On Becoming the Hermit I am Called to Be

[[Sister Laurel, is it really possible for you to make the inner journey you speak of in terms of existential solitude while part of a parish, writing this blog, and doing spiritual direction? I wondered if the solitude lived by hermits can allow for such activity. Are you familiar with the idea that hermits should exist apart from the temporal world and the Church, and still be a model for them? I wondered what you thought of that idea.]]

Your questions at first struck me as difficult to respond to. That is because I am doing those things you are questioning and I am sharing about it here. So, why wouldn't I believe that these are all possible? What I write here is rooted in my own experience and my own reflection on and analysis of that experience, even when I don't share the details of all of that. Not every hermit will write about this journey, or analyze and reflect on it in the same way, but every authentic hermit will make this inner journey with and into God, different as it may look from one of us to the next. I came to eremitical life with a theological background, what had grown to be an interest in "chronic illness as vocation", and a personal background that made the exploration of existential solitude particularly meaningful, especially if it witnesses to the richness of eremitical life beyond the common and narrow stereotypes that still plague the vocation through the agency of antisocial loners and misanthropes. 

Guided by Stereotypes:

While a lot may have changed since the publication of Canon 603, I have the sense that most folks today are still guided by stereotypes in their understanding of this vocation. (I am not referring to you here, I don't know you at all!) Some have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that does not comport with those stereotypes, and reject such hermits out of hand without even giving c 603 life a hearing. But eremitical life has never been so univocal as that, and in every age and culture, eremites have been pioneers witnessing to the significance of the inner journey with, to, and for God's own sake in ways reflecting the diversity of these cultures and ages and the infinite potential and richness of a life lived in and from God. Sometimes, instead of stereotypes, people judge the eremitical life from external characteristics alone: Does the person live strictly alone or in a colony of hermits (or even in a house with one other person)? If in a colony or in a house with anyone else, then some say they can't really be considered hermits. Do they wear habits or not? If so, then they can't be considered hermits because they are not living lives "hidden from the eyes of men". Do they remain anonymous? If not, then again, they are not really hermits. How about their dwelling and church activity? If they live in a quiet apartment or are an integral part of their parish community of faith, and do not reside in a lonely place in the desert apart from a parish community, then they can't really be hermits, etc. Both solitude and an eremitical life of the "silence of solitude" are much richer, more diverse, and much more significant for every person than most narrow stereotypical understandings or those measured merely in terms of externals allow for.

Of course, all eremitical lives reveal commonalities and some elements are sine qua non if one wants to live an eremitical life authentically. I once described these as the ridges and whorls making up any fingerprint, despite the meaningful differences from one print to the next. Canon 603 lists these constitutive ridges and whorls as follows: stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, profession of the evangelical counsels, a personal Rule of Life written by the hermit herself, all lived for the sake of the salvation of others and under the supervision of the diocesan Bishop. Each of us diocesan hermits lives ever more deeply into these elements, and we come to know by paying attention to the Holy Spirit that each one provides a doorway into a world wider and richer than anything we could have imagined.

Surprised by the Real Vocation:

For instance, when I was first reading about eremitical solitude, I could not have guessed that in its aloneness with God, it was a unique and rare form of community, nor could I have guessed it had to do with the redemption of isolation and alienation rather than their glorification or canonization! Similarly, I could not have imagined that the term "the world" refers not simply to the larger world outside the hermitage door, but instead,  to that which is resistant to Christ, though especially and primarily, that reality within one's own heart that represents the most pernicious and overlooked instance of this "world". Neither could I have suspected that parish life would present me with innumerable instances of instruction in learning to love and be loved by others as Christ loved --- all critical to someone presuming to live a genuinely solitary contemplative life! Finally, I could not have even begun to suspect that my own brokenness would provide the fertile ground for a flowering of God's love in a way that allowed me to journey into the shadow of death and despair and find there the source of all hope, wholeness, and holiness. It was in this journey that hiddenness, stricter separation from the world, and the silence of solitude all came together as c 603, I believe, well understands. Underlying all of this, I could not have seen that the theology I did (both undergraduate, graduate, and post graduate), prepared me incredibly well for the paradox, not only of the Christ Event that stands at the heart of my faith, but of the eremitical life itself, where solitude means a profound engagement with God on behalf of others and entails a careful engagement with others on God's behalf. 

