Here’s a glimpse into how connected my world has become.

A few months ago, my girlfriend Lisa Washio, co-director of The Pink House in Fresno, California (an InterVarsity Urban Projects program that immerses young adults in a 10-month residential apprenticeship in biblical community, urban ministry, and leadership development) called me from a pub in New Orleans. She was hanging out with interviewees Mike Brantley of Communitas New Orleans (Episode 21) and Scott Bessenecker, InterVarsity’s associate director of missions (Episode 29), plus other members of Communitas. Also in attendance was our mutual friend Josh Harper of New Hope Covenant Church in Oakland, California (Episode 16), InterVarsity’s national coordinator for Urban Projects. As well, there were Phileena and Chris Heuertz, established leaders within the new friar organization Word Made Flesh, who are presently embarking on a new venture that I’m very excited about, Gravity, a Center for Contemplative Activism, through which they hope to help people integrate contemplative spirituality with social activism. In fact, I was eager to meet Phileena and Chris in my travels, but their hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, was too far from anywhere by bicycle!

So what am I doing now, six months after the journey’s end?

First of all, I want to say that it has been a journey in itself readjusting to ordinary pedestrian life after 14 months on the road. Thankfully, I had the close company of friends in Collegeville, Minnesota, to lighten the burden of transitioning. Even so, the visceral sense of not knowing who I was or what direction my life was headed was fairly acute for the first couple of months. In this condition, I found it extremely difficult to reengage theological studies at Saint John’s School of Theology for one last semester. Thankfully, I did manage to complete my classwork, yet my eye was more focused on where the real fruits of the tour were emerging. In previous posts, I’ve alluded to Ezekiel’s prophetic vision of the “Valley of Dry Bones” as characterizing my own experience of being stripped and given new life in the process of making this bicycle tour. This sense of being given a new life only increased after the traveling ceased. In fact, in a fairly short period of time, I’ve gone from a dizzying sense of groundlessness to a new inner stability, interwoven with new relationships and opportunities, about which I will say more below.

Regarding my thoughts in response to what I learned and experienced on tour, I resonate strongly with a chapter I came across in an anthology of reflections on centering prayer, “Three Contemplative Waves,” by centering prayer teacher David Frenette (see Thomas Keating, et al, Spirituality, Contemplation, and Transformation: Writings on Centering Prayer [New York: Lantern Books, 2008], 9-55). Frenette’s basic thesis is that, over the past half century, the Christian contemplative tradition has undergone a profound renewal and transformation toward what he calls “incarnational contemplation”; that is, toward an emphasis on integrating contemplative practices such as centering prayer in the context of the everyday life concerns of work, marriage, family, and social justice. He identifies the first two phases of this renewal—firstly, developing new ways of understanding the relationship between contemplation and various areas of human concern, including integrating the insights of developmental and transpersonal psychology; and secondly, developing practice forms accessible to people living in the world—with the work of Cistercian monks Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating. Significantly, Frenette believes that we are currently on the cusp of a third phase of contemplative renewal, namely, the emergence of lay intentional communities that support and express these new patterns of contemplative living in the world.

Now, Frenette is writing from a different but related context than that of the majority of communities I’ve visited. Whereas the contemplative renewal Frenette traces has its roots firmly within the monastic tradition (most of its seminal teachers, for instance, have been monks—Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, John Main, et al), the new monasticism-new friars movements I’ve covered are emerging from outside the classic monastic and mendicant orders. Whereas incarnational contemplation until now has focused primarily on interior practices and personal transformation, the greatest strength of the new monasticism-new friars, as I see it, has been a deep commitment to embodying the radical social teachings of gospels, most often in poor urban neighborhoods. Whereas incarnational contemplation has thus far developed structures for local support groups and extended retreats, the new monasticism-new friars have focused on communal forms of social engagement. One other contrast that I believe is particularly relevant here is that of demographics: while both incarnational contemplation and the new monasticism-new friars are fairly diverse, their demographic centers of gravity split between older Catholics and mainline Protestants on the incarnational contemplation side of the coin, and younger evangelicals among the new monasticism-new friars.

From the point of view of the monasteries themselves, at least in the Christian West, there is the related phenomenon of the vitality of many monastic houses tipping more and more toward an engagement with the wider world. Many monasteries now have far more Oblates (lay people who commit themselves to living out the spirituality of the monastery in the world) than in-house monks and nuns. For example, at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California—of which I am an Oblate—there are presently approximately 50 Oblates for every monk. This widening gap underlies Ivan Kauffman’s conviction, which I share, that the future of monasticism in the West lies in the direction of celibate monastics forging new collaborative relationships with lay people.

