… asceticism and freedom

I am reading Asceticism – a collection of papers on various topics related to … yes, you guessed it … asceticism.

The opening paper has a quote from The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn when the prisoner says to the Minister:

I’ve got nothing, see? Nothing! … You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.

I was reflecting on that quote in the context of the oft-quoted Albert Camus:

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

As a community (ie the Church) we often speak of not being ruled by the world. But in reality what does that mean for the individual? There is a political aspect to the solitary life: a life not ruled (in theory!) by the standards of the world. For me, and I have thought about this a lot in the last month, the solitary life is a place and that place is a person. I refuse to be objectified! I refuse to be put in a box and then told, “see you are not acting right (ie according to the box which you have been put into)”. For many years I have looked for the “right box” – the right objective truth that defines me.

The only freedom is in Nothing (ie a NOthing, a Person!)

Anyway …

… traditional devotions

I was reading about the traditional devotional life of anchorites in Medival England. These anchorites followed the fashion of the day, which was dominated by affective piety focusing on the humanity of Jesus. So the major focus was the Passion of Jesus.

Besides the 15 Oes, there were prayers to “The Five Wounds of Christ”, “The Seven Wounds of Mary”, or the “Seven Prayers of St Gregory” centring on the Passion of Jesus. There were also liturgical feasts dedicated to the Prayer in the Garden, the Five Wounds of Jesus, the Winding Sheet (burial shroud), and the Precious Blood.

As an aside, The Gregory Prayer Book has a number of these prayers and devotions. An interesting and useful aid to my prayers. There is also a Book of Hours available that gives some insight into English devotional life.

I wonder what happened to all these devotions?

… tears

More important than baptism is the spring of tears that comes after baptism, although it may be somewhat bold to state this. Because baptism is the cleansing from evils that were present in us beforehand, but the sins which we commit after baptism are cleansed by tears. Although baptism is performed at infancy, all of us have polluted it, and so we need to purify it anew with tears. If, in His love for humanity, God had not granted us tears, few there would be, and difficult to discover, those who would be in a condition of grace.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

… zombie apocalypse

Would you survive a zombie apocalypse? (Without discussing the likelihood of such an event or the possibility of the walking dead.)

Maybe I would struggle! I have no practical skills. So I think I would be some zombie’s lunch before I could starve. Maybe I could lock the doors and just live as I do now? But I would still starve. The library would come in handy for heating. But a complete collection of Kierkegaard’s works will be of little practical help. The person who has read the complete collection even less. I would still starve. My phone would quickly become a paperweight and I would struggle without coffee. Maybe I could survive a little but not long? I would most certainly not thrive in such a context. I am not a fighter, nor a leader, nor a motivator of people. I would starve.

If this zombie apocalypse would happen, what would remain of this life? Money? Paper money may serve another purpose. Yet the numbers on a computer somewhere would be absolutely useless. No more internet so no way to pay with my phone. Time? The sun would still rise but after all the batteries have run out, would there still be an 11:00 am meeting? Would there still be a church? Would there be theological debates about the nature of the current issue?

So, with this possible scenario before me, what really matters now? What is simply for this time and place (contingent) and what would be useful in a zombie apocalypse? To what extent is my life now defined by contingent things and ideas? As a follower of Jesus, there is a time coming when “heaven and earth” will pass away and will be no more. Then what will remain? So maybe the question is not so much about zombies?

… conflict

When I started living alone, in my current context, I remember thinking, “Now I can relax!”. Solitude, at first, can seem like an escape. “Peace is to be alone”, at least for some people. Freedom to move and be as you desire without outside obligations.

Yet what I have discovered is the opposite. Solitude is conflict. There is nothing here to distract me from me. My memories are what I bring into the cell. And, for me, these memories often mean pain and hurt. There is nothing to distract, nothing to darken the memories, nothing to ease the pain.

What do I do to forget? Do I want to forget or is my purgatory these memories? I have found only one prayer, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me”. And to forget? Remember Jesus on the cross! Enter into the mystery of the Incarnation by answering (or attempting to) the question, “Do you turn to Jesus?”.

Maybe in this, I am like everyone else?

… rebels with a desire

I am reading several books by Sister Benedicta Ward SLG. Her order, the Sisters of the Love of God, is the closest to the ideals of the Desert Christians within Anglicanism. In one of her books (well, actually the introduction), she makes the following point:

They were people who did without: not much sleep, no baths, poor food, little company, ragged clothes, hard work, no leisure, absolutely no sex, and even, in some places, no church either—a dramatic contrast of immediate interest to those who lived out the Gospel differently.

The Desert Of The Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers

The Desert Christians did without the church! There is, I think, a parallel between the Abraham of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling – a person before religion – and the Christians of the desert – individuals before the institution. These desert dwellers lived (more or less) without the Eucharist – they had a eucharistic life rather than living the Eucharist. Something that strikes me as outside of the experience of modern-day monasticism.

The second point that Ward makes is:

Their name itself, anchorite, means rule-breaker, the one who does not fulfil his public duties.

The Desert Of The Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers.

A solitary is someone who steps outside the common norm, who does not live like everyone else, and who displays desires that are considered odd. Maybe it is about living outside of the norms in a society and culture where Jesus no longer has a place.

Food for thought. Anyway ….

… meaning?

I am reading a book that considers the hermeneutic of the Desert Christians. The author muses on the movement from “text to meaning”. I wonder if this movement is not another example of the Ugly Ditch:

That, then, is the ugly, broad ditch which I cannot get across, however earnestly I have tried to make the leap. If anyone can help me over it, let him do it, I beg him, I adjure him. He will deserve a divine reward from me.

G. E. Lessing

Also, I have been thinking about the meaning that we (I?) assign to contingent “truth”?! In the end (so to say), the abstract wins over the individual and conformity is the only virtue (moral) left.

Anyway …

… vocation?

There are always likely to be some men and women who feel that ‘material’ solitude is essential for their spiritual life. They can no more do without it than without food or drink, and if they are deprived of this isolation their lives become spoilt, cramped, and distorted, and they never find their true vocations. The ‘born solitary’ is drawn to an eremitical life for various reasons, partly natural, partly supernatural. … They discover that they need to separate themselves from their fellow-creatures, in order that their latent powers may have room for expansion and growth, that they may be more fitted so to serve mankind generally.

Solitude and Communion: Papers on the Hermit Life (Fairacres Publications) .

The above is a quote from Peter F Anson’s The Call of the Desert. (A book, btw, I do not own or have read so if anyone wants to donate it to The Anchorage Library please do!!!!). It is quoted in the collection of papers from the 1975 conference on the solitary life. The essays are a must-read for anyone interested in the topic, especially those in the wider Anglican world.

I was struck by the line: “The ‘born solitary’ is drawn to an eremitical life for various reasons, partly natural, partly supernatural“. The vocation of any individual is (partly) a call to use natural gifts for a supernatural end. The inclination of the individual to be alone is not the supernatural end! Or, to look at it slightly differently, a vocation is not a role one plays but a life one lives.

No matter what the gift – music, solitude, art, intellect, caring – it must be pointed to Jesus to become a vocation. St Paul calls it “upbuilding”, as does Kierkegaard. Your “happy place” only becomes a vocation when it is used for the upbuilding of the people of God.

Anyway ….