Citydesert

“The saint who tried (and failed) to live in obscurity
St Cuthbert retired to an island and would only open his window to give blessings”
“Catholic Herald” (London), 29 August 2014

“St Cuthbert was a monk, bishop and hermit associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne. After his death he became one of the most important medieval saints of northern England and is regarded as the region’s patron saint.
Cuthbert is believed to have been born to a noble family on the Scottish Borders in the mid-630s, about 10 years after King Edwin’s conversion to Christianity in 627. The kingdom’s politics were violent, with episodes of paganism, and Cuthbert’s primary task was the spread of Christianity.
The earliest biographies of Cuthbert record many miracles and he never gave up travelling from village to village in order to spread the Gospel. When Alchfrith, king of Deira, founded a new monastery at Ripon, Cuthbert became guest master. He then became prior in 664. He spent most of his time among the people, ministering, carrying out missionary journeys, preaching and performing miracles.

As a missionary he travelled from Berwick to Galloway and eventually founded an oratory in Dull at a site which eventually became the University of St Andrews. He is also thought to have founded St Cuthbert’s church in Edinburgh.
Cuthbert retired in 676 and eventually ended up at Inner Farne Island, off the Northumbrian coast, where he gave himself up for a life of austerity.

At first, he received visitors but he eventually confined himself to his cell and only opened his window to give a blessing.
In 684 Cuthbert was elected Bishop of Hexham but was reluctant to leave retirement. Yet he was consecrated at York by Archbishop Theodore and six bishops on March 26 685. After Christmas in 686 he returned to his cell on Inner Farne Island where he died in March 687. He was buried the following day at Lindisfarne and his remains taken eventually to Durham.
Following his death numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession. Most famously Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was inspired in his fight against the Danes by a vision he had of Cuthbert. Later Cuthbert became a symbol for the Royal House of Wessex, who were greatly devoted to Cuthbert, who became an important political symbol.”
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/spirituallife/saintoftheweek/2014/08/29/the-saint-who-tried-and-failed-to-live-in-obscurity/

“Cuthbert (c 634-687) was raised in the traditions of Celtic Christianity. Although he subscribed to Roman ways after the Synod of Whitby (664), he remained an exemplar of a less triumphal, more inward form of religion than that represented by the dominating personality of St Wilfrid, the Pope’s henchman.
“Above all,” wrote the Venerable Bede, “Cuthbert was afire with heavenly love, unassumingly patient, devoted to unceasing prayer, and kindly to all who came to him for comfort.” There can be no question of Cuthbert’s holiness. But whereas he is traditionally presented as a shepherd boy, it is clear from the stories told about him that he lived on easy terms with royalty and aristocracy. Cuthbert’s name is Anglo-Saxon, and he was probably born in the Lothians.
At 15 he entered Melrose Abbey, later moving to Ripon, only to be expelled when King Aldfrith of Northumbria fell under the influence of the Romanising Wilfrid.

Melrose Abbey, c. 1800

Back at Melrose, Cuthbert succeeded as prior in 664. In the tradition of Irish monastics, he travelled around the country preaching. Fiercely ascetic, he would stand in the freezing sea to pray.
Subsequently he became prior at Lindisfarne, where, obedient to the decision at Whitby, he performed the difficult task of introducing Roman rites and customs.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne

“When he was fatigued with the bitter taunts of his opponents,” it is recorded, “he would get up and without a sigh of vexation adjourn the chapter. The next day, as though he had met with no opposition, he would repeat his arguments until by degrees he had them brought round to his way of thinking.”
From 676 Cuthbert lived as a hermit on the small, rocky island of Inner Fane, although at the end of his life he served briefly as bishop, first at Hexham, then at Lindisfarne. By this time, though, ecclesiastical power in Northumbria had moved south to York.
Cuthbert died on Inner Fane, and over the next century a cult developed around his undecayed remains at Lindisfarne. When the Vikings sacked Lindisfarne in 793 his body was removed to Norham, on the river Tweed. During the ninth century his reputation spread as far as Germany.
From 875 to 883 Cuthbert’s corpse was taken on a series of peregrinations, no doubt with the aim of raising funds for the community established in his name. His cadaver was variously reported to be at the mouth of the Derwent, at Whithorn in Galloway and at Crayke near York.
Then for more than a century the body was at Chester-le-Street until it was again moved in 995, first to Ripon, then to Durham, where in 1194 it was accorded an honoured place in the new cathedral.

The Shrine of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne in Durham Cathedral

Cuthbert’s magnificent shrine was destroyed at the Reformation; his memory, however, has proved more durable.”
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/spirituallife/saintoftheweek/2011/03/16/the-hermit-who-prayed-in-the-freezing-celtic-sea/

“The Gospel Book of St. Cuthbert is arguably one of the most important surviving medieval manuscripts, and it is a cause for celebration that it has been secured by the British Library in a purchase from the collection of Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. The procurement was funded by a number of major grants of public money as well as many smaller donations from the public at large. It is appropriate, then, that the book has been digitised in full and made available free-of-charge to all on the British Library’s website, as part of a project to inform and educate a broader audience about the book’s importance.

Cuthbert was born c.635, and lived his adult life as a monk in various foundations in the north of England, becoming most closely associated with Lindisfarne (where he was prior and later bishop) and Inner Farne (where he spent most of his later life as a hermit until his death on 20th March 687). The Gospel Book that takes his name is of obvious codicological importance: it dates from the late seventh century and is the earliest intact European book in existence, ‘the only surviving high-status manuscript from this crucial period in British history to retain its original appearance, both inside and out’, with the original binding enclosing the text of St. John’s Gospel, likewise unaltered since it was produced.
Yet also, just as in the medieval period, it is the association with St. Cuthbert that lends this book its particular fascination. It was placed in Cuthbert’s tomb at Lindisfarne when it was first opened in 698, and remained alongside the body of the saint until the tomb was opened again at Durham Cathedral Priory in 1104, an event witnessed by the chronicler Symeon of Durham. The book was found, according to a thirteenth-century inscription in the book, ‘near the head of our blessed father Cuthbert lying in his tomb’.
The tomb had been moved out of Lindisfarne in the eighth century, and the body and book together were carried by the community of monks around northern England, then to Chester-le-Street and eventually to Durham. The wanderings of the Gospel Book continued after the destruction of the tomb in the sixteenth century: it was donated to the English Jesuit community at Liège in the eighteenth century, was briefly misplaced while on loan to the Society of Antiquaries in the early nineteenth century, and has eventually come to rest at the British Library (where its new classmark – Add. MS 89000 – scarcely hints at the book’s importance).

When Cuthbert’s tomb was first opened in 698, it was found that ‘the skin had not decayed nor grown old, nor the sinews become dry…but the limbs lay at rest with all the appearance of life’. The incorruptability of a body was crucial evidence in the canonization process, and (whether accurate or not) such accounts are repeated over and again in medieval hagiographies. Holy books, too, were imbued with similar properties of indestructability: according to Symeon, the Lindisfarne Gospels (also at the British Library) were washed overboard during a voyage across the Irish Sea but were found miraculously unharmed on the shore. Few librarians nowadays would be willing to trust the safety of their collections to the intervention of a guardian saint!
http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/cmt/?p=2366

“This Pectoral Cross was removed from the coffin of St Cuthbert on the last occasion that it was opened on Thursday 17th May 1827. Made of gold the stones are garnets. The cross was discovered deeply buried amongst the robes on the breast. A portion of the silk cord, twisted with gold, by which it had been suspended, was found upon the breast. A tradition, however, says the bones were not St Cuthbert’s these having been removed to safety in another part of the cathedral some time between 1542 and 1558. But the cross may well still have been his, placed with another body as a “ruse”.”
http://www.cushnieent.force9.co.uk/WebSitePhotoGallery/cuthbertcross.htm

Apolytikion in the Third Tone:
WHILE still in thy youth thou didst lay aside all worldly care and didst take up the sweet yoke of Christ, O godly-minded Cuthbert, and thou wast shown forth in truth to be nobly radiant in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, God established thee as a rule of faith and shepherd of His rational flock, O converser with Angels and intercessor for men.
Kontakion in the First Tone:
HAVING surpassed thy brethren in prayers, fasting, and vigils, thou wast found worthy to entertain a pilgrim-angel; and having shone forth with humility as a bright lamp set on high, thou didst receive the gift of wonderworking. And now as thou dwellest in the heavenly Kingdom, O our righteous Father Cuthbert, intercede with Christ God that our souls be saved.
http://gabrielsmessage.wordpress.com/saints-and-elders/st-cuthbert-of-lindisfarne/

See further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-cuthbert.asp
http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/general/cuthbert1.htm
http://gabrielsmessage.wordpress.com/saints-and-elders/st-cuthbert-of-lindisfarne/

“In the writings of a hermit we always hear something of the echo of desolation, something of the whispers and the timid gazing around of isolation; from his strongest words, even from his screaming, still resounds a new and dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. Whoever has sat down, year in and year out, day and night, alone in an intimate dispute and conversation with his soul, whoever has become a cave bear or digger for treasure or guardian of treasure and dragon in his own cavern – it can be a labyrinth but also a gold mine – such a man’s very ideas finally take on a distinct twilight colouring and smell as much of mould as they do of profundity, something incommunicable and reluctant, which blows cold wind over everyone passing by.