So here is my reading of the situation in a nutshell: On the one hand, many monasteries—their numbers shrinking and median age rising—are leaning uncertainly into an unknown future, while some lay or “incarnational” contemplatives grope toward yet-to-be-determined communal forms of life. On the other hand, a vibrant, youthful network of mostly evangelical Christians is busy at work experimenting with structures for intentional community, seeking roots in ancient tradition while embodying fresh responses to present circumstances. And if there’s anything that I have to speak into this situation, after having explored communities on both sides of this equation, it is this: Monasteries and their associated movements stand to benefit profoundly from the youthful idealism, fresh perspectives, courage, and creative imagination that I see permeating the new monasticism-new friars. The new monasticism-new friars stand to benefit profoundly from the maturity, depth of prayerful interiority, historical rootedness, and accumulated wisdom of the classic Christian monastic and contemplative traditions. Hence, I see vast potential waiting to be tapped through forging enduring collaborative relationships among these various Christian movements, all of whom lay some claim to historical monasticism.

I have no general prescription for how this relationship-building might unfold, except to say that I believe that people like Phileena and Chris Heuertz, who are already rooted in both worlds, are in an ideal position to step into this creative overlap and make things happen; for surely, the Spirit broods over this field of possibility, awaiting willing hands and hearts. Phileena is especially well-positioned as someone steeped in the teachings and practice of centering prayer and widely respected as a leader within the new monasticism-new friars. As well, Lisa and I are already beginning to envision possibilities for a community or center of some kind in Fresno. We are both Camaldolese-Benedictine Oblates (or at least, Lisa will be shortly), and whereas my experience and training lie mostly in the classic monastic and contemplative vein, Lisa is more firmly grounded in urban ministry along the lines of the new monasticism-new friars. And, she has deep relational roots in Fresno. Hence, we intend to draw upon our many relationships in the area, maintaining close ties with nearby New Camaldoli Hermitage, to develop a way of life in community that integrates monastic rhythms and contemplative practice with service and hospitality to our neighbors.

At this point, our aspirations are in the early germination stage, and the specifics of what we decide to do will be the outcome of a long process of prayerful discernment and consultation; or, to paraphrase Scott Yetter of Nehemiah House, of listening for what God is doing in the neighborhood and how we can participate. For now, I am back at New Camaldoli Hermitage with a load of books underarm that I need to read for comprehensive exams in order to complete my monastic studies degree. Hopefully, I will finish by May and will then make my way to Fresno. I have no timeline to offer as yet for our endeavors, but I will check in periodically on this blog with updates (if you haven’t inferred this yet, I am an irregular blogger; hence, if you want to be kept informed, I would recommend signing up for an e-mail subscription at the top of the sidebar to the right).

In the meantime, I will continue to watch in wonder and gratitude at how God breathes new life into weary limbs and weaves meaningful connections out of what once appeared to be mere disjointed bones.

While there’s a lull in the action (that is, a lull in blog-posting action, due to the fact that I am presently too mired in studies to think about much else!), I thought I’d take a moment to answer one of the more interesting questions I was recently asked about my tour by a fellow student. After I brushed off the seemingly mandatory first question, “Were you ever in any danger?” (to which my answer is, believe it or not, no!), I was then asked, “Okay, then what was the strangest thing you saw?”

Now that’s a great question! I have two responses.

The first occurred on the outskirts of Clarence, Missouri. Evening was approaching, which meant that I needed to begin my usual routine of filling my water bottles, then find a place to camp for the night. Just before reaching US-36, I spotted a gas station enfolded by a sprawling cemetery (if you’ve been following along thus far, you may recall that I find cemeteries to make excellent stealth-camping sites [stealth-camping—the legally ambiguous art of camping for free in tucked-away places otherwise not designated for camping]). Perhaps I should have read the gas station’s unusually snug proximity to the cemetery as a hint that something was a little…strange. But at the end of a blistering summer’s day of pedaling a 100-pound bicycle for 70+ miles, my mental reflexes were a little slow.

And so it was that I drew closer and marveled that the cars in the lot all seemed to be from the 1950s, marveled all the more when I noticed that the single gas pump was also of vintage variety, and I was finally shaken out of my mental stupor when I noticed that the price-per-gallon on the pump was well under one dollar.

Yes, strange.

I took a closer look around this eerie gas station-cum-cemetery. The utter stillness among the graves also extended to the station itself, despite the fact that at first glance the place seemed to be bustling with activity. I looked into the windows of the antique cars. Yes, they were inhabited, but the inhabitants weren’t moving either! A closer look: they were mannequins! And not just any mannequins, but mannequins in giant monkey suits, and others with similar macabre distortions to their humanoid features.  Fully lucid now, I stood dumfounded, trying to absorb the meaning of this roadside-frozen-freakshow-museum-graveyard.  No matter how I strained my imagination, though, I couldn’t infer any meaning or purpose. Just…strange. Finally, I shook off the cognitive dissonance and vague uneasiness that had swept over me, pedaled to a real gas station a half-mile away, filled my water bottles, pedaled back to the cemetery, set up camp behind the graves, and slept like a…mannequin?

