On Eremitical Support Systems

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I can see from what you have written about different forms of eremitical life that they would suit different people differently. Is that what you believe? I have been reading about the Carthusians and because of what you wrote about community as a context for living eremitical life I am beginning to understand why they require a community, and also why they have lay brothers. Some people talk about the Carthusians as the "real deal", but what is pretty clear to me is that the choir monks (hermits) require a huge support system to live the solitude they do. Are you able to live the same kind of solitude as a canon 603 hermit as the Carthusian choir hermits? If so, what is your support system like? Do you think that c 603 life is flexible enough to allow for several different expressions of eremitical life? I am not thinking [so] much of the distinctions you wrote about recently: community, semi-eremitical, and solitary hermits, but more the eremitical expressions of one individual hermit as opposed to or when compared with another individual hermit. Thanks for your blog, by the way, it is always helpful to me. I wish I had written sooner.]]

Wow, now this is a really great set of questions and your observations on the nature of Carthusian life are spot on! Thanks! First of all, while I think I understand the Carthusian life and degree of solitude in an intellectual way, I am not sure I know it in an experiential way --- not because I don't live a significant physical and inner solitude, but because I do not have the same constraints on my time, movement, and choices with regard to prayer, study, recreation, housework, faith community, etc. For that reason it would be hard for me to compare my own physical solitude (physical time in cell) with that of the Carthusians. But yes, as you say, Carthusian solitude (both inner and outer) requires a significant support system to protect and nurture it. That, however, is true of the Franciscan model of eremitical life as well, though to a much lesser degree. And, it is necessary to some degree for canon 603 hermits as well.  Eremitical life is not lived in a vacuum; every religious hermit requires a significant support system and communal context, including the parish faith community. Thus, while I personally consider the Carthusians the "real deal", I don't consider them the only "real deal" as far as eremitical life goes, and in some ways, I think they are a very limited expression of eremitical life today.

My Own Support System:

You asked about my own support system so let me talk about that a bit. First of all, I am thinking of the importance of my computer and internet linkages here. I have participated in listserves where some "wannabe hermits" decried the presence of a computer in the hermitage. They declare they would never use such a thing or even have it on the premises. (Please note they are on a computer listserve for hermits talking with consecrated hermits who also use computers in this way! Notice the irony?) They hold the same position regarding cell phones and other forms of technology. Good for them if they can do this, but one of the things the pandemic has made clear and that is the importance of internet access. It may seem paradoxical, but in fact, if I did not have access to the internet I would not be able to live the degree of solitude I do. In fact, that degree of solitude has become greater during these months of lockdown because providing for people who are living other forms of solitude has become more important to different companies and services.

I use the internet to shop and schedule deliveries for almost everything I need. I can now do doctor's appointments online, see clients this way (not optimal but it works), meet with my own Director without her having to drive here, teach Scripture this way, join with others for lectio despite not being able to get there due to distance otherwise, make retreats I would not have been able to attend without ZOOM, do this blog, keep in touch with hermits from several countries, and be accessible to others who would not be able to travel here to the hermitage (including a journalist along with a writer doing  articles on eremitical life, one from Canada, and the other from New York. I count one of these a new friend (not a word I use lightly) -- though I definitely owe her an email!) For many of these things I no longer have to travel distances by walking, taking trains and connecting with busses (and reversing that to get home). I can simply stand up from prayer, make a cup of tea, and turn on ZOOM. So, in thinking about support systems, I have to name my computer and internet connection as a critical part of that.

One of the things I am aware of is the number of people the things I just mentioned involves. Doctors, Director, Sisters I would not see or even have come to know without this connection, others who share their lives in lectio and enrich my own solitude with their faith and love and courage, delivery people and all those connected with grocery orders, pharmacy needs, and other routine needs here at the hermitage, clients, et al. Some of these people I never even see, but they are part of my support system and I am grateful to God for them and what they make possible. Others I see infrequently, but I know they are there and accessible, and that is important in living solitude rather than isolation. Some I see regularly --- even frequently (my Director, for instance), and a number are email contacts only (with an occasional ZOOM meeting thrown in here and there). One thing that just now strikes me as very "Carthusian like" is the way delivery persons set groceries right in front of the inner (front) door of my hermitage at an expected time. I often don't even see them --- much like choir monks never seeing the donate brothers who leave meals in the choir monk's' hatch.

