living through our season of consequences: part two

NOTE: This is the second of a four part series re: alternatives to despair in this current dark age. Part one suggests that we are experiencing the necessary "season of consequences" - a time of grief and emptiness born of our history of greed, violence and dishonesty - so that we might be ready to receive the Lord's new song at a time of God's choosing. Part two recalls that in previous seasons of fear and despair, monastic communities have often served as places where the light and hope of love has been preserved. Part three explores how four practices from the old Celtic monasteries might have relevance for this moment in time. And part four seeks to link some of the insights of the spirituality of L'Arche to the healing of our wounded social order.

I have been drawn to monastic communities for over 40 years. I have actively participated in two ecumenical orders as a lay associate member - The Community of Celebration in Aliquippa, PA and the Community of Iona on the isle of Iona in Scotland - and one Roman Catholic community - the Little Brothers and Sisters of the Eucharist in Cleveland, OH. The spiritual, artistic and liturgical nourishment of the Taize Community of France has been profound. And I currently find myself called to live into a commitment of presence, service and love en route to membership in the community of L'Arche Ottawa. I have been nourished by the writing of Sr. Joan Chittister on the Benedictine tradition, regularly find solace and insight from Fr. Richard Rohr's work as he shares the Franciscan tradition with us in the Center for Action and Contemplation, trust the practices of Centering Prayer as taught by the late Fr. Thomas Keating of the Trappist realm, and been guided in Christian formation by the late Fr. Henri Nouwen, a diocesan priest from the Netherlands. 

The reason for cataloging this personal litany of monastic influences is two fold: first, it has been instructive for me to look backwards and recall the influences in my formation; and, second, it suggests that a road less traveled exists for others who also sense the charism of Christian monasticism in their lives but have not been called into the cloister. You see, while I grasped the importance of being connected to the monastic world, I also sensed that I needed to remain firmly planted within the Reformed church of my origins. Yes, sometimes it was begrudgingly. Many times with exasperation and pain, too. But I trust that Jesus was right when he called us to live as one people. Unlike many religious institutions, my take on his words from St. John's gospel go beyond outward distinctions and denominations. "In my father's mansion," Jesus taught, "there are many rooms." I don't hear a command for uniformity here, but rather an invitation to treasure diversity and plurality knowing that we all flow from the same source. 

By the fickleness of fate, I sprang from parents who came from Irish Anglo-Catholic and Scottish Unitarian stock. In time they found a compromise and settled into New England Congregationalism as the shared expression of their faith. My father also desired to sing in a good choir - and this, too shaped my early formation. When I came of age, it made sense to make the best of their choices. So, like Fr. Thomas Merton advised, I chose to grow where I had been planted. As an adolescent, Vatican II Prpotestant with an inclination towards mysticism, my journey became radically ecumenical. And then monastic. Over the past twenty years, it has also grown to honor the interfaith sensibilities of treasured sisters and brothers in the Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist worlds who have patiently pointed me towards the radical unity of God's love. Like the poet Tagore, I now believe that:    

The same stream of life that runs through the world runs through my veins night and day and dances in rhythmic measure. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the Earth into the numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of flowers.

What does any of this have to do with constructing viable alternatives to the inevitable despair that arises from our seasons of consequences? (See my posting from September 12, 2019 @ https:// rjwhenlovecomestotown.blogspot.com/ 2019/09/living -through-our-season-of.html) My hunch is that the practices of the early Celtic monasteries offer a model for what small outposts of safety, wisdom, acceptance, creativity and inner renewal might look like within this present darkness. As they did for Europe in the Middle Ages, I trust that wildly eclectic, inclusive 21st century interfaith communities of spirit and solidarity possess the potential to equip us with just the resources necessary to endure - and even recreate - Western culture on the other side of our despair. Cynthia Bourgeault put it like this:

... (We are) at a particularly dangerous (moment) in our contemporary world, which now has the capacity to end itself either in a violent Armageddon or in the slower but no less lethal route of systematically poisoning our planetary environment. As we wander in a perpetual
spiritual adolescence, attempting to fill the hunger in our hearts with our needs rather than the divine need, creation itself pays the price...(Yet it is always true) that we humans have a part to play and that everything in heaven and earth depends on our playing it wisely and well. (The Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 43)

To paraphrase Bourgeault, we can learn again from the old ways how to live as "low maintenance human beings" - contemporary and compassionate adults - treasuring humility and flexibility as we live into God's call to care for one another and creation with tenderness. The medieval Celtic monasteries once shared four unique gifts with their era: Today those gifts hold profound possibilities for our own. As these creative communities of faith became living outposts of safety, hospitality, spirituality, and the reservoirs of creativity and culture, the goodness of creation was persevered.