The second strange incident occurred on the 4^th of July in Munson Township, Illinois. Now, on the previous night, I had done something I rarely do on bicycle tour: pay to camp at an actual campground. Big mistake. The place was crawling with four-wheel ATVs being driven in circles by drunk people shooting off bottle rockets long past bedtime. The next day, then, expecting more boisterous patriotic revelry, I determined to camp as far away from civilization as possible. And I was quite successful. On Google Maps I spied a small green dot with the label, “Munson Township Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve.” A cemetery AND a nature preserve? A stealth-camper’s dream! And the place was far from any significant town or road.

Arriving at the cemetery/nature preserve, I was quite happy to find an immaculate hilltop slice of wilderness, peppered with graves over a century old, overlooking an endless rolling sea of soybean fields. I felt so safe in this quiet, isolated spot that I didn’t even bother trying to hide my tent; I slept fairly out in open view of anyone who might happen to drive up. And in fact, as I drifted to sleep on what was by far the quietest 4th of July I’ve ever experienced, I was jarred to full consciousness at midnight by the glare of headlights drawing near. I prepared to get out of the tent and do what I always do in such situations: proactively approach people, introduce and explain myself. But I hesitated because the couple who parked a mere 15 yards from my tent hadn’t yet noticed me; their headlights hadn’t shined in my direction. I waited, listened, watched as the man got out and clambered into the woods in front of the still-shining headlights.

“It’s in a box. I know it’s here! Why can’t I find it!?”

After about 15 minutes of this midnight treasure-hunting, he gave up the search, got back into the truck, and drove away. They never discovered me. I continued to listen as the sound of the motor drifted off into the night, leaving behind only stark silence…and a handful of questions!

After waking the next morning, I conducted a little treasure-hunt of my own. In the place where the man had searched, I found an old toilet bowl and an assortment of rusty, abandoned farming equipment. But no box, nor any clue of the mysterious content of said box, nor a hint of why they chose the middle of the night on the 4th of July to come looking!

Strange.

In the end, I spent 4 ½ years in formation, having taken temporary vows, and left at peace and in enduring friendship with the monks. In fact, I still consider New Camaldoli Hermitage my spiritual home and spend time there every chance I get. Now that nearly five years have passed since leaving the monastery, including almost seven semesters at Saint John’s School of Theology and this past year’s bicycle tour of communities, the goal of a lay contemplative community has never felt closer. Aside from New Camaldoli Hermitage, I take special inspiration from my year living at the Cambridge Zen Center, a community of primarily lay people in bustling Central Square, Cambridge, MA, equidistant from Harvard and MIT. The combination of intensive, shared contemplative practice, work, and service to the larger community I experienced there convinces me that a similar model could take root in Christian form. It’s no great leap of the imagination to envision the ethos and disciplines I learned in my Christian monastic formation flourishing in such a lay context.

Now a certain disconnect enters the picture: with the exception of the San Francisco Zen Center (which is Buddhist) and Hesed Community (which is non-residential), none of the communities I visited on this tour have a strong contemplative dimension (monasteries aside). There are at least two reasons for this choice. The first is the recognition that I’ve followed the contemplative thread quite deeply in my life, and now I seek to balance that with a social justice focus, which many of the communities I visited did embody. Secondly…well, I’ve often recalled the story I’ve heard attributed to the Sufi tradition, of a fellow searching vigorously for something on the sidewalk under a lamplight. Everything else around him is shrouded in darkness. Someone comes upon him and asks:

“What are you looking for?”

“My key.”

“Where did you lose it?”

“Over there in the dark street.”

“Then why are you looking under the lamppost!?”

“Because I can see over here in the light!”

In a sense, focusing so much on highly socially-engaged new monasticism/new friars communities as I did had a similar quality, of looking slightly off-center of where my own aspirations lie. I was attracted to these communities in part because they have a similar grass-roots, experimental feel that I’d known in the ecovillage. But really, these communities are simply where the action’s at. This is where the light is shining. This is where, I believe, the seeds of new forms of religious life have been fruitfully sown and are beginning to sprout. These community-sprouts, moreover, attract me as wonderful containers wherein shared lives of integrated action and contemplation can flourish. Therefore, putting together the pieces of valuing intentional communities as centers of education and formation, and the desire to strengthen the contemplative dimension of these new Christian communities, I am developing a contemplative curriculum that can be integrated into an intentional community’s formation process. I am presently honing the specifics of “the what” (the content) of this curriculum and “the where”  it will be implemented (a specific community, hopefully). As I am still waiting to confirm certain possibilities, I can’t divulge details as yet. But I’ll leave you with a hint…

I’ll be in California for Christmas!

