Weak

Dear Benedict,

After a week of Covid19, I’m gradually feeling better: tiredness continues. What with other folks I know also testing positive it made me think a bit differently about Holy Week.

Testing, testing ….

It’s hard enough being holy for a week without being wholly weak. But every week includes weakness. You allowed for Alleluias ‘except in Lent’ (chapter 15) and evidently that meant you were more generous with this practice than some instructors. So I’ll just fit in a quick Alleluia for weakness while I’m here.

It’s hard to celebrate weakness in a culture that hard on the soft aspects of being human. Even in this week of weeks the bits that could be seen as weak are edited to distance us from too much weakness.

It’s the bridge that’s weak….

A man arrived at the city gate on a donkey, like many did every week. Rather than see this as ordinary, let alone weak, a great cheering crowd is heard making a fuss about a king coming, however unlikely the beast. Some say the donkey knew: they are knowing creatures.

A knowing look

Tired, weary and as weak as you or me, Jesus climbs off the donkey and disappears into the underbelly of Jerusalem. When he reappears he’s sitting down, not standing, in the temple. Just watching, just waiting, just breathing, he notices ordinary things. There’s an ordinary woman who makes an ordinary offering. Easy to overlook that.

Easy to overlook the poor today even though they are still with us. To overlook the ones on pre-payment meters queuing at local foodbanks for food that doesn’t need cooking. The message seems to be weakness should be ignored. But not by Jesus who remarks that it’s ‘All she had to live on’. It’s still up to us to determine if it’s enough to provide pot noodles or whether we should entice anyone into making a greater fuss alongside the weak.

Enough to live on?

It’s a week in which weakness continued to surface in all kinds of ways. Coming to the end of his temper with things as they were: a fig tree with no fruit, a temple market place with no justice, who wouldn’t loose it, and let it loose to echo down history as weakness or what? I’ll add a quick Alleluia for that too.

In a weak moment he takes the towel and tries to show them what it’s really like being part of a squabbling community in a place of political turmoil. Alleluia for clean feet.

In a weak moment he takes bread, ordinary stuff, and tries to say something about the yeast infused stuff that feeds them and the fermented juice that runs in their veins over hundreds of years of running away. They miss a lot of it, as do we, unhappy about too much weakness. We squabble about who was and who wasn’t there, what was and wasn’t said, what it did or didn’t mean, instead of taking the stuff and sharing it. ‘This is my body’: Alleluia for that.

ready to be bread

The Mount of Olives at night would have been a dark and isolated place. Not a place for sleeping or for lover’s to meet and kiss. Giving all his strength away, as he has been throughout his ministry, he is taken away in weakness. Alleluia for that.

From there on, everything tumbles away until stripped and bleeding, nailed and tormented, all that’s left is weakness. And perhaps that why we want to edit the weak bits, busy concentrating on getting the right ending rather than what it takes to get there. Who wants a weak leader, one with mental health challenges or physical limitations, a mistake-maker, giver-upper? No mask or put on face here. Only the agonised admission: it is finished. Alleluia for that.

Sixth century cross in West Cornwall

My week will have weak bits, tired bits, uncertain and unconvincing bits. The answer will be ‘I don’t know’ several times a day. I’ll step away, avert my eyes, deny and prevaricate. And from time to time, I may just glimpse some holiness in all this and raise my feeble Alleluia.

From my remembered bible: There was silence

Alleluia!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay community of St Benedict.

Halfway

Dear Benedict

We’re now more than halfway through Lent this year, so no return to pancakes yet then. My eye was taken by chapter 53 about eating at the table of the Abbott or Prioress (is there a reason why Abbottess was not used?).

Part of the public ministry of the community was hospitality and that meant meals with the senior leadership team. It was, you write, more than just a show, it was where the real concern and care of the community was demonstrated.

A table

It made me think about how we demonstrate our care and concern. I was listening to an online talk about church buildings being closed during lockdown, The speaker took the line that the Church had laid down its life by closing, to keep people safe. Given that large indoor events continue to have the ability to spread COVID19, at a rate that is increasing again in the UK, that’s worth thinking about some more.

I will probably never know if I had COVID19 because we can’t get any LFTs to check it out. But whatever it is, I’d want to protect anyone, particularly from the risk that is Long Covid. One of the things the Pandemic has gifted us is the opportunity to think again about our responsibilities to each others.

A table on Roughfields, Derbyshire

Community is built on how we regard each other. A recent ceremony to award participants in the film industry is a case in point. The leadership team appoints a court jester to lead the show who then uses it an an opportunity to make dubious humour at the expense of some of the participants, one of whom takes offence and hits him. It seems likely that neither participants highly regards the other.

It’s challenging to come back from a situation in which a relationship has broken down enough to turn violent. How could Ukraine trust Russia again, and yet as neighbours they will have to. Today Turkey invites them both to the top table, provides hospitality and an opportunity to talk. Let’s hope no one gets food poisoning.

Most of the monastic communities I have visited in the UK no longer seem to kept chapter 53 of the Rule: there is no separate table. Everyone eats together; monastics, leadership team, guests all at the same table. It is perhaps a sign of how our society has changed since you wrote your Rule. The best demonstration we can give of our care and concern for each other is for us all to eat together. May the second half of Lent be that kind of sign for us all.

Easter Day with the Lay Community of St Benedict, 2017

From my remembered gospel ‘Eat, drink’.

Sustain our neighbours: may we eat together in peace.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

For Ukraine

For the yellow and blue nation;

the yellow land of wheat and sunflowers;

the blue sky of hope and peace:

may bullies not prosper,

may those who make war, draw back

may those who terorise others, understand kindness.

Holy Creator, God of icons and incense,

Refugee Christ, inhabiting an occupied land,

Hopeful Spirit of truth and reconcilliation:

May you, the Eternal Three in One,

dance in the fields and skies of Ukraine,

binding up the wounded,

embracing the fearful

ushering in a life of peace with justice.

We who, from afar, see only the terrors, injury and damage,

stand alongside all who genuinely seek peace.

Sunflower in Yorkshire, for Ukraine

Janet Lees #PrayforUkraine #PrayingforUkraine

16.03.2022

Changed

Dear Benedict,

Lent again here, I sigh….. tries to mumble a few pro-Lent lines and fails miserably. I don’t come from a tradition strong on Lent, whereas of course your Rule has plenty to say about Lent, particularly chapter 49 (OK, it doesn’t come after chapter 63: don’t @ me).

You recommend a continuous Lent and then shy away from it saying monastics are not up to that. Do make up your mind, please. If the purpose of Lent is change then if it’s continuous that surely risks no change at all, which is the antithesis to its purpose. You write of a holy and pure life surely knowing that a vain goal. It’s mostly this sort of stuff that makes me fall out with you. You assume ‘negligence’ and ‘evil habits’ without really any knowledge of context or cause.

The beginning of Jacob’s Ladder on the West Highland Way, 2019

There’s no doubt the Rule has changed me. Listen to a Lay community Podcast here to confirm that, just as Jesus and his disciples who made it to the mountain top for the Transfiguration were changed. But that wasn’t the end and more pressing business waited for them at the bottom of the mountain: a vulnerable family in challenging circumstances. It’s not an advert for washing powder, though I’d have to say that climbing to the top of mountains is way more exhausting in my experience than this group seem to find. No mention of huffing and puffing and tired muscles, all of which are what I mostly remember on routes like Jacob’s Ladder on the West Highland Way: hot and heavy going. Worth it, yes, but effortful.

Top of Jacob’s Ladder on the West Highland Way, 2019

So back to Lent… You say that the follower should inform the leader of the Lenten discipline to be undertaken. A sort of monastic safety system I think so that people don’t undertake things that would be counter productive or dangerous. Is intermittent fasting a good thing? Depending on what adverts you’re reading on your social media. Is leaving off social media a good thing? Depends what you’re doing on social media in the first place. The purpose of Lent is to change us, not just as individuals but as a whole community, which is a pretty big challenge in Lay life. Who is my community?

It seems likely that with several more weeks to go I’ll return to my negligent version of Lent with my daily dose of social media and chocolate. I’ll pour my heart into looking for local wildlife, keeping track of the seasons, and lament climate grief and violence in Ukraine. I’m pretty sure that it’s not the sort of Lent many people associate with the season, which is probably why I’ve not mentioned it, until now.

Frog in Longdendale.

From my remembered bible: Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days and nights.

Stay with me.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Lent!

Dear Benedict,

As I plod through another day of COVID19 Lockdown, I am thinking about chapter 49 of your Rule, which is about Lent. You begin by saying that monastic life should be ‘a continuous Lent’. It has been suggested that this Pandemic year has been, more for some than others, a continuous Lent. And it’s true that is something few have the strength for, if indeed it is strength we need.

After I post this I’ll go for a walk in Longdendale, the valley where I live. It’s a very blustery day, and so I turn to my remembered Winnie the Pooh and the story of Pooh and Piglet going to visit Owl. It was while they were at Owl’s house, having tea and sharing stories, that a particularly strong gust of wind blew Owl’s house down. It was Piglet who saved the day by doing a very brave thing, climbing through the letter box and running for help (thanks to AA Milne).

How’s your remembered Winnie the Pooh this morning?

Going to Owl’s house is not an option today unless Owl is in your bubble. Pooh and Piglet would need to take a socially distanced walk. These limitations to social interaction make Lockdown hard, and they’re not really anything to do with Lent. Although prayer and abstinence are mentioned in your Rule (the traditional ‘giving it up for Lent’) there’s nothing about giving people up for Lent specifically (although joking is frowned on, I’m afraid).

I’ve not been giving people up for Lent, or given up being human for Lent. It seems to me that Lent is all about being human and our need for different things during different times and seasons. Last night I took part in the launch of a book to celebrate 75 years of Christian Aid. The whole zoom of 180+ people began with the question of whether or not we should celebrate this 75th anniversary at all. Was it a good thing that we’d needed this for 75 years and still do?

This book is published on 18th March 2021

Most agreed that it was the shared humanity that lies at the heart of Christian Aid that made it so memorable and vital to our life of faith today. The book is called Rage and Hope and will be published by SPCK next week. It seems to me that is what Lent is really for; to connect with our global family, to Rage against injustice and Hope for the living promise of Christ’s kindom. Don’t give that up.

From my remembered bible: Forty Days and Forty Nights, phew!

Acknowledge my rage, infuse me with hope!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Enough!

Dear Benedict,

I’m thinking about your chapters 44-46 which are especially concerned with accountability. Reading your Rule in 21st century some details are different: whipping youths who stumble over reading loud would not be allowed these days, thank fully. But the basic notion that being in community puts you in relationship with others to whom you are accountable is fundamental. You mention various places in which this accountability has obvious consequences: in worship or work, the chapel or the kitchen for example.

In our 21st century context work can look very different. Before lockdown there was commuting, now there’s zoom. There were visits to hospital, now there’s COVID19. Schools were open, now they’re shut, soon to open again. All this has happened in a society in which the notion of accountability has been changing. Some of that change is recent: in an emergency what does accountability look like, some might ask?

Books at the Savings Bank Museum near Ruthwell

But some of it has been going on for longer. To fly to far flung destinations or own a particular sort of car is to some an individual right, even if that damages the planet and we neglect our accountability to the poor. If we can make money at something does it matter if we impoverish someone else? To Benedictines it matters a lot.

This Lent I’m practising being human and accountability is both a welcome and an unwelcome aspect of human integrity. My humanity has a knock on effect to the way I respond to the humanity of others. I’m fortunate to have a warm, dry , safe place to live. This is a fundamental human need. I do not therefore think it acceptable that other human beings don’t have this. A landlord should not make money by renting an unsuitable dwelling. The government should not house asylum seekers in a place reported as unfit to house military personnel.

What do we do with our accountability? If we want others in our community to recognise our shared accountability, how can we do that? The main challenge of interpreting your rule today is this larger canvas. I could with hold ‘seconds’ to those who have not done their share of the weeding but what can I with hold from the dishonest landlord or those making unfair decisions in government. A society in which there is less accountability is a sicker one. How do we reinstate accountability to the civic agenda. It seems to me, enough is enough!

From the remembered bible: Do justice, love mercy.

Help me understand enough!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Ashes

Ashes,
Spread across the hillside,
Result of a wildfire that raged for several days:
My neighbour’s husband was one who fought it.

Ashes
Crumbled in the fireplace,
A hearth at the heart of the home,
Welcome to an everyday warming place.

Ashes,
Blessed to be a sign,
Marking each person who comes
Looking to renew their relationship with the Holy One.

Ashes,
For you and me,
Marking us out as travellers,
Ready for the Lent journey in the company of the Living One.

JAL 06.03.2019
Ash Wednesday 2019