Amish Grace: Clever as Serpents, Gentle as Doves (Reprised)

Two years ago I posted the following blog piece as a reflection on Friday's Gospel reading from Matthew. (It also will tie into  the Feast of St Benedict which falls on Friday this year.) I am reprising it here because this year (in the next day or two) I would like to look a little more closely at this thing we call mercy --- one of the most misunderstood words in the Christian lexicon! It is central to Friday's readings (or to Benedictine hospitality in honor of the feast!), and, of course, central to Pope Francis' program of evangelization and his conception of Church. (More about that in the next day or so!) I think that there are significant parts of the Amish story which illuminate the real meaning  and especially the real power of mercy as well as it illustrated the nature of genuine forgiveness or what it means to not be worried whether or not we will have the right things to say in times of crisis.

Amish Grace: Clever as Serpents, Gentle as Doves

The gospel for [Friday] is both challenging and consoling. In case you have not seen it yet, it is Matthew's account of Jesus' counsel about needing to be gentle as doves and shrewd as serpents in a situation which is literally tearing Matthew's community asunder. When (not if) people are brought before political and religious leaders Matthew reminds them of Jesus' teaching, "Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you that speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." Jesus then tells them that Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child, children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name (my powerful presence), but whoever endures to the end will be saved.

Now I have heard homilists and others trivialize what is being taught in this reading. One deacon I know (not in my parish!) once said he never prepared homilies because of this text; he preferred to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through him! Years ago I heard an undergraduate theology student try to use this text as a justification for his un-prepared presentation on the meaning of a text. It didn't go over very well. Nor should it. The readings from Hosea and the Psalms, but especially Psalm 51 reminds us that speaking rightly with the power of the Holy Spirit comes only after long experience of God's compassion and forgiveness. It is only God who can teach us wisdom in our inmost being, only God who can create a clean heart in us, only God who can put a steadfast spirit within us, only God who can open our lips so that our mouths may proclaim his praise. This doesn't happen in a day. It comes only after more extended time spent in the desert (for instance) listening to the Word of God, allowing it to become our story as well, grappling with the demons we find there while we come to terms with and really consolidate our identities as daughters and sons of God in Christ.

I recently heard a story that illustrates the dynamics of Matt's gospel. Though it is not a recent story (sometimes being a hermit means I don't hear these things when they happen), in it people are asked to confess their inmost hearts as they are brought face to face with a world which sometimes seeks to destroy them. Matthew describes this in his gospel. In such a confrontation Jesus asks us be simple as doves and shrewd as serpents. He asks us to have to have done the long, demanding heart work that prepares us to be prophets and mediators of the Holy Spirit --- people with a heart of compassion and forgiveness intimately acquainted with the mercy and love of God and committed to being one through whom God speaks to change the world and bring the Kingdom. This is not about not doing our homework or being presumptuous; it is about becoming the people Jesus sends with pure hearts and a shrewdness which disarms --- like turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, and so forth would have done in Jesus' day. (cf Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Clever as Serpents, Gentle as Doves)

The story is that of the Amish school massacre in Nickel Mines, PA. I would ask that you check out the following video as Bill Moyers tells the story. [[Released from anger and bitterness, but not from pain. Forgiveness is a journey. You need help from others. . .to not become a hostage to hostility.]]

The responses to the story, as Moyers notes, were diverse. Mainly people were awed, some thought such forgiveness could only be a kind of planned show and other suggested the church told the Amish to do this rather than accepting it as the natural expression of a deeply ingrained and authentic spirituality. Others who had failed to draw the important distinction between forgiveness and pardon or release from consequences, argued the forgiveness was undeserved, illegitimate, and imprudent. (cf Jacoby, "Undeserved Forgiveness." Jacoby has another, similar op ed article on Cardinal Bernadin's decision to minister to a serial killer when Bernadin had only 6 mos time left because of the cancer he struggled with.)

What Moyer's account indicates but is unable to detail sufficiently in the above brief video is the extent of the acts of forgiveness and the real reconciliation that occurred as the Robert's family were repeatedly visited by Amish and in turn came to assist with the injured children (who in fact asked why they had not yet visited their families!). (One child continues to be very severely disabled and Roberts' mother comes each week to read to her, sing to her, and sometimes bathe her. The Amish remark on the blessing her presence has been, and of course her ability to come has served similarly for her.) At every level Amish and English (especially Roberts' own family) worked to rebuild relationships and shared their mutual grief. Forgiveness, real forgiveness recreated a community that had been shattered by the killings. It was not naive and did not simply avoid or suppress emotions but it made the painful and healing process of moving forward into a "new normal" possible for everyone. The Amish had prepared, not for the tragedies themselves exactly, but for the hard work of reconciliation by long habits of the heart, as Bill Moyers affirmed. But the picture they also give us is one of people who are indeed simple as doves and shrewd as serpents --- just as Christians are called and empowered to be.

If you haven't read the book, Amish Grace, please do so. I admit I read it last night and was in tears practically the whole evening. I don't think I can remember another book or story that has so broken or broken open my own heart nor convinced me how elemental our desire and need for forgiveness or for being people who truly hand on the ministry of reconciliation we are called to be (2 Cor 5:17-21) really is.

Followup on the Prayer Lives of Hermits

Dear Sister Laurel, I wanted to thank you for what you wrote about the prayer lives of hermits. As someone trying to become a lay hermit and write my own Rule I found your recent post on this very helpful. I have also been led to look at what you have written about "stricter separation from the world" by your comments on using pious practices to cover over what is really worldliness: 

[[One journals and talks with her director to see if she might be using one form of prayer to avoid something else --- that profound listening that requires one be in touch with her deepest heart, for instance, or monastic leisure and letting go of the need to "produce" or do rather than be. These latter difficulties are or can be reflections of the worldliness that follows us into the hermitage so we must not simply slap a pious practice over it and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing. (It is the case that even certain practices in prayer, certain affectations or attachments may be more worldly than not.)]]

I have always thought that any prayer is a way of combating worldliness but I guess in the contemplative life that really may not be so. Can you please say more about this? Thank you.]]

Yes, when I wrote that I was thinking of, several things. First, and most incidentally or tangentially, there was a phrase I personally hate, namely that of "prayer warrior." So let me dispense with this piece of things before moving on to my more central concerns. Often I have seen the all-too-human desires for control, power, or fear translated into prayer-as-weapon. The idea of storming heaven with our prayers causes me to cringe because when you scratch the pious veneer off of the practice there is an idea of controlling God, getting God to take notice, a desire to recruit God to "our" side of some belligerence, etc. This is all very far removed from the contemplative prayer of hermits or a love that makes whole, for instance, and while I believe we all ought to lend our hearts and minds in support of the concerns and needs of our brothers and sisters (which is what intercessory prayer allows), I don't think any genuine prayer can be about getting God's attention (which does not mean we should not pour out our profound sense of need!!), attempting to control God, convincing God with our needs, bargaining, etc. I do think that this tendency in our prayer can be considered a form of worldliness and needs to be relinquished or otherwise outgrown.