Yes, I am home! In fact, I arrived in Collegeville, Minnesota, a month ago. I’ve refrained from telling you until now because my brain has felt like it’s just been abruptly removed from a washing machine. I’ve wanted to say something that might sum up the journey but my thoughts have been rapidly moving targets, and any attempt to pin down a coherent perspective quickly bursts into a kaleidoscope of fluid impressions. I originally intended this month before my last semester of theological studies to be one of thoughtful reflection on what I’ve gleaned over this tour of communities. I’ve found instead that the best I can do is to let the psychic tumult, after bringing 14 months of living on the road to a sudden halt, to settle by itself, without my interference, into patterns of understanding, and questions and aspirations that spur me to explore further. Practically speaking, this has meant long walks and long naps more than hard thinking. Fruitful dormancy.

I needed to stop. Actually, I could have kept on bicycle-camping. I grew so comfortable with the predictable yet always unique daily rhythms that they became interwoven with my sense of identity. I bicycle-camp, therefore I am. The community visits were becoming exhausting, however. I am highly sensitive to physical and emotional environments, and so with every new community my psyche was hard at work beneath the surface, constantly sensing, adjusting, and readjusting. This subtle activity often made sleep difficult. And just as I was growing accustomed to one community, I was off to the next. Yes, exhausting.

Now, after a month of stability, the dust is settling, patterns are beginning to emerge, and aspirations are stepping forth to lure me into the future—a future, in fact, that begins next Wednesday, with the first classes of the new semester. For simplicity’s sake, I want to name three themes that stand out most to me at this time: economy, education, and contemplation.

With Mandy Creighton and Ryan Mlynarczyk, whose own bicycle tour of ecovillages inspired my tour of communities, at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, Rutledge, Missouri

Community and Economics

Of all the interviews that touched on this subject, I was most moved by my conversation with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the example of his community in Durham, North Carolina, Rutba House. In this regard, I think of David Janzen’s reflection that there are two basic motivations that draw people to community: a vision of a better way to live than what the dominant culture presupposes, and/or the desire to heal amidst communal bonds and a meaningful way of life. I have certainly been drawn to community by both of these motivations. In terms of the first—the aspiration to live into a particular vision of life—I think it’s quite common for people to subject themselves to somewhat narrow parameters of possibility because too many structural elements that make up their lives are taken for granted. For instance, while it’s true that monastic spirituality has been spilling over the cloister walls and monastic practices are being appropriated into lives that include family and work and the general round of worldly responsibilities, rarely does this appropriation sink so deep that social and economic structures are changed in significant ways. Monastic (Benedictine) Oblates, for instance, may incorporate liturgy, Lectio Divina, contemplative prayer, some degree of community, yet still remain relatively autonomous (like the majority in our society) in their socioeconomic status, alone or with their families. This, in spite of the fact that the Rule that is their guiding inspiration prescribes a radical sharing of goods, to the extent of naming private ownership a grave evil!

Communities like Rutba House take the appropriation of monastic practices to this more fundamental structural level, of sharing goods in common (a modified common purse) and using those shared resources to love their neighbors and rejuvenate their neighborhoods in concrete ways. As I see it, this may be the particular gift of the new monasticism to the evolving monastic tradition, especially as it expands beyond the cloister to include families and others deeply engaged in the wider community: the development of new structures of shared living that take the material, social, and economic dimensions of monastic life as seriously as prayer and spirituality. In fact, they are doing something quite profound: demonstrating that prayer cannot be separated from economics, that spirituality has no meaning without being a force for breaking down social barriers. Hence, I am inclined to agree with Mike Brantley who perceives new communities such as Rutba House and Communitas, and new orders such as InnerCHANGE, as the “reconnaissance mission” wending their way through new territory, laying down the systems and structures that will allow those who follow to function and flourish in new forms of religious life.

What every community needs: Jesse working the bar at the Milkweed Merchantile, Daincing Rabbit Ecovillage

Community and Education

On the cusp of reengaging classes after over a year of highly organic, improvised, practical learning, I’ve been thinking a great deal about education. Let me just march out my bias up front: I don’t believe school is a very good place to learn for most children and adults, and especially in terms of learning a subject like theology that cuts so close to identity, purpose, and matters of ultimate meaning. I recognize that many will disagree with me, and I accept that there are those who do thrive in a holistic way in academic environments (meaning, they’re enriched and transformed by academic study as whole persons). In a superficial sense, I also thrive. I am good at school. I get good grades. I know how to jump through the right hoops. But inwardly I am painfully aware of how little this flurry of activity penetrates the surface. In fact, I spent 19 years before arriving at my first college class after high school. Yet I was not idle during that extended hiatus. Far from it! I was highly engaged in my education, though you wouldn’t know it by my resume. Rather than school, I instinctively sought out learning experiences that were as practical as they were reflective, and that were embodied in a way of life. In other words, I sought intentional community as a context for education because I instinctively knew that context educates more than content.

