i've been thinking again about the allure of monasticism.
when i start losing my hair, in the familiar pattern of the bald patch sort of postero-superiorly (you know where i mean...), it could be quite nice to just hang out and, well, just hang.
we never seem to get the time to just focus on the important things - as opposed to King Edmund, who took a year off to learn the Psalms off by heart (he later became St Edmund, after being martyred).
i talk i once heard stuck with me, where the point was that knowing we're in the last days should be a spur - not to go out and tell everyone, but rather,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. - Hebrews 10:25
so, has anyone else shared this longing?
can i up and go join the taize community? who's with me?
4 comments:
I sometimes get in a state where i want to know everything there is to know about God. I want to know the bible inside out, to know more fully what i believe and the God i serve.
This state leads me to skim over chapters in many many books to only realise my plight to know everything of God is overhelmingly impossible.
Maybe monasticism is my answer- i agree it would be quite nice to hang and focus on the important stuff and just laze about reading everything i want...
but then how can I shout the fame of the God I serve that i have been reading about!!!
yeah. good point.
my thinking is along the lines that we are perhaps too worried about being out in the community, being a part of it, that we lack the allure of exclusivity.
that we become too engrossed in fitting in, to maintain relationship; instead of remaining separate, to focus on what is key.
as wayne (or was it garth, or maybe that wierd indian guy with a loincloth) said, 'if you book them, they will come.'
if you have a community, committed to serving their Lord and Saviour, won't the lost seek you? won't they be attracted, like moths to a lightbulb?
I personally have always thought that monasticism, whereby I mean the reclusive, going away to be alone with the Lord, is an incredibly selfish way to live as a Christian. Just because you stop caring and focussing on others and just focus on yourself and your relationship with God.
But I'm happy to be put in my place regarding this.
I also think that there's a sense when you see "nuns" or "monks" that you have a sense of admiration for them, that sometimes can border on idolatry - that they are somehow closer to God than you are, and therefore more spiritual??
Not sure, anyway, them's just some of my thoughts...
yeah, envy, covetousness, idolatry.
but is that their fault, or because we see ourselves as so deficient in our spiritual lives?
i guess the hermit idea is not one i'm considering as appropriate (though for a time?), but rather the community. in order for it to not simply be about us, here, trying to create heaven on earth - which in some ways we already are as we meet as God's people - but i'm thinking the outward looking, other-person centred monasticism; the type we could see being educators, carers, friends - really, all the things we should be anyway except that fwd (flesh, world, devil) keep getting in the way.
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