The same is true of the second issue I had in mind, namely, treating prayer as a busy-making, productive activity in a world which is all about doing, making, producing and never enough about truly being, much less being truly ourselves and resting in God! If prayer is conceived of as a pious undertaking of our own doing, even if it involves pleading on behalf of others, we may well simply be perpetuating a very worldly pattern of self-assertion and the inability or even outright refusal to listen. I think it is essential to pour out our hearts to God, that is, to open every concern to Him and allow him to touch, hallow, and make that same heart one. Likewise I believe that in pouring out our hearts we mediate God's love to those we carry in those same hearts. Even so, we can do this in silence trusting that God will find his way into all of the nooks and crannies of our hearts, that he will move us to pour ourselves out to him, and that generally all we can provide (which we still do by God's grace) is our permission in what is really God's own work and movement. To treat prayer otherwise may be to perpetuate a worldliness that resists such utter dependence, is allergic to silence, and seeks to make prayer a work we succeed (or at least attempt to succeed) at ourselves.

A third thing I was thinking of when I made that comment was the tendency I sometimes see in those who would be hermits. Too often isolation and eccentricity are "baptized" by these folks with the title "hermit." Instead of working on the personal changes that need to be made so that one may overcome continuing occasions of alienation and rejection, these are "consecrated" with the notion that God desires these things or even that he causes or accomplishes them in one's life. But individualism, avoidance of conversion, and self-justification are pretty worldly attitudes and behaviors and to affirm that God desires (or even causes) their exacerbation rather than their healing and redemption in the name of mysticism, eremitism, or a "victim soul spirituality" is to slap a pious label on something which is worldly in the most destructive way. Self-described hermits may really be more about this kind of worldliness than they are about eremitical solitude --- which is being alone with God for the sake of others. It is ironic that the eremitical life as the Church understands it is NOT a good solution (much less vocation!) for those who refuse to be related to others. Because eremitical solitude is partly about loving others IN God (it is first of all about dwelling in God for God's own sake), isolation and a failure to love in concrete ways are actually antithetical to eremitical solitude.

Finally, I was thinking of those who pretend to be mystics or contemplatives. This can happen for many reasons but whether it occurs because this is thought to be a "higher" form of prayer, or because it allows them to opt out of the demanding commission given to every Christian to help build the Kingdom and participate in some integral way in the Body of Christ, it is worldly. If it occurs because it saves them from the everyday toil of maturing spiritually (humanly) or  learning to pray and to allow God to work in and with one, or because pseudo-mystical experiences are distracting from the pain of loss, rejection, alienation, illness, etc, or simply because they make the person feel special and loved (which, when authentic, of course these can and do, but in a way which produces incredible  fruit for others) --- these (inauthentic experiences) too are simply entirely worldly ways of living over which pious labels or activities have been plastered. Especially in contemplative life (and particularly when this is marked by mystical prayer) one must learn to really pray, learn to genuinely and wholly give oneself over to God in true humility. During this process one will experience tedium, boredom, a sense that one is getting nowhere in prayer, etc. In such instances to go back to an earlier form of prayer which was exciting or fulfilling in an attempt to avoid the difficulties of the present stage of growth is another version of a worldliness which eschews dependence on God, powerlessness, darkness or a lack of understanding and control, and certainly boredom or tedium of any sort.

It is simply all-too-easy to carry over attitudes and ways of approaching reality which are indeed worldly into our prayer -- and to do so in ways which are meant to protect these. Attempts to impress, to show only our best selves, to stand on our own merits, to succeed, to speak eloquently (when we ought to listen) or not at all (when we are called to speak up!), to create a prayer-as-achievement or settle for prayer experiences rather than to be a prayer, to be distracted from pain or to embrace an irresponsible quietism, to justify a refusal to be well (or to work toward wellness) by choosing isolation in the name of victimhood  or eremitical life, to mask anger and bitterness (especially at God!) under a layer of the language and thought of pseudo mystical misery and a distorted theology of suffering --- all of these and many more can be ways of what I described as trying to [[slap a pious practice over [something which is really worldly] and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing.]] 

As I have written before, one of the really critical mistakes beginning hermits make is to believe they leave "the world" simply by shutting the door of their hermitage on everything outside it.  That simply makes of the hermitage a particularly dishonest (or deluded) outpost of the world one is seeking to redeem. But to really leave "the world" behind means to leave those attitudes and behaviors which are so much a part of the way we have been acculturated to think, perceive, and judge while we allow our hearts and minds to be entirely remade by God. When this happens, the hermitage becomes what one friend reminded me it should be, namely, a place where the cries and anguish of the world are truly heard --- and, I would add, where they are taken up into the very heart of God through the hermit's heart at prayer.

As a kind of postscript, please remember a couple of the things Merton says about "the world" and the danger of hypostasizing it. I have cited these before: "The way to find the real 'world' is not merely to measure and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground. For that is where the world is, first of all: in my deepest self.. . . This 'ground', this 'world' where I am mysteriously present at once to my own self and to the freedoms of all other men, is not a visible, objective and determined structure with fixed laws and demands. It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself my own unique door. When I find the world in my own ground, it is impossible for me to be alienated by it. . ." (The Inner Ground of Love)

"There remains a profound wisdom in the traditional Christian approach to the world as an object of choice. But we have to admit that the mechanical and habitual compulsions of a certain limited type of Christian thought have falsified the true value-perspective in which the world can be discovered and chosen as it is. To treat the world merely as an agglomeration of material goods and objects outside ourselves, and to reject these goods and objects in order to seek others which are "interior" or "spiritual" is in fact to miss the whole point of the challenging confrontation of the world and Christ. Do we really choose between the world and Christ as between two conflicting realities absolutely opposed? Or do we choose Christ by choosing the world as it really is in him, that is to say, redeemed by him, and encountered in the ground of our own personal freedom and love?" (The Inner Ground of Love, Emphasis added)

Happy Fourth of July (Reprised and redacted)

Only one thought occurs to me on this day, and that is that Christians have much to tell America about the nature of true freedom, even while they are grateful for a country which allows them the liberty to practice their faith pretty much as they wish and need. Too often today Freedom is thought of as the ability to do anything we want. It is the quintessential value of the narcissist. And yet, within Christian thought and praxis freedom is the power to be the persons we are called to be. It is the direct counterpart of Divine sovereignty and is other-centered. I believe our founding fathers had a keen sense of this, but today, it is a sense Americans often lack. Those of us who celebrate the freedom of Christians can help recover a sense of this necessary value by embracing it more authentically ourselves. Not least we can practice a freedom which is integrally linked to correlative obligations and exists for the sake of all; that is, it involves an obligation to be there for the other, most especially the least and poorest among us.

This year those thoughts (which I posted last year) echo against the backdrop of the situation in Iraq and the Middle East. We have Dominican Sisters who are struggling to serve their Iraqi brothers and sisters (Muslim and Christian) and a minority of Christians who are simply trying to live their faith in spite of religious persecution. Their presence and commitment is a challenge to all of us who might be tempted to embrace a domesticated Christianity and a freedom which is really less radical than that to which Jesus calls us. Today in the US we celebrate our independence; let us do so by recognizing the fragile gift  and awesome responsibility it really is for us.

Meanwhile, All good wishes for the birthday of our Nation!

Feast of St Thomas, Apostle

Today's Gospel focuses on the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, and one of the lessons one should draw from these stories is that we are indeed dealing with bodily resurrection, but therefore, with a kind of bodiliness which transcends the corporeality we know here and now. It is very clear that Jesus' presence among his disciples is not simply a spiritual one, in other words, and that part of Christian hope is the hope that we as embodied persons will come to perfection beyond the limits of death. It is not just our souls which are meant to be part of the new heaven and earth, but our whole selves, body and soul.

