes to make a sense it did not make apart from this. Naturally, I live and work as a hermit in the silence of solitude because I have the sense that this is precisely the way God has called me to wholeness and holiness, precisely the way he has called me to spend myself for others, and precisely the way he redeems my own life.

I am able and morally obligated to do these things, not only because (Arch)bishop Vigneron spoke at my perpetual eremitical profession  of my call to exploring the breadth and depth of this contemporary vocation and defined part of the shape of this life in doing so, but because I have a sense that God calls me to do so. Moreover, I am guided by Camaldolese spirituality in my oblature and am obligated in this way as well. Camaldolese spirituality has three pillars or "goods" (triplex bonum) which work together to give us the vision of eremitical life put forward by St Romuald, and St Peter Damian. These are: solitude, community, and the proclamation of the Gospel or "martyrdom" (witnessing). As a solitary hermit whose profession is made in the hands of the local Bishop, I have to work this out in terms of my parish faith community and diocese. What I am doing generally on this blog and in my daily living out of this vocation is working out the non-negotiable terms of canon 603 in light of Camaldolese values and a Camaldolese vision of eremitical life because this is precisely what I am called to do 1) by God, 2) by virtue of my association with and commitment to Camaldoli, and 3) by virtue of my Rule and profession under canon 603. Others professed as Camaldolese are doing something similar while living as solitary hermits under canons other than c 603 --- partly because c 603 has appealed to their imaginations as well.

Certainly there are other esteemed but differing visions of eremitical life, Franciscan, Carthusian, and Carmelite in particular. Diocesan hermits (solitary hermits professed under c 603) work out the shape of the non-negotiable elements in canon 603 in light of their own spiritual traditions and discernment. One hermit I know does this in terms of a Franciscan vision and tradition -- though he does not live as hermits did under Francis, while another does it in terms of a Carmelite vision. Canon 603 lends itself to this, but I don't think any of us are motivated by a drive or urge to experiment. Instead we are simply trying to live out our legitimate (canonical) and moral obligations in service to the Church and world -- always in response to the God of life who calls us to this. However, it is the Camaldolese tradition which allows and even calls me to think about eremitical life in the way I do. A central work reflecting the nature of Camaldolese life is entitled, The Privilege of Love, and it is this collection of essays I come back to repeatedly for guidance in how to live out my vocation. This is true of three essays in particular: "Koinonia: The Privilege of Love" (Dom Robert Hale), "Golden Solitude" (Peter-Damian Belisle), and Bede Healey's, "Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone".

Father Bede's essay informs my own thinking and living in a number of ways: with his stress on the relational self and the importance of not using solitude to run from community or community to flee solitude, the distinction between true and false selves, the capacity to be alone as a function of healthy object relations, the nature of contemplative knowing which comes from sitting with and working through our life experiences (precisely the nature of the inner work I do with my Director/delegate!), and growth in interiority as increasing freedom from ourselves and the "tyranny of our inherent falseness," --- what Scripture calls purity of heart. Fr Bede's work informs my understanding of "the Silence of Solitude" as environment, goal, and charism throughout. Dom Robert Hale (who assisted me in evaluating my Rule prior to perpetual profession) writes about love and communion as the foundation and ground of every stage of the hermit's life. Here Dom Robert is not speaking of love as a bloodless abstraction or empty idealization but as a concrete living out with and for one's brothers and sisters in space and time; it is the love of God we are all called to incarnate or enflesh and an outworking of the ministry of reconciliation St Paul says we are meant to be about.

So, these are some of the things which motivate and shape my life and work as a canonical (consecrated) hermit. They demand an eremitical life which is antithetical to those things you once saw as typical of eremitical life (and typical of the inauthentic and unloving life lived by counterfeit "hermits" throughout history and even today)! I do think the Church has taken care in making canonical something which is healthy, loving, and edifying as it eschews individualism, narcissism, misanthropy, and isolationism. Thanks again for continuing this conversation. A few people write here regularly (though not frequently) and though this kind of serial posting hasn't happened before, I am open to exchanges of this kind. And yes, Sister Laurel is just fine; I prefer it to Sister O'Neal.