Author: a fool

All alone with Jesus

towards a patrimony

… solitaries, recluses, or anchorites, [are] men and women who … live a spirituality of contemplative isolation. … embracing a spirituality of on-going conversion, spiritual combat, penance, and solitude. … Anchorites … [or] urban hermits … [embrace] stability and enclosure as a means of protecting contemplative prayer.

The above is a modified version – that is, present tense – of some introductory points from the book, Hermits and Consecrated Virgins, Ancient Vocations in the Contemporary Catholic Church: A Canonical-Pastoral Study of Canons 603 and 604 Individual Forms of Consecrated Life. I will use these as an ongoing guide to building a “spirituality of patrimony” of the enclosed solitary life in a modern Anglican context.

now

Daily writing prompt
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
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To be honest, I feel “out of place” all the time. I should have been born 100 years ago in a country far far away. But I doubt that would be the answer. No change of circumstances, culture, or religious group will magically fix my sense of alienation. Trust me, I have tried!

Experience has taught me that every person, no matter how kind and loving, has their own baggage. We have within each of us a point of privacy we call “me” – no connection to the outside, completely cut off. And this point of “me” is always alone, “out of place”, an alien. (Or, as Augustine says, is out of place until it finds a place in Jesus.) Maybe I simply profoundly feel that “me”!

Day 712 – “changes”

Today is a strange day for me. I end one life and pick up an older one. It is not by choice (which makes it a little harder) but by Divine Providence. And, to be completely honest, I am feeling confuzzled – simultaneously confused and puzzled. Where from here?

I have a place I call home and I believe is my vocation. (Yes, the place is the vocation!) I have made this place right for me – it has a chapel and a library. I can walk to the shops, medical appointments, and church. (And, yes, the occasional hot chocolate ar Mr J’s.)

Yet I live here in a community that is in the midst of great change and uncertainty. I know (intellectually) that I can continue my vocation somewhere different. Yet I am not ready (emotionally) for that in any way. My role in this community is uncertain. And that really confuzzles me. I need to be silent.

So at the moment I feel lost, uncertain, and out of my “comfort zone”. I have prayed. And I fear. So I have prayed for that which I fear. Maybe it is me? (Most certainly it is me.) So, in this context, what do I choice?

to be silent

Daily writing prompt
What skill would you like to learn?
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I would like to learn real silence. Not the absence of noise. But the single focus on the Other. Not my option or view, not my “answer, but simply to listen to Jesus in the moment. I am not sure that is a skill or a divine grace but I can start by being less involved. That is, less involved in my misguided world and open to the holy in the other person.

Most of all I need to learn to not want to be listened to. To become irrelevant. To be the person with the answers and knowledge. I want to learn how to be forgotten!

Sorry if that sounds a little airy-fairy, self-indulgent, or even a “backhanded” boast.

real people

231. There also exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out. There has to be continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. So a third principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.

Pope Francis

Kierkegaard would (maybe?!) say that the single individual is more important than the abstraction. When it is flipped over, you have leveling. One step further would be to suggest that ideals (abstractions) can create reality – “if we can measure it, we can create it”.

So Francis is just a closet Kierkegaardian!

wait in hope

Daily writing prompt
What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
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Solitude and prayer!

I could pay more attention, become more intentional, concerning my periods of prayer. In the past, Anchorites had a book of people they prayed for daily. In some monasteries, it is part of the liturgy to read these names everyday. I could have more time for mental prayer during the day.

And maybe be a little more protective of my solitude. To be open to periods of silence and simply “be” in the moment. Not to worry about being “productive”. Not to chase the next “book high”.

To wait for the Lord in hope. Not to rush or seek to do it myself. To listen to myself and do what I preach.

Anyway, I have a doctor’s appointment so …

going into the desert

Daily writing prompt
List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
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I am delighted where I am “at” right now. I like the context for my “vocation”. So no changes are necessary at the moment!!!!!

But I have thought about “going into the desert”. Could I live completely off the grid? Without contact, without modern communications. I often feel I am still way too much in the world – still too entangled. I have absolutely no idea how that would happen. And I am certain it would be a real struggle for me physically and emotionally. But sometimes I wonder!?