The scenario with Thomas continues this theme, but is contextualized in a way which leads homilists to focus on the whole dynamic of faith with seeing, and faith despite not having seen. It also makes doubt the same as unbelief and plays these off against faith, as though faith cannot also be served by doubt. But doubt and unbelief are decidedly NOT the same things. We rarely see Thomas as the one whose doubt (or whose demands!) SERVES true faith, and yet, that is what today's Gospel is about. Meanwhile, Thomas also tends to get a bad rap as the one who was separated from the community and doubted what he had not seen with his own eyes. The corollary here is that Thomas will not simply listen to his brother and sister disciples and believe that the Lord has appeared to or visited them. But I think there is something far more significant going on in Thomas' proclamation that unless he sees the wounds inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion, and even puts his fingers in the very nail holes, he will not believe.

What Thomas, I think, wants to make very clear is that we Christians believe in a crucified Christ, and that the resurrection was God's act of validation of Jesus as scandalously and ignominiously Crucified. I think Thomas knows on some level anyway, that insofar as the resurrection really occured, it does not nullify what was achieved on the cross. Instead it renders permanently valid what was revealed (made manifest and made real) there. In other words, Thomas knows if the resurrection is really God's validation of Jesus' life and establishes him as God's Christ, the Lord he will meet is the one permanently established and marked as the crucified One. The crucifixion was not some great misunderstanding which could be wiped away by resurrection. Instead it was an integral part of the revelation of the nature of truly human and truly divine existence. Whether it is the Divine life, authentic human existence, or sinful human life --- all are marked and revealed in one way or another by the signs of Jesus' cross. For instance, ours is a God who has journeyed to the very darkest, godless places or realms human sin produces, and has become Lord of even those places. He does not disdain them even now but is marked by them and will journey with us there --- whether we are open to him doing so or not --- because Jesus has implicated God there and marked him with the wounds of an exhaustive kenosis.

Another piece of this is that Jesus is, as Paul tells us, the end of the Law and it was Law that crucified him. The nail holes and wounds in Jesus' side and head -- indeed every laceration which marked him -- are a sign of legal execution -- both in terms of Jewish and Roman law. We cannot forget this, and Thomas' insistence that he really be dealing with the Crucified One reminds us vividly of this fact as well. The Jewish and Roman leaders did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood him, but because they understood all-too-clearly both Jesus and the immense power he wielded in his weakness and poverty. They understood that he could turn the values of this world, its notions of power, authority, etc, on their heads. They knew that he could foment profound revolution (religious and otherwise) wherever he had followers. They chose to crucify him not only to put an end to his life, but to demonstrate he was a fraud who could not possibly have come from God; they chose to crucify him to terrify those who might follow him into all the places discipleship might really lead them --- especially those places of human power and influence associated with religion and politics. The marks of the cross are a judgment (krisis) on this whole reality.

There are many gods and even manifestations of the real God available to us today, and so there were to Thomas and his brethren in those first days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus. When Thomas made his declaration about what he would and would not believe, none of these were crucified Gods or would be worthy of being believed in if they were associated with such shame and godlessness. Thomas knew how very easy it would be for his brother and sister disciples to latch onto one of these, or even to fall back on entirely traditional notions in reaction to the terribly devastating disappointment of Jesus' crucifixion. He knew, I think, how easy it might be to call the crucifixion and all it symbolized a terrible misunderstanding which God simply reversed or wiped away with the resurrection -- a distasteful chapter on which God has simply turned the page. Thomas knew that false prophets showed up all the time. He knew that a God who is distant and all-powerful is much easier to believe in (and follow) than one who walks with us even in our sinfulness or who empties himself to become subject to the powers of sin and death, especially in the awful scandal and ignominy of the cross --- and who expects us to do essentially the same.

In other words, Thomas' doubt may have had less to do with the FACT of a resurrection, than it had to do with his concern that the disciples, in their loss, grief, desperation, guilt, and the immense social pressure they faced to renounce Jesus and the God he revealed, had truly met and clung to the real Lord, the crucified One. In this way their own discipleship will come to be marked by the signs of the cross as they preach, suffer, and serve in the name (and so, in the paradoxical power) of THIS Lord and no other. Only he could inspire them; only he could sustain them; only he could accompany them wherever true discipleship led them.

Paul said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified" because only this Christ had transformed sinful, godless reality with his presence, only this Christ had redeemed even the realms of sin and death by remaining open to God even within these realities. Only this Christ would journey with us to the unexpected and unacceptable places, and in fact, only he would meet us there with the promise and presence of a God who would bring life out of them. Thomas, I believe, knew precisely what Paul would soon proclaim himself, and it is this, I think, which stands behind his insistence on seeing the wounds and put his fingers in the very nail holes. He wanted to be sure his brethren were putting their faith in the crucified One, the one who turned everything upside down and relativized every other picture of God we might believe in. He became the great doubter because of this, but I suspect that instead he was the most faithful and astute theologian among the original Apostles. He, like Paul, wanted to know Christ Crucified and ONLY Christ Crucified.

We should not trivialize Thomas' witness by transforming him into a run of the mill empiricist and doubter (though doubting is an important piece of growth in faith)!! Instead we should imitate his insistence: we are called upon to be followers of the Crucified God, and no other. Every version of God we meet should be closely examined for nail holes, and the lance wound. Every one should be checked for signs that this God is capable of and generous enough to assume such suffering on behalf of a creation he would reconcile and make whole. Only then do we know this IS the God proclaimed in the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, the only one worthy of being followed even into the darkest reaches of human sin and death, the only One who meets us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place, the only one who loves us with an eternal love from which nothing can separate us.

A Contemplative Moment: On Silence and Solitude

In eremitic spirituality silence does not exclude speaking and does not discount meetings and dialogues. What is aimed at is bringing harmony between the heart and the mind, between the spirit and the body, and eventually between God and man. Silence sets us free from the burden of words that are banal and meaningless, from a humdrum that disturbs the true essence of the word. A human word, when it comes from the deep silence of the heart, causes a creative anxiety in everyone who listens to it. It becomes the word of a prophet, proclaiming eternity.

The rigor of solitude --- the second pillar of eremitic ascesis --- does not mean escaping and isolating oneself, and it is not misanthropy of any kind. The hermit wants to meet and confront himself in solitude in order to identify his heart's deceitfulness and to get rid of it. The choice to live in solitude is surely the choice to leave the humdrum of the worldly marketplace, but the character of such a decision is not negative. The hermit does not aim at running away from the world and its affairs and at finding a safe shelter somewhere there in the wilderness. It is not right to consider him a fearful and frustrated fellow, a runaway who is afraid of confronting his self. Solitude has nothing to do with existential neurosis, but it is rather a creative search for the flame of love that burns in God's heart.

Fr Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam  The Eremitic Life

For the Son of Man Has No Place to Lay His Head

Jesus the Homeless by Timothy Schmalz, Ontario,  Canada
Located outside St Alban's Episcopal Church, Davidson, NC

Yesterday we heard the Gospel lection reminding us that Jesus had no place to lay his head and tomorrow we have the story of the people of Gadara asking Jesus to leave them alone and to not trouble them or their lives with the changes required by faith. With both of these stories on my mind I came across the story of a sculpture which was put up in front of St Alban's Episcopal Church in the wealthy NC community of Davidson (I wonder if anyone has noted the irony of THAT name!?). It cast Jesus in the role of a typical homeless person asleep on a city bench. The figure is entirely wrapped in a grey blanket, lying on his side in a modified fetal position so very familiar in those vulnerable persons sleeping in city doorways, on steam grates, and hidden as best they can be behind loaded shopping carts, etc. Only the feet with their nail holes are somewhat visible.

