Beware: Another long one, and I'm a tad tired, so probably far too blunt... Proceed with caution.
The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt? ~Frederick Buechner
Good things about being away
Intentional friendships
Focus on ONE thing
Experiencing another culture
Things I have missed [and people :-(]
Andrew
My mum and dad and walking Sheppa [on occasion]
Friends
Dinner with friends/ Talking with friends/ Listening to friends
Wednesday night group
Sound liturgy
Voluntary leadership in church, people who ‘are’ so full of God that it leaks… and they serve
People who know my name
My office
Inquiring minds
Events: ordination, surgery, memorials…
The Allotment
Real coffee/ Dark chocolate/ Andrew’s Bread
Potential
mobile-phone-when-driving-ban
The parks
Things I haven’t missed
Traffic in the mornings
My imagination being m.i.a.; Feeling deeply fragmented & too busy
Feeling like I’m always forgetting something & Waiting for the other foot to drop
Feeling like church is a job [not always... just sometimes]
Methane smells [you’d have to have been at our house when the water is rising to know what I mean by this. It is bad. Escape is the only option]
Feeling humourless/ boring / ‘institutionalised’ / domesticated –[not in the house way]/ like a hamster
weed [the kind you smoke] everywhere
litter in Longsight after market day
Then I read this:
Something else I like the sound of:
Further thoughts on New Monastic Communities
Just pursuing some of the comments you’ve made re. the monastic communities. It is true that these were prefigured by many groups, not just Wesley and the Methodists, or the Moravians, but many others also. The challenge for us is transmorphing something from the past into a cultural setting that has shifted dramatically. And, of course, the demise of many of the aforementioned groups was quick. In a PhD thesis researching the ‘cell’ structure’s demise in Methodism, the perceived weakness was in the area of intimacy-over-time. That is, it is hard to maintain.
I think that it is true the group that some of us talked about in December seems to resemble the new monasticism, but here we face several challenges also: transience, travel, time, commitment and the habit of gossip, are but a few.
I can only speak for myself, so I will… One of my yearnings is for greater intimacy with a few trusted people, but one of my fears is greater intimacy with a few trusted people… See my problem? The risk involved is enormous… and probably one of the reasons creating REAL friendship is so difficult, and so demanding, and so beautiful when it happens. The other issues:
~Time: what stays, what goes, in order to be immersed in a ‘monastic’ community, what else do we not do?
~Homogeneity: I have an instinctive issue with groups that are all ‘of a type’ being able to claim to be Christian [or church?], and although the defenders of those groups say [and I understand this, and ‘get’ it] that this is the way friendships happen, exist and that it is better to work with it… I just think that is not particularly Galatians 3. Yet, I also know that on my ‘short-list’ of people-I’d-like-to-meet-with-a-lot the people I instinctively chose are people just like me, only better… And, as much as that is really comfortable, I am not sure that comfort is always what’s best for me [viz. my waistline]. Hmm.
~Exclusivity: closely related, but there seems to need to be a double-dynamic of ‘intimacy’ and ‘inclusion’ - and the latter means that more people come, more people coming means the former is difficult…
~Longevity: most people my/your/our ages are getting ready to move, wanting to move, needing to move, or will move. What then? Tires me out thinking about it. [I include myself in this potential]. Perhaps when one moves the ideas/ life-style goes with it, but what about rooted-ness? Andrew and I have talked a lot about this and there are good arguments on all sides. Desert Fathers, Eugene Peterson, Rowan Williams [to show the spectrum] seem to advocate staying… rooting… being… but [Jesus?], Wesley, reproduction-as-growth-and-change seem to suggest something slightly different - moving the message, ‘The Way’, with you… but related to this is:
~Geography: I imagine that this is true. In the Wesleyan example [as a founding myth and primordial example for us] the people who gathered –apart from the itinerants – were geographically connected… The changing culture we are a part of has made it possible for the groups to ‘drive-to’ each other… I wonder (often) [and again, I am thinking specifically about my own context of the Longsight Community Church of the Nazarene, ok?] if really we should be geographically locating the nmc’s within walking distance of one another… or a least in the same post-codes… That would mean that some serious changes would happen – the clusters would be withington, didsbury, burnage, levenshulme, gorton, longsight, westpoint/rushford, etc… and that would change the whole dynamic considerably…. Right? Would they be churches?