When I wanted to pursue my love of creation, I spent 2 ½ years in an ecovillage. I had little desire to study “ecology” as a compartmentalized subject. When I wanted to deepen my meditation practice and live according to Buddhist values, I spent a year in a Zen Buddhist meditation center. Emphasizing intellectual study in this regard would have been, in the words of one Zen teacher, like “scratching your left foot when your right foot itches.” Now, with 3 years of graduate studies under my belt, I can safely say that my learning in community has been more profound in its own way than what I can glean through school. I simply don’t learn well unless intellectual reflection is closely tethered to and integrated with doing and seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling and immersion in a whole way of life.

Contextual education in community that organically integrates action and reflection, with room for self-direction and spontaneity—that’s my aim, both as a lifelong learner and as an aspiring educator. And the person whose work has inspired me the most in this regard through the course of this tour is Mark Scandrette. I find his model of “learning laboratories,” and the insight that learning Christianity needs to be like learning a martial art that requires practical training, deeply resonant with my own thoughts on what makes for meaningful education. Additionally, many of the communities I’ve visited have various forms of internships, apprenticeships, and formation processes. At the same time, I sense that many communities are looking to grow in their capacity to form and educate their own members and those who come to them seeking to learn. Hence, I see tremendous potential in this new generation of Christian communities to develop as centers of education and formation, perhaps even affiliating with academic institutions.

Camp-Cat waits.

Alright, it’s late and I need to go to bed soon, so I will leave community and contemplation and thoughts on where I go from here for another day. I’ll post what I’ve written so far because…well, a month after I’ve completed the tour that’s been the scaffolding of this whole endeavor, I have to say something!

Scott Bessenecker is Assistant Director of Missions for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an interdenominational university student ministry, and has been involved with InterVarsity’s overseas mission projects since 1986. He has written numerous articles for publications such as RELEVANT and Mission Maker magazines, and is the author of New Friars; How to Inherit the Earth; and editor of Living Mission. Inspired by folks like Viv Grigg and others who see the need for a new kind of Protestant monasticism to take root to serve  urban slums, Scott developed the Global Urban Trek, through which takes young people overseas into slum communities to live with, to serve, and to learn from those embedded in poverty. In this way, Scott seeks to foster what he perceives the Holy Spirit doing in our day: inspiring a new generation of young Christians to bind themselves to the lives and struggles of the urban poor. Drawing a connection to the movement stirred up by Saint Francis of Assisi during the rapid urbanization of the 13th century, Scott refers these contemporary missional young people as “new friars.” He lives with his wife, Janine, and their three children, Hannah, Philip, and Laura, in Madison, Wisconsin.

In our conversation, Scott outlines the similarities and differences between the new friars and their close cousins in the new monasticism movement. Both are ecumenical in composition, led largely by young, Western evangelicals who seek to learn from the classic religious orders; both embody a similar, downwardly-mobile, communal solidarity with the poor. Yet, while new monastics are most often drawn into local Western communities, emphasizing stability of place, the new friars tend to be drawn into the world as if by a centrifugal, outward-moving energy and global vision. Similarly, Scott distinguishes between the new friars and conventional Protestant missions. While the latter have tended to reflect a modern Northern European capitalistic, individualistic, product-driven value system, the new friars—valuing community, contemplation, and ongoing spiritual growth—are seeking to create new wineskins outside the old structures. In discussing his work with young people through Global Urban Trek, Scott emphasizes our need to detox from the spiritual sickness engendered by affluence in order to learn rightful dependence on Jesus Christ and to walk in solidarity with the poor. Scott also speaks of the rediscovery of contemplation and spiritual direction among Evangelicals, and the necessary reciprocal relationship between activism and contemplation. Finally, while recognizing that the new friars may remain relatively small in numbers, Scott voices his confidence that the movement will not only endure but have an impact far exceeding its size, helping urban youth develop a prophetic imagination for what God’s kingdom can look like in slum communities.

Organizations associated with the new friars movement: Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor (see my interview with Craig Greenfield of Servant’s Vancouver); InnerCHANGE (see Catherine Rundle of InnerCHANGE Los Angeles and Mike Brantley of Communitas, New Orleans); Word Made Flesh; Servant Partners; and Urban Neighbours of Hope.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

David Janzen’s experience in Christian intentional community spans the greater part of four decades. In the early ‘70s, David and his family helped found New Creation Fellowship in Newton, Kansas. In 1984, they moved to Reba Place Fellowship, an urban, income-sharing community founded in 1957 in Evanston, Illinois, affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. Since coming to Reba Place Fellowship, David has assisted in the community’s refugee asylum project, served on their leadership team, directed an affordable housing ministry, and is currently focusing his energies on mentoring the new generation of communities associated with the new monasticism movement. He is the author of two books, each the fruit of visiting and researching Christian intentional communities throughout North America: Fire, Salt and Peace: Intentional Christian Communities Alive in North America (Good Books, November 1996) and the forthcoming Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus (Paraclete Press, November 2012). The latter, due for publication this fall, reflects David’s responses to questions gathered from visits with contemporary communities, arranged in a developmental sequence according to the needs and concerns of communities at various stages of growth, including advice for those seeking community.