The responses to this piece have varied. When the sculpture was first put up one women in the neighborhood called the police to report a homeless person sleeping on the bench! She was concerned for the neighborhood. She also told reporters she didn't like having Jesus represented as a vagrant.  Similar sculptures have been rejected in a number of places despite initial interest in having one.  Both St Patrick's Cathedral in NY (in the process of renovating) and St Michael's Cathedral in Toronto declined placement. Rome will be putting one up if  the city okays the project. A Jesuit School (University of Toronto) will be doing the same. Pope Francis was given a smaller version of the statue and quietly rested his hands on the feet and prayed.

Today many people come and sit on the end of the bench and quietly rest their hands on or stroke the feet of the crucified one. I like to hope that little by little people are being opened to see others as they see Christ --- wounded and scarred by others and our society and without a place to really rest their heads. The choice between being people of Gadara ("And when they saw him they begged him to . . .") or people of the Kingdom is one we face everyday.

"And when they saw Him they begged Him to. . ." (Reprise with Redactions)

I have to say that tomorrow's Gospel always suprises and delights me. At first. It is the story of first, Jesus' sending the demons which possess two men into a nearby herd of swine thus freeing the men from the bondage to brokenness and inhumanity which marks and mars their lives, and then, it is the story of what happens when he approaches the nearby town (Gadara) whose residents have heard of what he has done. Despite knowing how the story goes, I admit to being surprised everytime Matthew's last line which begins, "Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him. . ." concludes with, ". . .they begged him to leave their district."

Now, granted, Jesus just destroyed an entire herd of swine, and they must have been someone's livelihood --- perhaps many people's. Some unhappiness with this would have been understandable. And Jesus has healed a couple of men whose conditions had made travel along a certain route unsafe, so one would expect a mixed response to that perhaps -- though the route is now free from this danger, these men now will need to be accommodated in some real sense --- not simply treated as wild animals or aliens of some sort. I begin have a sense why Jesus was not welcomed here. But I admit to still hearing in the back of my mind cheers of welcome, beseeching of Jesus to come and change lives, a positive and welcoming response like that in fiction stories where the conquering hero comes back from slaying the dragon, or like the narrative in the New Testament where Jesus is welcomed as King with waving palm branches and cries of Hosanna --- temporary as that moment was! In a way, perhaps the "back of my mind" wants a costless or "cheap" grace, a "good news" fit for escapist fiction or an incredibly naive reading of the NT --- but not for the real world.

But besides surprise and delight this lection also stops me with its claim and challenge. That is so because the Gospel is good news in a much more realistic, paradoxical, and problematical way -- especially in regard to the first example above --- and today's Gospel lection highlights this for us. As we have heard over the past few passages from Matthew Jesus reveals himself to be a man of extraordinary, even divine authority --- a man with authority over nature, illness, the hearts of men and women, and now over demons. He heals, feeds on a profound and lasting level, frees, and provides true meaning and dignity for those lost and bereft. He is the Son of God (a title Matthew has on the lips of the demons in today's story)--- very good news indeed --- but he acts with an authority which is genuinely awesome and which turns the everyday world of politics, religion, simple ordinariness, and comfortable respectability on their heads. The Gadarenes in today's Gospel see this clearly and they are unprepared for it. More, he terrifies them. Far from misunderstanding Jesus and refusing to welcome him on those grounds, like the Scribes and Pharisees they understand precisely who Jesus is and want no part of him. Far better to simply ask Jesus to leave the district than to have to come to terms with who he is and what that truly challenges and calls forth in us!

One of the current complaints by some traditionalists is that Vatican II gave us a God of love (they frequently spell the word "luv" to denote their disparagement of it) and lost the God who inspires fear, etc. They may well be correct that there has been some "domestication" of God and his Christ in popular piety --- but then this is not because of Vatican II; it is a continual temptation and sin besetting the Church. Afterall, how many of us when faced with the daily prospect of renewed faith recognize that acceptance of Jesus' authority -- expressed as an unconditional love which is stronger than death -- will turn our world upside down and call us to a radical way of living and loving which involves renunciation, self-sacrifice, and commitment to a Kingdom that is NOT of this world and often is at distinct odds with it? The equivalent of a herd of swine or the accommodation of the mentally ill is probably the least it will cost us --- precisely because it is unconditional. How many of us choose not so much to be loved exhaustively by God -- to really open ourselves to His Presence with all that implies for growth, maturity and responsibility -- but instead (at least with some part of ourselves) would prefer to cling to a relatively undemanding (and world-reinforcing) piety which falls short of the life of the Kingdom? How many buy into (and construct our lives around) a religion which is at least as much OF this world as it is IN it?

So yes, tomorrow's Gospel both surprises and delights me --- but it also gives me pause. It does both because of its honesty; and it does so because it is genuinely good news, rooted in the awesome authority of the Christ who loves without condition but not without challenging and commissioning us to the radically transformed life that comes whenever he meets us face to face or heart to heart. Such a Christ will never be really popular I think. Many of our churches and cities are far more like Gadara than not. Sometimes, I am sorry to say, my hermitage is as well. The authority of Jesus over illness, fear, meaninglessness, and the demons that beset us is an awesome and demanding reality and our hearts are more often ambivalent and ambiguous than pure and single. I suspect that domestication of our faith is something most of us are guilty of every day of our lives. Today's Gospel requires that we ask ourselves what parts of our lives would we instinctively desire to protect from an encounter with Jesus were we to hear he was on his way to our parish this morning? What kinds of changes would we be unwilling to make --- though we might well suspect Jesus would require them of us if we are to be true to ourselves and him? With these questions and today's Gospel in mind, let us summon up the courage to beg Jesus to enter into our towns, homes, churches, and hearts, and remain with us; let us give him free access to move within and change our world as he wills! That is my own prayer for today.

Abba Motius: Humility is to See Ourselves to Be the Same as the Rest

[[Dear Sister, you once wrote: [[What I am trying to say is there is a vast difference between fitting in because in one's basic Christianity one knows on a deep level how very like every other person one is, and therefore, truly belonging in any circumstance or set of circumstances, and trying to "blend in." The first is motivated by humility and carried along by one's genuine love of others. The second is too self-conscious and seems to me to not be motivated by humility or an honest love of others. Abba Motius of the Desert Fathers says it this way, "For this is humility: to see yourself to be the same as the rest." ]] If a person has certain gifts which make her stand apart from others is it really possible for her to affirm that "she is the same as all the rest"? If humility is a form of loving honesty as you have also written here, then is it honest or humble to deny the gifts which make one different from others? How does a person come to this kind of humility without denying their gifts? Is this another one of those Christian paradoxes you are so fond of?? Is it important to the kind of hermit you are?]]

Your question is amazingly timely because I have been thinking a lot this entire week about the gift of God which this conviction of how profoundly like others I really am truly is. In my own prayer life and in those experiences I might call "mystical," two gifts in particular have made all the difference in my ability to love and to be a person of genuine hope. The first has to do with a sense that the human heart is that place within us where God always bears witness to Godself, where God reveals Godself moment by moment as ever new and the source of a dynamic newness (and eternity) in us in a way which always transcends and is deeper than any woundedness or personal deficiency by which we might also be marked or marred. When there have been times I felt I could not face another day, when I had the sense that my own brokenness was too profound to be reached by the love of others or to allow me to love them, this sense that God was there within me 1) constituting a part of my very  existence which is deeper than any woundedess and 2) calling my name in an unceasing way that created genuine hope for a future both including and transcending all this, was really salvific for me.