Learning to be the Hermit I am Called to be:

When I began living this life, I had certain ideas about what being a hermit meant, just as you have. There were tensions between those beliefs and the ways I felt called by God to be true to myself and to God. What was ironic was that moving more deeply into eremitical life was made possible within and through those tensions. For instance, I thought solitude meant living apart from a parish community. Over time, however, I discovered that the time I spent engaging with others as part of and on behalf of parish life, also drew me more deeply into my solitary life with God. I chose to teach Scripture to a parish community (and to some who join us from outside it), and in the process found that my time in solitude was more and more fruitfully centered in Scripture. My prayer was richer, the inner work I undertook in spiritual direction was even better supported, and my life with others was both appropriately limited and more intimate and loving. 

Also important was the reading I did, and the people I had conversations with on eremitical life. Beyond this, I continued working with my director, and in all of this, the question of whether I was still called to be a hermit was at least implicit. We explored the tensions I experienced, discerned how I could be true to myself and faithful to God and this vocation, and time and again, what became freshly clear was that I was following my path to and with God and could trust that. As my inner journey became deeper, sometimes more demanding, and ever more fruitful, the truth of my call was reaffirmed many times over, and this inner journey became clearly identified with the vocation's hiddenness. (Because my vocation is also a public one (one of those tensions I mentioned), I rejected superficial definitions of hiddenness associated with anonymity.) Discernment was ongoing; nothing about the way I live this vocation went unexamined, and was examined again whenever circumstances changed, or tensions occurred or increased. Eventually, what became entirely clear to me was something I had glimpsed early on, namely, I am a hermit embodying a life defined by c 603; so long as I live my life with integrity and faithfulness to God, I will remain a hermit.

Same Ridges and Whorls, Unique Fingerprints: 

This does not mean anything goes, of course, nor does it mean that I myself am the measure of the meaning of the constitutive elements of c 603. It means I must continue discerning what is right for me and, along with the Church, my sense of this ecclesial vocation according to the way God calls me to wholeness and holiness. I have done that since 1983 and will continue to do so in all of the ways that are helpful and necessary. Absolutely, I will need to let go of preconceived and possibly anachronistic notions of what constitutes eremitical life, and I will continue to revise the way I live the normative elements as circumstances and maturation in my inner life necessitates. Again, the constitutive elements of c 603 are not words with a single, fairly superficial meaning, but instead are doorways into rich, multi-layered realms the hermit explores as part of her commitment to God and to God's Church, and, in fact, to God's entire creation in eremitical life.

Every hermit I know lives this life at least somewhat differently from every other hermit. Yes, there are the same ridges and whorls, the same constitutive elements as those made normative in c 603, but the way each of us embodies these ridges and whorls, our unique eremitical fingerprints themselves, will differ one from another. The activities you ask about help empower and give shape to my solitary exploration of C 603 in God. Should any one of them begin to detract or distract me from this journey, then I will let go of it.

Living in the World Without Being of the World:

I have to say your question about living apart from the temporal world does not make sense to me. I am temporal, that is, I live in space and time. I am an embodied, historical being. That is what it means to be human. Yes, I am also empowered by the Holy Spirit to transcend space and time in some ways, but I am neither atemporal nor ahistorical, nor can I be. One dimension of my vocation is to allow God's will to be Emmanuel (God With us) to be realized ever more fully in and through my life. Another overlapping dimension of my vocation is to allow God to make me into someone who is prepared to be wholly united with God in a "new heaven and a new earth". A third dimension of my vocation is to assist others in committing to and living from and with that same God, His Gospel, and the New Creation, of which Jesus is the firstfruits (1Cor 15:23). Hermits embody the truth of Jesus' charge to every Christian to be in the world but not of it. I am committed to that goal, but I cannot do it by abandoning my own historical (spatio-temporal) nature. Indeed, given the importance of the Incarnation in revealing both God's unconditional, inexhaustible love and the fullest truth of humanity, and given my own place as a sharer in that mission of Jesus, how would I even begin to do that? 