On the other hand, we do live in a different world, we are net-worked, we relate in different, ‘third spaces’ so should nmcs create third spaces and ‘be’ in them? Does the geographic community then not matter?
~Mission: I was trying to think of a better word for this, but can’t right now. Organic mission is part of being a Christian, how does/ must/ should/ can that change this new monasticism?
Other issues I think that bear thinking about for the ideas of new monasticism: sanctuary, hospitality, spirituality, prayer, advocating justice... The nature of vows is another interesting one – some of the nmc’s vows are for life… What does that entail? How are people held accountable to them?
Anyway, there are so many things to think about. Oy vey!! Yet:
New word courtesy of Sawyer that describes me/life well: paradoxology isn't that great? And, I just figured this out today: Question – Quest…
Other things of interest
For an Anglican on Emergent - and Trident
for some ideas
And finally: beyond belief (almost, really)
"Lakeland, Florida Highland Park, Church of the Nazarene: recently held a student revival with the theme "driven," asking youth the question, "What drives you?" The event included car and truck shows, remote control car races, and motorcycles. Additional features included prizes, special concerts, and free food before the message." No, really. The message had already been given, surely?
Good things about being away
Intentional friendships
Focus on ONE thing
Experiencing another culture
Things I have missed [and people :-(]
Andrew
My mum and dad and walking Sheppa [on occasion]
Friends
Dinner with friends/ Talking with friends/ Listening to friends
Wednesday night group
Sound liturgy
Voluntary leadership in church, people who ‘are’ so full of God that it leaks… and they serve
People who know my name
My office
Inquiring minds
Events: ordination, surgery, memorials…
The Allotment
Real coffee/ Dark chocolate/ Andrew’s Bread
Potential
mobile-phone-when-driving-ban
The parks
Things I haven’t missed
Traffic in the mornings
My imagination being m.i.a.; Feeling deeply fragmented & too busy
Feeling like I’m always forgetting something & Waiting for the other foot to drop
Feeling like church is a job [not always... just sometimes]
Methane smells [you’d have to have been at our house when the water is rising to know what I mean by this. It is bad. Escape is the only option]
Feeling humourless/ boring / ‘institutionalised’ / domesticated –[not in the house way]/ like a hamster
weed [the kind you smoke] everywhere
litter in Longsight after market day
Then I read this:
“In the Spiritual life, the word discipline means “the effort to create some space in which God can act.” Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from filling up. Discipline means that somewhere you’re not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn’t planned or counted on.”(from An Emergent Manifesto, 72 citing Nouwen, of course!) I like that. Some of the above might be sorted if I/we act on that
Something else I like the sound of:
“Many participants in emerging conversations long for a sense of greater integration between belief and practice, local and global, inward and outward, the individual and a sense of place within a local community and culture. We see this longing for integrative theology and practice expressed in various themes within the emerging church phenomenon:(An emergent Manifesto, 28)
• Significant interest in “community,” communal living, and renewed monastic practices
• An open-source approach to community, theology, and leadership that encourages flatter structures, networks, and more personal and collective participation
• Revitalized interest in the social dimensions of the gospel of Jesus, including community development, earth-keeping, global justice, and advocacy – with a particular emphasis on a relationally engaged approach to these issues
• Renewed interest in contemplative and bodily spiritual formation disciplines that have, historically, been important Christian practices
• A renewed emphasis on creation theology that celebrates earth, humanity cultures, and the sensuous and aesthetic as good gifts of the Creator to be enjoyed in their proper contexts
• Cultivation and appreciation of the arts, creativity, artful living, and provocative storytelling
• Re-examination of vocation, livelihood, and sustainable economics."