In our conversation, David and I discuss the three historical waves of North American Christian intentional communities to the present: from the energetic idealism and experimentation of the 60s and early 70s, to the less visible but more stable emergence of communities in the 80s and 90s, to the current generation of new monastics eager to learn from those who came before them. While all share a common bond in Christian faith, many inspired by the radical social and economic template laid out in the Sermon on the Mount and the description of the early Jerusalem community in the Acts of the Apostles, each wave has its distinct characteristics, reflecting the social context and concerns of their day. David weighs in on the particular strengths of the current generation, especially their identification with the wider Christian communal tradition, namely monasticism, and their enthusiastic welcome of the help of their elders. On the other hand, deluged by the seemingly unlimited options of our hypermobile culture, and often enough coming from broken households themselves, the current generation tends to bear a woundedness and a reticence toward stable commitments that require special attention.

David also traces the development of three related networks of communities of which he’s been a part: the Shalom Association of Communities (1972-85), Shalom Mission Communities (1996-present), and his current work with the Nurturing Communities Project. The latter reflects the efforts of a dozen or so communities, in light of the needs of the current groundswell of new monastic communities, to establish new community-networks in order to provide help, encouragement, and accountability for one another. In fact, members from participating communities (approximately 50 people) will be meeting this September at Saint John’s Benedictine Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, to explore possibilities and learn from the monks who are hosting them.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Laird Schaub (community and consensus blog) and Ma’ikwe Schaub Ludwig (www.maikwe.net) are members of neighboring Sandhill Farm and Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, respectively, in Rutledge, Missouri. Laird co-founded Sandhill Farm in 1974 as an egalitarian, income-sharing farming community, and is one of the creators and current administrator of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, an organization committed to nurturing and promoting intentional communities worldwide. He has worked as a group process consultant for 25 years, providing training in consensus facilitation, conflict resolution, and communication skills. Ma’ikwe is author of Passion as Big as a Planet, which explores the connection between the inner and outer dimensions of ecological activism. She is a consensus facilitation trainer, often working together with Laird, directs Ecovillage Education US, and gives workshops on starting communities, leadership, and spiritual activism. She is the mother of a teenage son and expresses her passion for people and planet through helping Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage grow into its vision of a full-scale, ecologically regenerative village and center for research and education.

In our conversation, Laird, Ma’ikwe, and I discuss the consequences of communities lacking a common understanding and agreements around how to handle emotionally-charged conflict. We explore the strengths and weaknesses often exhibited in communities with a shared spiritual orientation, and the challenge of bringing the full range of human modes of knowing into the room—including emotional, kinesthetic, intuitive, and spiritual—in a culture that is heavily biased toward translating all forms of knowledge and experience into clear thinking. Laird talks about his experiences working with communities and the most common causes of group conflict he encounters, such as scapegoating (the contagious belief that “things would be better if only so-and-so would…”) and the tendency of groups to harden themselves around particular narratives. Finally, Laird and Ma’ikwe speak of the advantages Christian teachings offer in establishing healthy relational and communication habits in community, and of the spiritual benefits of consensus process and decision-making, and its congruence with a Christian sacramental worldview—of God in all things.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

With Mother Hilary Crupi OJN

The Order of Julian of Norwich Monastery in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has been on my radar screen for some years now. In fact, when I entered the novitiate at New Camaldoli Hermitage, I took the name Julian after Julian of Norwich, a 14th century Englishwoman who lived as an anchoress, or solitary, attached to the Church of Saint Julian in Norwich, England. Reading Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love had such a profound impact on me, especially in her portrayal of God as completely devoid of all forms of violence, that I realized that part of my life’s work was to live into her radically subversive vision of God’s love. Consequently, I was excited to learn of a monastic order committed to living out the vitality of this vision in the context of a shared life of contemplation, liturgy, and manual labor. Founded in 1985 by Fr. John-Julian Swanson OJN as a contemplative monastic order within the Episcopal Church, the Order of Julian of Norwich weaves various threads of traditional sources (Cistercian, Benedictine, Carmelite) under the guiding inspiration of the words, witness, and enduring spirit of Julian of Norwich.