The second gift which is related to this same prayer experience and which has been similarly transformative and lifegiving has been this sense that essentially I am "the same as all the rest of us." There was no striking direct revelation, no "locution" saying, "You are the same as everyone else!" or anything like that which convinced me of this. Instead it was the result of my reflection on the prayer experience I have spoken of here several times now where God was completely delighted to be able to "finally be here with [me] like this" and where I had the sense of having his entire attention.

What was pivotal here was the clear sense I had that 1) my own woundedness was no obstacle to God's delight, 2) that everyone delighted God in precisely this same way and 3) that everyone and everything else had God's entire attention just as I did. For me this became tremendously healing because it meant I was no longer burdened with the mistaken and personally crippling notion that my personal differences set me apart or isolated me from others in ways none of us could really ever overcome. It was this too that, at another point, allowed me to turn the corner on a solitary life rooted in isolation and unhealthy withdrawal and instead embrace one of authentic eremitical solitude and freedom.

For several significant reasons I came into early adulthood feeling that there were differences between myself and others which could never be bridged, much less healed or otherwise obviated. It was not merely that I was gifted in ways others might not have been (though there was some of that too) but instead that I came to realize that on some deep level I had the sense that my very humanity was wounded and changed in a way which could never allow me to truly love or be loved by others. It was as though I had been made different from others on a level that could never be healed or transfigured. While I actually got on well with others, was well-liked (even loved!), did well in studies and ministry, was (rightly) convinced I was called to serve God as a religious, etc, this profound sense of woundedness and "differentness" was a burden which sometimes made every step feel weighted with real sadness and despair --- even when most times that took the form of a kind of resignation and quiet grief or desperation. Whether due to personal giftedness, or deficiencies and woundedness, deep down I had the sense I could never truly embrace the Desert Father Motius' notion that I was the same as everyone else; thus, I also had the sense that authentic humanity, as well as loving and being loved was really forever beyond me.

And then, along with several other ongoing and supportive experiences of love and care by others, came the prayer experience I have briefly related here several times. It is because of that experience and my own reflection on that and similar but less seminal experiences over the next years that I am able to answer your questions with an assurance even a good theological background specializing in the theology of the cross (which is also VERY important here) might never have have allowed. Here then are those answers (so thanks for your patience). First of all you ask: [[If a person has certain gifts which make her stand apart from others is it really possible for her to affirm that "she is the same as all the rest"? If humility is a form of loving honesty as you have also written here, then is it honest or humble to deny the gifts which make one different from others?]]

In the first instance my answer is, yes, provided such a person knows who she is in God, and who others are in God as well. One must come to know oneself on this ultimately deep level, and she must come to know that all other persons --- no matter how different in talents, physical and intellectual abilities, family and psychosocial background, genetic makeup, health, etc, ---  are similarly grounded, similarly constituted, similarly called and loved in and by God. The word existence means to stand up out of (ex-istere); we stand up out of God who is the ground of being and meaning. That means that to some extent we are separate from one another in the very fact of our historical existence. However, it also means at a deeper (ultimate) level we are united with one another and all else that is.

In a way all I am saying here is we each share the very same humanity and all the gifts or deficiencies in the world cannot, will not, ever change that. To see reality in this way, to see creation as monastics tell us is the way of REALLY seeing, to see, that is, as GOD SEES is the basis of all of our security, our hope, and our ability to hold and carry both gifts and deficiencies lightly; this means we hold them in ways which do not isolate us from our brothers and sisters. My answer to your second question is that nothing need be denied in us or in others when we see ourselves and others this way. Yes, there will be differences, some of them pretty profound, but none so profound as the similarity and unity we share in God.

You also asked:  [[How does a person come to this kind of humility without denying their gifts? Is this another one of those Christian paradoxes you are so fond of?? Is it important to the kind of hermit you are?]] LOL! Yes, I guess this absolutely is one of those Christian paradoxes I am so delighted by and so very fond of. In fact, it is the very definition of paradox where apparent conflicts are allowed to stand because of a deeper unity in which resolution and even reconciliation is truly found.

I am not sure I can say much more about how a person comes to this humility. Certainly it is a grace. However, the things in my own life which allowed it include: 1) prayer in which I am loved (and allowed to love) beyond those things which make me either gifted or wounded and deficient in historico-temporal ways, 2) the Gospel of Christ which proclaims in fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God and so, reminds us that there is a deeper sustaining dynamism that is a constantly renewing source of life for us, 3) a faith which allows me to risk changing my mind and heart to embrace these realities and live from them, and 4) all of those people who mentored, taught, directed, pastored, treated, formed, supervised, or were friends to me out of their own faith in this transcendent reality and a belief in the person I most truly was and could be in light of it.

And regarding your final question, in one way and another everything I have written about eremitical life or the spiritual life here on this blog, every article I have published in Review for Religious, and so on, reflects the importance of all of these things for being the kind of hermit I am (not to mention the kinds of hermits I expect others to be as well)! I know first hand what it means to try and use canon 603 or eremitical life more generally to try to merely validate brokenness and isolation, but I also know what it means to live an authentic eremitical life in which these are redeemed and transformed into the silence of solitude and in which canon 603 is allowed to function as the Church really desired and needs it to function.

The same is true of contem-plative and/or mystical prayer. Certainly there are those who use pseudo mystical experiences to exacerbate their isolation and underscore their differentness from others. This is one of the problems which occurs when we focus on the "sensible furnishings" of the experience and fail to transcend these so that the real Wisdom of these experiences can take hold of us, shake us at our very foundations (Tillich), and remake us in mind, heart, and will.

Here is one of the places the work of Ruth Burrows I cited recently is so very important. (cf., On Pentecost, Ruth Burrows, OCD and the Real Experience in Mystical Prayer.) The same is also true of our true and false selves, where the true self is the "spontaneity" (Merton) or Event which is realized whenever the Spirit is allowed to grasp, shake, and transform (make true or verify) us entirely. Again, there is probably very little I have written about here and nothing of real significance that does not in some way owe its very existence to this "paradox" which is the key to understanding my experience in prayer and stands at the heart of all (but especially Christian) existence.  Certainly  there is nothing authentic in the kind of hermit I am which is not similarly indebted. Even something like the essential hiddenness of this vocation is illuminated by this paradox: cf  A Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness.

I am very grateful for your question. I don't know what made you look up that old post citing Abba Motius, Should Christians Try to Blend In? but that you did so this week and actually wrote me about it is a terrific gift. Thank you.

Feast of the Most Sacred Heart (Reprise)

Today we celebrate a feast that may seem at first glance to be irrelevant to contemporary life. The Feast of the Sacred Heart developed in part as a response to pre-destinationist theologies which diminished the universality of the gratuitous love of God and consigned many to perdition. But the Church's own theology of grace and freedom point directly to the reality of the human heart -- that center of the human person where God freely speaks himself and human beings respond in ways which are salvific for them and for the rest of the world. It asks us to see all  persons as constituted in this way and called to life in and of God. Today's Feast of the Sacred Heart, then, despite the shift in context, asks us to reflect again on the nature of the human heart, to the greatest danger to spiritual or authentically human life the Scriptures identify, and too, on what a contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart might mean for us.