Matter or materiality is not contrary to life in God. We believe in bodily resurrection and bodily assumption. We believe that in ways known only to God, embodied reality (whatever that looks like!) has a place in the very life of God because of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. We recognize that when Paul speaks of being a spiritual being or a fleshly being, he is speaking of the dimension of reality that defines us so that being spiritual means the whole person under the power of the Holy Spirit, while being fleshly means the whole person under the power of sin. In either case, we are speaking of being an embodied person. One of the miraculous witnesses of the Eucharist is to the way Jesus, as risen Christ, is wholly and gloriously present in, and at the same time, wholly transcends mere bread and wine. Sometimes I wonder if this is a foretaste not just of heaven, but of the way a glorified reality will ultimately be comprised. After all, when we speak of our ultimate goal, it is of life in and with God, which will also be embodied. The Scriptures remind us that we look forward to a new heaven and earth in which this exhaustive union involves the whole of creation, where the entirety is glorified. (cf, Isaiah 66:22; 65:17, Rev 21:1, 2 Peter 3:13)

Advent Prayer: Coming to see the Miracle of an Everyday God

So much in the spiritual life is about learning to see. Advent is often called a season of light and light is precisely that which allows us to see things --- hopefully as they really are! I remember the theology class I was in when the professor pointed out that we don't so much see the light as we see everything by virtue of the light. It was one of those aha moments, dazzling and utterly delightful because it involved a bit of insight that also meant nothing would ever again look the same to me.

These days, when I think of Christ as the Light, I think of the One who allows me to see reality as it is. He reveals God to us --- the One whose just-making judgment is achieved in mercy and compassion --- and he reveals ourselves to us; he shows us to be human beings who are incomplete and distorted without the One who loves us into trueness and completes us by drawing us into himself. Of course he also shows what true humanity is --- a life of generosity and other-centeredness, a life of love and service lived in relationship. Similarly the Christ reveals this world to be the very place where God is revealed definitively. Sometimes we spend our lives seeking a God who resides in a remote heaven when Advent and Christmas witness to a God who comes to us, who seeks us out precisely here in this everyday world of space-time.

My prayer for Advent is that we allow this "everyday God" to shine his extraordinary light on all of reality so that day by day we come to see it more clearly, know and appreciate it more truly, and embrace it and the God who creates it at every moment with genuine love. Perhaps then when Christmas comes we will be able to see more clearly the paradox of an Incarnation that is at once the miraculous revelation of the transcendent One who comes to us in complete ordinariness.

 
 

I changed videos last night to "day by Day" from Godspell because of the prayer ending the piece. A couple of people heard resonances of Godspell in my prayer as well. This video speaks to the challenge of allowing ourselves to find (or be found by!) and follow the transcendent God in the ordinary every day of our lives. I was reminded that the original musical was offensive to many religious folks --- just as the Incarnation was offensive to many in Jesus' day. The scandal of the Incarnation, a transcendent God who chooses to turn a human face to us which reveals both Divinity and Humanity, and the need to find that God in the ordinariness of our lives, all of these themes are present throughout Advent.

Feast of the Ascension: The Scandal of the Incarnation of God Continues in the Ecclesia as the Body of Christ (Reprise)

A couple of years ago I wrote about a passage taken from one of the Offices (Vigils) on the Feast of the Ascension. In that passage we hear the remarkable statement that, [[It is he who gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in roles of service for the faithful to build up the body of Christ, till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, AND FORM THE PERFECT MAN WHO IS CHRIST COME TO FULL STATURE.]] It is an image that has intrigued me since, and of course, one that I hear and reflect on again each Ascension Day. Imagine that it is we-as-church who quite literally make up the body of Christ and who one day will be taken up into the very life of God just as Christ was --- and that in this way, Christ will have "come to full stature." He will live in us and we in him, and all of us in God as God too becomes all in all. (Sounds very Johannine doesn't it?)

