To be still is to gather moss (as the old stone proverb goes) and to be silent is to understand why gathering moss is important. I love the idea of being one with the place you live. Since being a child I've been drawn to books like Anne of Green Gables; to be a person so at one with your location it is included in your name must be wonderful! I seem to be revisiting childhood ideas and books (!) a lot lately...I wonder if regression is part of the process of reunion?
I do think this process is easier where God's (and not man's) creation can be seen and felt around you. Running to the hills worked for me!
"I do think this process is easier where God's (and not man's) creation can be seen and felt around you."
Naomi- I have been thinking about this a lot since I read your comment. I do think this is right. Contemplation and simplicity are much easier when surrounded by nature. It is almost a natural state. As if we were made for it, or something!
Just being in a crowded city is like being under assault in ways that are often hard to detect. Or rather the more one acclimates to the city, the duller one has to be to survive it. The thicker the layers of psychological armor must become.
Of course many people love cities. I would be interested to hear from people who find peace in a crowded city and how they do it. -Jack
That's a really interesting thought. I would love to know how people find solice in the city. From my own experience I was always drawn to the natural elements for comfort when living in busy places; When I first moved to Australia (I lived in Perth for 5 years), I remember spending hours sat outside the city library watching strange little birds dive into a water feature like aerial acrobats. It's a memory that will stay with me and I'm not quite sure why.
We must remember though that we humans are 'nature' too. There is no actual separation; only an abstract concept of separation that our evolutionary trajectory seems to have encouraged.
Perhaps some people find peace from being with other people in cities as they unwittingly see the sacred in them? As a musician I often feel this when watching a performance. Humans are, after all, in and of God. Wendell Berry describes beautifully that "Creation is not in any sense independent of the creator" but "constant participation of all creatures in the being of God". I wonder if gaining this understanding of God, as a material force with whom we co-create and not purely transcendental, would change the way humans interact with their environment?
Your comment has struck a chord with my own experience. Although retired now I worked for many years as a bus driver which took me daily to the coastal town Aberystwyth in West Wales. I would often take my break there on the cliffs above the town and watch the dolphins out in the bay playing. And completely unnoticed by I would guess the rest of town.
Richard- We find moments of refuge where we can. These little spots seem to be less common nowadays, at least here inAmerica. Everything, I think, must be public, lest someone get themselves into something nefarious.
I am glad you found your refuge for all those years. I hope you still have one. -Jack
Substack is such a jewel of a find for me. So much wisdom from people like yourself Jack .And I among many, are grateful for we struggle to make sense of this world we live in.
There's a magical place for me not far from where I live called 'Llygad Llwchwr'. The source of the river Llwchwr. It's a cave where the river surfaces from the great limestone aquifier. You can sit quietly just inside the entrance and watch the small rainbow trout jump to feed on midges and flies. Sublime.
Finding peace in a crowded city is all about inner silence and allowing the sounds to wash over and past you, just like thoughts in a harried mind. Other people, egos, rudeness, impatience, and disrespect - all spiritual disciplines, to return it all with kindness, humility, love, and forgiveness: I will not be the one to continue the cycle of anger and fear. If we can see how God works with human frailty to teach us something about humility and love, we are all the better for it. When we ask, "why did I react this way?", we move closer to self-knowledge and closer to God. God can speak through us even when we do not feel holy.
It is imperfect, as all human things are, but it is possible.
Family life is a spiritual discipline, children a mirror held up to see the immaturity that remains. A spouse is almost more deeply committed to your well-being than you yourself are; they will grind away at your rough edges in deep and loving dialogue lasting decades, if you are lucky.
I love Julian's prayer: "All shall be well again, I know." It is also a beautiful song and incredibly helpful.
And George Grant, "Beyond courage, it is also possible to live in the ancient faith, which asserts that changes in the world, even if they be recognized more as a loss than a gain, take place within an eternal order that is not affected by their taking place." Beautiful and helpful, Lament for a Nation.
Merton had an epiphany in the middle of the city, Louisville, Kentucky, where he felt intimately connected to the madding crowd all about him, and this after decades in the cloister. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander is where to find it.
Merton found many ways to be annoyed in the monastery: his fellow monks bad singing, the blasts from the military training up the road, readying the troops for Vietnam, his ever-present desire for further solitude, and the frustrating attempts by his superiors to silence and censor him. And yet we revere him to this day - something to ponder.
Naomi- Yes to this! We may not be able to be still unless we are truly in a place and of it. The monastery is in a box canyon and one of the great joys is when the rain comes through. There is something greatly calming about it. The other morning (4 am) there were a couple of owls hooting outside my cell. This is a true place in a way a suburban cul-de-sac cannot be, or my previous apt. that overlooked the parking lot. So I say flee to the hills if you can! I am glad you have already done so.
Maybe revisiting childhood isn't regression but the way forward. I have heard it called a second naivete, one that lies beyond adult ways of knowing. Lest ye become like little children...
The canyon sounds beautiful. Almost protective and enveloping. And how magical to hear the owls. I always get excited when I hear the cuckoo call when I'm gardening; it makes a change to pigeons!
A few days ago I lost my sense of smell because of Covid...the worst thing was not being able to smell the carnations and lavender that are blooming in the garden. My children would say that I kept burning food under the grill was the worst though! I'm starting to be able to smell (and cook!) again now! Thanks for asking Jack :-)
I relate Naomi. I have always loved music and books that have that strong sense of place, including Lucy Maud Montgomery’s. I am reading Anne of Green Gables with my 7yo eldest daughter right now. She loves the descriptive language.
How lovely. I'm sure she'll treasure the experience for life. I'm excited to read it to my daughter too, she's just 6 so a little young yet but hopefully soon she'll love it too!
12 years ago I read somewhere about developing the patience of lichen. Still working on that.
My wife and I have been living in a 600 sqft cottage in the woods at the edge of the boreal forest in Northern Minnesota for the last two years. Calming, allowing for quiet, silence. Even with the occasional motorized vehicle going down the road, the location allows for quiet.
Originally I sought separation from the "culture wars" to recover and return to fight, much as Dreher seems to suggest, or to continue the war from behind defensive walls. What I have found is that the "culture war" is superfluous and should just be walked away from. The better solution to a bad influence is to live a better solution. That is my hope and plan, as well as offering refuge as needed.
Might there be a way to transcend the culture war beginning in silence and leading to patient and purposeful action, pointing to a via media, a third path, transcending left and right?
Hi Jack, after the exhortation to silence I tried in vain to suppress my urge to comment. You bring up multiple trains of thought I have been on recently, too.
1- you know how much I've thought about fleeing. It might be abandoning the people in my life. I am ready to get going asap if my husband wants to but he has his doubts and his own timeline emerging. We talk a lot about abandoning people... these people are not perfect friends, they are not bosom brethren... they have disappointed us and they are capable of betraying us. But they are the people in our lives and they would be sad. I imagine the monks and desert fathers all had to make this same choice. It has to be a confidence that the Father's will is leading, or else it is just a selfish seeking of refuge in the hills.
2- I like this quote, "They promoted a way of life that reflects a reversal of all ordinary social values and expectations." This is what I have been saying to my husband... that I want to get away from the decadence. It is almost impossible to live according to the values of simplicity and quiet contentment in this culture. There is a constant demand for us to participate in the affluent lifestyle that we are surrounded by and opting out generates frustration and misunderstanding by well-meaning family.
3- I was reading my book The Wisdom of the Enneagram again. There are things in type 4 and 5 that speak to me with startling clarity. This type is so programmed to see deep, ominous insights where others do not. We are so typically concerned with a big-picture knowledge and grand ideas while neglecting the practical and humble day to day responsibilities. After reading that I could see myself as this unbalanced person -- Mom of 5 who should be focusing on homeschooling, organizing the pantry, watering the veggie garden, repairing the fence to keep out rabbits, starting fall crops from seed, starting a new batch of bread... my point is that I have plenty of projects that I've been passionate about in the past that could still use my energy but I am preoccupied with fleeing to the hills at this moment. Is the world really this urgently different from what I thought or am I sabotaging my real life based on some kind of personality quirk that causes me to overthink things? I don't expect you to answer that but you, like me, are dreaming of the terminator robot and feeling that there is a darkness so unprecedented as to legitimate this level of response. Could we be victims of our cerebral and iconoclastic personality types? Reading that book made me think it's possible.
4-Where is the desert now? This question is huge. I've been looking at Maine because it is the nearest place that has some wilderness and cheap land. I can't tell without spending more time there how different it is or isn't from where I am now. I can tell enough to know that lots of the same problems exist there but are less advanced in severity. It isn't a pristine desert. It might be a significant improvement. I in no way have the time or energy to travel around extensively looking for the right place to go. There seems to be wealth and cell towers everywhere that there is food. I'd love to hear other's thoughts about where the desert is these days.
I have this one other silly question that I always wonder about. If living in a literal desert, such as the monastery you are at or the fathers in Egypt, where does one's food come from? And if it comes from fertile land and is trucked into the dessert to feed people doesn't that kind of negate the desert experience? Those old time monks must have brought food or was it miraculous sustenance?
Clara- These are all good and necessary questions. I will think on them and see what I can offer, if anything. One thing is crucial though, the "Arsenios Option" is available to us all right now. Flee distraction, be silent, and dwell in Stillness. No move required.
Then again, the urge to literally flee the world of ambition came probably about 5 minutes after the founding of the world of ambition. A kind of dance. The world needs the hermits, artists, misfits, holy fools, and eccentrics more than the other way around. I have enough experience with the world to know I want, at the very least, keep my distance from it. -Jack
Clara- I think the Enneagram 5 with 4 wing "problem" may lie at the heart of this. For most of my life I think I had a fairly decent balance between these two, often contradictory, ways of being in the world. Which we will call The Intellectual vs The Artist. Though I have always zealously pursued my intellectual interests, they were kept in check by practice in various kinds of arts. I played music, often more or less improvised; I practiced Aikido, I meditated, I even did comedy improv for a couple of years, the list goes on and on. Around 2010 I hit a wall as it was clear my musical aspirations were going nowhere and that my hopes for marriage and a family weren't looking very good.
