Returning to "i am a little church" as a Source of Contemplation

 Dear Sister Laurel, many thanks for putting up e e cummings i am a little church!! I have been thinking about the imagery and how well it fits a hermit. I don't live out in the country or near mountains but as a hermit, I think I understand what e e cummings was saying --- even if he was not writing about hermits himself. For example, I love the line about the perfect patience of mountains or "winter by spring i lift my diminutive spire to/ merciful him Whose only now is forever!! They are images of eremitical life!! Does that make sense?? What are your favorite lines?

Oh yes! It makes wonderful sense! Thanks for sharing. I agree with you completely and love the entire poem. All of the lines have struck me profoundly at one time or another. Right now, because of work I am doing in direction it is, perhaps, the last line that has resonated within me most this past week  ---(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness). What I am coming to know deeply is that there is a profound rhythm to human growth and while I love God's light I am coming more and more to trust the darkness as well, because (as Bonhoeffer says) while "not everything is the will of God,. . . nothing is outside the will of God," and God does indeed bring light out of darkness so that even evil can become the source of grace. And sometimes, of course, the darkness is our own, for many different reasons. We cannot know the whole plan of God in our lives; sometimes we see light whereas other times we only see darkness. The ability to stand tall in both is surely a grace of genuine humility; for me this line encapsulates the very goal, not only of spiritual direction, but of spiritual life as a whole.

The other piece of this poem, that I think fits eremitical life very well is the following verse: around me surges a miracle of unceasing/birth and glory and death and resurrection:/over my sleeping self float flaming symbols/of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains. Because of Peter Damian's cosmology I am reminded that contemporary theologians and spiritual writers remind us we are made of "star stuff". Each hermit carries within herself that miracle of unceasing birth and death and find echoed within us the flaming symbols, the stars, that cummings envisions floating above us as we sleep (or pray). 

And each day is a new opportunity to share in the amazing life and dynamism of life with and in God who creates, sustains, and recreates us every single day by minute by second by nanosecond. I certainly do not have the perfect patience of mountains, but they speak to me of this call to monastic (eremitical) stability. Especially, I recognize that the rhythm of monastic and eremitical life helps situate us with the deeper rhythms of the cosmos and helps us hope in God despite the "smaller rhythms" that make us either fear change or align ourselves with the chaos of our world's disorder or the frenetic pace and choices of the adrenaline junkie!! Situating ourselves within this deeper rhythm and accepting we have a significant place in it despite our fragility and the apparent fleetingness of our lives, it seems to me, is the source of perfect patience.

Anyway, I love this poem and and the way it reflects on the mysteries of life. Almost any line speaks to me of God and eremitical life, of finding ourselves witnessing to the larger perspective of eternity and the ultimate security we share because of life in God. The verse I therefore come back to often is this one: i am a little church(far from the frantic/ world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature/ -i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;/i am not sorry when silence becomes singing. I found it spoke to me when I was younger and it speaks to me now in a different way when I am older. I always found silence culminating in singing, whether that was the way Office was chanted well because it grew out of silence, because of the way the rests in a line of sound create music (remember, I am a violinist), or, much more personally, because I as a person moved from a kind of muteness (and sometimes being a scream of anguish) to becoming the very different "language event" I associate with Mary's Magnificat. 

And finally, there is the verse that captures the profound way eremitical life is a life of deep compassion and bonds to every part of God's creation in and through God!! my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;/my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving/(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children/whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness. For me, one of the greatest gifts of eremitical life has been growth in compassion -- in the ability to feel and share in the suffering of the world so that I might also be able to convey the hope of God in ways that convince with its authenticity. And like cummings, I have come to this clumsily. receiving, giving, sometimes harvesting, other times experiencing drought, in both joy and discouragement (or other suffering). Cummings was always concerned with the truly human person, and when I apply what he said to hermits, it is because we are striving for the same thing cummings so esteemed! One way to define Jesus is as the compassionate One, the truly human being who suffers for and with others. I think this verse of cumming's i am a little church captures this really well!

So much more could be said about this poem and the gift it is to the person of faith!! So much more could be said about the way it echoes the Magnificat (or the Te Deum!!) of the hermit life!!! But I will leave this here for now. I originally offered this poem as an incentive to contemplation. Thank you for taking it in that direction and for allowing me to return to that as well!!!

Postscript to i am a little church(no great cathedral)

Apparently, in an attempt to "truth check" me Joyful Hermit has apodictically claimed Peter Damian never called hermits "ecclesiola" (little churches).Cf., Joyful Christian Hermit (beginning around 10:24) I would ask Joyful to please be more careful in her "Truth Matters" videos. No one can read everything out there on Peter Damian's ecclesiology (at least not in a single afternoon!) but to pronounce unequivocally that he never said something based on a quick Google search while implying someone else made the matter up is both irresponsible and uncharitable. (This is really akin to declaring that references to Zebras are not found in an encyclopedia because one looked for them in volume A, while then blaming the authors for lying because they claim the encyclopedia has a great article on Zebras.) Though I have posted this before here (cf., Feast of St Peter Damian), here is the most pertinent passage from Damian's letter # 28 (Dominus Vobiscum), section 25:

[[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola),. . . because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 par 23 (Belisle marks this par 23 but the CUA edition differs with par 25). Trans. Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam, Camaldolese Spirituality, Essential Sources p 191 (A similar translation is also found in Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, The Letters of Peter Damian 1-30, Letter #28 par 25) CUA Press, p 270 of pp 255-289.

A Contemplative Moment: i am a little church(no great cathedral)

 

i am a little church(no great cathedral)

far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities

-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,

i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;

my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving

(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children

whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing

birth and glory and death and resurrection:

over my sleeping self float flaming symbols

of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic

world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature

-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;

i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to

merciful Him Whose only now is forever:

standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence

(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

by e e cummings

So often in the past weeks, my thought and prayer have returned to the public and ecclesial nature of the c 603 vocation. Even in my work with my own director or with candidates for c 603 profession, the Holy Spirit has been working to emphasize this theme. I tend to begin with St Peter Damian's thought on the hermit as ecclesiola (little church, cf., Feast of St Peter Damian) and move from there to the consecrated vocation as a gift of God entrusted to the Church; this same vocation is then entrusted by that same Church to individuals called by God to this specific vocation through ecclesial mediation in the hands of her bishops.

In all of that, Christian reflection on the ecclesial nature of the consecrated eremitical vocation includes the sense that true spirituality is always incarnational; it must be embodied and realized in space and time, not cut off from the materiality of the spatiotemporal realm, but profoundly involved in it in a way that redeems and recreates the whole of reality in Christ. This is the way God moves us towards the new heaven and new earth the Scriptures promise us as our ultimate hope. I believe that these themes are at least implied and encapsulated in e e cummings' poem, i am a little church(no great cathedral). At the same time, I hope you enjoy it on its own terms!!

In Honor of e e cummings and Saint Peter Damian: i am a little church(no great cathedral)

I have always loved e.e. cummings' poem, i am a little church, but I never knew it had been set to music. I also love Peter Damian's notion of the hermit as an ecclesiola or "little church" and was reminded of that in the post I put up for his Feast Day yesterday. Well, here the two things come together in a poem/song so very appropriate for a solitary hermit! The poem and lyrics of the song follow.

i am a little church by e. e. cummings

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)