Photo by Scott Langley

Imagine Benedictine monasteries hosting conferences and providing help to lay people looking to incorporate monastic values and practices into their lives. Nothing new, you say. People have been flocking to such monasteries, especially over the past couple of decades, gleaning wisdom and guidance on contemplative prayer, Lectio Divina, liturgy of the hours, and other portable practices. For now, though, let’s reconfigure this image so that these particular practices passed on to lay people are first located in their monastic context. What might it look like, then, for monks and nuns to transmit the more foundational principles and practices of their way of life, such as common ownership and structures that break down inherited socioeconomic divisions between people?  In other words, what forms might such a monasticism-in-the-world take that, like Saint Benedict and the tradition he consolidated in his Rule, understood concern with economic realities to be as intrinsic to a life of prayer as prayer itself?

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is Associate Minister at the historically African-American St. Johns Baptist Church, directs the School for Conversion, a nonprofit organization that educates people in Christian community, and has authored a handful of books, including God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel, The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture, and a contemporary paraphrasing and commentary to The Rule of Saint Benedict. Jonathan is also editor of the New Monastic Library Series (Cascade Books) and associate editor of the Resources for Reconciliation Series (InterVarsity Press).

In 2003, Jonathan and his wife Leah co-founded the new monastic community Rutba House in the Walltown neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina (the community is named after the town of Rutba, Iraq, where injured members of their Christian Peacemaker Team were given medical care in a hospital that had been bombed by U.S. forces only three days prior). The community at present consists of two houses and fourteen members (including four children) who share a common life of daily prayer, meals, mutual support, hospitality, and active peacemaking.  They live by a modified common-purse economy, working full or part time and contributing 30-40% of their income to the community. These shared resources in turn cover not only all household expenses (including a car co-op) but also enable them to provide meals, housing, and other forms of hospitality to homeless or struggling friends in the neighborhood.

Rutba House Members and Friends

In our conversation, Jonathan and I discuss the meaning of monastic social and economic relocation in the context of today’s largely urban, non-cloistered new monasticism movement, especially as lived at Rutba House.  For the 4th century monastics of the Egyptian desert, this relocation represented a physical flight from the dominant culture into uninhabited places, in order to focus unerringly upon the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to confront more directly the spiritual forces at work in the world and in themselves. As an heir to this tradition, in the 6th century, Saint Benedict of Nursia configured this relocation in the context of self-contained, cloistered monastic communities. For today’s new monastics, Jonathan believes, the call to relocation is not primarily to uninhabited regions or even to cloistered, celibate monastic communities, but rather to set down roots as families and single people living together in the ‘abandoned places’: those areas scarred by social, cultural, and economic marginalization.

Drawing on monastic sources as well as contemporary civil rights wisdom, particularly John Perkins and the Christian Community Development Association movement, Jonathan speaks about how Rutba House has concretely sought to take the values of relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution seriously. We discuss the community’s in-house economy and its outflow to the neighborhood, and the ways in which this outflow has fostered forgiveness and friendships based on trust, in place of suspicion. In fact, Jonathan uses the language of repentance to describe this deliberate movement of taking responsibility for inherited economic and racial privilege, and seeking to break down these barriers that divide the family of God. For Jonathan, this movement of small, inconspicuous, locally-rooted intentional communities embodies the kind of transformative social engagement, the leaven within the dough, practiced and prescribed by Jesus in the Gospels and by monastics in every age, according to the particular needs of their time and place.

Other people, places, and things mentioned in this interview: 12 Marks of the New Monasticism; S. Margaret McKenna of the Medical Missionary Sisters; New Jerusalem Laura; John Cassian on the Three Renunciations.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

60 miles out of Little Rock, by late evening I found myself on a horrendous, loose-gravel road just north of Kensett, Arkansas. I would precariously pedal for 50 yards or so before the front wheel would slip out from under me. At least half the time, this meant that I simply crashed to the ground since I couldn’t get my feet out of the clips in time. On the whole, then, in fits and starts, I lurched along at about four miles per hour. And each time I’d hit the ground, I’d let out a torrent of curses that would make an Italian sailor blush! Finally, wisely, after fighting for a couple miles, I gave up. I looked to my right and found a break in the woods between the road and the railroad tracks. I tucked in 30 yards from the road, out of sight, and a mere 30 yards from the tracks as well. Not a bad campsite overall, though I would have slept better were it not for the dozen or so trains that passed through the night and shook the ground beneath me like rolling bundles of thunder!

Incidentally, given that the principle virtue that engenders safe, satisfying stealth camping is discretion, strategically speaking, I wouldn’t recommend hurling hair-raising profanities into the dusk of a quiet rural community before settling in for the night.

The following evening I enjoyed some of the best riding of the tour through the foothills of the Ozarks. I glided effortlessly along a ribbon-route, dipping through forest and lake and then bobbing to the surface again to enjoy a wide-angle view of sprawling, jagged tree-topped waves of green. At one point, I passed a boy waving and shouting enthusiastically to me from his porch below. I looked and saw several adults with him, and so turned into the drive and asked if they could either let me camp on their land or recommend another place for the night. One of the men pointed me to a city park in Mount Pleasant a couple miles further. Arriving ten minutes later, I pitched my tent in a discrete spot behind the park, introduced and explained myself to a couple of locals who were running and lifting weights there, and enjoyed a quiet, restful night at last.