So I decided to launch a massive effort to figure out where things went wrong. I did so on two levels 1) what went wrong with our civilization? 2) where did I go wrong? As for the first this was a continuation and intensification of a view I had already long held. But I sought to go deeper. The past 12 years have shifted almost entirely to a 5-mode intellectual search with far less 4-mode to balance it. This had consequences.
The problem with what I call the para-scholarly 5-mode is that there is no logical stopping point. Research can, and does, go on and on...and on and on. The 5-mode is looking for rock bottom certainty. And at first it seems we are dog on the scent! But its prey keeps receding. So...more research and the rabbit of truth, as it were, will be captured at last. The more I searched the farther away it seemed. This has been a cause of great anxiety. Which came to a head this past fall.
I began to question whether my fundamental assumptions--explicitly known or not--are even right. You mention this in how that one's mental construct creates a world and that world may be a fiction, wholly or in part. But how does one even know? There are no certain intellectual meta-foundations on which to judge. Or there are many such meta-foundations. It starts to look like turtles all the way down. One approaches a kind of intellectual vertigo...the world becomes a funhouse of mirrors.
But, nonetheless, this effort is not futile. But it doesn't look to be intellectually self-grounding. This is postmodern problem of the hermeneutic circle, i.e., it is all built on sand. That is where the 4-wing started to return. This is an artistic, intuitive, even contemplative response to being in the world. But after the 5-mode of intellectual search, the hope is that one has gained an *educated* intuition. But this must be without the certainty that the 5-mode has sought. it is, rather, a leap of faith. Usually that is a terrifying prospect to the 5-mode.
So the choice came to be stay in the unbearable anxiety of the 5-mode or take the leap of faith into a 4-mode. So I took the leap. I think I will have to keep taken that leap for the rest of my days. Which doesn't mean I don't still seek via the 5-mode, but I need to put it in its place. Hence the Arsenios Option. I think it is worthwhile to fathom what that might mean,
As I have mentioned I have been meditating on Mt. 6:24-34 and surrounding verses. But Luke 12 has a more condensed version. This is the only way forward. The question is whether I am willing to believe it and live it.
I don't know if any of this helps. I probably could have said it more concisely. For what it is worth. -Jack
22 Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? 25 And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 26 If you then are not able to do the least, why [d]are you anxious for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not [e]arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?
29 “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. 30 For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek [f]the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.
32 “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Thanks for taking the time to share this, Jack. It sounds like this fits in with Ian McGilchrist's ideas, too. I am impressed that you are tackling The Matter with Things.
What I have come to understand from the enneagram is that even though we have the 4 wing influence which brings some balance, we never really become healthy, whole, integrated (whatever you want to call it) until we get beyond the ruts of our types. These are some of the traits that made me wonder if I am just being a nutty 5w4 --
They love to delve into complex mental worlds at the expense of their practical, physical needs.
They are attracted to dark, esoteric knowlege and to knowing about things that most others aren't aware of.
They tend to cut off from others and withdraw into their heads rather than pursue healthy relationships that they need.
They are conditioned to expect hostility from others rather than support, but this belief can cause them to isolate in counterproductive ways
They often deny or suppress their physical and material needs because they fear that they will lose autonomy or will be beholden to others if they accept help or support. They would rather have very little than owe anything or feel obligated.
Their basic fear is of being helpless, useless, incapable
Their basic desire is to be capable, confident, and original
Sure sounds like this type is quite naturally drawn to the 'via negativa' and not always for the most pure reasons. The enneagram is not my primary guide in life, but I brought it up because I know you are familiar with it and because I felt that it pinpointed my motives better than I could do consciously myself. I wondered if we could both be seeing the world as more hostile and threatening than it really is because we are this type....?
On the other hand our type can have very important insight and clarity and also bring that insight to bear for the benefit of our communities. So maybe we are having helpful and accurate insight into a bad situation. Always wanting to learn more and be more certain before acting is another typical 5 thing.
So on the whole, I don't really think that I am a paranoid and unhealthy person; I do believe that this insight into our current dark times is a blessing. I just waffle around and wonder if we and others on The Abbey etc. could be just a whole group of 5s and 4s who are all reinforcing each other's most distrusting, isolating instincts. I guess it isn't usually money we struggle to relinquish, but certainty and our fear of vulnerability. I admired Mattias Desmet (in that interview) very much for his speaking up publicly and his touching observations about finding meaning and human purpose in doing so.
Thanks for being a friend to bounce this off of. Stillness and silence are gems. Keep taking those leaps!
Clara- We fives with a four wing have to stick together!
Likewise, I don't take the enneagram too seriously, though I think there is *something* to it. My previous analysis was largely bending that to what Iain McGilchrist is saying. I probably have to think it through more. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so.
More concisely, perhaps:
The intellectual search cannot rest. The seeking mind seeks--that's its job. This is what the deconstructionist call, "the endless play of signifiers". I have my doubts that the intellectual search can ever end--for good or ill--on its own level. But artistic/intuitive level can find a kind of rest. A beautiful piece of music, or poetry, doesn't need any justification other than itself. It is in the artistic mind, or its close cousin the contemplative mind, that our intellectual restlessness finds home in its deepest and broadest sense.
We can bring that artistic/intuitive/contemplative mind to many things we do. We can bring it to everything, I think. But the cost is letting go of the intellectual hope that we can secure meaning by putting it into a system, however vast. But the artistic/intuitive/contemplative without the intellectual is usually shallow. Ideally, the two poles find their own harmony.
As to group think, this is always a possibility, even a probability. Even among those of us who don't think we are susceptible to it. Especially us!
I have enough intelligent friends who roll their eyes or even get frustrated with my musings. This is good. They are usually more practical, and I need to hear that. They might be surprised to hear the world is becoming as dangerous and unhinged as we tend to think here, or on the Abbey and elsewhere. But that doesn't mean we are wrong! Just that the world is a lot bigger than what goes on in my wee cabasa.
Today July 20 is the feast day of St. Arsenius. I have just read a short biography of this desert father in “Lives of the Saints” (July-December) Vol. 2 by Fr. F.X. Weninger, available free for download on Archive.org.
St. Arsenius served the Emperor Theodosius and also taught his sons. However, tired of the world, he ran away from the imperial court and fled to Egypt at age 65. The older hermits doubted that he could lead a life of great austerity but he astonished them by fasting even more rigorously, and sleeping on a rocky bed. Stories of hermits like St. Arsenius seem so remote, strange and repellent to us yet Emperor Theodosius and his successor, his son Arcadius, sent emissaries to search for St. Arsenius and beg him to return. Can you see today any of our world leaders or billionaire celebrities begging a holy monk to join their households and teach their children? This tells me that our era has become so depraved and devoid of the sense of the supernatural that it will accept the worst abominations.
I don’t think that it is easy today to “flee to the desert” with a group of other lay people and form a community unless the primary goal of the community is union with God. That’s the reason why monasteries exist over a thousand years after they were established but the hippie communes of the 1960s fell apart within a few years. There has to be a higher goal other than one’s self and happiness.
Almost everyone is far too attached to the things of this world. For this reason, St. Arsenius (and monks in general) meditated frequently on death. There’s nothing like a deep meditation on death to detach oneself from material things, including family and friends.
Evie- I actually had no idea today was the feast day of St. Arsenios! A beautiful coincidence. St. Arsenios, pray for us!
I agree fully. Without the right intentions and without being clear about what those intentions are, fleeing the world can easily become narcissistic. It seems that truly fleeing the world will make one's life *more* difficult, no less so. But also more meaningful. -Jack
Jul 20, 2022·edited Jul 20, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy
Have you read Max Picard's "The World of Silence"? If not, I think you would like it. Currently, I find "desert spirituality" most amenable. I have a copy of the four volume Evergetinos by my bedside and read from it constantly.
I do think that you are right: if there is a hill, mountain, island, etc. to escape to, we should escape, but it is of utmost importance to find some silence internally prior to that escape or the escape will be tainted. Thomas Merton goes into this in detail in his final book "The Inner Experience". Lawrence also wrote an allegory about just this called "The Man who Loved Islands." We should all try to escape to the desert, but first we must find our inner desert and learn to dwell there here and now.
Farasha- I have not read The World of Silence. It looks excellent. I will try to pick up a copy. I am working my way through the Sayings of the Desert Father's which is proving very helpful tome. The desert Father's weren't prone to thinking they could be saved by abstract speculation. Something I need to be constantly reminded of.
You are right the desert can be found no farther than the ground right under our feet! -Jack
In regard to your note # 7 and concluding question. A few people and I attend and mutually facilitate a Zoom meeting every afternoon between 4:00-5:00 that consists of nothing more nor less than sharing silence for an hour. A pithy evocation of this practice from Barbara Brown Taylor goes, "Silence is ecumenical. It precedes dogma. It is incapable of crusades. In silence, people who do not speak the same language may yet act together, creating a tableau that talks louder than words."
Most of us, as you realize, will never be able to retreat to a monastery outside short visits. How does silence become a part of one’s life in the city?
For me, the example of Jesus waking up early and going out to pray in the early morning provides a model. “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.” Mark 1:35.
If a person dedicates a good part of their waking hours to silence (say two-four hours) it becomes easier to go back into the busy world and serve others. Prayer also helps one confront the controversy that will inevitably meet the person who seeks to know and follow God.
I lived in an apartment for twenty-two years with a dazzling view of the parking lot. I struggled against my surroundings for most of that time. Deep distraction competed with silence, and silence didn’t always win. Admittedly, there are some with the talent to make anyplace into a garden and refuge. This is a skill of which I am egregiously lacking.
But you are right, it doesn't take going to a remote monastery to find it. You just have to make it a priority. That said, I have found contemplation very natural here. If and when I return to the world I hope to remember to do as you suggest.
Hmm, Jesus just said to go in a room and close the door and pray to the Father who is there in secret, it says draw near to God and he will draw near to you and in Ephesians it says that Jesus has given us access to the Father by the Spirit in the here and now. I regard the monastic movement as unbelief in this simplicity through Jesus of easy access and closeness to God as a gift. Though scriptures can be quoted in support, this monastic quasi Buddhist system, eight fold path of works of gradual contemplative attainment is not presented as a system in the New Testament. I am sorry that getting close to and knowing God has to be such a process for you, not my experience nor that of people and family I know. I think especially of my grandmothers.