As I have written here before, the heart is the symbol of the center of the human person. It is a theological term which points first of all to God and to God's activity deep within us. It is not so much that we have a heart and then God comes to dwell there; it is that where God dwells within us and bears witness to himself, we have a heart. The human heart (not the cardiac muscle but the center of our personhood the Scriptures call heart) is a dialogical event where God speaks, calls, breathes, and sings us into existence and where, in one way and degree or another, we respond to become the people we are. It is therefore important that our hearts be open and flexible, that they be obedient to the Voice and love of God, and so that they be responsive in all the ways they are summoned to be.

Bearing this in mind it is no surprise that the Scriptures speak in many places about the very worst thing which could befall a human being and her spiritual life. We hear it in the following line from Ezekiel: [[If today you hear [God's] voice, harden not your hearts.]] Many things contribute to such a reaction. We know that love is risky and that it always hurts. Sometimes this hurt is akin to the mystical experience of being pierced by God's love and is a wonderful but difficult experience. Sometimes it is the pain of compassion or empathy or grief. These are often bittersweet experiences, but they are also life giving. Other times love wounds us in less fruitful ways: we are betrayed by friends or family, we reach out to another in love and are rejected, a billion smaller losses wound us in ways from which we cannot seem to recover.

In such cases our hearts are not only wounded but become scarred, indurated, less sensitive to pain (or pleasure), stiff and relatively inflexible. They, quite literally, become "hardened" and we may be fearful and unwilling or even unable to risk further injury. When the Scriptures speak of the "hardening" of our hearts they use the very words medicine uses to speak of the result of serious and prolonged wounding: induration, sclerosis, callousedness. Such hardening is self-protective but it also locks us into a world which makes us less capable of responding to love with all of its demands and riskiness. It makes us incapable of suffering well (patiently, fruitfully), or of real selflessness, generosity, or compassion.

It is here that the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus' is instructive and where contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart can assist us. The Sacred Heart is clearly the place where human and divine are united in a unique way. While we are not called to Daughterhood or to Sonship in the exact same sense of Jesus' (he is "begotten" Son, we are adopted Sons --- and I use only Sons because of the prophetic, countercultural sense that term had for women in the early Church), we are meant to be expressions of a similar unity and heritage; we are meant to have God as the well spring of life and love at the center of our existence.

Like the Sacred Heart our own hearts are meant to be "externalized" in a sense and (made) transparent to others. They are meant to be wounded by love and deeply touched by the pain of others but not scarred or indurated in that woundedness; they are meant to be compassionate hearts on fire with love and poured out for others --- hearts which are marked by the cross in all of its kenotic (self-emptying) dimensions and therefore too by the joy of ever-new life. The truly human heart is a reparative heart which heals the woundedness of others and empowers them to love as well. Such hearts are hearts which love as God loves, and therefore which do justice. I think that allowing our own hearts to be remade in this way represents an authentic devotion to Jesus' Sacred Heart. There is nothing lacking in relevance or contemporaneity in that!

Update on the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena --- Iraq

The following letters from (names withheld here) are being circulated amongst women religious and by fellow Dominicans in the US; both are meant for all who are praying for these Christians and I wanted to share them here. I ask that you continue to keep the Sisters and of course all our brothers and sisters in Christ in Iraq and other places in the Middle East in your prayers. The threat of martyrdom and the reality of heroic witness is very real in our own times. (A note about names. Though these were originally included it is important that they be withheld as a prudential matter.)

Dominican Sisters in happier times (2013)

Dear Sisters, Brothers and Friends,

We would like to write an update, about the situation in Karakush- Iraq. As you probably heard there has been some unrest in the area.

First of all, Karakush- Baghdeeda is 30 km north east of Mosul. There are about forty thousand Christian people living there. It is the largest Christian community in Iraq. Yesterday, the 25th of June, some combat began between ISIL and the Kurdish army, which started about 4:00 pm and has not stopped since. The fighting forces stood on opposite sides of Karakush, shooting cannons at each other, in the middle of this combat were civilian homes.

Most people left and sought refuge in the towns near Karakush, other cities like Duhok and Erbil, and surrounding areas. In fact, there are less than a hundred left, including the bishop and some priests in Karakush. People are so scared; they have left the town, leaving everything behind. They don’t know where to go or when they will be able to return to their homes, if that ever happens.

Concerning the sisters (Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena), we all left today as of June 26 and we were among the last people to leave. This is our second time leaving our home in the past three weeks. We are in a safe place in our convents in different locations. Thanks be to God.  We have been visiting some people who had nowhere to go and they were put in nearby schools. They left with very little and they have almost nothing. The church is providing food and mattresses to sleep on in the public schools.

The situation is very difficult. All the negotiations failed between the two parties. The government is not taking part in anything. We don’t really know who is responsible for what is happening. The media is not saying anything about the situation, which is really unfair.  As of now, we have learned that the ISIL and the Kurdish army have started fighting again, after they have stopped for few hours giving time for people to leave the town.

We ask you to pray for us. It is hard to pray when you live in such a volatile situation, but we believe in your prayers.

Prioress and Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena –Iraq.

Dear Sisters and Associates,

I received an email from our Sister (name withheld) this morning, sharing the terribly distressing news that our Dominican Sisters of Iraq had to flee from Qaraqosh this morning, seeking safety in the north. Sister (name withheld) had just spoken with her Prioress, (name withheld here), who had remained behind with one other Sister and was just preparing leave. Qaraqosh is the village east of Mosul where the Congregation had just started to build a new Motherhouse, after being forced in 2006 to abandon the Motherhouse in Mosul they had called home since 1952.

Yesterday, Qaraqosh underwent shelling by mortars from 2:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. by Sunni tribes assisted by troops from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), killing and wounding many. The Kurds have been expanding their boundaries into the Nineveh Plain, claiming Qaraqosh and other villages. Nearby Sunni tribes are now attempting to take back that territory, which the Peshmerga, armed Kurdish fighters, are defending.

Qaraqosh is still held by the Peshmerga, but they have been given an ultimatum by ISIL to withdraw their troops by 7:00 p.m. today or face another assault. Caught in the crosshairs of the fierce Sunni-ISIL/Kurdish battle, all but 5 percent of the residents of Qaraqosh have now fled from their homes, including our Iraqi Sisters and their families, to Kurdish towns of Erbil, Ankawa, and Arqa, among others in the north. The Syriac Archbishop, John Peter Mouche, remains in the city with a few priests. He conveyed these details to one of the Dominican friars in Iraq who shared them with Sister Nadiya and others.

Sister (name withheld here) also said that her whole family who had lived in Qaraqosh have also fled to northern Iraq. I know we are keeping all of them in our thoughts and prayers. 

Gratefully,

Prioress

What "Kind of Hermit" Does Canon 603 Envision?

[[Hello Sister, This might be a tricky question. When canon 603 says that people can be professed as hermits it doesn't say what type of hermit. What I mean is that in the Church's Tradition there seems to be many different expressions of eremitical life. For example you have the strict solitude of the Desert Fathers and Mothers and medieval anchorites, the seclusion in the midst of community like the Carthusians or the Franciscan model of long periods in hermitages interspaced by periods of intense public preaching and ministry. My question then is what type of eremitical life does canon 603 envision? Is it up to the hermit and his or her bishop to decide what an individual's eremitical witness will look like?]]