When I was an undergraduate in Theology (and through a lot of my graduate work as well), the Ascension never made much sense to me. It was often mainly treated as a Lukan construction which added little to the death and resurrection of Jesus, and if my professors and those they had us reading felt this way, I didn't press the issue --- nor, at least as an undergraduate, did I have the wherewithal TO press the issue theologically. It didn't help any that the notion of Jesus' bodily ascension into "heaven" was more incomprehensible (and unbelieveable) than resurrection, or that I understood it as a kind of dissolving away of Jesus bodiliness rather than a confirmation of it and continuation of the Incarnation. (The notion that a docetist Jesus had just been "slumming" for thirty-three years, as one writer objects to putting the matter, and that Ascension was the act by which he shook the dust of humanity from his sandals when his work was done, was probably not far from my mind here.)

Finally therefore, it was really difficult to deal with the notion that Christ, who had been so close to us as to appear in his glorified body with which he walked through walls, ate fish, allowed his marks as the crucified one to be examined, etc, was now going to some remote place far distant from us and would be replaced by some intangible and abstract spiritual reality. Of course, I had it all wrong. Completely. Totally. Absolutely wrong in almost every particular. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that most Christians have it wrong in all the same ways. And yet, it is the passage from Ephesians which is one key to getting it all right, and to rejoicing in the promise and challenge that Jesus' Ascension represents for us.

What actually happens in the Ascension? What about reality changes? What does it mean to say that Christ ascends to the right hand of God or "opens the gates of heaven"? The notion that Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension changes reality is novel for many people. They may think of redemption as a matter of changing God's mind about us, for instance, appeasing divine wrath, but not really changing objective reality. Yet, on the cross and through his descent into the very depths of Godlessness (sin and godless or sinful death), as I have written before, Jesus, through his own obedience (openness, and responsiveness) opens this realm to God; he implicates God into this realm in definitive ways. God's presence in all of our world's moments and moods is, in light of the Christ Event, personal and intimate, not impersonal and remote. And with God implicated in the very reality from which he has, by definition, been excluded, that reality is transformed. It is no longer literally godless, but instead becomes a kind of sacrament of his presence, the place where we may see him face to face in fact --- and the place where being now triumphs over non-being, life triumphs over death, love triumphs over all that opposes it, and meaning overcomes absurdity. This is one part or side of Jesus' mediatory function: the making God real and present in ways and where before he was not. It is the climax of God's own self-emptying, his own "descent" which began with creation and continues with redemption and new creation; it is the climax of God first creating that which is other so that he might share himself, and then entering into every moment and mood of creation.

But there is another aspect or side to Christ's mediatory activity, and this is made most clear in the Ascension. The language used is not descent, but ascent, not journeying to a far place, but returning home and preparing a place for those who will follow. (Yes, we SHOULD hear echoes of the parable of the prodigal Son/ merciful Father here with Christ as the prodigal Son journeying to a far place.) If in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, the world is opened to God, in Jesus' ascension, God's own life is opened definitively to the world. In Jesus' ascension, the new creation, of which Jesus is the first born and head, is taken up BODILY into God, dwells within him in communion with him. In Jesus we meet our future in the promise that this will happen to us and all of creation in him.

When Paul speaks of God becoming all in all he is looking at the culmination of this double process of mediation: first, God entering the world more profoundly, extensively and, above all, personally in Christ, and second, the world being taken up into God's own life. When he speaks of Christ coming to full stature, he is speaking of the same process, the same culmination. When theologians speak of the interpenetration of heaven and earth, or the creation of a new heaven and a new earth they are speaking again of this process with an eye towards its culmination at the end of time. The Ascension marks the beginning of this "End Time."



It is important to remember a couple of things in trying to understand this view of ascension. First, God is not A BEING, not even the biggest and best, holiest, most powerful, etc. God is being itself, the ground of being and meaning out of which everything that has being and meaning stands (ex-istere, i.e., "out of - to stand"). Secondly, therefore, heaven is not merely some place where God resides along with lots of other beings (including, one day, ourselves) --- even if he is the center of attention and adoration. Heaven is God's own being, the very life of God himself shared with others. (Remember that often the term heaven was used by Jews to avoid using God's name, thus, the Kingdom or Reign of Heaven is the Sovereignty of God) Finally, as wonderful as this creation we are part of is, it is meant for more. It is meant to exist in and of God in a final and definitive way. Some form of panentheism is the goal of reality, both human and divine. Jesus' ascension is the first instance of created existence being taken up into God's own life (heaven). It is the culmination of one part of the Christ event (mediation seen mainly in terms of descent and creation/redemption), and the beginning of another (mediation seen in terms of recreation/glorification and ascent).