I tend to agree. Why is it that the history of Christianity is so complicated and conflicted? I am sure there are very many answers to that--also complicated and conflicted. I am certainly incapable of "solving it". I often wonder if it ever can be.
For example, we are told we can't serve God and Mammon and should live like the birds of the air and lilies of the field. To sell all we have and give alms. To seek first the kingdom of God and trust that food, drink and clothing will be added unto us. To worry not about tomorrow.
What percentage of those following Christ have ever done this? Exceedingly few. I certainly haven't. I don't know anybody who has. Quite the opposite, we build bigger barns to gather the surplus. I see a lot of hedging and rationalizations regarding these verses. Maybe I have it wrong, though.
I don't go as far as Nietzsche's quip, "In truth, there was only one christian and he died on the cross.” But it does seem G.K. Chesterton kind of had it right, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
I don't say this to start an argument--which I won't engage in, because I find such pointless--not that this is your intent. But rather to seriously ask what it *really* means to be a Christian. 2,000 years and the question still is asked.
Thank you for your comment. I hope you are well. -Jack
Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden was light. I have a different view than Chesterton. My exemplars of faith are the woman with the issue of blood and the Canaanite woman seeking deliverance for her daughter., the tax collector praying in the temple, and the sinful woman bathing the feet of Jesus with her tears and the leper asking if Jesus was willing to cleanse him. Would love to have a cordial face to face discussion with you, not so doable in this medium. The sins and brokenness of Christians don’t appall me as I have met my own, all my worse failures and sins came after believing in Jesus and really meeting God. My thoughts on the conflicted and complicated history of Christianity. The Jewish response and working out of the old covenant was conflicted and complicated and messy.
as recorded in the Old Testament. Ditto for the Gentile sinners (I am one of those, descended from pig farmers on both sides) working out of the new covenant, we can see it at the beginning already in the New Testament. Luther once compared our attempts to follow God to a drunk on a horse, falling first into sinful license on one side and then into harsh legalism on the other, and I would add a quantum physics twist, somehow managing doing both at the same time! My thoughts on what it means to be a Christian. First - we are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus , Galatians 3:26. What do sons of God do, as Jesus did we walk in the Father’s love and reality and because we know that love, yes, we really meet him as isness permeated with love and peace ( we love because he first loved us) and then as Jesus is described in Acts 10:38 we are set free to go about doing good.
“We know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit. ……. If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And we so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” 1 John 4:13,15-16. Like the woman with the issue of blood we are driven to simplicity by failure, pain, sin and simply -I believe in Jesus the Christ, the Son of God John 20:31 is enough for life.
These are the general principles of what is to be a Christian IMO. How it works out in the details of life is different for everyone.
Mountain top, good to do if possible, I think the more universal teaching/example is Matthew 6:6, as regards development the activity in Acts and I Corinthians 12, 13, 14 all happened pre “development”
Do you think that any good came from the development? If the Bible is all, how are we to properly interpret it? Especially the common life of the earliest Christians in Acts?
How much of Acts is descriptive and how much prescriptive? As you read through Acts and the Epistles it seems the common life of the earliest Christians wasn’t prescribed for all as the required model. Also the depth and extent of the communalism isn’t clear as I think the descriptions of the early Christian experience are not totally detailed and delineated and we can fill in the blanks with imaginative extrapolations that may not be the reality. Is what is not forbidden permitted or is what is not permitted forbidden, I go with the first approach as regards my approach to the Bible. As regards the “development” lI think it’s a mix of the good, bad, and the ugly, the ordinary and the neither here nor there like my own self, and the sorting of it all out into the correct categories would differ from person to person.
I guess that one of the good aspects of the development would be the canonization of the Bible.
"How much of Acts is descriptive and how much prescriptive?" "Also the depth and extent of the communalism isn’t clear as I think the descriptions of the early Christian experience are not totally detailed and delineated."
I would concur. How then do we flesh out these skeletal ideas and descriptions?
"the sorting of it all out into the correct categories would differ from person to person."
It would indeed differ from person to person. Some find solace in the Bible alone, others need Tradition to help, examples of heroic people, the saints, to help them along. Thus, the monastic tradition, different forms of prayer, different traditions.
"How then do we flesh out these skeletal ideas and descriptions" creativity here - whatever is not forbidden is permitted - though people do have differing ideas on what is "forbidden"
Jesus said his burden and yoke were easy and light, and the water he gave would be a spring welling up into eternal life, what could be deeper than knowing the love of the Father as he did as a free gift, see John 17:26, and fear not little flock for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom, how much more will he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him, draw near to God and he will draw near to you, for through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit,
Deeper still than this is Jesus' Transfiguration. Deeper still than this is Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection. Has your relationship deepened with Christ as you have grown older?
In the mostly descriptive tradition of Christian Buddhism, there exists three or four non-linear stages of relationship. In the three-fold path, there is Purgation, Illumination, and Union (the four-fold path, I believe, includes the Dark Night in between Illumination and Union). Just descriptions of experience of deeper and deeper relationship with God, cycles of desolation, ecstasy, and ordinariness. Union (theosis) in the Pauline tradition is Gal 2:20.
There are hints of the eightfold path of Christian Buddhism sprinkled throughout the Psalms, one of the many sources for monastic Christianity. There we find the many ways that faith can manifest itself - joy, anger, desolation, lament. The eightfold path is simply a description of experience. One might say that what is described in Acts is a lot like monasticism.
Interesting. Personally, I would love at least a week of solitude. Having a career and young family, it would feel like the richest kind of decadence, not deprivation haha.
On a deeper level….
I would have to be truly desperate to retreat *with* my family into a wilderness. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but it would be a last step. A large part of this comes from growing up in a family which while close and loving, was isolated from most of our contemporaries and their culture. There was value in that experience, but also deep hurt and loneliness. I don’t want that for my children. I’m not so convinced of my rightness and wisdom as to pull them away from other people.
What I would rather do is seek out positive experiences of community, stable traditions, well thought out belief systems, and hope that teaches resilience.
I think however, that it’s good to have an “inner retreat,” a place within ourselves that can’t be easily reached or co-opted. Maybe it is formed by a story, an experience, a place or a combination of all. I read another article that talked about the cyclical experience of going in and out of exile. I thought it quite profound. Part of coming into my adult self has been recognizing when I’m going into exile: that “things fall apart” feeling. Inevitably (so far!) the exile comes to an end and I’m back “home,” with added experience and confidence. But the exile part is terrifying, every time. It really is an act of faith to live through it.
Siochana- Thank you for your comment. I find the question of silence and solitude in the context of a family is an interesting one. I am a childless bachelor so I have little insight into that. What I have witnessed is there are a lot of distractions out there for all of us. As slightly crazy (at the very least) as all the media distractions create for us adults, it is fairly clear that children are extremely susceptible. I wonder how parents deal with that?
I don't know if you are inclined towards a household monasticism, but there does seem to be an interest. The world is too much with us, said Wordsworth, and that was 200 years ago. Now, we hardly seem to be able to settle down and find ourselves. We increasingly choose *not* to settle and find ourselves.
I chose to come to a monastery, at least for a time--and yet here I am *still* online--but should it really have to come to that? How do we escape the dictatorship of noise?
Anyway, I would love to know what parents think and have experienced in regards to creating zones of sanity in all this craziness. -Jack
Hi Jack thank you for the response! My daughters are 7 and 4 so I am still learning and experimenting (not that that will ever change).
There isn’t much literal silence in our family until the girls are in bed 😁 but both of them, from their earliest days, have had an independent nature, as in they happily (mostly) play on their own or with each other. This is good for everyone I think. I can usually have a bit of time to myself (like now). I don’t know if I can take any credit for this or if I am just lucky in their personalities. But I do try to respect their play, if they are not in danger or damaging anything or hurting anyone. I see a lot of parents trying to “show” those kids how to play and while I don’t know their situation, I wonder why? What’s the purpose? For example, if we go to a playground and they choose to ignore the structure and play with gravel, I let them.
We also try to have lots of outside time, lots of real experiences with friends, etc. Screen time is limited though it isn’t zero. Especially during Covid we got into the habit of family movies. Recently her grandma bought AJ a kindle fire and I am pretty suspicious of it, because it is addictive and many of the activities frankly kinda dumb in my opinion. But she knows there are strict limits and it is used only a small amount of time.
I see a contemplative side in both my children: they actively seek out and respond to beauty, and try to create it with their art and toy creations. My eldest startles me at times: recently she decided that a very ordinary (to me) part of a parking lot was a sacred space and she created a prayer ritual for herself. I have NO IDEA where exactly that came from but it looks like peace to me.
Long reply, don’t know if I answered your question at all lol!
Siochana- I think it is the beginning of an answer. We are all trying to find our way in an often bizarre situation. I don't think anyone can or will figure it out alone. There are enough of us questioning where this seems to be headed and wonder if there is a better way. That's what I wonder. -Jack
“Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).
People in general (many Jews amongst them), with a poor sense of what spirituality actually means, take sentences like this to mean that, OK, so far our physical conditions in this world have not been very good, but we'll be able to improve them by incorporating this new "spiritual" teaching or gift or promise, whatever that may be. But "the city that is to come" should be taken to mean our eternal residence: when, freed from the bondage of our false mind and body identification and firmly situated in our true spiritual identity, we live an eternal life of loving exchanges with God and His devotees. This is a gift that is always available to us, but few are willing to leave everything behind and actually go the distance. It usually takes a lifetime of tenacious dedication; which doesn't mean it's less of a gift, but our own involvement is much required.
The tension arising from both of those interpretations is the story of the Gospels, and also the story of our own life; because all of us are struggling to fix a goal for our spiritual practices according to what prophets and saints actually teach, and not to our own distorted, materiallistic version of their legacy.
It's nice to hear from you again, Jack... take care!
Nanda- It is very good to hear from you. How are you? Are you still traveling?