Thanks for your questions. I don't think this is a tricky matter. I say that because in the main Canon 603 is, as I have written many times here, very flexible. First of all it is up to the individual (and her diocese) to discern 1) whether she has an eremitical vocation of any expression, and 2) what her eremitical life will look like --- though how she will live out the elements of canon 603 is an indispensable and central part of these questions. The key to canon 603 vocations consists in the fact that these will always be calls to be a solitary hermit life embodying the following elements: assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, and the evangelical counsels under a Rule the hermit herself writes based on lived experience. While lauras of similarly professed individuals with their own Rules, etc. are allowed, these may not rise to the level of actual communities. (Jean Beyer, Commentary on Canon 603)

Since Lauras fail more than they succeed, the hermit must have her own Rule, income, job/profession, savings, delegate, etc. She must be able to live as a solitary hermit no matter what --- meaning no matter who else stays or leaves a laura -- or whether or not one ever even exists! (Most canon 603 hermits are the only ones in their dioceses and never even meet other hermits face to face.) Similarly, the elements of the canon have priority over the variations which might be linked to a particular spirituality. For instance, while St Francis wrote a Rule for hermits, some aspects of it might not be deemed compatible with the foundational elements of canon 603. For instance, while mendicancy is esteemed in Franciscanism, it is unlikely to be acceptable by a diocese looking at a potential c 603 vocation. I suspect the same would be true of extended periods of preaching and ministry; my own sense is canon 603 does not allow for this where Franciscan proper law does. In such a case one might be discerning a call to be a Secular Franciscan, for instance where one builds in significant degrees of solitude rather than a canon 603 vocation.

Still, so long as the central elements of the canon are embraced as the defining elements and charism of the life (the silence of solitude functions, I believe, as the charism of c 603 life) and lives these in a foundational way, canon 603 can accommodate a variety of emphases and variations or "spiritualities". When a person works out what expression of eremitical life is their very own then yes, the Bishop and the individual will mutually discern the appropriateness of canon 603 profession and consecration in this specific diocese. (N.B., while the discernment is mutual this does not necessarily mean the Bishop and/or Vicars for Religious will agree with the candidate petitioning for admission to profession.) In general, one does not simply ask what c 603 allows and then try to fit oneself under that in some cut and paste way. Instead one discerns the shape of one's own call under canon 603, explores the various spiritualities one feels drawn to embrace to support one in that, and, in time, thus discovers whether (and how) this spirituality can legitimately be embodied as an expression of canon 603 eremitical life. Thus, for instance, I am first of all a diocesan hermit and only secondarily Camaldolese Benedictine. While I think the Camaldolese charism best supports the diocesan eremitical vocation, I could fruitfully live my vocation according to several spiritualities including Cistercian, Camaldolese, and possibly Franciscan.

While it is not necessary to embrace a specific spiritual tradition or family, canon 603 has solitary hermits in the Benedictine, Carmelite, Cistercian, Camaldolese, Camaldolese Benedictine, Carthusian (St Bruno), Franciscan, Redemptoristine, Augustinian, and other traditions or spiritualities. (I say there are others because the ones I named specifically are the ones I personally know of; I am certain I don't know all there are.) Some diocesan hermits live as anchorites with a greater degree of stability of place and may not belong to any specific tradition beyond the medieval model of anchoritism.

In other words there is a significant degree of diversity in the way diocesan hermits live the non-negotiable elements of canon 603. So, thoroughly explore your own sense of call and, so long as you discover a call to solitary eremitical life as defined according to the canon, don't worry about whether you are the "kind of hermit" that will fit under canon 603. Once you have done that your Bishop and you will determine if you are called to public profession and consecration of the non-negotiable elements of canon 603 (for this is really another question). If the decision is that you are called to at least temporary profession there is reasonable assurance that your own embodiment of the eremitical vocation fits just fine (or essentially so!) and in any case you will be able to 'tweak' that as needed; discernment continues beyond this point.

On the God Who IS Surprise

Because in my last post I referred to God as a God of surprise I thought it might be helpful to hear someone like Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB on this matter. Brother David lived with the Camaldolese for some time, participates in inter-religious dialogues, is a mystic and sometimes-hermit, and is most well-known perhaps for his work Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer.

Personally I really love his work and I resonate with his theology, with his love of and attentiveness to language, and of course with his understanding of the contemplative life. In the first talk I was a bit surprised to find echoes of the content of a post I did three years ago during Advent as a reflection for my parish. It was on the distinction between hopes and hope: Relationship of Hopes to Hope. I really hope these two videos will whet your appetite for the rest of this series of talks and others as well!!!




In this second video (pt 3) Br David reprises some of what I have said recently about the depth dimension of life, the ground of being, and the basic dynamism of existing in the eternal now. Brother David briefly highlights the sense of belonging and Freedom that are part of any true mystical experience.

A Non-Contemplative Moment

As some of you know, I recently began a series of posts called "A Contemplative Moment". They are meant to give a small bite or taste of some contemplative or eremitical writer  to think about or savor; my hope is that visually and in other ways they create a space where one can simply be quiet, be present, and be open to God.

Because of the following picture sent to me by a regular reader of this blog, it occurs to me that perhaps I should also consider an antithetical series of posts picturing "non-contemplative moments" and the attitudes associated with these. We certainly all know these in our own lives! Regarding the picture itself, I think it's completely brilliant!

Now, if I can only find a passage  referring to those who think prayer (or eremitical life) is all about THEM, their plans, their projects, their time or schedules, etc!! In the meantime, how about this paradox from Thomas Merton? (Redacted)

The crucial problem of perfection and interior purity is in the renunciation and uprooting of all our unconscious attachments to. . .our own wills and desires. . . .it may easily happen that our resolutions are dictated by the vice we need to get rid of.

And so the proud [person] resolves to fast more and punish her flesh more because she wants to make herself feel more and more of a [hermit]: her fasts and disciplines are imposed on her by her own vanity -- and then strengthen the very thing that most needs to be killed.

When a person is virtuous enough to be able to delude herself that she is almost perfect, she may enter into the dangerous condition of blindness in which all her violent efforts finally to grasp perfection strengthen her hidden imperfection and confirm her in her attachment to her own judgment and her own will.

Thomas Merton, OCSO, Seeds of Contemplation

On Blogging: How and When?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I see you don't blog every day. How do you determine when you will blog? Is this part of your life as a hermit?]]

Great questions! Entirely new for me I think. You're right. I don't blog every day. I can't even say I blog every week. I admire folks that can and do but my mind and maybe my heart just don't work that way. What tends to happen instead is that things are going on around me in the parish, in the daily readings, in my prayer, in my thinking and study, and all of a sudden things come together for me in a new way. When that happens I tend to blog and sometimes produce a flurry of posts. In the last two months I had that happen twice.

The first time this happened was a result of thinking about the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Bridal imagery which is so central in the Scriptures to describe covenant life with God generally or the Christ Event more specifically. That resulted in posts linking these things (e.g., one on a Star Trek episode and the post-resurrection appearances, and related posts including a couple on how the Ascension celebrates the fact that God takes humanity and the gamut of human experience up into his own life and is not destroyed by this) as well as posts on consecrated virginity as eschatological secularity.

The second time was prompted by several emails I received questioning the need for canon 603 and/or focusing on the freedom of the hermit (or their bishops!). Those led to several posts (and a couple more long emails) on the normative and ecclesial nature of the canon 603 vocation. (This was complicated or made a bit more urgent by questions specifically raised for readers by the renewed public presence via blogs and video of those claiming to be Catholic Hermits but who are really not. Sometimes this is simply confusing; other times it is disedifying for folks. In any case it raises questions.)