The hermit does not believe that a philosopher – assuming that a philosopher has always first been a hermit – has ever expressed his real and final opinion in his books. Don’t people write books expressly to hide what they have stored inside them? – In fact, he will have doubts whether a philosopher could generally have “real and final” opinions, whether in his case behind every cave there does not still lie, and must lie, an even deeper cavern – a more comprehensive, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every reason, under every “foundation.” Every philosophy is a foreground-philosophy – that is the judgment of a hermit: “There is something arbitrary about the fact that he remained here, looked back, looked around, that at this point he set his shovel aside and did not dig more deeply – there is also something suspicious about it.” Every philosophy also hides a philosophy; every opinion is also a hiding place, every word is also a mask.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil”, Part 9, aphorism 289 – quoted on Hermitary: http://www.hermitary.com/sayings/

“Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet and composer. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.
Nietzsche’s key ideas include the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, the Will to Power, the “death of God”, the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. One of the key tenets of his philosophy is the concept of “life-affirmation,” which embraces the realities of the world in which we live over the idea of a world beyond. It further champions the creative powers of the individual to strive beyond social, cultural, and moral contexts.
Nietzsche’s radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary, and his influence remains substantial, particularly in the continental philosophical schools of existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism. His ideas of individual overcoming and transcendence beyond structure and context have had a profound impact on late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century thinkers, who have used these concepts as points of departure in the development of their philosophies.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

See further: http://www.pitt.edu/~wbcurry/nietzsche.html

September 1 is the commemoration of Saint Symeon Stylites of Lesbos.

“Saint Symeon Stylites of Lesbos (765/766-844) was a monk who survived two attempts on his life during the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm (814–842). He followed a similar model to Simeon Stylites, residing on a pillar-like structure similar to a tower. There he isolated himself form the world and fasted, prayed and studied. He is venerated with his two brothers, Saint George the Archbishop of Mytilene and Saint David the Monk.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symeon_Stylites_of_Lesbos

See also:

Alice-Mary Maffry Talbot “Byzantine Defenders of Images: Eight Saints’ Lives in English Translation” [Dumbarton Oaks, 1998] “The seven vitae feature holy men and women who opposed imperial edicts and suffered for their defense of images, from the nun Theodosia whose efforts to save the icon of Christ Chalkites made her the first iconodule martyr, to Symeon of Lesbos, the pillar saint whose column was attacked by religious fanatics. Life of St. Theodosia of Constantinople Life of St. Stephen the Younger Life of St. Anthousa of Mantineon Life of St. Anthousa, Daughter of Constantine V Life of the Patriarch Nikephoros I of Constantinople Life of Sts. David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos Life of St. Ioannikios Life of St. Theodora the Empress.”

Graham Jones “Saints in the Landscape: Heaven and Earth in Religious Dedications” [Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2007]

Hermits often feature, because of their tendency to geographic stability, as “local Saints”, or “Saints in the Landscape”.

“I have recently finished reading “Saints in the Landscape” by Dr Graham Jones, Senior Research Associate at Oxford University. This is a wonderful book, so full of original insights that I am filled with admiration. Many people have tried, and failed, to make sense of the pattern of saint-dedications in the British Isles. Dr Jones is the first person to have developed a coherent theory and backed it up with lots of credible evidence. Reading the book was a revelation. I felt that the explanation I had been searching for had suddenly been handed to me, complete and convincing.

“…the origins of many churches may be earlier than is normally assumed, and that deeply ancient ways of seeing the world and calling on supernatural help survived to influence medieval and even modern attitudes…
“…John the Baptist can be associated with upland or woodland pasture…
“Many annual parish outings may well be the linear descendants of an intermediate category of local pilgrimage…”
“…extensive meadows were opened at Lammas of which (St) James’ feast a week before was herald.
“(Holy) wells have their own patterns of naming, very different from those of churches.
“Hare Pie Bank is an Iron Age shrine characterised by the ritual deposit in the first century BC of thousands of gold and silver coins and a ceremonial helmet belonging to a high-ranking officer in the Roman army… Note: I intend to track this helmet down – presumably it is in the British Museum.
“The King’s Watch was one of the English processional customs which gave Midsummer its character.
“…the communal landscape and the maintenance of law through an ascending order of rituals, mutual societies, and an attachment to saints of the region and later the realm… symbolised a sense of identity…
“…ancestors were commemorated at the feast of All Souls…
“(St) Swithin’s protection was sought by communities farming certain types of soil…
“Ellenmas… the beginning of the dairying season and of the movement of stock to summer pastures…
“Places with Michaelmas livestock fairs represent by their very nature agrarian systems which take us back to a period earlier than the introduction of farming for the sale of surplus crops…
“Peter and Paul appear to be frequent patrons at places in England which were under royal control…

These are just a few examples. Every page of the book has similar illuminating facts and hypotheses. Dr Jones has written a book that goes a long way towards explaining why the society in which we live is structured the way it is.”
http://afroml.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/saints-in-landscape-by-dr-graham-jones.html

For Dr Graham Jones, see further: http://www.le.ac.uk/users/grj1/
For his Electronic Atlas of Saints’ Cults in England and Wales: http://www.le.ac.uk/users/grj1/leverhulme.html

“It is no surprise that the most popular patron saints for medieval chapels associated with forests included those whose legends connected them precisely with the forest and/or hunting. Most prominent are Leonard, who was said to have helped Clovis’ wife give birth during a hunt in the forest, and Giles, who reportedly protected a wounded hind from the huntsmen of the Visigothic king Wamba, despite being wounded himself.
Other forest saints are Hubert, Eustace, and Procopius – linked by the season of their feasts and the iconography of a stag bearing the cross between its antlers. These and other themes are explored in Graham Jones, Saints in the Landscape (Tempus, 2007).
The ending on Holy Cross Day, September 14, of stag and hart hunting and the start of hunting hind and doe, gives added meaning to the images of cross-bearing stags. It also draws attention inter alia to the dedication of the hunting lodge of the Scottish kings at Holyrood, whose approach from Edinburgh Castle is via the church of St Giles.”
http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/forests/ForestSaints.htm

Leonard prays outside his forest hermitage near the town of Noblat (19th c. French painting on fabric, private collection)

“St Leonard, or Lienard, was a French nobleman of great reputation in the court of Clovis I, and in the flower of his age was converted to the faith by St. Remigius, probably after the battle of Tolbiac.

Being instructed in the obligations of our heavenly warfare, wherein the prize of the victory is an assured crown of immortal glory, he resolved to lay aside all worldly pursuits, quitted the court, and became a constant disciple of St. Remigius. The holy instructions and example of that saint made every day deeper impressions upon his tender soul, and Leonard seemed to have inherited the very spirit of his master, and to be animated with the same simplicity, disinterestedness, modesty, zeal, and charity. He preached the faith some time; but finding it very difficult to resist the king’s importunities, who would needs call him to court, and burning with a desire of giving himself up entirely to the exercises of penance and contemplation, he retired privately into the territory of Orleans, where St. Mesmin or Maximin governed the monastery of Micy (called afterwards St. Mesmin’s), which his uncle St. Euspicius had founded, two leagues from the city, in 508. In this house St. Leonard took the religious habit and inured himself to the fervent practices of regular discipline under the direction of St. Mesmin and of St. Lie or Laetus, a holy monk of that house, who afterwards died a hermit.

St. Leonard himself aspiring after a closer solitude, with the leave of St. Mesmin left his monastery, travelled through Berry, where he converted many idolaters, and coming into Limousin, chose for his retirement a forest four leagues from Limoges. Here, in a place called Nobiliac, he built himself an oratory, lived on wild herbs and fruits, and had for some time no other witness of his penance and virtues but God alone. His zeal and devotion sometimes carried him to the neighbouring churches, and some who by his discourses were inflamed with a desire of imitating his manner of life joined him in his desert, and formed a community which, in succeeding times, out of devotion to the saint’s memory, became a flourishing monastery, called first Noblat, afterwards St. Leonard le Noblat. The reputation of his sanctity and miracles being spread very wide, the king bestowed on him and his fellow-hermits a considerable part of the forest where they lived. The saint, even before he retired to Micy, had been most remarkable for his charity toward captives and prisoners, and he laid himself out with unwearied zeal in affording them both corporeal and spiritual help and comfort, and he obtained of the governors the liberty of many. This was also the favourite object of his charity after he had discovered himself to the world in Limousin, and began to make frequent excursions to preach and instruct the people of that country. It is related that some were miraculously delivered from their chains by his prayers, and that the king, out of respect for his eminent sanctity, granted him a special privilege of sometimes setting prisoners at liberty; which about that time was frequently allowed to certain holy bishops and others. But the saint’s chief aim and endeavours in this charitable employment were to bring malefactors and all persons who fell under this affliction to a true sense of the enormity of their sins, and to a sincere spirit of compunction and penance, and a perfect reformation of their lives. When he had filled up the measure of his good works, his labours were crowned with a happy death about the year 559, according to the new Paris Breviary. Many great churches in England of which he is the titular saint, and our ancient calendars, show his name to have been formerly no less famous in England. In a list of holidays published at Worcester in 1240, St. Leonard’s festival is ordered to be kept a half-holiday, with an obligation of hearing mass and a prohibition of labour except that of the plough. He was particularly invoked in favour of prisoners, and several miracles are ascribed to him. His name occurs in the Roman and other Martyrologies.

Solitude has always charms to the devout servant of God, because retirement from the world is very serviceable to his conversing with heaven. Solitude and silence settle and compose the thoughts; the mind augments its strength and vigour by rest and collection within itself, and in this state of serenity is most fit to reflect upon itself and its own wants, and to contemplate the mysteries of divine grace and love, the joys of heaven and the grounds of our hope. How shall a Christian who lives in the world practice this retirement? By not loving its spirit and maxims, by being as recollected as may be in the midst of business, and bearing always in mind that salvation is the most important and only affair; by shunning superfluous amusements and idle conversation and visits; and by consecrating every day some time, and a considerable part of Sundays and great festivals, to the exercises of religious retirement, especially devout prayer, self-examination, meditation, and pious reading.”
Taken from Vol. III of “The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints” by the Rev. Alban Butler: http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/LEONARD.htm

See further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_of_Noblac
http://magnificat.ca/cal/en/saints/saint_leonard.html

An extract from “Alone, Not Lonely: On Modern Hermits” by Andy Wright on February 14, 2014 in “Modern Farmer” at http://modernfarmer.com/2014/02/hermit/

”Who hasn’t fantasized about a life off the grid? A life without the usual obligations. Without instant messaging. It is the ultimate in rural idyll, the extreme version of buying a summer home upstate.
Which is why I was more than intrigued to find that there were hermits just a couple hours away from me in Sonoma, California, best known as an upscale wine destination. According to its website, Sky Farm Hermitage “provides an ideal setting for anyone seeking a retreat in silence and solitude in a simple and rustic environment.” It’s mantra? “Be Still. Be Silent. Be Watchful.” For just $85 a night, the life of a hermit could be mine. And so I did something that seemed supremely novel at the time, and emailed a hermit.
There are two kinds of hermits.
Well, actually, there are two major categories with lots of subcategories. There are the hermits who live like Knight, in some form or another. People who prefer to live alone and self-sufficiently. They are the subjects of documentaries, some of them write books.
Some call Henry David Thoreau one. And surely there are some we will never know about. From there you can spiral out. Some have described Japan’s hikikomori, young men and women who have withdrawn from society and live isolated in rooms, as hermits. And then there are spiritual hermits. Hermits who live secluded lives dedicated to introspection—contemplative silence. The existence of spiritual hermits has been recorded since ancient times, from Greece to Siberia to Thailand. Many say Lao Tse, the author of the “Tao Te Ching” lived as a hermit. Saint Paul of Thebes is often credited as being the first Christian hermit. Born in 230 near Egypt, he is said to have lived in a cave for 70 years. (Caves are a popular dwelling for hermits of yore, and occasionally, hermits of today.) There are Buddhist hermits and Hindu hermits. There are hermits who live alone, and hermits who live in close proximity to other hermits. Many hermits live mostly in silence, but they aren’t all cut off.
Dear Andrea,
Peace and blessings.
Happily there are some openings for June Weekends– 6/21-21 or 6/28-30 are both free right now.
Might either of these work for you?
Warmly,
Sr. Michaela
It took just little over a day for the hermit to write back.
Her name is Michaela; I didn’t know her last name (Terrio) until well into our relationship. We exchanged a few more emails and after I admitted I knew absolutely nothing about visiting a hermitage, she proposed a phone call. (Hermits have phones!). I was uncharacteristically nervous about the call. Would Michaela sniff me out for the un-spiritual fraud that I was? I have, after all, no religious affiliation. I rarely spend time alone. I once balanced my laptop on the toilet in case I needed to chat about work during a shower.
But Terrio didn’t seem to care. She didn’t ask me, in her quiet, calm voice, why I wanted to come to Sky Farm, and she certainly didn’t ask me what my religion was. She told me, among other things, that while I was there, I probably wouldn’t see other people, but that if I did, it was okay to say “hello” if it seemed like the other person was okay with it. We agreed that I would take a bus to the city center of Sonoma and she would pick me up in her car (hermits have cars!) and take me the rest of the way to the hermitage, and then we hung up.
Hermits have to deal with a lot of misconceptions. Like that they all live in caves, or that they hate people or that they don’t go to the grocery store.
To bust some common hermit myths, I turned to Karen Fredette, a woman who finds herself in the strange position of being a spokesperson for hermits.

Fredette grew up Catholic and joined a monastery when she was 17. She lived there for 30 years before moving to West Virginia to live as a hermit in a small cabin, which she did for six years. Then she met her husband, Paul at a nearby parish where she worked to earn a little money. “Even hermits have to eat,” says Fredette. “We both pursued our separate vocations for a while but then finally decided that God was calling us to marry.”
Fredette says she no longer considers herself a hermit now that she’s married.
The Fredettes run a website for hermits and “those attracted to solitude,” and a newsletter for hermits called “Raven’s Bread,” which is printed and mailed. The newsletter features hermits’ stories, a letter from the Fredettes, book and article suggestions, a bulletin board and even a one-panel comic starring a character called Wood B. Hermit.

Fredette has written books about the hermit life and has a YouTube series. The website receives 650 hits a day, the newsletter is sent out to about 1,200 people worldwide.
It is the use of technology that raises the most eyebrows when it comes to the modern hermit existence.
“A lot of people are confused that hermits have computers,” says Fredette. I reached her by video chat one morning at her secluded home, tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina. She popped up on my screen, seated in her wood-paneled living room in front of her own computer, wearing a light blue, embroidered shirt and glasses.

“Computers are a great aid to many people in hermit life,” she says. “One time we asked the readers of Raven’s Bread, are computers good or not good for hermits? Some people thought that, well, a computer would be all right, but not any connection to the Internet and others said, well, it would take a lot of self-control not to get drawn in to spending all your time on the computer with Internet or email.”
Conflicting opinions aside, computers are good for making money, Fredette pointed out. While some hermits are lucky enough to live on land owned by spiritual groups, many still have to pay rent and buy the basics. If you can sell your wares or skills online then you can conduct your work while minimizing contact with others.
But plenty of hermits have day jobs.
Fredette once cleaned houses. “The people I worked for were away at their day jobs and I’d come in and clean their house very quietly and leave.” She knows hermits who work as nurses. She knows a hermit who picks grapes at a winery. She sends newsletters to the suburbs and the city. In 2001, Fredette conducted a survey of her readers and received 132 responses. 31 percent lived in rural areas, almost as many lived in urban areas, a third lived in suburbia and eight lived in an inner city. “There can be hermits walking down the street,” says Fredette. “You’ll not know them for who they are.”
Fredette says a typical day for a hermit will include praying, spiritual reading and being contemplative: “Focusing on one thing at a time and not multitasking.”
The burning question, of course, for those of us who sit with our Facebook pages open and cellphones within arms reach, is: Why?
It’s important, Fredette says, for people to realize that hermits are not people-haters. Fredette describes it as a calling.
“There’s a spiritual connection,” she says. “You can picture a wheel, there’s a hub, there’s the spokes going out to the rim and the people on the rim are usually moving pretty fast and about to fly off. But if you’ve got the spokes going to the hub where the hermits are, they are sort of in a way holding society from flying completely apart. It’s a spiritual realization, but I think it’s a real one.”
So is it hard to be a hermit?
“One can get very lonely,” Fredette admits. “I think it would be very strange if they didn’t go through periods of loneliness. But if you stick it out, if you can go through the loneliness – and you have to – you reach a lower level. And that’s solitude. That is a very rich, beautiful place.”
When I arrived at Sonoma’s quaint town square, I kept trying to pick Michaela out of the crowd. No, not her, too fancy. No, not her, too pregnant. I had plenty of time to wonder if I would get to meet the other hermits, if they would talk about me amongst themselves and if they would like me. Perhaps my neurotic need for approval from the hermits was something I could ponder during my crack at peace and solitude.

When I finally did meet her she had short, curling hair, wire-rimmed glasses and a warm smile. She was driving a white Mini Cooper. I wasn’t sure if I should go in for a handshake, but she greeted me with a hug.
We drove up a long, winding road, past rolling wheat-colored hills dotted with trees. As we cruised past neat rows of grapes, we made small talk about how over the years wineries had crept closer and closer to the hermitage. Sky Farm sat at the end of the long road. It consisted of a small cluster of buildings surrounded by trees, hills and rocks framed by a bright blue sky. Hawks circled overhead, a flock of wild turkeys bustled around the grounds and lizards with jewel-green bellies surfaced and vanished.

Michaela showed me the kitchen and library (mostly books about hermits) where there was a picture window and took me to a tiny chapel built into an enormous wine barrel. (This was Wine Country, after all.) Inside it was dark and cool. There was a small stained-glass window and an altar with an enormous Bible on it.
Finally, Michaela took me to my hermitage: I felt like I was at a religious boutique hotel. It was a small cottage with a bright yellow door, a gleaming kitchen and a small porch with a cast iron bench from which I could survey my surroundings. Once Michaela had showed me around the cottage, she said goodbye and left me alone.
That time I spent with Michaela, scarcely an hour, was the only time I was in her physical presence.
The first thing I did was poke through every drawer. I was relieved to find a corkscrew. At the last minute I had brought a bottle of wine with me (this was about being solitary, not sober, I had decided) and apparently this was okay. No Bible in the bedside table, but I found an individual packet of tissues and a plastic bottle of holy water.
The second thing I did, on my quest to explore my capacity for solitude, was hike out onto the road in search of cell reception so that I could text my boyfriend that I had arrived safely. This is my Carrie Bradshaw moment, I thought. I suck at being a hermit.
By the time I returned, the sun was dipping behind the mountains. I sat on my porch and watched the sky turn gold, then pink, then purple, then grey and finally black. It was incredibly quiet. I watched the stars turn on one by one and then I went to bed, preparing to wake up to a full day of hermitting…

When I woke up at Sky Farm I laid in bed for a while before opening up some yogurt and eating it on the porch, where I looked out at a violet morning sky and another guest hermitage just a few yards from mine. There was another weekend hermit in there; I could hear him or her making their own breakfast. But I never saw them. (I never saw anyone, actually, while I was at Sky Farm.) Maybe he or she never came out.
With breakfast out of the way, I had an entire day ahead of me. I had decided early on that I wasn’t going to force any spiritual awakenings. This was more an experiment about being alone than anything else. To that end, I had packed reading material.
First I read the New Yorker back-to-back. (Okay, I skipped a long political story.) Then I walked to a bench overlooking a dry creek and sat there for a while. There were well-positioned benches scattered throughout the grounds and I spent a lot of my time rotating through them. I tried sitting in the chapel. I flipped through the bible.
I went to the library and snooped (there was Trader Joe’s ice cream and raviolis in the freezer) before settling in to read books about hermits. My favorite was one that chronicled a hermit conference in 1975 in Wales. “There is,” it read, “as all who took part in this meeting were vividly aware, an almost comic incongruity in convening a meeting to speak about a life given to solitude and silence.”
I went for a walk in the heat, I returned, and then I sat some more.
Sitting and looking became my primary activity. Here’s the thing about sitting and looking: you hardly ever do it. But what else is there to do when you have no one to talk to, no internet connection and are surrounded by nature? Frankly, I found that I excelled at sitting and looking.
Sitting and looking became my primary activity. Here’s the thing about sitting and looking: you hardly ever do it. But what else is there to do when you have no one to talk to, no internet connection and are surrounded by nature? Frankly, I found that I excelled at sitting and looking…
After I left the hermitage, weeks passed before I spoke to Terrio again. Would she even agree to let a journalist interview her about her life? But Terrio was happy to talk to me, and we picked a date when I could call her up and ask her all manner of personal questions.
Before Terrio was a hermit, she was a just a regular girl growing up in “the middle of nowhere.”
Specifically, nowhere was the San Joaquin valley, a rural swatch of land near Sacramento covered in farms. Her family was Catholic, and church was important to them. Whenever her dad brought her and her siblings into town, they’d visit two places: the pet store and the church. After high school she headed to Fresno State to study medicine. She only finished one year.
“I just had this profound sense of how loved I was by this divine being,” says Terrio, laughing. “I understood my happiness would be in some form of service. And I thought it would be medical service, but then it was the monastery.”
Terrio was on a religious retreat in Aptos, California when a friend asked her if she wanted to go pray at a monastery. The monastery was home to Poor Clare Nuns, an order that has existed for centuries. She immediately felt she belonged there.

“It was a cloistered order which means once you went in you didn’t go out except for things like a doctor appointment,” says Terrio. “You didn’t go home to see your family. They could come see you but you were separated so they were sort of on one side of a grating and you were on the other and the first year they could come every month, the second year every two months. Once I was in final vows, just a couple times a year. That was very hard for me, because family was important.”
It wasn’t a seamless transition. Like any parents whose kid has a Big Idea, her mother and father said, “We’ll talk about it when you come home.” It was hard for them, Terrio says, when they realized she was serious. And then there was the “sweetheart” she had to part with.
“I never, never anticipated not having children or a husband,” says Terrio. “Or not having a family.”
In time, she says, the nuns came to feel like her “monastic family.” She stayed at the monastery for 17 years. Then, one day, she was ready to leave.
Terrio was working at a spiritual retreat when she became friends with a group of monks and together they dreamed of finding a patch of land where they could “do a hermit life.” They quickly realized that they didn’t have the capital to buy real estate. That’s when Father Dunstan Morrisey, the founder of Sky Farm, came calling.“In my life,” says Terrio, “things that I need always come to me.”

Morrisey, a monk, founded Sky Farm in 1974 and now that he was getting on in years, he was looking for a group of younger hermits to take it over. Within a month of contacting Terrio, she and her friends had been made board members of Sky Farm, a non-profit, and within a year she had moved there. That was ten years ago.
Most mornings, she emerges from her hermitage and sits with a cup of coffee before beginning her prayer. Then she has breakfast and commences doing what she calls her “dailies”: feeding the cats, watering the plants. “It’s a flexible day but it goes back and forth between prayer and work and the practice of just being still,” says Terrio. “It means physical stillness at times, but it means an inner stillness.”
Everything sounds idyllic and lovely — mostly. Finally, I blurt out what’s been nagging me this whole time: “I just can’t fathom how you don’t get lonely.”
Terrio takes the question in stride. “It’s really and truly a deep sense of connection,” she says, echoing what Fredette told me. “I feel deeply connected.”
When I left the hermitage, my return to “real life” was swift. I was ferried away by a friend in her car to the highway, where we sat in a traffic jam caused by a nearby NASCAR competition.
When I told the same friend over cocktails at a loud bar that I was writing about hermits, she said: “Oh, so they’re just like people who work from home!” She wasn’t the only person to make that joke. I laughed, since I’m one of those people and it is true, I spend most of my days alone. So many people are now familiar with the experience of never shedding their pajamas, not leaving the house for days, never hearing their voice out loud all day long. And that rubs up against one of the other great angsts of our time, that all of our connectivity — Snapchat, Gchat, Facebook — is somehow serving to push us further apart. We’re stressed out about talking too much and just as freaked out about being alone.
“Digital detox” has come to be accepted as a reasonable response to our connected lives. Urban centers seem increasingly accessible only for the very rich, and rural living, and the solitude it affords, holds appeal. But choosing to be alone, really alone? That decision still seems shocking.
But after talking to Terrio and Fredette, I realize that the joke equating hermits with housebound workers didn’t make sense. Terrio and Fredette don’t feel lonely. They feel deeply in touch with the world around them, even if that world doesn’t include much contact with people.
It turns out, though, that even among hermits, there are gradations of solitude. As Terrio tells me, she was going on a retreat the next week to have some “serious deep quiet.” Even hermits can feel crowded in on by life.

See further:
For Karen and Paul Fredette: http://www.ravensbreadministries.com/

“Hermits are a rare breed. Married hermits are about as common as spotted owls. Marry a Roman Catholic priest to a former nun, nest them in a mountainside hermitage named Still Wood, and you may have a brand new species. This memoir is a three-way love saga – God, a priest and a nun joined to minister to hermits world-wide and to the mentally disabled in the isolated mountain county of “Bloody” Madison, North Carolina. Each chapter weaves together incidents from four periods of my life – seventeen years in a middle-class Catholic home; thirty spiritually challenging years as a cloistered nun; six transformative years as a hermit, and sixteen loving years as a wife. My earlier book, “Where God Begins to Be, A Woman’s Journey into Solitude” has created a crowd of curious readers asking “Why would you?” and “How could you?” marry a priest and continue your commitment to eremitical life? Answering this unforeseen Call has colored my autumn years with excitement, love and challenge.”

“In her inspiring, vividly composed and always faithful book (Susan Muto), Karen Karper [Fredette] describes a world where life is rich in being rather than in having. Selected as a Catholic Book of the Month, Where God Begins To Be fulfills Murray Bodo’s observation that ” instead of myth fabricated from a few fragments, we have here the details-the nitty-gritty, muddy details-of a hermit’s daily living.” Karen is a “Seer who brings you along with her, joyfully.” (Richard Rohr) “In deftly drawn vignettes, Karper’s story, told with simplicity and gentle honesty, is one of faith deepening, beauty awakening, and love discovered.” (Gerald May)”

Paul A. Fredette and Karen Karper Fredette “Consider The Ravens: On Contemporary Hermit Life” [iUniverse, 2011]: “If you have ever wondered about how hermits live, or if you are an active participant in the eremitical life, then it’s time to make this ultimate resource guide part of your book collection. Written by the editors of “Raven’s Bread”, an international quarterly newsletter that provides guidance on hermit life, “Consider the Ravens” is a seminal study on eremitism as it has developed since the 1950s… Essentially, you’ll learn about the eremitic life straight from the hermits themselves, and it’s never an easy task to get their opinions and advice! The voices of many of today’s hermits can now be heard loud and clear for the first time. Find the answers to your questions about a vocation as old as spirituality itself and discover why eremitism is becoming more popular than ever in “Consider the Ravens”.

For Sky Farm: http://www.skyfarm.org/
For Fr Dunstan Morrissey: http://hermitary.com/around/?p=26

For “Modern Farmer”: http://modernfarmer.com/

“Saint Jerome (Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; c.  347 – 30 September 420) was an Illyrian Latin Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who also became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), and his commentaries on the Gospel of the Hebrews. His list of writings is extensive.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome

“Saint Jerome Writing”, also called “Saint Jerome in His Study” or simply “Saint Jerome”, an oil painting by Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi (or Amerighi) da Caravaggio ( 1571?-? 1610), generally dated to 1605-1606; the painting is located in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

Saint Jerome wrote four works of a hagiographic nature:
• the “Vita Pauli monachi”, written during his first sojourn at Antioch (ca. 376), the legendary material of which is derived from Egyptian monastic tradition;
• the “Vitae Patrum” (“Vita Pauli primi eremitae”), a biography of Saint Paul of Thebes;
• the “Vita Malchi monachi captive” (ca. 391), probably based on an earlier work, although it purports to be derived from the oral communications of the aged ascetic Malchus originally made to him in the desert of Chalcis;
• the “Vita Hilarionis”, of the same date, containing more trustworthy historical matter than the other two, and based partly on the biography of Epiphanius and partly on oral tradition.

Saint Jerome “Three biographies: Malchus, St. Hilarion and Paulus the First Hermit” [CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013]: “Saint Jerome is an ancient Latin Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. Though often considered exclusively a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, Jerome was a Latin Christian who predated the East-West Schism which occurred in the 11th century. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), and his commentaries on the Gospel of the Hebrews. His list of writings is extensive. He is recognised by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Church of England (Anglican Communion) as a Saint. Jerome is commemorated on 30 September with a memorial. The “Vitae Patrum” (“Vita Pauli primi eremitae”), a biography of Saint Paul of Thebes; the “Vita Malchi monachi captive” (ca. 391), probably based on an earlier work, although it purports to be derived from the oral communications of the aged ascetic Malchus originally made to him in the desert of Chalcis; the “Vita Hilarionis”, of the same date, containing more trustworthy historical matter than the other two, and based partly on the biography of Epiphanius and partly on oral tradition.”

“The Life of Paulus the First Hermit”: The Life of Paulus was written in the year 374 or 375 during Jerome’s stay in the desert of Syria, as is seen from c. 6, and was dedicated to Paulus of Concordia as stated in Jerome’s Ep. x. c. 3.
Text available on-line at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vi.i.html
See further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_of_Thebes
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Paul_of_Thebes

“The Life of Saint Hilarion the Hermit”: “S. Jerome’s “Vita S. Hilarionis Eremytæ”, written in Bethlehem A.D. 390, is a vividly detailed narration of the life of a Fourth Century monastic leader who would otherwise be known only from a few scattered references. It is also an exciting tale of high adventure, consciously meant by its author — one of the most talented writers of late antiquity — as competition for the popular novels of the day. The reader will find depicted here a chariot race, a menacing pirate ship, a tsunami, and much else — even a whiny, sarcastic demon in a magic mirror! But what is most memorable in the long run is S. Hilarion himself, longing desperately for solitude and obscurity, roaming the world anonymously to escape his reputation as a wonder-worker, but never able to harden himself toward the suffering of those in need of healing.”
Text available on-line at: http://www.voskrese.info/spl/jer-hilarion.html
See further:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07347a.htm
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/HILARION.HTM

“The Life of Malchus, The Captive Monk”: The life of Malchus was written at Bethlehem, a.d. 391. Text available on-line at: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3006.htm and http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1303/
See also: http://www.fourthcentury.com/jerome-life-of-malchus/
See further: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.html?term=Malchus,%20a%20hermit%20in%20Syria
http://kateriirondequoit.org/resources/saints-alive/macarius-mutien-marie/st-malchus/

See further:

Andrew Cain and Josef Lössl “Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy” [Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009]: “Jerome of Stridon (c.346-420) is arguably the greatest polymath in Latin Christian antiquity; this is the most comprehensive and up to date volume on his life and work available in English today. Familiar debates are re-opened, hitherto uncharted terrain is explored, and problems old and new are posed and solved with the use of innovative methodologies. This is an indispensable resource not only for specialists on Jerome but also for students and scholars who cultivate interests broadly in the history, religion, society, and literature of the late antique Christian world.”

James K.A. Smith “Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation” (Cultural Liturgies), [Baker Academic, 2009]

“James K.A. Smith says we have a “quantity of immersion” problem in American Christianity (see “Desiring the Kingdom”). As American Christians we are immersed day after day in the sinful culture around us. That culture is shaping and influencing us whether we realize it or not, and the liturgies of our culture are forming habits and practices in us. We are naïve to think that a once-a-week meeting of Christians for two hours on Sunday morning is a sufficient response to this immersion problem. Some have responded to this challenge, like Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, by joining up into actual monastic communities in urban centers across the U.S. But Wilson-Hartgrove readily recognizes that this is not for everyone, and in his book on new monasticism he does not insist that it is the only way to do church. But it should be evident to us all that we need more than a weekly gathering to sustain our Christian faith.

We need help developing new practices and new habits that will counter the onslaught of cultural immersion we all experience. Smith proposes two particular ways that monastic life can help us with this “quantity of immersion” problem. First, monastic life meant abstention from certain cultural practices. Monastic life from the start meant an abstention from certain majority culture practices that others deemed normal, right, and good. This is not a separatist withdrawal, but a careful recognition of the formative power of certain habits and the realization that to be distinct in the world we have to abstain from them. Smith clarifies:
It may be the case, given the “quantity-of-immersion” challenge we’ve noted, that a Christian community that seeks to be a cultural force precisely by being a living example of new humanity will have to consider abstaining from participation in some cultural practices that others consider normal. Now please note that I am not counseling abstention “from culture” as such, which would amount to pietist withdrawal from the goodness of creation…It would be an abstention from participation in particular (“majority”) cultural practices because of their liturgical formative power…(209-210)

It’s not about seclusion, argues Smith, but rather about living distinctly in the world. It is about forming new habits within this same cultural context, habits and practices that point us ever towards God even while we live here.

Secondly, Smith suggests that monastic life can teach us much about the rhythms of daily worship. Many will readily recognize the importance of daily worship. The church has long emphasized the importance of daily Scripture reading and prayer. These habits are often done, however, in isolation with a bent towards an individualistic faith. Smith offers an alternative approach; he writes: “The monastic traditions (and other premodern configurations of society), on the other hand, point to habits of daily worship that are communal and sacramental, including daily communion – practices of daily gathered worship that are holistic, activating the imagination through bodily participation…not just monks, but also families and students, laborers and lawyers, could find ways to gather daily for worship that is nourishing and formative. For instance, many urban churches offer daily noontime communion, which makes it possible for those engaged in nonmonastic vocations to nonetheless gather with others for full-bodied worship. Often, reflective of “intentional community” (which can take many forms), such daily gatherings can be fostered by geographical proximity. You might say that this is fighting quantity with quantity; Dietrich Bonhoeffer simply describes it as “life together.”” (211)

Engaging in daily worship with others helps us to wage war against the inundation of worldly habits that surround us constantly.

New monasticism teaches us to consider how doing life with other believers can help us persist in godly spiritual disciplines and healthy practices. You could go off and join a small Christian commune, and that’s one way to deal with the difficulty of being a Christian in America, to quote Wilson-Hartgrove (see “New Monasticism”). But you could also adopt and modify the practices of monastic life for our current cultural situation and our modern church structures. New monasticism, then, has much to teach us.”

Learning from New Monastics

For James K.A. Smith, see further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_K._A._Smith
http://www.calvin.edu/~jks4/

James K.A. Smith “Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works” (Cultural Liturgies) [Baker Academic, 2013]

See further:

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove “New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church” [Brazos Press, 2008] and Wilson-Hargrove’s blog, “The Everyday Awakening”:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jonathanwilsonhartgrove/
“The Everyday Awakening is an attempt to chronicle the revival that’s happening in everyday places–not under the big top, but in places like the one where you are. I report on signs of hope I see in regular “feature” stories, invite personal stories in “testimonies,” and offer a weekly “Front Porch” meditation from the little corner of God’s quiet revolution where I live at Rutba House in Walltown.”

“The eremitic Rule of St. Albert is the shortest of the rules of consecrated life in existence of the Roman Catholic spiritual tradition, and is comprised almost exclusively of scriptural precepts. To this day it is a rich source of inspiration for the lives of many Catholics throughout the world. St. Albert Avogadro (1149-1214), a priest of the Canons Regular and a canon lawyer, wrote the Rule between 1206 and 1214 as the Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Rule is directed to “Brother B.”, held by tradition to be either St. Bertold or St. Brocard (but historical evidence of his identity is lacking), and the hermits living in the spirit of Elijah near the prophet’s spring on Mount Carmel in present-day Israel.

On 30 January 1226 Pope Honorius III approved it as their rule of life in the bull “Ut vivendi normam”. About 20 years later on 1 October 1247, in consultation with Dominican theologians Cardinal Hugh of Saint Cher and William-Bishop of Tortose, Pope Innocent IV revised the Rule slightly in the decree “Quae Honorem” to reflect the realities of the mendicant and monastic life to which the original hermits had been forced to adapt due to the threat of Muslim attacks in Palestine. Through events surrounding the Crusades the hermits, or Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel as they came to be known, were forced to flee Mount Carmel to Europe. In Europe the Carmelites were recognised as a mendicant order and monasteries, or “Carmels” as they are called, were founded.
The Rule of life given to the Carmelites by St. Albert Avogadro between the years 1206 – 1214 was finally approved as the true and proper Rule of Carmel by Pope Innocent IV in 1247 and later underwent mitigations which were not in the original text.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelite_Rule_of_St._Albert

“A rule of life was given to the early Carmelites by St Albert Avogadro, Patriach of Jerusalem between the years 1206 – 1214. It was finally approved by Pope Innocent in 1247 and later underwent mitigations which were not in the original text.
The Carmelite Rule states that is basic for a Carmelite to “live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ – how, pure in heart and stout in conscience, he must be unswerving in the service of his Master” [no.2].

The Rule outlines the way to live out the Carmelite life in allegiance to Christ, according to the spirit of the Order. We are to ponder the law of the Lord, by day and by night, in silence and in solitude, so that the word of God may dwell abundantly in the hearts and on the lips of those who profess it. We are to pray with perseverance, especially by keeping vigil and praying the psalms. We are also to be clothed in spiritual armour; to live in fraternal communion, expressed through the daily celebration of the Eucharist, through fraternal meetings in chapters, through shared ownership of all material goods, through fraternal and loving correction of failings, and through a life of austerity, with work and penance, rooted in faith, hope and love, always conforming one’s own will to God’s, sought in faith through dialogue and through the prior’s service to his brothers. (Carmelite Constitutions n.11)… The Carmelite Rule is the shortest of all known Rules, almost exclusively made up of biblical precepts.”
http://www.carmelites.org.au/about-us/carmelite-rule.html

[1]
Albert, called by God’s favour to be Patriarch of the Church of Jerusalem, bids health in the Lord and the blessing of the Holy Spirit to his beloved sons in Christ, B. and the other hermits under obedience to him, who live near the spring on Mount Carmel.
[2]
Many and varied are the ways in which our saintly forefathers laid down how everyone, whatever his station or the kind of religious observance he has chosen, should live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ – how, pure in heart and stout in conscience, he must be unswerving in the service of his Master.
[3]
It is to me, however, that you have come for a rule of life in keeping with your avowed purpose, a rule you may hold fast to henceforward; and therefore:
[4]
The first thing I require is for you to have a Prior, one of yourselves, who is to be chosen for the office by common consent, or that of the greater and maturer part of you. Each of the others must promise him obedience – of which, once promised, he must try to make his deed the true reflection – and also chastity and the renunciation of ownership.
[5]
If the Prior and the brothers see fit, you may have foundations in solitary places, or where you are given a site suitable and convenient for the observance proper to your Order.

[6]
Next, each one of you is to have a separate cell, situated as the lie of the land you propose to occupy may dictate, and allotted by disposition of the Prior with the agreement of the other brothers, or the more mature among them.
[7]
However, you are to eat whatever may have been given you in a common refectory, listening together meanwhile to a reading from Holy Scripture where that can be done without difficulty.
[8]
None of the brothers is to occupy a cell other than that allotted to him, or to exchange cells with another, without leave or whoever is Prior at the time.
[9]
The Prior’s cell should stand near the entrance to your property, so that he may be the first to meet those who approach, and whatever has to be done in consequence may all be carried out as he may decide and order.
[10]
Each one of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s law day and night and keeping watch at his prayers unless attending to some other duty.
[11]
Those who know how to say the canonical hours with those in orders should do so, in the way those holy forefathers of ours laid down, and according to the Church’s approved custom. Those who do not know the hours must say twenty-five ‘Our Fathers’ for the night office, except on Sundays and solemnities when that number is to be doubled so that the ‘Our Father’ is said fifty times; the same prayer must be said seven times in the morning in place of Lauds, and seven times too for each of the other hours, except for Vespers when it must be said fifteen times.
[12]
None of the brothers must lay claim to anything as his own, but you are to possess everything in common; and each is to receive from the Prior – that is from the brother he appoints for the purpose – whatever befits his age and needs.
[13]
You may have as many asses and mules as you need, however, and may keep a certain amount of livestock or poultry.

[14]
An oratory should be built as conveniently as possible among the cells, where, if it can be done without difficulty, you are to gather each morning to hear Mass.
[15]
On Sundays too, or other days if necessary, you should discuss matters of discipline and your spiritual welfare; and on this occasion the indiscretions and failings of the brothers, if any be found at fault, should be lovingly corrected.
[16]
You are to fast every day, except Sundays, from the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross until Easter Day, unless bodily sickness or feebleness, or some other good reason, demand a dispensation from the fast; for necessity overrides every law.

[17]
You are to abstain from meat, except as a remedy for sickness or feebleness. But as, when you are on a journey, you more often than not have to beg your way, outside your own houses you may eat foodstuffs that have been cooked with meat, so as to avoid giving trouble to your hosts. At sea, however, meat may be eaten.
[18]
Since man’s life on earth is a time of trial, and all who would live devotedly in Christ must undergo persecution, and the devil your foe is on the prowl like a roaring lion looking for prey to devour, you must use every care to clothe yourselves in God’s armour so that you may be ready to withstand the enemy’s ambush.

[19]
Your loins are to be girt with chastity, your breast fortified by holy meditations, for as Scripture has it, holy meditation will save you. Put on holiness as your breastplate, and it will enable you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, and your neighbour as yourself. Faith must be your shield on all occasions, and with it you will be able to quench all the flaming missiles of the wicked one: there can be no pleasing God without faith; and the victory lies in this – your faith. On your head set the helmet of salvation, and so be sure of deliverance by our only Saviour, who sets his own free from their sins. The sword of the spirit, the word of God, must abound in your mouths and hearts. Let all you do have the Lord’s word for accompaniment.
[20]
You must give yourselves to work of some kind, so that the devil may always find you busy; no idleness on your part must give him a chance to pierce the defences of your souls. In this respect you have both the teaching and the example of Saint Paul the Apostle, into whose mouth Christ put his own words. God made him preacher and teacher of faith and truth to the nations: with him as your leader you cannot go astray. We lived among you, he said, labouring and wary, toiling night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you; not because we had no power to do otherwise but so as to give you, in your own selves, an example you might imitate. For the charge we gave you when we were with you was this: that whoever is not willing to work should not be allowed to eat either. For we have heard that there are certain restless idlers among you. We charge people of this kind, and implore them in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they earn their own bread by silent toil. This is the way of holiness and goodness: see that you follow it.

[21]
The Apostle would have us keep silence, for in silence he tells us to work. As the Prophet also makes known to us: Silence is the way to foster holiness. Elsewhere he says: Your strength will lie in silence and hope. For this reason I lay down that you are to keep silence from after Compline until after Prime the next day. At other times, although you need not keep silence so strictly, be careful not to indulge in a great deal of talk, for as Scripture has it – and experience teaches us no less – sin will not be wanting where there is much talk, and he who is careless in speech will come to harm; and elsewhere: The use of many words brings harm to the speaker’s soul. And our Lord says in the Gospel: Every rash word uttered will have to be accounted for on judgement day. Make a balance then, each of you, to weigh his words in; keep a tight rein on your mouths, lest you should stumble and fall in speech, and your fall be irreparable and prove mortal. Like the Prophet, watch your step lest your tongue give offence, and employ every care in keeping silent, which is the way to foster holiness.
[22]
You, brother B., and whoever may succeed you as Prior, must always keep in mind and put into practice what our Lord said in the Gospel: Whoever has a mind to become a leader among you must make yourself servant to the rest, and whichever of you would be first must become your bondsman.
[23]
You other brothers too, hold your Prior in humble reverence, your minds not on him but on Christ who has placed him over you, and who, to those who rule the Churches, addressed these words: Whoever pays you heed pays heed to me, and whoever treats you with dishonour dishonours me; if you remain so minded you will not be found guilty of contempt, but will merit life eternal as fit reward for your obedience.
[24]
Here then are the few points I have written down to provide you with a standard of conduct to live up to; but our Lord, at his second coming will reward anyone who does more than he is obliged to do. See that the bounds of common sense are not exceeded, however, for common sense is the guide of the virtues.

See further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelite_Rule_of_St._Albert
http://www.ocd.pcn.net/ocds_Aen.htm
http://carmelitanacollection.com/spirituality.php

John W. Welch “The Carmelite Way: An Ancient Path for Today’s Pilgrim” [Paulist Press, 1996]: An introduction to Carmelite spirituality that focuses on two major moments in the Carmelite tradition: the beginnings of the Carmelite Order in the 13th century and the reform of the order by Teresa of Avila in the 16th century.

K Waaijman “The Mystical Space of Carmel: A Commentary on the Carmelite Rule” [Peeters, 1999]

Keith J. Egan “Carmelite Prayer: A Tradition for the 21st Century” [Paulist Press, 2004)

Peter Slattery “The Springs of Carmel: An Introduction to Carmelite Spirituality” [Alba House, 1991]

Austin Chadwell “The Carmelite Directory of the Spiritual Life” [CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014]:” One of the modern masterworks of Carmelite Spirituality, The ‘Spiritual Directory’ is the most comprehensive accumulation of the spiritual traditions, experiences and practices of the Carmelite Order. Drawing heavily on the spiritual lives and works of many Carmelite Saints (Mary Magdelene De Pazzi, Michael of St. Augustine, John of St. Sampson, Father Dominic of St. Albert, Father Maurus of the Child Jesus, Father Michael de la Fuente, as well as Theresa of Jesus, and John of the Cross), the Directory was prepared as a tool for preparing and training novices in the Order, but more than a practical training manual, it captures the essence of living the Carmelite way of life and stands alone as a unique work in understanding Carmelite Spirituality. If one wants to know what it means to be ‘Carmelite’ this is the place to begin.”

On the Carmelites generally:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelites
http://ocarm.org/en/

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Those living the monastic life, or under monastic discipline, have traditionally been bound by Rules; the best known Rule is the Rule of Saint Benedict, although there are many others, some of them applied in contemporary practice, some of them essentially defunct.

Hermits have tended to follow more idiosyncratic and individualistic Rules, sometimes written and formalised, sometimes not. Contemporary Hermits in the Roman Catholic tradition, if they live under the provisions of Canon 603 of the Code of Canon Law, are expected to develop and live according to a “Plan of Life” approved by the Bishop by whom they are consecrated. Considerable interesting discussion about such “Plans of Life” can be found on the blog of Sister Laurel O’Neal, a Diocesan Hermit: see http://notesfromstillsong.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Plan%20or%20Rule%20of%20Life
The revival of interest in and the practice of the eremitical life has seen a renewed interest in the development of Rules of Life. This has extended to considering such Rules for individual Christians, and for those who follow the emerging pattern of “New Monasticism”, “Neomonasticism”, or “Lay Monasticism”: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Monasticism

“Benedict begins his Rule with the words, “Listen carefully, my child…” So we too begin the process of writing our Rule of Life by listening. We pay attention to the present shape of our lives, recognizing that we each have different temperaments, needs and gifts. We do this work individually and in community with one another.
Sister Joan Chittester reminds us, “… the ability to listen to another, to sit silently in the presence of God, to give sober heed, and to ponder is the nucleus of Benedictine spirituality. It may, in fact, be what is most missing in a century saturated with information but short on Gospel reflection. The Word we seek is speaking in the silence within us.”
Consider your Rule of Life as a trellis upon which you plant, water, and cultivate your relationship with God, with your deepest self and with one another. Remember, your Rule of Life is for your support and growth.”

Click to access cor_rule.pdf

“A Rule then is a means whereby, under God, we take responsibility for the pattern of our spiritual lives. It is a ‘measure’ rather than a ‘law’. The word ‘rule’ has bad connotations for many, implying restrictions, limitations and legalistic attitudes. But a Rule is essentially about freedom. It helps us to stay centred, bringing perspective and clarity to the way of life to which God has called us. The word derives from the Latin ‘regula’ which means ‘rhythm, regularity of pattern, a recognisable standard’ for the conduct of life. Esther De Waal has pointed out that ‘regula’ ‘is a feminine noun which carried gentle connotations’ rather than the harsh negatives that we often associate with the phrase ‘rules and regulations’ today. We do not want to be legalistic. A Rule is an orderly way of existence but we embrace it as a way of life not as keeping a list of rules. It is a means to an end – and the end is that we might seek God with authenticity and live more effectively for Him.”

What is a Rule of Life?

“A Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and
direction for growth in holiness. A Rule establishes a rhythm for life in which is helpful for
being formed by the Spirit, a rhythm that reflects a love for God and respect for how he has made us. The disciplines which we build into our rhythm of life help us to shed the “old self” and allow our “new self” in Christ to be formed. Spiritual disciplines are means of grace by which God can nourish us. Ultimately a Rule should help you to love God more, so if it becomes a legalistic way of earning points with God or impressing others, it should be scrapped. If the traditional, ancient term “rule” concerns you because it sounds legalistic, think of “rule” as a “rhythm of life” or as a “Curriculum in Christlikeness” (Dallas Willard), or as a “Game Plan for Morphing” (John Ortberg).
In order to be life-giving, a Rule must be realistic! It is not an ideal toward which you are
striving to soar. Instead, your initial Rule should be a minimum standard for your life that you do not want to drop below. It’s a realistic level of engaging in the spiritual disciplines for which you can honestly and truly be held accountable.
Rules will vary widely, depending on the character and life situation of a person. Not only will people choose different disciplines but how the disciplines are practiced will also vary.
Although every believer should pray, for example, the frequency or length or times or kind of prayer will differ.

Thomas à Kempis writes, “All cannot use the same kind of spiritual exercises, but one suits this person, and another that. Different devotions are suited also to the seasons [of life]….”
“Instructions for Developing A Personal Rule of Life” – These instructions quote, paraphrase, and adapt Marjorie Thompson, “Soul Feast”, chap. 9, and Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook”, pp. 35-39.

Year Five Fellows

“It was 480 C. E. and the old structures of the Roman empire were already crumbling. This was to be one of the great pivot points of history. Into this world in transition, where those seeking to be most fully devoted to God escaped empire by fleeing to the desert as hermits or gathered around a guru, was born Benedict of Nursia. Benedict’s Rule, a model of Christian discipleship that was community-centered, has endured as a living text for more than 1500 years, making it, according to some, the most influential text on Western society after the Bible. Even more impressively, Benedictines are widely credited with having saved Western civilization from the ravages of the barbarian invasions.

While Benedictine history is unquestionably impressive, what is surprising is the contemporary revival of interest in the insights this storied tradition has to offer those seeking to craft lives of discipleship in today’s world. The decades since Vatican II have seen a marked increase in the number of Oblates and associates—those with formal ties to monastic communities who apply the Rule of Benedict to married or single life outside the monastery.

Additionally, a loose movement of Christian intentional communities, dubbing itself “the new monasticism” has purposefully sought to draw upon the wisdom of the Benedictine tradition to enrich its own practice. Neomonastics have published a handful of titles and many others have added to those which draw upon Benedict’s Rule to offer the Christian mainstream “Monk Habits for Everyday People” and tips on “How to Be Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job”. In continuity with these developments, this essay considers three relevant applications of Benedictine insight for those seeking to forge for themselves a way of life following Jesus in the contemporary Western context.

Benedictinism distinguished itself in Benedict’s day by the centrality of community in its Rule. Benedict begins his Rule by identifying the four different types of monks, and asserting that Cenobites—those who “are based in a monastery and fulfil their service of the Lord under a rule and an abbot or abbess”—are “the strongest kind.” He contrasts Cenobite practice to the relational isolation of the hermitic Anchorites, the wandering pairs of Sarabites and the vagabond individual Gyrovagues, which he considers the worst of the bunch. In these comparisons, two of Benedict’s central values emerge: relational and geographical stability.

Contemporary Western society is characterized by both a high degree of mobility and a deep individualism, both of which, many have argued, inhibit churches efforts to form Christians and embody the gospel. These two realities often function in tandem, individualistic thinking driving decisions to repeatedly uproot oneself or family, and a lifetime of relocation reinforcing an I’m-on-my-own mindset. By contrast, the Benedictine vow of stability, which is a commitment first to a set of relationships and second to a place, intends to provide an adequate “environment for conversion of life”. Indeed, for the “Benedictine, life in community is the great human asceticism.”

How might the wisdom of Benedict’s stability be applied today? Neomonastics provide the most obvious example, making yearly renewals of commitment to their shared-residence fellowships, which are themselves deeply local. But is there any meaningful ways that Christians could glean Benedict’s wisdom without converting to neomonasticism? I believe so. Two approaches can be imagined, with innumerable expressions. First, one might resolve to remain in one place, one city or even one residence. While many will inevitably come and go, others will spend long years and this can approximate relational stability. Moving to be nearer to family—those most enduring of relationships—can be seen in this light. The geographically stable might also seek lifetime employment in a single company, lifetime membership in a single church, even lifetime patronage at a single grocer or coffeehouse, all of which would result in increased stability in relationships. A second contemporary approach to stability could take shape if a collection of friends decided that they wanted to spend their lives together. The expression of this relational stability could be as thin as a commitment to gather yearly for a weekend getaway, or as thick as a vow to always live in the same neighborhood, and make any moves en masse. It should be noted that steps toward either relational or geographical stability would increasingly leave one out of step with the mainstream as job offers that others deem too-good-to-refuse are passed up and the tug of white flight is resisted.

A second dimension of Benedict’s insight for today lies in what Joan Chittister, a Benedictine sister, calls “Wisdom Distilled from the Daily”. According to her, “Benedictine spirituality brings depth and focus to dailiness.” Benedict considers his a “little” rather than heroic Rule, and its daily routine is served up with large helpings of work and relationships—exactly the stuff of contemporary life for average men and women. Rather than considering people an obstacle to contemplation or work a distraction from prayer, Benedict’s rule is founded on the “firm conviction” that “God is present everywhere.”

Chittister proposes the relevance of Benedict’s doctrine of God’s omnipresence: We have to learn to take the raw materials of our lives and turn them into the stuff of sanctity. We can’t wait for the perfect person or the perfect environment to call us to spiritual maturity. The people in our lives are the people who will test our virtues, our values, and our depth.

Benedict’s wisdom shatters the still-pervasive belief in a sacred-secular divide. God, assert Benedictines, is just as present at your desk as at the cathedral, just as present at your dinner table as at the Lord’s Table. It is for this reason that Chittister considers “sight” one of the two basic gifts of Benedictism for today. Those who seek to apply Benedict’s wisdom to their contemporary lives are challenged to discover that “…this dull and tiring day is holy and its simple labors are the stuff of God’s saving presence for me now.”

While I agree wholeheartedly with Benedict’s wisdom here, I am concerned that a fair number of contemporary people make of it a license for lack of discipline. Many seemingly believe that since God is everywhere, work is holy and people are ambassadors of the divine, there is little need for rest, solitude, prayer or scripture. This brings us to Benedict’s third critical contribution for today. It should be obvious, but it is oddly overlooked, how central prayer and scripture are to Benedictine spirituality. Indeed, Benedict calls for four dedicated hours of prayer and three hours of reading and reflection daily. I agree with Chittister’s assessment: “We not be able to keep that particular schedule, you and I, but we must find a life rhythm that somehow satisfies…those elements.”

In Benedictinism, prayer and scripture are comingled. Benedictine prayer is dominated by language from the Psalms and Scriptures, which is “intended to immerse the monk in a world where God’s presence is felt and where God’s goodness is praised.” Indeed, for Benedictines, belief and awareness of God’s presence everywhere and at all times is dependent upon a set aside time and space for immersion in this reality. This presence according to Chittister, importantly, “demands a total response.” The features of Benedictine prayer identified by Chittister have pointed relevance. Benedictine prayer’s regularity makes a claim on the true purpose of time, and confounds modern self-importance. Its universality anchors it in the needs of the entire universe, rather than those of the of the praying individual, making it an antidote to narcissism. Its reflectivness offers the possibility of integrating the fragmented pieces of our lives. Benedictine prayer is converting, serving as a practice that calls for a change of mind—and an opening to the cries of those in need. Finally, prayer in the Benedictine tradition is communal, challenging rampant individualism and binding the praying community together.

The primary Benedictine practice of engaging scripture is lectio divina, which is being rediscovered widely. In lectio divina, scripture is approached meditatively and reverently and the intention of the reading is affective rather than cognitive. Through quiet repetition, “the text serves as a mirror that brings inner realities to consciousness” and this “heightened awareness exposes our need for divine help and readily leads to prayer.”

Applying the centrality of disciplined regimens and psychologically astute practices of prayer and scripture to contemporary life need not be complicated, though it will not be easy. Time must be set aside. Many, even Protestants, are experimenting with praying the divine hours, as fresh titles attest. Evangelicals have long promoted “daily quiet times” of morning reading and prayer. While this practice, as I have learned firsthand, is often used inappropriately as a gauge of spiritual health and maturity, it no less has much to commend it. Whether they elect to pray the hours or keep a quiet time, or follow another disciplined pattern of prayer and scripture, contemporary disciples who wish to integrate the wisdom of Benedictine spirituality into their lives will have to set aside dedicated time for these central practices. There is simply no way to be in any meaningful sense “monastic” without prioritizing these basic Christian practices.

The Benedictine wisdom we have surveyed is both timeless and timely. Relationships have always been and will always be a primary means of grace, and the Benedictine practice of stability capitalizes on this fact—something of particular relevance to our hyper-mobile society. Most people must spend the lion’s share of their lives engaged in the mundane tasks of daily life—working, eating, conversing—and Benedict challenges us to discover God’s presence even here, even in the 21st century. Scripture and prayer are among the most fundamental practices of Christian tradition and Benedict has invited believers for 1500 years to set aside time for these—and his invitation extends to today’s world in which these increasingly seem overly pious and passé. May Benedictine wisdom find expression today in Christians and churches who exercise these practices and therein find the God Benedict knew to be everywhere.”
http://www.jesusdust.com/2012/03/st-benedicts-rule-for-today.html

See further:

Stephen A. Macchia “Crafting a Rule of Life. An Invitation to the Well-Ordered Way” [InterVarsity Press, 2012] see also: http://ruleoflife.com/

Eugene L. Romano “A Way of Desert Spirituality: The Plan of Life of the Hermits of Bethlehem, Chester, New Jersey” [Alba House; Revised edition, 1998]

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us” [IVP Books, 2005]

Richard J. Foster “Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth” [HarperSanFrancisco; 3rd edition, 2002]
Richard J. Foster “Richard J. Foster’s Study Guide for “Celebration of Discipline”” [HarperOne, 1983]
Richard J. Foster “Celebrating the Disciplines: A Journal Workbook to Accompany “Celebration of Discipline”” [HarperOne, 1992]

Dennis Okholm and Kathleen Norris “Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants” [Brazos Press, 2007]: “In their zeal for reform, early Protestant leaders tended to throw out Saint Benedict with the holy water. That is a mistake, writes Dennis Okholm, in “Monk Habits for Everyday People”. While on retreat in a Benedictine abbey, the author, a professor who was raised as a Pentecostal and a Baptist, observed how the meditative and ordered life of a monk lifted Jesus’ teachings off the printed page and put them into daily practice. Vital aspects of devotion, humility, obedience, hospitality, and evangelism took on new clarity and meaning. Paralleling that experience, Okholm guides the reader on a focused and instructive journey that can revitalize the devotional life of any Christian who wants to slow down and dig deeper.”

Brother Benet Tvedten “How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job: An Invitation to Oblate Life (Voices from the Monastery)” [Paraclete Press, 2006]: “Dorothy Day was an oblate while she lived in the heart of New York City. So was the French poet, Paul Claudel. Kathleen Norris is an oblate, and so was Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, the first woman in Europe to earn a Ph.D. What connects them all? There are at least ten thousand oblates in the United States today (no one knows for sure how many), and each of them is connected in meaningful ways to a monastery or abbey. Most oblates are ordinary lay people from various Christian traditions. They are linked together by common appreciation for the Rule of St. Benedict. Originally written for monks, the principles in the Rule may be applied by everyone else—and in today’s hectic, changing world, being an oblate offers a rich spiritual connection to the stability and wisdom of monastic life. This essential guide explains how people who live and work in “the world” are still invited to balance work with prayer, cultivate interdependence with others, practice hospitality, and otherwise practice their spirituality like monks.”

Joan Chittister “Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today” [HarperOne; Reprint edition, 2009]: “At the time this book was written Joan Chittister had lived the Benedictine Rule in a monastic community for more than 30 years. She has distilled the wisdom of Benedictine spirituality which has great relevance to hard times: “It teaches people to see the world as good, their needs as legitimate, and human support as necessary. Benedictine spirituality doesn’t call for either great works or great denial. It simply calls for connectedness. It shows us how to connect with God, with others, and with our innermost selves.””

Jane Tomaine “St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living” [Morehouse Publishing, 2005]: “When St. Benedict formed his first small community of monks at Monte Cassino on the hilltop, Italy–and much of Europe–was ravaged by war. The Roman Empire was breaking apart, and politics, cultural life, and even the Church, were all in disarray. In the midst of these tumultuous times, Benedict offered his followers a “little rule,” a guide about the size of a checkbook, that showed his monks the way to peace as they learned to prefer Christ above all things.Though it was written nearly 1500 years ago, the Rule of Benedict still offers the practical tools for living a Christ-centered today. Here in St. Benedict’s Toolbox, readers will find a primer on how to use these tools in their own tumultuous lives. Each chapter examines one aspect of the Rule, from ways of praying to ways of embracing humility, and offers suggestions for prayer, reflection, journaling, and action. As they learn to use Benedict’s tools, readers will discover the power–and the timeliness–of this ancient way of life.”

The end of the twentieth century has seen the emergence of reflections on and explorations of new possibilities for the expression of the Christian Faith in the world. This has included the re-discovery of the life of the Hermit and the development of a “New Monasticism” in Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant communities. One key writer on the re-discovery of Christian life in the “Postmodern Matrix” is Brian McLaren.

Brian McLaren “We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation and Activation” [Jericho Books, 2014]

“The title comes from one of Brian’s heroes, Brazilian educator/activist Paolo Freire.

Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (1921-1997)
He used this title for a published dialogue between Freire and another seminal educator/activist, Myles Horton, who was an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Freire may have derived the quote from the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado:
“Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.”
“Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road– Only wakes upon the sea.” Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla

Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
The title suggests that Christian faith is still “in the making” (as Dr. John Cobb has put it). It continues to grow, evolve, learn, change, emerge, and mature … in and through us. What we will be as Christians in the 21st century, for better or worse, will surely change what Christian faith will be in the 22nd century and beyond.”
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“You are not finished yet. You are “in the making.” You have the capacity to learn, mature, think, change, and grow. You also have the freedom to stagnate, regress, constrict, and lose your way. Which road will you take? What’s true of you is also true for every community of people, including our spiritual communities. Like the individuals who constitute them, they are unfinished and “in the making.” They have the capacity to move for-ward if they choose . . . and the freedom to stagnate and regress. Which road will they follow in the years ahead? Does their future depend solely on the action or inaction of officials in the headquarters of religious bureaucracies? Do the rest of us have to wait until somebody somewhere figures things out and tells the rest of us what to do? I believe that all of us play a role in choosing and creating our futures— as individuals and as communities. We don’t need to wait passively for his-tory to happen to us. We can become protagonists in our own story. We can make the road by walking. Growing numbers of us believe that we are in the early stages of a new moment of emergence, pulsing with danger and promise. In this catalytic period, all our spiritual traditions will be challenged and all will change— some negatively and reactively, tightening like angry fists, and others positively and constructively, opening like extended arms.

More and more of us want to participate in that positive and constructive opening. We want to explore new possibilities, to develop unfulfilled potential, to discover new resources to bless, inspire, and enliven. We don’t shrink back from this moment; we feel God is calling us to walk into it with faith, hope, and love. I’ve written “We Make the Road by Walking “ to help individuals and groups seize this moment and walk wisely and joyfully into the future together. It is a work of Christian theology, but people of any faith tradition will find seeds of meaning they can let take root in their own spiritual soil. It is a work of constructive
theology— offering a positive, practical, open, faithful, improvable, and fresh articulation of Christian faith suitable for people in our dynamic times. It is also a work of public and
practical theology— theology that is worked out by “normal” people in daily life. The title suggests that faith was never intended to be a destination, a status, a holding tank, or a warehouse.
Instead, it was to be a road, a path, a way out of old and destructive patterns into new and creative ones. As a road or way, it is always being extended into the future. If a spiritual com-munity only points back to where it has been or if it only digs in its heels where it is now, it is a dead end or a parking lot, not a way. To be a living tradition, a living way, it must forever open itself forward and forever remain unfinished— even as it forever cherishes and learns from the growing treasury of its past.”

The Table of Contents, Introduction and some sample chapters can be read at: https://www.facebook.com/JerichoBooks/app_137541772984354

“Not only is this an evocative and well-written, year-long overview of the Biblical story with a keen sense of the biggest themes and the social implications of those acts in the drama, it has a certain, appealing writing style, a style that pervades most of Brian’s books; it is semi-scholarly, informed by everything from quantum science to ancient near east history to postmodern literary theory to the nonviolent philosophy of Rene Girard, but yet is conversational, entertaining, moving, even… Few authors can bring so much learning to the table, weave together so much interesting and curious stuff, and yet sound upbeat and hopeful. He trusts he readers, and he manages to help us along the way, bit by bit.
Certainly there are other books that may teach the Bible in a year that are more detailed and more thorough, but at least one big benefit of this is the fun (and important) dots that are connected, the good ideas that are brought into play, the storytelling and wordsmithing that seems to come so naturally to him…
Further, as the title suggests, the faith journey we undertake in “We Make the Road”… is a bit unfinished – we have to do the walking…We are growing, changing, our faith moves along. God is at work in us, and yet, in some profound way, we play our part, do our thing, taking responsibility for our own spiritual formation and how we choose to engage the world around us (including our churches, our neighborhoods, and our global connections.) We don’t know what’s ahead. For what it is worth, I do not think (for those aware of this sub-set of progressive theology) that Brian is a “process theology” guy and he doesn’t sound quite like Teilhard de Chardin, just for instance. But he does insist that we must cultivate our interior lives as we come to understand God’s work better, and that this involves change, growth, openness to new ideas, and being guided by the Spirit into what might be new territories. God’s work is unfolding and we are inviting to participate by being open to change.
As he puts it, “… faith was never intended to be a destination, a status, a holding tank, or a warehouse. Instead, it was to be a road, a path, a way out of old and destructive patterns into new and creative ones. As a road or way, it is always extended into the future. If a spiritual community only points back to where it has been or if it only digs in its heels to where it is now, it is a dead end or parking lot, not a way.”

I appreciate this call to walk the way of a living tradition, “cherishing and learning from the growing treasury of its past” as he put it. Yet, we can and must re-imagine what it means to live joyfully and responsibly, with verve and gusto, in these times, for these times. (There’s that I Chronicles 12:32 again that I sometimes cite, eh?) I wonder if the title (used first, he thinks by the great Mexican educator Paulo Freire) overstates things a bit – we don’t really have to build an entirely new road, after all since we stand on the shoulders of others, always holding to the apostolic gospel message, even if our formulations evolve and change in each new era…
McLaren is not suggesting that anything goes or that we make stuff up as we go along, willy-nilly. He knows that the task of doing constructive theology is rigorous, constrained (although he might choose that word) by the Biblical texts…
Learning the faith anew today should feel like that: being enfolded into and shaped by a liberating movement…
It is no accident that Brian calls this quest a process of “reorientation and activation.” We don’t just need a fresh version of the ideas of faith, reoriented opinions. For him — as for the Bible itself – we are invited/commanded to be “doers of the Word.” Faith without works is dead (to use the language of the Epistle of James and of Jesus, too) so we have some serious building to do, some repair work to offer this broken world. No, we don’t save the world ourselves – God’s grace is abundant enough for that – but we have our stitches to weave. There is work to be done. We have to get active. This is a big theme of the book.
The biggest rhetorical theme, a theme that is sounded out in every section, implied on almost every page, is that this is a resource for those seeking to live their lives in ways that can be called truly alive. We are invited to attentiveness and wonder, to be mindfully aware and child-like eager, vibrant with “abundant life” (John 10:10.) The introduction of “We Make the Road by Walking” is entitled “Seeking Aliveness” and the four sections of the book are called “Alive in the Story of Creation,” “Alive in the Adventure of Jesus,” “Alive in Global Uprising,” and (starting on Pentecost Sunday) “Alive in the Spirit of God.” Yes, this is a handbook to aliveness, abundance, adventure and more. Such an audacious vision could not be told in boring prose and such am organic message wouldn’t ring true in the hands of a dull writer.”
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“Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is an ecumenical global networker among innovative Christian leaders.
Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included Medieval drama, Romantic poets, modern philosophical literature, and the novels of Dr. Walker Percy…
He is primarily known, however, as a thinker and writer. His first book, “The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix”, (Zondervan, 1998, rev. ed. 2000) has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry.

His second book, “Finding Faith” (Zondervan, 1999), is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and skeptics. (It was later re-released as two short books, “A Search for What Makes Sense” and “A Search for What is Real.”) “More Ready Than You Realize” (Zondervan, 2002) presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. “Adventures in Missing the Point” (co-authored with Dr. Anthony Campolo, Zondervan, 2003) explores theological reform in a postmodern context. “A Generous Orthodoxy” (Zondervan, 2004), is a personal confession and has been called a “manifesto of the emerging church conversation.”…

In “A New Kind of Christianity” (HarperOne, 2010), Brian articulated ten questions that are central to the emergence of a postmodern, post-colonial Christian faith.

His 2011 HarperOne release, “Naked Spirituality,” offers “simple, doable, and durable” practices to help people deepen their life with God.”

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Brian McLaren

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