I have been thinking along the same lines as your comment lately. Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden light. Yet, he also says sell all you have, seek first the kingdom and *all these things* (i.e., food, drink, clothing) will be added unto you.
It is our clinging to false security aka the providence of mammon, that prevents from depending on God alone. But what a leap that is!
I'm very good, thanks! Settled near Seville for around a month, it's been a nice and fruitful break from the rigors of the road. How are you? Still in the monastery, it seems?
I thought about you during a recent program in Dijon, France, where Gurudev talked about transcendental sound as a path of God realization. If you'd like to have a listen, you can follow this link:
Wow, thank you for this. It's a wonderful piece. I've just read it twice and intend to do so again tomorrow.
I think you have given some indication of what the Arsenios Option would be, though, or at least differentiated it from the Benedict Option. It's interesting to me, as you've articulated some ideas that I have also been trying to percolate.
If the Benedict Option is about a cultural retreat, and almost all of Dreher's writing is in a cultural vein, I think the Arsenios Option could perhaps be described as a more complete retreat. I want to say 'inward', but that has associations with modern therapeutic modes of thought that I think miss the mark.
Perhaps if the Benedict Option is about tactically admitting that certain modes of cultural power are no longer available, then the Arsenios Option is about denying that they were ever beneficial in the first place? It feels to me that each practitioner focussing on their failings rather than directly seeking to mend the world is a central point.
That would also explain why I am so very bad at it, unfortunately.
I think you are exactly right. For all the criticisms of Dreher's version of the Benedict Option that miss the mark, the one that hits home for me is that he is fundamentally lamenting the loss of the cultural power of middle-class American Christianity. Something that I have never associated with or cared about. That said, he is one of the best chroniclers of our cultural madness. There is a reason he has become so popular.
Lately I have been assessing Thomas Merton. He can be a whipping boy for various traditionalists. That may be for good reason, maybe not. It is true, I think, that some used Merton to jettison a lot that he may or may not have signed on to. Be that as it may.
I think Merton is relevant in at least three ways: 1) He has an implied critique of technological civilization. My guess is that he had read the likes Marcel and Ellull. It shows up in indirect ways, mainly via the type of language he tends to use. This needs to be deepened and extended. Which is happening. 2) His emphasis on contemplative prayer, or as we are saying here, "dwelling in stillness". 3) His borrowing from Zen, the Taoists and Desert Fathers. All of whom, I dare say, would have little problem with the Arsenios Option.
In his borrowing of Zen, etc, there is also a kind of freedom from institutional corruption and power-seeking, e.g., Chuangzi's parable of the Turtle to avoid becoming Prime Minister, and certainly in the Desert Fathers. Expressive Individualism and the culture of narcissism has turned that institutional skepticism--a generally healthy impulse, in my opinion--into New Age mush. But it doesn't have to be.
I think this can, and should be, a broad project. It needs go deep also or it will be easily dismissed. In that I find hope in the small constellation of people, such as yourself, who have gathered around Paul's substack. This appears to be growing. Of course, I think we can all agree that it can't remain only an online phenomenon.
I am cautiously moving towards the view that Imperial Christianity is not only over, but was, as you note, a serious mistake. What comes next? Going farther out onto this limb, what does the post-anthropocene follower of the Tao (the incarnate Tao, for some) do now? The Arsenios Option, for what it's worth, is an attempt to fathom that. We'll see how it goes.
In that sense, I look forward to your own thoughts on the matter.
Sorry this was a bit rambling, but I am still trying to work through this. -Jack
No need to apologise for rambling in response to my rambling! On the idea that Imperial Christianity was a mistake, I think it was Kierkegaard who let me untangle things, and really see the extent to which actual Christianity is shocking to both Christendom and those who think they oppose 'Christianity'. It's still for that reason, as a sympathetic outsider, that I'm optimistic about the collapse of Christendom for the prospects of Christianity.
I can't remember if we've talked about Illich and Cayley's 'Rivers North of the Future'. Illich circles and circles around a phrase, corruptio optimi pessima - "the corruption of the best is the worst" - to understand the history of the Church and the West. I think, like you, he would return to the desert fathers. The book is a massive, slightly subterranean, influence on Taylor's Secular Age; and I think it is the ultimate source of Taylor's thesis that it was the 12th-13th elite desire to ensure that the populace was being properly Christian that both built Western Christendom and destroyed it.
I find Dreher a fascinating figure, and think the book he is writing on re-enchantment might turn out to be his most interesting. I often find his culture war stuff in the American Conservative hard to read, though. It often feels that his strong identification with certain concepts - family, conservatism, and Christianity - often leads him away from the underlying, infinitely more complex, realities those concepts signify, and so he loses the charity and humaneness that is obvious in most of his writing. For me, he cuts a somewhat tragic figure: an essentially good man who wishes to both remain good and to take sides in the political battles of the elites. No-one can do both of those things together, and I hope he will walk away from the battlefield in time.
The Desert Fathers seem to be actually--and radically-- living the Gospel. I read one story last night about "selling all you have", which included one monk selling his copy of Gospel itself, and giving to the poor, as just one example. KIerkegaard was right.
Maybe I am off base, but I am thinking Merton really was on to something, as well. I need to dig more. He certainly read Ellul, it turns out. And Kierkegaard and Marcel. There is a database of all the books he mentions was reading from his journals.
I think what I am discerning in Merton is often largely implicit. Though there are a couple of books our there on Merton, Ellul and technology (I haven't read them). So others see it, too.
I think that what may have been implicit can be made explicit and extended.
“Something is waking up around us—yes, something dreamt of over the millennia.”
There’s a true and ominous tenor in those words, and they reminded me of the opening sections of Paul’s book, The Wake (I have finally gotten around to starting on his trilogy). Your comment on the peasant from a thousand years ago makes me think of his protagonist in 1066, a profoundly grounded fellow if there ever was one, until the roots of all he knows get ripped up. And I feel what is going on now, what your dream is touching on, is the same uprooting, only much worse, partly because we cannot see it as clearly. Partly, perhaps, because some people actually seem to like it.
“The more silence the better”. Far be it from me to debate with you on this. You’re the one in the monastery! But I’m going to say something horrible and left-brained, something that would get me kicked out of any Zen hermitage in about two seconds. Silence, I think, needs a focusing structure in the form of sacred words and sacred imagination. Notice I didn’t say focus “point”. I’m not talking about mantras (they’d kick me out of the ashram too). I’m talking about meanings, both the local meaning that shapes our mind in prayer and also the meaning that is beyond this world—the spirit of God. Not all silence is helpful, if it tears down or blocks the possibility of accessing true meaning. In that sense, more silence can be worse, depending on the context around it. I think this perspective is a bit closer to an Orthodox view, at least based on my rudimentary understanding.
Peter- You are surely right that the context of silence matters. The mindset we bring to it and the setting in which the silence takes place can make us or break us in silence. I have found it much more natural to sit here at the monastery in silence than most places. I did find a good spot recently on a wooded trail with a view of Pike's Peak when I was living in Colorado Springs. That was very natural to contemplate as well.
Also, at the monastery the atmosphere is not only of something resembling wild nature, but more importantly chanting the psalms. This is very helpful. Otherwise it is easy to get lost in the shallowness of oneself. It is in this context, I am finding "the more silence the better". Thank you for the clarification.
My hope in that better recognizing what is waking up around us the path ahead will be made clearer. The meaning of Flee, Be Silent, Dwell in Stillness will also be made clearer. -Jack
Not at all. It is good to clarify. Nevever deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish as the scholastic formula goes. A good practice.
I think many of us deal with left-brain runaway. I am slowly making my way through The Matter with Things. My intuition tells me that this is an epochal work.
I find the best antidote to my own runaway left-brainism is, of course, silent contemplation.
Hi Jack - once more, so much I appreciate and resonate with internally. I kind of find that quite hopeful.
Re "That peasant knew—concretely and directly— what was happening around him. I doubt that is true for most of us anymore. We live increasingly in the abstract and far-flung. In so living, we are largely deluded, spiritually and otherwise. That we are often quite erudite in our delusion is hardly compensation. " Yes. I was in a church context recently where folk were talking about 'living more sustainably' - but this brought up for me a question no one was asking - why are are we living unsustainably? FWIW I think it is because we have lost touch with Reality - our lives make no sense in terms of the created order of things. [ A slight digression - I have been involved in conversations as a Brit, around Monarchy which someone called 'illogical in the modern world' - I disagreed with the use of the word Illogical. As I put it, a Car is utterly illogical. It is only because the modern world is one of alientation that it appears not to be . . . whereas Monarchy (Gen 1) is somehow woven into Reality - another discussion!]
So our lives are out of touch - our consciousness is utterly blind to how things Really are. And We are also out of touch with one another . . . we say touch but we don't even hear one another . . . rata tat atat is all we hear as our fingers hit the keys . . . our touching is several degrees away from reality.
I then go onto suggest that our perception fo God is therefore illusory and that Deep Silence is The Way. The Way Home - to our Primordial Root. apologies for rambling out loud. God bless you - I hope you are well. Blessings, E
To be still is to gather moss (as the old stone proverb goes) and to be silent is to understand why gathering moss is important. I love the idea of being one with the place you live. Since being a child I've been drawn to books like Anne of Green Gables; to be a person so at one with your location it is included in your name must be wonderful! I seem to be revisiting childhood ideas and books (!) a lot lately...I wonder if regression is part of the process of reunion?
I do think this process is easier where God's (and not man's) creation can be seen and felt around you. Running to the hills worked for me!
"I do think this process is easier where God's (and not man's) creation can be seen and felt around you."
Naomi- I have been thinking about this a lot since I read your comment. I do think this is right. Contemplation and simplicity are much easier when surrounded by nature. It is almost a natural state. As if we were made for it, or something!
Just being in a crowded city is like being under assault in ways that are often hard to detect. Or rather the more one acclimates to the city, the duller one has to be to survive it. The thicker the layers of psychological armor must become.
Of course many people love cities. I would be interested to hear from people who find peace in a crowded city and how they do it. -Jack
That's a really interesting thought. I would love to know how people find solice in the city. From my own experience I was always drawn to the natural elements for comfort when living in busy places; When I first moved to Australia (I lived in Perth for 5 years), I remember spending hours sat outside the city library watching strange little birds dive into a water feature like aerial acrobats. It's a memory that will stay with me and I'm not quite sure why.
We must remember though that we humans are 'nature' too. There is no actual separation; only an abstract concept of separation that our evolutionary trajectory seems to have encouraged.
Perhaps some people find peace from being with other people in cities as they unwittingly see the sacred in them? As a musician I often feel this when watching a performance. Humans are, after all, in and of God. Wendell Berry describes beautifully that "Creation is not in any sense independent of the creator" but "constant participation of all creatures in the being of God". I wonder if gaining this understanding of God, as a material force with whom we co-create and not purely transcendental, would change the way humans interact with their environment?
Your comment has struck a chord with my own experience. Although retired now I worked for many years as a bus driver which took me daily to the coastal town Aberystwyth in West Wales. I would often take my break there on the cliffs above the town and watch the dolphins out in the bay playing. And completely unnoticed by I would guess the rest of town.
Richard- We find moments of refuge where we can. These little spots seem to be less common nowadays, at least here inAmerica. Everything, I think, must be public, lest someone get themselves into something nefarious.
I am glad you found your refuge for all those years. I hope you still have one. -Jack
Substack is such a jewel of a find for me. So much wisdom from people like yourself Jack .And I among many, are grateful for we struggle to make sense of this world we live in.
There's a magical place for me not far from where I live called 'Llygad Llwchwr'. The source of the river Llwchwr. It's a cave where the river surfaces from the great limestone aquifier. You can sit quietly just inside the entrance and watch the small rainbow trout jump to feed on midges and flies. Sublime.
Finding peace in a crowded city is all about inner silence and allowing the sounds to wash over and past you, just like thoughts in a harried mind. Other people, egos, rudeness, impatience, and disrespect - all spiritual disciplines, to return it all with kindness, humility, love, and forgiveness: I will not be the one to continue the cycle of anger and fear. If we can see how God works with human frailty to teach us something about humility and love, we are all the better for it. When we ask, "why did I react this way?", we move closer to self-knowledge and closer to God. God can speak through us even when we do not feel holy.
It is imperfect, as all human things are, but it is possible.
Family life is a spiritual discipline, children a mirror held up to see the immaturity that remains. A spouse is almost more deeply committed to your well-being than you yourself are; they will grind away at your rough edges in deep and loving dialogue lasting decades, if you are lucky.
I love Julian's prayer: "All shall be well again, I know." It is also a beautiful song and incredibly helpful.
And George Grant, "Beyond courage, it is also possible to live in the ancient faith, which asserts that changes in the world, even if they be recognized more as a loss than a gain, take place within an eternal order that is not affected by their taking place." Beautiful and helpful, Lament for a Nation.
Merton had an epiphany in the middle of the city, Louisville, Kentucky, where he felt intimately connected to the madding crowd all about him, and this after decades in the cloister. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander is where to find it.
Merton found many ways to be annoyed in the monastery: his fellow monks bad singing, the blasts from the military training up the road, readying the troops for Vietnam, his ever-present desire for further solitude, and the frustrating attempts by his superiors to silence and censor him. And yet we revere him to this day - something to ponder.
This is an excellent comment. Thank you.
You are most welcome.
Naomi- Yes to this! We may not be able to be still unless we are truly in a place and of it. The monastery is in a box canyon and one of the great joys is when the rain comes through. There is something greatly calming about it. The other morning (4 am) there were a couple of owls hooting outside my cell. This is a true place in a way a suburban cul-de-sac cannot be, or my previous apt. that overlooked the parking lot. So I say flee to the hills if you can! I am glad you have already done so.
Maybe revisiting childhood isn't regression but the way forward. I have heard it called a second naivete, one that lies beyond adult ways of knowing. Lest ye become like little children...
How is the covid recovery going?
-Jack
The canyon sounds beautiful. Almost protective and enveloping. And how magical to hear the owls. I always get excited when I hear the cuckoo call when I'm gardening; it makes a change to pigeons!
A few days ago I lost my sense of smell because of Covid...the worst thing was not being able to smell the carnations and lavender that are blooming in the garden. My children would say that I kept burning food under the grill was the worst though! I'm starting to be able to smell (and cook!) again now! Thanks for asking Jack :-)
Naomi- This little canyon is beautiful. I am thankful to be here. I have used the word "embrace" to describe it. Enveloping works too!
I am glad your sense of smell is returning. No need to miss out on the garden flowers or to burn dinner any longer than necessary. -Jack
I relate Naomi. I have always loved music and books that have that strong sense of place, including Lucy Maud Montgomery’s. I am reading Anne of Green Gables with my 7yo eldest daughter right now. She loves the descriptive language.
How lovely. I'm sure she'll treasure the experience for life. I'm excited to read it to my daughter too, she's just 6 so a little young yet but hopefully soon she'll love it too!
12 years ago I read somewhere about developing the patience of lichen. Still working on that.
My wife and I have been living in a 600 sqft cottage in the woods at the edge of the boreal forest in Northern Minnesota for the last two years. Calming, allowing for quiet, silence. Even with the occasional motorized vehicle going down the road, the location allows for quiet.
Originally I sought separation from the "culture wars" to recover and return to fight, much as Dreher seems to suggest, or to continue the war from behind defensive walls. What I have found is that the "culture war" is superfluous and should just be walked away from. The better solution to a bad influence is to live a better solution. That is my hope and plan, as well as offering refuge as needed.
This is exactly right. Silence is the antidote to the culture wars. I am glad you have found a refuge. -Jack
Might there be a way to transcend the culture war beginning in silence and leading to patient and purposeful action, pointing to a via media, a third path, transcending left and right?
Hi Jack, after the exhortation to silence I tried in vain to suppress my urge to comment. You bring up multiple trains of thought I have been on recently, too.
1- you know how much I've thought about fleeing. It might be abandoning the people in my life. I am ready to get going asap if my husband wants to but he has his doubts and his own timeline emerging. We talk a lot about abandoning people... these people are not perfect friends, they are not bosom brethren... they have disappointed us and they are capable of betraying us. But they are the people in our lives and they would be sad. I imagine the monks and desert fathers all had to make this same choice. It has to be a confidence that the Father's will is leading, or else it is just a selfish seeking of refuge in the hills.
2- I like this quote, "They promoted a way of life that reflects a reversal of all ordinary social values and expectations." This is what I have been saying to my husband... that I want to get away from the decadence. It is almost impossible to live according to the values of simplicity and quiet contentment in this culture. There is a constant demand for us to participate in the affluent lifestyle that we are surrounded by and opting out generates frustration and misunderstanding by well-meaning family.
3- I was reading my book The Wisdom of the Enneagram again. There are things in type 4 and 5 that speak to me with startling clarity. This type is so programmed to see deep, ominous insights where others do not. We are so typically concerned with a big-picture knowledge and grand ideas while neglecting the practical and humble day to day responsibilities. After reading that I could see myself as this unbalanced person -- Mom of 5 who should be focusing on homeschooling, organizing the pantry, watering the veggie garden, repairing the fence to keep out rabbits, starting fall crops from seed, starting a new batch of bread... my point is that I have plenty of projects that I've been passionate about in the past that could still use my energy but I am preoccupied with fleeing to the hills at this moment. Is the world really this urgently different from what I thought or am I sabotaging my real life based on some kind of personality quirk that causes me to overthink things? I don't expect you to answer that but you, like me, are dreaming of the terminator robot and feeling that there is a darkness so unprecedented as to legitimate this level of response. Could we be victims of our cerebral and iconoclastic personality types? Reading that book made me think it's possible.
4-Where is the desert now? This question is huge. I've been looking at Maine because it is the nearest place that has some wilderness and cheap land. I can't tell without spending more time there how different it is or isn't from where I am now. I can tell enough to know that lots of the same problems exist there but are less advanced in severity. It isn't a pristine desert. It might be a significant improvement. I in no way have the time or energy to travel around extensively looking for the right place to go. There seems to be wealth and cell towers everywhere that there is food. I'd love to hear other's thoughts about where the desert is these days.
I have this one other silly question that I always wonder about. If living in a literal desert, such as the monastery you are at or the fathers in Egypt, where does one's food come from? And if it comes from fertile land and is trucked into the dessert to feed people doesn't that kind of negate the desert experience? Those old time monks must have brought food or was it miraculous sustenance?
Thanks for your patience with me!
Clara
Clara- These are all good and necessary questions. I will think on them and see what I can offer, if anything. One thing is crucial though, the "Arsenios Option" is available to us all right now. Flee distraction, be silent, and dwell in Stillness. No move required.
Then again, the urge to literally flee the world of ambition came probably about 5 minutes after the founding of the world of ambition. A kind of dance. The world needs the hermits, artists, misfits, holy fools, and eccentrics more than the other way around. I have enough experience with the world to know I want, at the very least, keep my distance from it. -Jack
Clara- I think the Enneagram 5 with 4 wing "problem" may lie at the heart of this. For most of my life I think I had a fairly decent balance between these two, often contradictory, ways of being in the world. Which we will call The Intellectual vs The Artist. Though I have always zealously pursued my intellectual interests, they were kept in check by practice in various kinds of arts. I played music, often more or less improvised; I practiced Aikido, I meditated, I even did comedy improv for a couple of years, the list goes on and on. Around 2010 I hit a wall as it was clear my musical aspirations were going nowhere and that my hopes for marriage and a family weren't looking very good.
So I decided to launch a massive effort to figure out where things went wrong. I did so on two levels 1) what went wrong with our civilization? 2) where did I go wrong? As for the first this was a continuation and intensification of a view I had already long held. But I sought to go deeper. The past 12 years have shifted almost entirely to a 5-mode intellectual search with far less 4-mode to balance it. This had consequences.
The problem with what I call the para-scholarly 5-mode is that there is no logical stopping point. Research can, and does, go on and on...and on and on. The 5-mode is looking for rock bottom certainty. And at first it seems we are dog on the scent! But its prey keeps receding. So...more research and the rabbit of truth, as it were, will be captured at last. The more I searched the farther away it seemed. This has been a cause of great anxiety. Which came to a head this past fall.
I began to question whether my fundamental assumptions--explicitly known or not--are even right. You mention this in how that one's mental construct creates a world and that world may be a fiction, wholly or in part. But how does one even know? There are no certain intellectual meta-foundations on which to judge. Or there are many such meta-foundations. It starts to look like turtles all the way down. One approaches a kind of intellectual vertigo...the world becomes a funhouse of mirrors.
But, nonetheless, this effort is not futile. But it doesn't look to be intellectually self-grounding. This is postmodern problem of the hermeneutic circle, i.e., it is all built on sand. That is where the 4-wing started to return. This is an artistic, intuitive, even contemplative response to being in the world. But after the 5-mode of intellectual search, the hope is that one has gained an *educated* intuition. But this must be without the certainty that the 5-mode has sought. it is, rather, a leap of faith. Usually that is a terrifying prospect to the 5-mode.
So the choice came to be stay in the unbearable anxiety of the 5-mode or take the leap of faith into a 4-mode. So I took the leap. I think I will have to keep taken that leap for the rest of my days. Which doesn't mean I don't still seek via the 5-mode, but I need to put it in its place. Hence the Arsenios Option. I think it is worthwhile to fathom what that might mean,
As I have mentioned I have been meditating on Mt. 6:24-34 and surrounding verses. But Luke 12 has a more condensed version. This is the only way forward. The question is whether I am willing to believe it and live it.
I don't know if any of this helps. I probably could have said it more concisely. For what it is worth. -Jack
Do Not Worry
22 Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? 25 And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 26 If you then are not able to do the least, why [d]are you anxious for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not [e]arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?
29 “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. 30 For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek [f]the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.
32 “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Thanks for taking the time to share this, Jack. It sounds like this fits in with Ian McGilchrist's ideas, too. I am impressed that you are tackling The Matter with Things.
What I have come to understand from the enneagram is that even though we have the 4 wing influence which brings some balance, we never really become healthy, whole, integrated (whatever you want to call it) until we get beyond the ruts of our types. These are some of the traits that made me wonder if I am just being a nutty 5w4 --
They love to delve into complex mental worlds at the expense of their practical, physical needs.
They are attracted to dark, esoteric knowlege and to knowing about things that most others aren't aware of.
They tend to cut off from others and withdraw into their heads rather than pursue healthy relationships that they need.
They are conditioned to expect hostility from others rather than support, but this belief can cause them to isolate in counterproductive ways
They often deny or suppress their physical and material needs because they fear that they will lose autonomy or will be beholden to others if they accept help or support. They would rather have very little than owe anything or feel obligated.
Their basic fear is of being helpless, useless, incapable
Their basic desire is to be capable, confident, and original
Sure sounds like this type is quite naturally drawn to the 'via negativa' and not always for the most pure reasons. The enneagram is not my primary guide in life, but I brought it up because I know you are familiar with it and because I felt that it pinpointed my motives better than I could do consciously myself. I wondered if we could both be seeing the world as more hostile and threatening than it really is because we are this type....?
On the other hand our type can have very important insight and clarity and also bring that insight to bear for the benefit of our communities. So maybe we are having helpful and accurate insight into a bad situation. Always wanting to learn more and be more certain before acting is another typical 5 thing.
So on the whole, I don't really think that I am a paranoid and unhealthy person; I do believe that this insight into our current dark times is a blessing. I just waffle around and wonder if we and others on The Abbey etc. could be just a whole group of 5s and 4s who are all reinforcing each other's most distrusting, isolating instincts. I guess it isn't usually money we struggle to relinquish, but certainty and our fear of vulnerability. I admired Mattias Desmet (in that interview) very much for his speaking up publicly and his touching observations about finding meaning and human purpose in doing so.
Thanks for being a friend to bounce this off of. Stillness and silence are gems. Keep taking those leaps!
Clara
Clara- We fives with a four wing have to stick together!
Likewise, I don't take the enneagram too seriously, though I think there is *something* to it. My previous analysis was largely bending that to what Iain McGilchrist is saying. I probably have to think it through more. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so.
More concisely, perhaps:
The intellectual search cannot rest. The seeking mind seeks--that's its job. This is what the deconstructionist call, "the endless play of signifiers". I have my doubts that the intellectual search can ever end--for good or ill--on its own level. But artistic/intuitive level can find a kind of rest. A beautiful piece of music, or poetry, doesn't need any justification other than itself. It is in the artistic mind, or its close cousin the contemplative mind, that our intellectual restlessness finds home in its deepest and broadest sense.
We can bring that artistic/intuitive/contemplative mind to many things we do. We can bring it to everything, I think. But the cost is letting go of the intellectual hope that we can secure meaning by putting it into a system, however vast. But the artistic/intuitive/contemplative without the intellectual is usually shallow. Ideally, the two poles find their own harmony.
As to group think, this is always a possibility, even a probability. Even among those of us who don't think we are susceptible to it. Especially us!
I have enough intelligent friends who roll their eyes or even get frustrated with my musings. This is good. They are usually more practical, and I need to hear that. They might be surprised to hear the world is becoming as dangerous and unhinged as we tend to think here, or on the Abbey and elsewhere. But that doesn't mean we are wrong! Just that the world is a lot bigger than what goes on in my wee cabasa.
But again that doesn't mean we are wrong. -Jack
Today July 20 is the feast day of St. Arsenius. I have just read a short biography of this desert father in “Lives of the Saints” (July-December) Vol. 2 by Fr. F.X. Weninger, available free for download on Archive.org.
St. Arsenius served the Emperor Theodosius and also taught his sons. However, tired of the world, he ran away from the imperial court and fled to Egypt at age 65. The older hermits doubted that he could lead a life of great austerity but he astonished them by fasting even more rigorously, and sleeping on a rocky bed. Stories of hermits like St. Arsenius seem so remote, strange and repellent to us yet Emperor Theodosius and his successor, his son Arcadius, sent emissaries to search for St. Arsenius and beg him to return. Can you see today any of our world leaders or billionaire celebrities begging a holy monk to join their households and teach their children? This tells me that our era has become so depraved and devoid of the sense of the supernatural that it will accept the worst abominations.
I don’t think that it is easy today to “flee to the desert” with a group of other lay people and form a community unless the primary goal of the community is union with God. That’s the reason why monasteries exist over a thousand years after they were established but the hippie communes of the 1960s fell apart within a few years. There has to be a higher goal other than one’s self and happiness.
Almost everyone is far too attached to the things of this world. For this reason, St. Arsenius (and monks in general) meditated frequently on death. There’s nothing like a deep meditation on death to detach oneself from material things, including family and friends.
Evie- I actually had no idea today was the feast day of St. Arsenios! A beautiful coincidence. St. Arsenios, pray for us!
I agree fully. Without the right intentions and without being clear about what those intentions are, fleeing the world can easily become narcissistic. It seems that truly fleeing the world will make one's life *more* difficult, no less so. But also more meaningful. -Jack
Have you read Max Picard's "The World of Silence"? If not, I think you would like it. Currently, I find "desert spirituality" most amenable. I have a copy of the four volume Evergetinos by my bedside and read from it constantly.
I do think that you are right: if there is a hill, mountain, island, etc. to escape to, we should escape, but it is of utmost importance to find some silence internally prior to that escape or the escape will be tainted. Thomas Merton goes into this in detail in his final book "The Inner Experience". Lawrence also wrote an allegory about just this called "The Man who Loved Islands." We should all try to escape to the desert, but first we must find our inner desert and learn to dwell there here and now.
Farasha- I have not read The World of Silence. It looks excellent. I will try to pick up a copy. I am working my way through the Sayings of the Desert Father's which is proving very helpful tome. The desert Father's weren't prone to thinking they could be saved by abstract speculation. Something I need to be constantly reminded of.
You are right the desert can be found no farther than the ground right under our feet! -Jack
In regard to your note # 7 and concluding question. A few people and I attend and mutually facilitate a Zoom meeting every afternoon between 4:00-5:00 that consists of nothing more nor less than sharing silence for an hour. A pithy evocation of this practice from Barbara Brown Taylor goes, "Silence is ecumenical. It precedes dogma. It is incapable of crusades. In silence, people who do not speak the same language may yet act together, creating a tableau that talks louder than words."
Most of us, as you realize, will never be able to retreat to a monastery outside short visits. How does silence become a part of one’s life in the city?
For me, the example of Jesus waking up early and going out to pray in the early morning provides a model. “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.” Mark 1:35.
If a person dedicates a good part of their waking hours to silence (say two-four hours) it becomes easier to go back into the busy world and serve others. Prayer also helps one confront the controversy that will inevitably meet the person who seeks to know and follow God.
Diana-
I lived in an apartment for twenty-two years with a dazzling view of the parking lot. I struggled against my surroundings for most of that time. Deep distraction competed with silence, and silence didn’t always win. Admittedly, there are some with the talent to make anyplace into a garden and refuge. This is a skill of which I am egregiously lacking.
But you are right, it doesn't take going to a remote monastery to find it. You just have to make it a priority. That said, I have found contemplation very natural here. If and when I return to the world I hope to remember to do as you suggest.
Thank you, Jack
Hmm, Jesus just said to go in a room and close the door and pray to the Father who is there in secret, it says draw near to God and he will draw near to you and in Ephesians it says that Jesus has given us access to the Father by the Spirit in the here and now. I regard the monastic movement as unbelief in this simplicity through Jesus of easy access and closeness to God as a gift. Though scriptures can be quoted in support, this monastic quasi Buddhist system, eight fold path of works of gradual contemplative attainment is not presented as a system in the New Testament. I am sorry that getting close to and knowing God has to be such a process for you, not my experience nor that of people and family I know. I think especially of my grandmothers.
Jeff-
I tend to agree. Why is it that the history of Christianity is so complicated and conflicted? I am sure there are very many answers to that--also complicated and conflicted. I am certainly incapable of "solving it". I often wonder if it ever can be.
For example, we are told we can't serve God and Mammon and should live like the birds of the air and lilies of the field. To sell all we have and give alms. To seek first the kingdom of God and trust that food, drink and clothing will be added unto us. To worry not about tomorrow.
What percentage of those following Christ have ever done this? Exceedingly few. I certainly haven't. I don't know anybody who has. Quite the opposite, we build bigger barns to gather the surplus. I see a lot of hedging and rationalizations regarding these verses. Maybe I have it wrong, though.
I don't go as far as Nietzsche's quip, "In truth, there was only one christian and he died on the cross.” But it does seem G.K. Chesterton kind of had it right, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
I don't say this to start an argument--which I won't engage in, because I find such pointless--not that this is your intent. But rather to seriously ask what it *really* means to be a Christian. 2,000 years and the question still is asked.
Thank you for your comment. I hope you are well. -Jack
Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden was light. I have a different view than Chesterton. My exemplars of faith are the woman with the issue of blood and the Canaanite woman seeking deliverance for her daughter., the tax collector praying in the temple, and the sinful woman bathing the feet of Jesus with her tears and the leper asking if Jesus was willing to cleanse him. Would love to have a cordial face to face discussion with you, not so doable in this medium. The sins and brokenness of Christians don’t appall me as I have met my own, all my worse failures and sins came after believing in Jesus and really meeting God. My thoughts on the conflicted and complicated history of Christianity. The Jewish response and working out of the old covenant was conflicted and complicated and messy.
as recorded in the Old Testament. Ditto for the Gentile sinners (I am one of those, descended from pig farmers on both sides) working out of the new covenant, we can see it at the beginning already in the New Testament. Luther once compared our attempts to follow God to a drunk on a horse, falling first into sinful license on one side and then into harsh legalism on the other, and I would add a quantum physics twist, somehow managing doing both at the same time! My thoughts on what it means to be a Christian. First - we are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus , Galatians 3:26. What do sons of God do, as Jesus did we walk in the Father’s love and reality and because we know that love, yes, we really meet him as isness permeated with love and peace ( we love because he first loved us) and then as Jesus is described in Acts 10:38 we are set free to go about doing good.
“We know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit. ……. If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And we so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” 1 John 4:13,15-16. Like the woman with the issue of blood we are driven to simplicity by failure, pain, sin and simply -I believe in Jesus the Christ, the Son of God John 20:31 is enough for life.
These are the general principles of what is to be a Christian IMO. How it works out in the details of life is different for everyone.
What might you make of Luke 6:12 and other such passages that refer to Jesus retreating to the mountain top?
"I regard the monastic movement as unbelief in this simplicity through Jesus of easy access and closeness to God as a gift".
What if that belief calls one to the desert?
"this monastic quasi Buddhist system, eight fold path of works of gradual contemplative attainment is not presented as a system in the New Testament."
Perhaps not. But is Christianity sola scriptura, only about the Bible? Might there have been some development in the Christian life since?
Mountain top, good to do if possible, I think the more universal teaching/example is Matthew 6:6, as regards development the activity in Acts and I Corinthians 12, 13, 14 all happened pre “development”
Do you think that any good came from the development? If the Bible is all, how are we to properly interpret it? Especially the common life of the earliest Christians in Acts?
How much of Acts is descriptive and how much prescriptive? As you read through Acts and the Epistles it seems the common life of the earliest Christians wasn’t prescribed for all as the required model. Also the depth and extent of the communalism isn’t clear as I think the descriptions of the early Christian experience are not totally detailed and delineated and we can fill in the blanks with imaginative extrapolations that may not be the reality. Is what is not forbidden permitted or is what is not permitted forbidden, I go with the first approach as regards my approach to the Bible. As regards the “development” lI think it’s a mix of the good, bad, and the ugly, the ordinary and the neither here nor there like my own self, and the sorting of it all out into the correct categories would differ from person to person.
I guess that one of the good aspects of the development would be the canonization of the Bible.
"How much of Acts is descriptive and how much prescriptive?" "Also the depth and extent of the communalism isn’t clear as I think the descriptions of the early Christian experience are not totally detailed and delineated."
I would concur. How then do we flesh out these skeletal ideas and descriptions?
"the sorting of it all out into the correct categories would differ from person to person."
It would indeed differ from person to person. Some find solace in the Bible alone, others need Tradition to help, examples of heroic people, the saints, to help them along. Thus, the monastic tradition, different forms of prayer, different traditions.
"How then do we flesh out these skeletal ideas and descriptions" creativity here - whatever is not forbidden is permitted - though people do have differing ideas on what is "forbidden"
Might there be a deeper level of relationship with God beyond the easy access of the prayer room?
Jesus said his burden and yoke were easy and light, and the water he gave would be a spring welling up into eternal life, what could be deeper than knowing the love of the Father as he did as a free gift, see John 17:26, and fear not little flock for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom, how much more will he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him, draw near to God and he will draw near to you, for through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit,
Deeper still than this is Jesus' Transfiguration. Deeper still than this is Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection. Has your relationship deepened with Christ as you have grown older?
In the mostly descriptive tradition of Christian Buddhism, there exists three or four non-linear stages of relationship. In the three-fold path, there is Purgation, Illumination, and Union (the four-fold path, I believe, includes the Dark Night in between Illumination and Union). Just descriptions of experience of deeper and deeper relationship with God, cycles of desolation, ecstasy, and ordinariness. Union (theosis) in the Pauline tradition is Gal 2:20.
There are hints of the eightfold path of Christian Buddhism sprinkled throughout the Psalms, one of the many sources for monastic Christianity. There we find the many ways that faith can manifest itself - joy, anger, desolation, lament. The eightfold path is simply a description of experience. One might say that what is described in Acts is a lot like monasticism.
The Bible being a large book, provides enough material to put together varied systems through adroit selection of verses
Interesting. Personally, I would love at least a week of solitude. Having a career and young family, it would feel like the richest kind of decadence, not deprivation haha.
On a deeper level….
I would have to be truly desperate to retreat *with* my family into a wilderness. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but it would be a last step. A large part of this comes from growing up in a family which while close and loving, was isolated from most of our contemporaries and their culture. There was value in that experience, but also deep hurt and loneliness. I don’t want that for my children. I’m not so convinced of my rightness and wisdom as to pull them away from other people.
What I would rather do is seek out positive experiences of community, stable traditions, well thought out belief systems, and hope that teaches resilience.
I think however, that it’s good to have an “inner retreat,” a place within ourselves that can’t be easily reached or co-opted. Maybe it is formed by a story, an experience, a place or a combination of all. I read another article that talked about the cyclical experience of going in and out of exile. I thought it quite profound. Part of coming into my adult self has been recognizing when I’m going into exile: that “things fall apart” feeling. Inevitably (so far!) the exile comes to an end and I’m back “home,” with added experience and confidence. But the exile part is terrifying, every time. It really is an act of faith to live through it.
Siochana- Thank you for your comment. I find the question of silence and solitude in the context of a family is an interesting one. I am a childless bachelor so I have little insight into that. What I have witnessed is there are a lot of distractions out there for all of us. As slightly crazy (at the very least) as all the media distractions create for us adults, it is fairly clear that children are extremely susceptible. I wonder how parents deal with that?
I don't know if you are inclined towards a household monasticism, but there does seem to be an interest. The world is too much with us, said Wordsworth, and that was 200 years ago. Now, we hardly seem to be able to settle down and find ourselves. We increasingly choose *not* to settle and find ourselves.
I chose to come to a monastery, at least for a time--and yet here I am *still* online--but should it really have to come to that? How do we escape the dictatorship of noise?
Anyway, I would love to know what parents think and have experienced in regards to creating zones of sanity in all this craziness. -Jack
Hi Jack thank you for the response! My daughters are 7 and 4 so I am still learning and experimenting (not that that will ever change).
There isn’t much literal silence in our family until the girls are in bed 😁 but both of them, from their earliest days, have had an independent nature, as in they happily (mostly) play on their own or with each other. This is good for everyone I think. I can usually have a bit of time to myself (like now). I don’t know if I can take any credit for this or if I am just lucky in their personalities. But I do try to respect their play, if they are not in danger or damaging anything or hurting anyone. I see a lot of parents trying to “show” those kids how to play and while I don’t know their situation, I wonder why? What’s the purpose? For example, if we go to a playground and they choose to ignore the structure and play with gravel, I let them.
We also try to have lots of outside time, lots of real experiences with friends, etc. Screen time is limited though it isn’t zero. Especially during Covid we got into the habit of family movies. Recently her grandma bought AJ a kindle fire and I am pretty suspicious of it, because it is addictive and many of the activities frankly kinda dumb in my opinion. But she knows there are strict limits and it is used only a small amount of time.
I see a contemplative side in both my children: they actively seek out and respond to beauty, and try to create it with their art and toy creations. My eldest startles me at times: recently she decided that a very ordinary (to me) part of a parking lot was a sacred space and she created a prayer ritual for herself. I have NO IDEA where exactly that came from but it looks like peace to me.
Long reply, don’t know if I answered your question at all lol!
Siochana- I think it is the beginning of an answer. We are all trying to find our way in an often bizarre situation. I don't think anyone can or will figure it out alone. There are enough of us questioning where this seems to be headed and wonder if there is a better way. That's what I wonder. -Jack
“Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).
People in general (many Jews amongst them), with a poor sense of what spirituality actually means, take sentences like this to mean that, OK, so far our physical conditions in this world have not been very good, but we'll be able to improve them by incorporating this new "spiritual" teaching or gift or promise, whatever that may be. But "the city that is to come" should be taken to mean our eternal residence: when, freed from the bondage of our false mind and body identification and firmly situated in our true spiritual identity, we live an eternal life of loving exchanges with God and His devotees. This is a gift that is always available to us, but few are willing to leave everything behind and actually go the distance. It usually takes a lifetime of tenacious dedication; which doesn't mean it's less of a gift, but our own involvement is much required.
The tension arising from both of those interpretations is the story of the Gospels, and also the story of our own life; because all of us are struggling to fix a goal for our spiritual practices according to what prophets and saints actually teach, and not to our own distorted, materiallistic version of their legacy.
It's nice to hear from you again, Jack... take care!
Nanda- It is very good to hear from you. How are you? Are you still traveling?