Still, the work I did on the ecclesial and normative nature of canon 603 was a develop-ment and expansion of work I was doing as part of another writing project. In these cases what I do on the blog allows me to go further than I might have otherwise. The questions people ask, the things they find useful, the complaints they have about the constraints of canonical standing or whatever it is, etc, all assist me in moving ahead in work I do in the silence of solitude.

Similarly the occasional conversation I have with other Sisters or religious men and priests, written reflections I do on the readings for my parish, conversations with other diocesan hermits and parish and other friends, all help my thought and vision to move beyond what I see from the sometimes-limited vantage point of Stillsong Hermitage itself or the reading, study, and prayer I do there "in cell". On the whole, my blog serves three purposes I think: 1) it allows others a glimpse of what it means to be a diocesan hermit and how universal the various elements of my life are for ANY Christian, 2) it allows me to answer questions folks ask out of either curiosity or need, and 3) it serves as a kind of journal or workbook where I can explore ideas and discover new dimensions or angles I had not seen before. Here is where the questions and comments people email me become so very important.


Summary of How and When I blog

I also really do use a fountain pen!

So the basic response to your observation that I do not blog everyday and to your related question is that I will blog whenever 1) things in my mind (thought) and heart (prayer \ lectio) reach a kind of critical mass and explode in a flurry of posts or 2) things  reach a kind of plateau where I need not only the input of others but the stretching that comes from trying to share things.

Contemplative life is focused on God and this is especially so of eremitical contemplative life, but contemplatives need the challenge of others to test not only the spirits but our own ideas too; we also need the challenge and support of others, to guide us in maintaining a broader perspective, to prompt us not to stay too long in the doldrums of a discouragingly becalmed sea (or to, to switch metaphors, not to get stuck with our noses in our own navels!) and to encourage real creativity. The flip side of all that is, of course, that I blog when there is something real to share. While I don't talk about life in the hermitage or daily problems and concerns much, I think folks who read here do get a sense of the Gospel and theology that holds my life together and makes it a real joy. Similarly when I have friends visit as happened last month (Sister Susan, OSF), I think readers get a sense of the importance of relationships with others and why these are such a valued part of contemplative (even eremitical) life! Hopefully readers get a sense that in all of the ebbs and flows of writing in Notes From Stillsong, blogging points to a vital intellectual and spiritual life here --- a life whose various rhythms ---energy and enervation, insight and blindness, tedium and excitement, etc. --- are encompassed in the provident Love of God which they also know in their own lives.

Part of My Life as a Hermit?

When I began blogging I had no idea it would become a central piece of my life as a hermit nor that it would become a real source of inspiration, ministry, and even a kind of meditative practice which supports my contemplative prayer. I thought originally it could be helpful and interesting to some few others and wanted to provide a kind of anchoritic window into my own hermitage. But it has certainly grown into something more central and life giving than that. In some ways it reflects the growth of my own vocation (or my growth in this vocation), something that comes only over time and according to a day by day faithfulness. A blog starts out with a post or two --- along, perhaps, with an obscure sense of what it might one day become ---and in time it grows into something with a definite shape, rhythm, and (one hopes) value.

I do not worry when I do not blog for a while, of course --- my blog is not central in that way. Also folks seem perfectly happy allowing me to take time in solitude while things percolate or gestate or whatever the process involves. They always seem to come back and read whenever I blog again. There are a few stalwarts who ALWAYS ask good questions, and then there are always new folks like yourself who ask those questions I have never been asked before. You are all important to my life as a hermit, important to my creativity and obedience (hearkening) to the Spirit and I am grateful to you all and to this amazing medium!

Real Hermits Need not Apply! Strange and Funny Day at Stillsong

Well, the day before yesterday was one of those really strange days that happen once in a while here at Stillsong. God is nothing if not a God of surprises! First I discovered that my blog was linked to parish bulletins all over the country. Because it was the feast of St Romuald a service that supplies brief reflections highlighting the day's readings, saint, or in this case, way of life or vocation, had provided content on the diocesan hermit to hundreds of parishes which they then included in their own bulletins. There was a headline, "Are Hermits For Real?" and at the end of the recap of the vocation of the c 603 hermit today the service included an invitation to "meet a modern-day hermit" with a link to this blog. I made the discovery when I noticed that in the space of a few hours the readership of this blog had been multiplied tenfold! (Over the course of the whole day the readership jumped 600% or so!) At first I was afraid someone had hacked it and put up some awful video or something that had itself "gone viral". What a relief to find there was no big problem --- and no hacking!!

The second thing that happened was that several people emailed me with the link to an article in the Irish Times about a job opportunity they thought was right up my alley. It turns out that a town council overseeing a combination cave, cottage, and separate chapel in Switzerland is looking for a hermit to serve as caretaker and sacristan for this historic site. The job requirements besides these? "Must like people!" was the main one. Fair enough! Also, "must . . . have a desire to tend a small garden, to 'dispense wisdom' to anyone that might pass by, and be willing to give courses in meditation three times a week."

Well, that was all well and good. I pulled out a pencil and noted, Check, check, and check on those requirements. (Since conflicting articles made it unclear whether the hermit would live in the cottage or the cave, I added a question mark there. Too, the bit about, "dispensing wisdom" to all and sundry was a little much --- but one source translated that requirement by saying one, "needed to be able to listen to folks' concerns," and that is certainly part of my usual job description! Check! Same with teaching meditation --- more or less. Check!). Why, I even have my own historical hermit garb and cowl so no problem there either -- just in case the village council was looking for authenticity! (Sorry, no beard for me!!)

But there was a definite deal-breaker ---at least for a full-time position! Namely, there are tourists coming to this place all the time! Even the cave-living part is not the deal breaker this actually is. As one friend and novice solitary would say, "That would seriously impact your 'eremitude', Laurel!" Of course, also I am already obligated to a kind of stability in my diocese and I love my parish as well. I don't really want to leave either of these (and would need permission from both Bishops, US and Swiss to make such a change anyway), but what about a temporary sabbatical or "vacation"? Now THAT might be something the town's council would consider!


Okay, let's think "sabbatical" then! But is this for real?? It's more than a little strange to find a job description for a village in search of a hermit! (Even the salary wasn't bad!!) All I could think of at first were those actors the British nobility used to hire to live in a fake "hermitage" at the bottom of their gardens! So I read a little more about this job opportunity. This historical  monument in Switzerland (the Verena Gorge near Solothurn) is (or was) a real hermitage with real chapel and is named after a hermit (Saint Verena) said to have lived in the nearby cave. The last person who lived at the hermitage was the official hermit for 5 years (and the first woman in 600 years); she left because of health issues and "too many people!"

I read one more story on this job opening and discovered that unfortunately, applications are reported to have closed on May 5th; they had almost 120 people who wanted to do this full time! Also, because of the tourist load  the village council says they can't have a REAL hermit coming to take the job. ::sigh:: I put my pencil away. Looks like I won't be moving to Switzerland anytime soon!! No sabbatical either. Bummer!

A Contemplative Moment: The Inner Self

The Inner Self

The inner self is not an ideal self, especially not an imaginary, perfect creature fabricated to measure up to our compulsive need for greatness, heroism, and infallibility. On the contrary, the real “I” is just simply ourself and nothing more. Nothing more, nothing less. Our self as we are in the eyes of God, to use Christian terms. Our self in all our uniqueness, dignity, littleness, and ineffable greatness: the greatness we have received from God our Father and that we share with Him because He is our Father and “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28).

Merton, Thomas; Shannon, William H.  The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation