{"id":202,"date":"2020-10-09T09:45:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T09:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/?p=202"},"modified":"2020-10-09T09:45:30","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T09:45:30","slug":"live-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/2020\/10\/09\/live-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Life!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear Benedict<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My biggest vice is\nchocolate, although I do try to make it fair trade. Of course\nactually, my biggest vice is joining in with all the other things and\nbehaviours we 21st century humans think are indispensable to our\nexistence, but I\u2019d choose the chocolate every time I\u2019m afraid. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2nd paragraph\nof chapter 1 you mention anchorites or hermits, neither of which is\nlikely to be familiar to most ordinary people. There are still some\nabout, I know, but the idea of solitary living is more of a fashion\nchoice those days than a spiritual discipline, except for those for\nwhom it is not a choice at all but just the way life is. So I\u2019m\ngoing to suggest \u2018Live life\u2019 for this section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know you tried the\nsolitary religious life before you gathered together those first\nmonastics. I\u2019m not exactly sure how that came about or why you left\nit behind, but you seemed to decide that living with others and\ncreating community that way was your calling. You\u2019re not really\nanti-anchorites or anti-hermits but rather warning people off\nthinking it\u2019s an easy option. I\u2019m pretty sure it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it does\nhave its appeal at least as a part time option. If you\u2019d ever been\nto the Farne Islands in the Spring it\u2019s obvious why Cuthbert chose\nInner Farne as his hermitage at the end of his life. He might have\nhad to dodge the dive bombing terns but the gentle eiders, his very\nown Cuddy Ducks, were there too as well as some amusing puffins and\nI\u2019m sure it would have been brilliant for a few months of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cell that is cut into the stone bank of the river Coquet near Warkworth is less appealing. It\u2019s less clear who lived there, but I once sang the Magnificat there to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. Julian\u2019s cell in Norwich was destroyed by bombing in WW2. The rebuilt version tries to convey the atmosphere of one who may have fielded repeated enquiries like \u2018Have you got a light?\u2019. In your time people looked to the desert for inspiration in the spiritual life. The fens of East Anglia, a muddy river bank in Northumberland or a post-industrial valley in Derbyshire might not have been part of the spiritual imagination then. They are now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A female eider duck on Inner Farne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I retired I got\nmy Bambi Camper Van as my hermitage. Time alone as a positive choice\ncan be a very meaningful thing and maybe each of us has something of\nthat yearning in us. Forced solitary experience, however, whether the\nhostages in Iran or those kept indoors shielding from Corona virus\nare more destructive. But that doesn\u2019t mean we should avoid the\nopportunities we can find for positive solitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile my real\nvices remain and it will take a life time to winkle them out, in or\nout of community. I think of this section as \u2018Live \u2018Life!\u2019 and\nI suggest \u2018A guide to being really human\u2019 as a subtitle for the\nRule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the remembered\nbible: Be still and know that I am God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m still here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a Friend of\nScholastica\u2019s and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Benedict My biggest vice is chocolate, although I do try to make it fair trade. Of course actually, my biggest vice is joining in with all the other things and behaviours we 21st century humans think are indispensable to our existence, but I\u2019d choose the chocolate every time I\u2019m afraid. In the 2nd paragraph … Continue reading “Live Life!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rule","category-saints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}