I have been thinking along the same lines as your comment lately. Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden light. Yet, he also says sell all you have, seek first the kingdom and *all these things* (i.e., food, drink, clothing) will be added unto you.
It is our clinging to false security aka the providence of mammon, that prevents from depending on God alone. But what a leap that is!
I hope you are well! -Jack
I'm very good, thanks! Settled near Seville for around a month, it's been a nice and fruitful break from the rigors of the road. How are you? Still in the monastery, it seems?
I thought about you during a recent program in Dijon, France, where Gurudev talked about transcendental sound as a path of God realization. If you'd like to have a listen, you can follow this link:
https://fb.watch/ep9jWDLNes/
The actual talk starts on 20:51. Take care,
Nanda
Wow, thank you for this. It's a wonderful piece. I've just read it twice and intend to do so again tomorrow.
I think you have given some indication of what the Arsenios Option would be, though, or at least differentiated it from the Benedict Option. It's interesting to me, as you've articulated some ideas that I have also been trying to percolate.
If the Benedict Option is about a cultural retreat, and almost all of Dreher's writing is in a cultural vein, I think the Arsenios Option could perhaps be described as a more complete retreat. I want to say 'inward', but that has associations with modern therapeutic modes of thought that I think miss the mark.
Perhaps if the Benedict Option is about tactically admitting that certain modes of cultural power are no longer available, then the Arsenios Option is about denying that they were ever beneficial in the first place? It feels to me that each practitioner focussing on their failings rather than directly seeking to mend the world is a central point.
That would also explain why I am so very bad at it, unfortunately.
I think you are exactly right. For all the criticisms of Dreher's version of the Benedict Option that miss the mark, the one that hits home for me is that he is fundamentally lamenting the loss of the cultural power of middle-class American Christianity. Something that I have never associated with or cared about. That said, he is one of the best chroniclers of our cultural madness. There is a reason he has become so popular.
Lately I have been assessing Thomas Merton. He can be a whipping boy for various traditionalists. That may be for good reason, maybe not. It is true, I think, that some used Merton to jettison a lot that he may or may not have signed on to. Be that as it may.
I think Merton is relevant in at least three ways: 1) He has an implied critique of technological civilization. My guess is that he had read the likes Marcel and Ellull. It shows up in indirect ways, mainly via the type of language he tends to use. This needs to be deepened and extended. Which is happening. 2) His emphasis on contemplative prayer, or as we are saying here, "dwelling in stillness". 3) His borrowing from Zen, the Taoists and Desert Fathers. All of whom, I dare say, would have little problem with the Arsenios Option.
In his borrowing of Zen, etc, there is also a kind of freedom from institutional corruption and power-seeking, e.g., Chuangzi's parable of the Turtle to avoid becoming Prime Minister, and certainly in the Desert Fathers. Expressive Individualism and the culture of narcissism has turned that institutional skepticism--a generally healthy impulse, in my opinion--into New Age mush. But it doesn't have to be.
I think this can, and should be, a broad project. It needs go deep also or it will be easily dismissed. In that I find hope in the small constellation of people, such as yourself, who have gathered around Paul's substack. This appears to be growing. Of course, I think we can all agree that it can't remain only an online phenomenon.
I am cautiously moving towards the view that Imperial Christianity is not only over, but was, as you note, a serious mistake. What comes next? Going farther out onto this limb, what does the post-anthropocene follower of the Tao (the incarnate Tao, for some) do now? The Arsenios Option, for what it's worth, is an attempt to fathom that. We'll see how it goes.
In that sense, I look forward to your own thoughts on the matter.
Sorry this was a bit rambling, but I am still trying to work through this. -Jack
Then Josef Ratzinger's view, back 50 years ago now, on the future of the Church bears this out.
https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/the-church-of-the-future-josef-ratzinger/
No need to apologise for rambling in response to my rambling! On the idea that Imperial Christianity was a mistake, I think it was Kierkegaard who let me untangle things, and really see the extent to which actual Christianity is shocking to both Christendom and those who think they oppose 'Christianity'. It's still for that reason, as a sympathetic outsider, that I'm optimistic about the collapse of Christendom for the prospects of Christianity.
I can't remember if we've talked about Illich and Cayley's 'Rivers North of the Future'. Illich circles and circles around a phrase, corruptio optimi pessima - "the corruption of the best is the worst" - to understand the history of the Church and the West. I think, like you, he would return to the desert fathers. The book is a massive, slightly subterranean, influence on Taylor's Secular Age; and I think it is the ultimate source of Taylor's thesis that it was the 12th-13th elite desire to ensure that the populace was being properly Christian that both built Western Christendom and destroyed it.
I find Dreher a fascinating figure, and think the book he is writing on re-enchantment might turn out to be his most interesting. I often find his culture war stuff in the American Conservative hard to read, though. It often feels that his strong identification with certain concepts - family, conservatism, and Christianity - often leads him away from the underlying, infinitely more complex, realities those concepts signify, and so he loses the charity and humaneness that is obvious in most of his writing. For me, he cuts a somewhat tragic figure: an essentially good man who wishes to both remain good and to take sides in the political battles of the elites. No-one can do both of those things together, and I hope he will walk away from the battlefield in time.
The Desert Fathers seem to be actually--and radically-- living the Gospel. I read one story last night about "selling all you have", which included one monk selling his copy of Gospel itself, and giving to the poor, as just one example. KIerkegaard was right.
Maybe I am off base, but I am thinking Merton really was on to something, as well. I need to dig more. He certainly read Ellul, it turns out. And Kierkegaard and Marcel. There is a database of all the books he mentions was reading from his journals.
http://merton.org/Research/Quotations/results-b.asp?phrase=
Thank you for the Illich recommend. I need to buckle down!
-Jack
I need to get around reading Merton at all! I only know him 2nd hand (and his translation, but that's not quite the same)
I think what I am discerning in Merton is often largely implicit. Though there are a couple of books our there on Merton, Ellul and technology (I haven't read them). So others see it, too.
I think that what may have been implicit can be made explicit and extended.
I agree with you that this is what is off-putting in The Benedict Option.
The Fantastic Monastic Podcast
GENIUS!
This is a cross-post from the Abbey of Misrule monthly Salon, but it connects with my earlier comments on sacred imagination and so I thought I’d post the link here too--a new translation of the Dream of the Rood. https://thelampmagazine.com/2022/05/27/the-dream-of-the-rood-a-new-translation/
As I mentioned in my Abbey post, the accompanying essay is almost as beautiful as the poem.
Peter- This looks excellent. Thank you. -Jack
“Something is waking up around us—yes, something dreamt of over the millennia.”
There’s a true and ominous tenor in those words, and they reminded me of the opening sections of Paul’s book, The Wake (I have finally gotten around to starting on his trilogy). Your comment on the peasant from a thousand years ago makes me think of his protagonist in 1066, a profoundly grounded fellow if there ever was one, until the roots of all he knows get ripped up. And I feel what is going on now, what your dream is touching on, is the same uprooting, only much worse, partly because we cannot see it as clearly. Partly, perhaps, because some people actually seem to like it.
“The more silence the better”. Far be it from me to debate with you on this. You’re the one in the monastery! But I’m going to say something horrible and left-brained, something that would get me kicked out of any Zen hermitage in about two seconds. Silence, I think, needs a focusing structure in the form of sacred words and sacred imagination. Notice I didn’t say focus “point”. I’m not talking about mantras (they’d kick me out of the ashram too). I’m talking about meanings, both the local meaning that shapes our mind in prayer and also the meaning that is beyond this world—the spirit of God. Not all silence is helpful, if it tears down or blocks the possibility of accessing true meaning. In that sense, more silence can be worse, depending on the context around it. I think this perspective is a bit closer to an Orthodox view, at least based on my rudimentary understanding.
Peter- You are surely right that the context of silence matters. The mindset we bring to it and the setting in which the silence takes place can make us or break us in silence. I have found it much more natural to sit here at the monastery in silence than most places. I did find a good spot recently on a wooded trail with a view of Pike's Peak when I was living in Colorado Springs. That was very natural to contemplate as well.
Also, at the monastery the atmosphere is not only of something resembling wild nature, but more importantly chanting the psalms. This is very helpful. Otherwise it is easy to get lost in the shallowness of oneself. It is in this context, I am finding "the more silence the better". Thank you for the clarification.
My hope in that better recognizing what is waking up around us the path ahead will be made clearer. The meaning of Flee, Be Silent, Dwell in Stillness will also be made clearer. -Jack
Thanks. And I didn’t mean to be overly presumptive! My left brain gets away with me sometimes.
Not at all. It is good to clarify. Nevever deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish as the scholastic formula goes. A good practice.
I think many of us deal with left-brain runaway. I am slowly making my way through The Matter with Things. My intuition tells me that this is an epochal work.
I find the best antidote to my own runaway left-brainism is, of course, silent contemplation.
Hi Jack - once more, so much I appreciate and resonate with internally. I kind of find that quite hopeful.
Re "That peasant knew—concretely and directly— what was happening around him. I doubt that is true for most of us anymore. We live increasingly in the abstract and far-flung. In so living, we are largely deluded, spiritually and otherwise. That we are often quite erudite in our delusion is hardly compensation. " Yes. I was in a church context recently where folk were talking about 'living more sustainably' - but this brought up for me a question no one was asking - why are are we living unsustainably? FWIW I think it is because we have lost touch with Reality - our lives make no sense in terms of the created order of things. [ A slight digression - I have been involved in conversations as a Brit, around Monarchy which someone called 'illogical in the modern world' - I disagreed with the use of the word Illogical. As I put it, a Car is utterly illogical. It is only because the modern world is one of alientation that it appears not to be . . . whereas Monarchy (Gen 1) is somehow woven into Reality - another discussion!]
So our lives are out of touch - our consciousness is utterly blind to how things Really are. And We are also out of touch with one another . . . we say touch but we don't even hear one another . . . rata tat atat is all we hear as our fingers hit the keys . . . our touching is several degrees away from reality.
I then go onto suggest that our perception fo God is therefore illusory and that Deep Silence is The Way. The Way Home - to our Primordial Root. apologies for rambling out loud. God bless you - I hope you are well. Blessings, E