Dear Benedict
Let’s push onto chapter 1, it’s one of my favourites. So I missed a bit out: it is quite long you know. I may come back to it. I did wonder when you wrote it all and how long it took?
There are four kinds of monastics, you say. I doubt most people these days would think of monastics as coming in four kinds. But to get to the bottom line, you’re basically saying there are people who want to make community and people who don’t, mostly because they don’t know how. You are keen on the community makers and that’s what the rule is about.
So let’s start with that: ‘Make community’. As far as this section of chapter 1 is concerned, in the beginning was the Rule. Only of course it probably wasn’t. You had to live it first before you could write it. Community is a big word in the 21st century too. At the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic there was a lot of talk about community and how we would all support each other. Now the pandemic is still out there and interest in community has come and gone and still hangs about here and there. So too with the Rule. That there are, 1,500 years later, communities that still live by the Rule, is amazing. Just as it was informed by other earlier rules of life, so too it has also led to the development of different examples.
I grew up in a village; it was a community.
I got a job as a speech therapist: I was serving a different community.
I went to ministerial training college: we were urged to try to be a community.
I served as a minister in several places. In the first I was the unpaid community minister and in the second the group of churches were said to be particularly community orientated.
I did my PhD: it was about a community response to families of children learning to talk who were growing up in poverty (the very phrase is long enough to indicate what a meal we make of community).
I was a school chaplain: my role was to gather and nurture the school community.
I have retired and moved to a different place and a different community.
I belong to the Lay Community of St Benedict, it even has community in the title.
In the last of these (LCSB) we keep things as simple as possible. Our promise, which you can see on my t-shirt on the previous post, goes like this:
“In response to the call of Christ we seek to live
holy communion, create holy space and offer holy service.”
For us, that is what community is. It is a Christ centred holy space in which service is offered and relationships can develop. It has no walls because we are a scattered community. We do what we do ‘as we are able/as we are enabled’.
Each community has its own pattern or flavour. Your rule tried to sort out the things that help or hinder when making a community and the fact that the Rule still does this suggests it includes a great deal of positive energy. But it won’t suit everyone. I’m not sure that it suits me completely. As we shall see later in the next bit of chapter 1, I’ve got quite a lot of characteristics of the other three types of monastics that we’ve not visited yet.
But one thing that’s clear about community is that you’re not alone. You can’t be a community of one. In a community there’s always more than one. In a scattered community it might be a challenge how to connect, but there are others on the same quest. In a gathered community, the others are closer, more apparent and may be difficult to live with, but they are there. In the 21st century, this pull and push in community is still very apparent. During COVID19 we’ve seen people get connected in many different ways and try to bridge divides and make communities. We’ve seen people left out and alone and noted how that has such negative effects on human beings. As far as the Rule goes, ‘Make community’, seems to be in line with human inclination to a certain extent. Until we reach a point, not necessarily determined in advance, where it starts to get wobbly and we want out again. Much as we want in, we may also want out.
21st century people will probably be wondering if we need a Rule to make community work or not? Other people try different ways: a constitution is popular with some, a pledge or promise does for others. Many will just think it happens on the back of culture and habit. Other may say following the Gospel is enough. As a 21st century person I’ve been collecting many kinds of spirituality during my life time. For those who haven’t tried it yet, the rule is there to explore. Monastic or not, we can try it.
From the remembered Gospel: Jesus said ‘Come to me’.
May I make community too.
From a Friend of Scholastica’s, and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.