Further thoughts on New Monastic Communities
Just pursuing some of the comments you’ve made re. the monastic communities. It is true that these were prefigured by many groups, not just Wesley and the Methodists, or the Moravians, but many others also. The challenge for us is transmorphing something from the past into a cultural setting that has shifted dramatically. And, of course, the demise of many of the aforementioned groups was quick. In a PhD thesis researching the ‘cell’ structure’s demise in Methodism, the perceived weakness was in the area of intimacy-over-time. That is, it is hard to maintain.
I think that it is true the group that some of us talked about in December seems to resemble the new monasticism, but here we face several challenges also: transience, travel, time, commitment and the habit of gossip, are but a few.
I can only speak for myself, so I will… One of my yearnings is for greater intimacy with a few trusted people, but one of my fears is greater intimacy with a few trusted people… See my problem? The risk involved is enormous… and probably one of the reasons creating REAL friendship is so difficult, and so demanding, and so beautiful when it happens. The other issues:
~Time: what stays, what goes, in order to be immersed in a ‘monastic’ community, what else do we not do?
~Homogeneity: I have an instinctive issue with groups that are all ‘of a type’ being able to claim to be Christian [or church?], and although the defenders of those groups say [and I understand this, and ‘get’ it] that this is the way friendships happen, exist and that it is better to work with it… I just think that is not particularly Galatians 3. Yet, I also know that on my ‘short-list’ of people-I’d-like-to-meet-with-a-lot the people I instinctively chose are people just like me, only better… And, as much as that is really comfortable, I am not sure that comfort is always what’s best for me [viz. my waistline]. Hmm.
~Exclusivity: closely related, but there seems to need to be a double-dynamic of ‘intimacy’ and ‘inclusion’ - and the latter means that more people come, more people coming means the former is difficult…
~Longevity: most people my/your/our ages are getting ready to move, wanting to move, needing to move, or will move. What then? Tires me out thinking about it. [I include myself in this potential]. Perhaps when one moves the ideas/ life-style goes with it, but what about rooted-ness? Andrew and I have talked a lot about this and there are good arguments on all sides. Desert Fathers, Eugene Peterson, Rowan Williams [to show the spectrum] seem to advocate staying… rooting… being… but [Jesus?], Wesley, reproduction-as-growth-and-change seem to suggest something slightly different - moving the message, ‘The Way’, with you… but related to this is:
~Geography: I imagine that this is true. In the Wesleyan example [as a founding myth and primordial example for us] the people who gathered –apart from the itinerants – were geographically connected… The changing culture we are a part of has made it possible for the groups to ‘drive-to’ each other… I wonder (often) [and again, I am thinking specifically about my own context of the Longsight Community Church of the Nazarene, ok?] if really we should be geographically locating the nmc’s within walking distance of one another… or a least in the same post-codes… That would mean that some serious changes would happen – the clusters would be withington, didsbury, burnage, levenshulme, gorton, longsight, westpoint/rushford, etc… and that would change the whole dynamic considerably…. Right? Would they be churches?
On the other hand, we do live in a different world, we are net-worked, we relate in different, ‘third spaces’ so should nmcs create third spaces and ‘be’ in them? Does the geographic community then not matter?
~Mission: I was trying to think of a better word for this, but can’t right now. Organic mission is part of being a Christian, how does/ must/ should/ can that change this new monasticism?
Other issues I think that bear thinking about for the ideas of new monasticism: sanctuary, hospitality, spirituality, prayer, advocating justice... The nature of vows is another interesting one – some of the nmc’s vows are for life… What does that entail? How are people held accountable to them?
