Category: SolitaryLife

cell of the heart

This term is applied to Religious who stay within a particular convent or monastery – the ‘enclosure’ – to pursue more effectively a life of prayer. They would usually only leave the enclosure for medical treatment or other exceptional reasons. This rule is intended to help the enclosed Religious be more easily protected from the distractions and attentions of the outside world.

Glossary – Anglican Religious Life Yearbook
  • There is an outer enclosure—a defined space governed by law or freely chosen in love.
  • There is the inner enclosure—a private space within the defined space, a cell only for the individual. Defined by either law or freely chosen in love.
  • The enclosure of the heart is a place of meeting where only Jesus may enter—the place of free love.

The outer serves the inner. And all points to Jesus.

… becoming free

If the monastic ideal is to attain a creative spiritual freedom, if the monastic ideal realizes that freedom is attainable only in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and if the monastic ideal asserts that to become a slave to God is ontologically and existentially the path to becoming free, the path in which humanity fully becomes human precisely because the created existence of humanity is contingent upon God, is by itself bordered on both sides by non-existence, then is such an ideal Christian? Is such an ideal Biblical—New Testamental? (The Byzantine, Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers)

Sánchez-Escobar, Ángel F.. ON ASCESIS AND HESYCHASM, AND THE CHURCH FATHERS (Books on Christian Orthodoxy) (p. 47)

two years

Today is my second anniversary in The Anchorage. Much has changed, and much has stayed the same. I thought that the opening song from Spongebob Squarepants is an appropriate thing to share today.

I have no deep insights or epiphanies. My life has evolved (as it should), and I have become clearer about where I am going. I cried for the first time here last week.

An oddball is a person who refuses to accept abstract norms as universal. And I guess I am an oddball. To be honest, that often really hurts. It is nice to be understood by someone and to offer your heart to someone. The life lesson of the last two years is “set your eyes on Jesus.” I have questions that return. And I have no answers. But answers are overrated. Perhaps a line from Thomas Merton will sum up:

I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

… something to think about

Embracing the Hermit Season

I read the above and thought it was interesting. (I will not quibble about using the term “hermit”!)

There is a difference between being called to solitude—to a life of focus on Jesus—and choosing to isolate yourself for personal growth. In baptism, each person is asked, “Do you turn to Christ?”. It is our common vocation to find a personal and unique answer. Sometimes, we are called to a particular place. Jesus went into the desert after his baptism, and some people are still called to the desert – to “white martyrdom”. (And, like Jesus, to enter a different fight.) So, the desert is not a call to isolation or personal growth but to follow Jesus in a particular place. It is to be anchored both in the person and the context.

Being alone and following Jesus into the desert is not always the same. Anyway, read the post!!!!

wait on God alone in stillness

Refrain:    Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.

1    On God alone my soul in stillness waits;  ♦
from him comes my salvation.
2    He alone is my rock and my salvation,  ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall never be shaken.
3    How long will all of you assail me to destroy me,  ♦
as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence?
4    They plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour;
lies are their chief delight;  ♦
they bless with their mouth, but in their heart they curse.
5    Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul;  ♦
for in him is my hope.
6    He alone is my rock and my salvation,  ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. [R]
7    In God is my strength and my glory;  ♦
God is my strong rock; in him is my refuge.
8    Put your trust in him always, my people;  ♦
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
9    The peoples are but a breath,
the whole human race a deceit;  ♦
on the scales they are altogether lighter than air.
10  Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride;  ♦
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
11  God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same,  ♦
that power belongs to God.
12  Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord,  ♦
for you repay everyone according to their deeds.

Refrain:    Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.

Common Worship, Psalm 62

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.

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?