When the process is completed and God is all in all, so too can we say that the God-Man Christ will have "come to full stature," or, as another translation of today's lection from Ephesians reads: [[. . .in accord with the exercise of his great might: which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.]]

For those who have difficulty in accepting God's assumption of human flesh and revelation of himself exhaustively in a human life -- most especially in the weakness and fragility of such a life, Jesus' ascension offers no relaxing of the tension or scandal of the incarnation. Instead it heightens it. With Jesus' ascension the Godhead NOW has taken created reality and bodily existence within itself as a very part of God's own life even while He transfigures it. This is what we are meant for, the reason we were created. It is what God willed "from the beginning". If, in the Christ Event human life is defined as a covenantal reality, that is, if our lives are dialogical realities with God as an integral and constitutive part, so too does the Christ Event define God similarly, not simply as Trinitarian and in some sort of conversation with us, but as One who actively makes room within himself for us and all he cherishes --- and who, in this sense and because he wills it, is incomplete without us.

Human being --- created, redeemed, recreated, and glorified --- assumes its rightful and full stature in Christ. In the acts of creation, redemption, and glorification, Divinity empties itself of certain prerogatives in Christ as well, but at the same time Divinity assumes its full stature in Christ, a stature we could never have imagined because it includes us in itself in an integral or fundamental way. Whether this is expressed in the language and reality of descent, kenosis (self-emptying), and asthenia (weakness), or of ascent, pleroma (fullness), and power, Christianity affirms the scandal of the incarnation as revelatory of God's very nature. We should stand open-mouthed and astounded in awe at the dignity accorded us and the future with which we are, and all of creation is "endowed" on the "day" of Christ's Ascension.

Hodie Christus Natus Est!! (Reprised with Revisions)

The scandal of the incarnation is one of the themes we neglect at Christmastime or, at best, allude to only indirectly. Nor is there anything wrong with that. We live through the struggles of our lives in light of the moments of hope and joy our faith provides and there is nothing wrong with focusing on the wonder and joy of the birth of our savior. There is nothing wrong with sentimentality nor with all the light and glitter and sound of our Christmas preparations and celebrations. For a brief time we allow the joy of the mystery of Christmas to predominate. We focus on the gift God has given, and the gift we ourselves are meant to become in light of this very special nativity.

Among other things we look closely in the week prior to Christmas at the series of "yesses" that were required for this birth to come to realization, the barreness that was brought to fruitfulness in the power of the Holy Spirit. We add to this Zechariah's muteness which culminates in a word of prophecy and a canticle of praise, along with the book of Hebrews' summary of all the partial ways God has spoken himself to us; we then set all of these off against the Prologue to John's Gospel with its majestic affirmation of the Word made flesh and God revealed exhaustively to US. The humbleness of the birth is a piece of all this, of course, but the scandal, the offense of such humbleness in the creator God's revelation of self is something we neglect, not least because we see all this with eyes of faith --- eyes which suspend the disbelief of rationality temporarily so that we can see instead the beauty and wonder which are also there. The real challenge of course is to hold both truths, scandal and beauty, together in a sacramental paradox.

And so I have tried to do in this symbol of the season. This year my Christmas tree combines both the wonder and the scandal of the incarnation, the humbleness of Jesus' estate in human terms, and the beauty of a world transformed with the eyes of love. Through the coming week the readings are serious (Steven's martyrdom and the massacre of the holy innocents, a warning about choosing "the world," and so forth) for darkness is still very real and resents and seeks to threaten our joy. Yet, all this is contextualized within the Christmas proclamation that darkness has been unable to quench the divine light that has come into our world, and the inarticulate groaning which often marks this existence has been brought to a new and joy-filled articulateness in the incarnate Word. Everything, we believe, can become sacramental; everything a symbol of God's light and life amongst us; everything a song of joy and meaning! And so too with this fragile "Charlie Brown" tree.

All good wishes for a wonderful Christmastide for all who read here, and to all of your families. Today the heavens are not silent. Today they sing: Alleluia, Alleluia!! Hodie Christus Natus Est! Alleluia!