Anyway, there are so many things to think about. Oy vey!! Yet:
“Love is a spiritual practice that matures us as we try and try again to leave behind our isolation, expose our vulnerabilities, and make commitments to care truly for one another.”(What would huckleberry do? Sawyer, in Pagitt, Jones, 48)
New word courtesy of Sawyer that describes me/life well: paradoxology isn't that great? And, I just figured this out today: Question – Quest…
Other things of interest
For an Anglican on Emergent - and Trident
for some ideas
And finally: beyond belief (almost, really)
"Lakeland, Florida Highland Park, Church of the Nazarene: recently held a student revival with the theme "driven," asking youth the question, "What drives you?" The event included car and truck shows, remote control car races, and motorcycles. Additional features included prizes, special concerts, and free food before the message." No, really. The message had already been given, surely?
posted by erdreid at 02:17
1 Comments:
So I had written a long response to our previous conversation, but then realized that everything that I was trying to say, was just a ‘round about’ way of saying that I had an easier time having a close community around me in Cali. It was sort of built in- and the community was this fluid, living organism that brought others in and showed them a difference in Christians. This is part of why I am so interested in these NMCs – in a very loose, non-vow kind of way, this is a bit of what I had there (it was friends that I went to school and church with, worked with- that I both played and ministered with.) For me, its not so much an American vs. England thing- it’s a matter of ministering well in a community. I know how to do that there, how do I do that here? (as you so aptly said!) Perhaps the answer is through NMCs! So I’ve jotted down some quick ideas of what NMCs could PRACTICALLY look like at Longsight– maybe even the long discussed group beginning soon.
I love the idea of this fluid- ‘person as the cloister’ new monasticism.
Some v. quick responses to your various ideas:
Homogeneity:
I’m compelled by the idea of ‘iron sharpens iron’ in a multi-cultural, multi dimensional community in which discipline happens through the living together – (in a vows, meals, ministry sort of way). Its like the idea of family – (for good or worse) we are ‘stuck’ with it. You can chose to work with it and learn, or turn away. I LIKE the solidity of a community that is committed for a life time. It IS like a family – and yet even MORE (because the vows to live, learn, work and pray TOGETHER – even from afar?? Are actually completely INTENTIONAL and self imposed. (Isn’t this a from of self- flagellation?) Seriously though, as we all know, living DEEPLY with the same group of people brings so many issues: the GOOD that comes from it is, learning humility, submission, self-sacrifice.
Exclusivity:
I think it may be in the Brower-blood to have issues with this. But, speaking of the blood-line, look at the way your parents take people in and deeply nurture and minister to SO MANY. How many of us see them as surrogate parents? All this to say that you CAN love transient people DEEPLY – but that doesn’t mean they have to be within the NMC – rather surrounded by it. Does this make sense? If you see the NMC as a ‘core’- with fluidity to engulf new people who are interested in joining (just like traditional monastic communities). What do you think?
Longevity:
In the same way that your family is your family for a lifetime, there must be a way to begin all together in one place, and if dispersion happens, to rejoin together once/year, from all over, to reconnect in one place (Ffald y Brenin comes to mind). The praying, living, learning together/ from one another doesn’t have to stop because of distance –but I guess this begs the question: shouldn’t NEW communities spring up in where ever we move TO?
Creation Theology:
Also very much attracted to ‘A renewed emphasis on creation theology that celebrates earth, humanity cultures, and the sensuous and aesthetic as good gifts of the Creator to be enjoyed in their proper contexts’.
The allotment is a great way to do this- concerted, disciplined time for each person/couple in the NMC to ‘work the ground’? Planting things and watching them grow as a form of meditation on creation.
Mission:
Shouldn’t this be an extention of all the rest? Or are you thinking something much more intentional –as in ‘a mission statement’ or a few particular focii?
I LONG for a deeply loving, understanding community of believers working (in different ways) twords common goals (social and spiritual- in ways that integrated them so that they become one and the same). The liturgy of the hours- or this done in rotations by many, is appealing and satisfying to me- but then again, it is LENT and I always long for this richness of meditations (through liturgy) during this time of year. Meals shared together, and liturgy read communaly. Working the land and seeing it bear fruits. Ministry in ways that it is not a ‘ministry’, but just a way of life that springs out of this communal community. We’ve lost many of life’s natural rythms – a NMC could help us to regain some of these rythms and add new spiritual routine in the often harried, busy lives we all need.
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