{"id":960,"date":"2024-05-27T09:53:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T09:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/?p=960"},"modified":"2024-05-27T09:53:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T09:53:21","slug":"narrow-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/2024\/05\/27\/narrow-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Narrow Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Take the narrow\npath: it is the most life-giving (RB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I doubt many of my forebears or contemporaries spend much time on the Rule of St Benedict, but then neither do I compared with someone who has lived under monastic vows for half a century. I come from a Reformed heritage and as such the temptation to reform is running through my veins every day. It\u2019s a wonder I stick to any path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
As far as the east is from the west, in Longdendale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not a totally\noff-piste person either. I do love the edges though, where the\nspeedwell forms vibrant blue clumps or a pale helleborine is shielded\nfrom the main trail, where the butterflies are dancing. The trail\nthat makes its way through Longdendale is wider in some parts than in\nothers. Sometimes there is a separate track for horse riders; the\nspotted orchids thrive there. If you want to see a bracket fungus or\na delicate ring of age-old lichen you\u2019ll need to go beyond the edge\nof the path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about a rule\nfor building community? I wonder how I find myself gazing at that. I\ngrew up in a small village in Essex and took that kind of community\nfor granted. Without probing too deeply, I gradually, with age,\nbecame aware of its flaws and frayed edges. A child suffocated to\ndeath in a grain silo, marriages that fell apart, where Travellers\nwere welcome to pick fruit but not to live alongside us. It was much\nthe same in the rest of the country I expect. I went to South Africa\nin the mid 1980s and was confronted by other communities and stories\nof injustice. I came back to look differently at the scenes of\nchildren playing in bread baskets on a narrow balcony or Black women\ndoing piece work in tiny flats. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My privilege took me to one of the oldest universities in Britain where I was mostly unhappy, conflicted, lost. I never learnt to revere the Great Men. A few threads of community brushed off on me in passing: we sang \u2018Shalom my friends\u2019 in a circle around the communion table in the ecumenical Estate Church on a Sunday. I picked up other echoes in SW London and Yorkshire by the kindnesses of those I met. For a while it was just enough to keep me on the path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The next valley, where rules were broken.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A school has its\nrules and Benedict knows that. He writes in the Prologue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Our intention is\nto begin a school for God\u2019s service\u2019 (RR) 1<\/sup><\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a school chaplain\nI was aware of rules and their interpretation, roles and authority.\nIt is with all of this baggage that I stumble along with Benedict\u2019s\nRule. There are other rules of course: most religious communities or\nnetworks will have them and their unspoken interpretations. A good\nBenedictine reads the Rule three times a year. A good enough one\nremembers a few bits of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are those who consider the Rule that is over a thousand and a half years old a gift to the twenty-first century. I am still unsure about that. It contains a lot of words, and much of it is archaic in language and authority. However, it seems to include three main ideas: the importance of stability, accountability and of owning nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Walking<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stability is the reassurance that it is \u2018a gift to come down where we ought to be<\/em>\u2019. 2<\/sup><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accountability is my\ntake on obedience. We seek to live in mutual respect to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We own nothing. You\ncannot own a valley, though this one doubles as a water catchment\narea for part of Greater Manchester so swathes of its (mis)management\nare taken over by a private company that is run for the profit of a\nfew shareholders rather than the eco-system as a whole.3<\/sup><\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am finding\nstability here. The three-times-a-year Rule is mixed up with the four\nseasons, the boundaries of which are unravelling. An arctic tern\nturned up in the black-headed gull colony on a peninsula on the\nfarthest reservoir this spring (2024). A colony that shouldn\u2019t\nreally be there are we are a long way from the coast, and nearly\nwasn\u2019t there for the two breeding seasons it was ripped apart by\navian flu, but it came anyway. Maybe a gyrovague looking for a\nfamiliar wave to ride. Not finding one, it stayed a day or two and\nthen went on its way to some other community, some other place, some\nother stability. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I count stuff and share my observations with a group of enthusiastic wild-life watchers. They see more than me, charting the comings and goings of migratory species and newcomers looking for a place to call their own. As I write this (May 2024) there are rumours that a family of otters has taken up residence on a small body of water towards the moorland. After another wet spring my fears are for the orange-tipped butterflies, their one early breeding flight washed out again. \u2018To whom do you consider yourself accountable?\u2019was the question posed at my surplus-to-requirements interview weighing my value to the larger community that saw school based ministry as pointless. My answer, in this valley, more than seven years later, remains the same: To Jesus Christ, the head of the Church. I could go on, but essentially, if no one else wants to know that the climate is changing, as few enough seem to, I can still count stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A heron has just\nflown over on its way to goodness knows where, and the rain is\nfalling in stair rods (uncommon enough metaphor these days). I own\nnone of these things. Of the things I do own I try to share them with\nthose around me in a not-for-profit way, mindful I still have too\nmany unused possessions other are unlikely to want (the local charity\nshops have been the recipients of quite a few of them). I can\u2019t\ntake you through the Rule of St Benedict one paragraph at a time,\nbackwards of forwards. I do not keep it under my pillow. I walk\nthrough this valley with a remembered bible and a remembered rule and\nquite a lot of baggage, as a good enough Benedictine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come, walk with me. The way maybe narrow but it is life-giving. Tomorrow I need to go and see if the bog-bean is flowering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Stone cross, possibly 8th century.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Janet Lees, Friend\nof Scholastica and wandering anchorite of Longdendale, 27.05.2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/a>RR\n\tis the Remembered Rule \u2013 and RB is of course the Remembered Bible.\n\tso it\u2019s all about what I\u2019ve internalised, how I have\n\tinterpreted, what has shaped me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/a>Shaker\n\thymn, 19th century USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/a>At\n\tthe time of writing this is United Utilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take the narrow path: it is the most life-giving (RB) I doubt many of my forebears or contemporaries spend much time on the Rule of St Benedict, but then neither do I compared with someone who has lived under monastic vows for half a century. I come from a Reformed heritage and as such the … Continue reading “Narrow Way”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,57,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate","category-community","category-rule"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","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=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":961,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}