Another hugely significant part of my support system is my parish faith community. For most of the pandemic I depended on members of this community to bring me groceries, prescriptions, etc. Others would check in regularly to see how things were. Regular liturgies were available via ZOOM, my pastor is always accessible. When the pandemic lockdown began I was disoriented because my contacts with those in my parish shifted so radically and I could not use the old pictures I held in my heart of members doing x or y --- because I no longer knew what they were doing, etc. It also shifted because I was trying to teach Scripture via ZOOM and that too was disorienting. Over time all of that changed, thankfully, and my solitude once again was rooted in a living faith community which supports my time alone in my hermitage. Not least, we continue to pray for one another during what is a difficult time for most. So, generally speaking, this is a brief sketch of my support system. It is substantial and actually allows me to live this vocation with integrity.

A final and integral part of my support system I should have mentioned above, and one I would like to see become more consciously developed, is the assistance I get from and give to other diocesan hermits. There are several of us who communicate regularly (or as regularly as we can!), and who are beginning to meet and reach out to one another in shared friendship and Sisterhood/Fraternity. These relationships grow organically but I can envision this conceivably becoming a contemporary version of a laura. Though we are divided by many miles and belong to different dioceses, we share our eremitical commitments to live our lives at the heart of the church and we do so as Sisters/Brothers and friends. We are linked by the computer pathways that allow us to email and even ZOOM with one another. This could grow to encompass periods of shared lectio once a week and perhaps some time for sharing and prayer otherwise. What I already know is the support of these Sisters and Brothers, but I can envision our commitment to Christ and one another -- in the spirit of c 603 and our individual Rules -- growing in a conscious way which could allow our becoming a small, but real laura of solitary hermits.

Canon 603 as a Flexible but Firm and Supportive Framework:

Yes, I do believe in c 603 as a flexible framework for varied expressions of consecrated eremitical life. One of the things I have written about frequently here is the way Canon 603 combines the essential defining constituents of any eremitical life with a(n essential) Rule of life the hermit writes herself on the basis of her lived experience and the way God is at work in her own life; together these create and protect a coherent and balanced solitary eremitical life. 

There are certain givens: this is a life of stricter separation from the world --- not only the busy world around one, but especially the world which is composed of all that is antithetical to Christ or rejecting of love and truth. Apparently canonists agree (cf Handbook on Canons 573-746, general norms, p.33). Above all this refers to the hermit's own heart!! Secondarily it means dimensions of the world around us -- though these two together constitute a single reality which must both be addressed by the hermit. To think that canon 603's reference to "stricter separation from the world" means merely shutting the hermitage door on all of God's good creation is theologically and spiritually naïve. To conceive of everything outside the hermitage as "the world" in the negative Johannine sense, is similarly naïve. 

Canon 603 life is a life of "the silence of solitude" which means not only that (physical or external) silence and solitude are the vocation's context, but also that the (inner and deeply personal) silence of solitude is its charism and goal. It is a life of assiduous prayer and penance --- a life of communion with God and of all those things which help one participate fully in such a life.  It is a life of the Evangelical Counsels vowed to God --- a life of complete dependence on God with its simplicity and frugality -- of chastity in celibacy (or consecrated celibacy), that is, a life committed to loving and growing in one's capacity for genuine and inclusive love --- and it is a life of obedience, a life of attentive listening and responsiveness to God in all the ways God comes to one symbolized especially in obedience to a superior who exercises the ministry of authority in one's regard. 

The vocation must be these things, truly and recognizably; together they constitute the necessary and firmly supportive framework established by the canon itself, but the way they are lived out in each hermit's life, that is the pattern of human commitment and fulfillment (holiness and wholeness) produced by this constellation of elements in one diocesan hermit to the next will differ. The Holy Spirit works with each of us and our differing backgrounds, resources,  capacities, and potential and the weaving that comes from this mutual and cooperative work of the Holy Spirit and the obedient hermit will differ one to the next. We will differ in how we dress, when we rise or retire, when and how we pray,  eat, read, study, minister outside or from the hermitage, rest, recreate, meet with our directors and delegates, relate to our parishes and dioceses, and much more as well. 

What our vocations will share is the beauty, seriousness, and celebratory spirit of desert life where the silence of solitude is lived and gained more fully in both quiet and peaceful existence and in and through the solitary struggles one will face daily with and within oneself; the desert existence has always been so because it is committed to growth in Christ which entails the process of daily, even continual dying and rising until we rest at home with and in God. No one hermit (or person) can or does live this pattern of dying and rising in the same way another one can or does, and yet, from hermitage to hermitage and heart to heart, there will be significant commonalities because of canon 603 and the nature of Christian life itself.