City Park, Mount Pleasant, Arkansas

(For parents who find the above image…well, somewhat troubling, let me assure you that it is exceedingly unlikely that there are bicycle tourers lurking in the underbrush behind your local playground! And in the rare case that there are, they should be departing early morning without leaving a trace.)

Poolside Camping, Lanton, Missouri

Upon crossing the Missouri border the following evening, I once again found myself cruising through pristine rolling hills with minimal traffic. Looking for a place to camp for the night, I spied a man, Peter, sitting beside a small catfish pond in front of a campground, enjoying the dusk. I rolled over the grass toward him and we chatted about hiking and biking and the like. A native of Austria, at 75, Peter still bikes 20 miles a day after years of hiking and mountain-climbing. At one point in the conversation, I asked him how much he charged for tent-camping. He said $20 but told me to name a price. I offered $5 but he wasn’t going below $10. We continued to chat awhile longer, and then I filled up my water bottles, intent to push on to find free camping. As I straddled my bike to leave, he invited me to camp for $5. I took advantage of the facilities, delighting in a hot shower (as opposed to sponge-bathing in the woods with a single water-bottle’s content of water [the other two being reserved for drinking and food-prep] while simultaneously shooing away mosquitoes)—a real stealth-camping luxury!

South of Houston, Missouri

The next night proved to be one of the more dramatic of the tour. I’ve learned that, if you want someone to stop and give you directions in a decent-sized rural town, just stand at the intersection of the town-center looking confused. So I planted myself on the corner of Main Street and U.S. Hwy. 17 in Willow Springs, MO, and waited. Within a minute or two, Jim parked his motorcycle next to me and offered his services. After learning that I study theology, he excitedly removed his helmet, dismounted, and told me he spends 8-9 hours a day with his New King James Bible and Strong’s Concordance. An unusual conversation on biblical history and interpretation ensued. Finally, we got down to business. He gave me some great advice for a route and even recommended a place to camp. Eighteen miles later, I found the turnoff he suggested, leading to a creek below. I set up my tent and was satisfied. However, as I was getting ready to sleep, I checked the weather forecast. 30-40% chance of scattered thunderstorms! And because I anticipated a hot and muggy night, I had left the rainfly off. I peered into the night sky. Clear. I’d take my chances and enjoy the cool breeze without protection. Ten minutes later, I noticed flashes of light from the north playing on the trees above. I was in no mood to get out of the tent, so I tried to apply the psychology of denial. “It’s just my eyes adjusting to the dark…no…it’s the headlights of northbound traffic,” I tried to convince myself. But of course, it was neither. Resigning myself to reality, I crawled out of the tent, ran up to the road to survey the situation (naked except for shoes!) and caught an utterly fantastic electrical storm dancing in the clouds headed my way. I ran back down to the tent and, rather than put on the rainfly, simply dragged everything under the bridge. The rain came, the wind howled, lightening and thunder struck, but I stayed dry.

After sulking out of the tent the next morning on very little sleep, I set off and pedaled another sixty miles. Upon arriving in the city of Rolla, I spied a large park run by the Lions Club: frisbee golf, a large lake with a fountain and bridges, gazebos, multiple playgrounds, walking trails, covered picnic tables galore with functioning electrical outlets, porta-potties, and as I was to discover later, unsecured Wi-Fi blanketing the whole park! A veritable stealth-camper’s paradise! I was preparing dinner in one of the picnicking areas when a local named Don approached me. I asked him what he thought of my camping for the night in the park, and if he had any advice. He thought it was a fine idea and, after talking with me, took the matter to one of the “lions” lounging about the place. He returned shortly thereafter to relate to me that the lions don’t care, but the police who patrol the park at night might, so just keep out of sight of the road. Later that night, having set up my tent tucked in along the tree line of the park, the patrol came shining bright spotlights into the park’s nooks and crannies. And they were thorough!

Hobbit Hideout, Rolla Lions Club Park

Now, here was the problem—my tarp still lay out in the open grass and would likely be seen. With no time to hesitate, spotlights already raking dangerously close to the spot, I ran for the tarp, grabbed hold, ran back and dove into the woods, crouching in the dark while the spotlights sprayed the trees. In truth, both I and my tent were well hidden, but the imagination reeled! Think hobbit running from orcs in The Lord of the Rings! Think human hiding from Agents in The Matrix! How exhilarating! In fact, I was so in love with this place that I took the following day off and spent a second night. I tried to stage another close-call near-chase scene but no such luck. The patrol never came round a second time.

You see, when I talk about stealth camping to non-tourers, their first thought is that I’m placing myself in danger. But the fact is that, over thousands of miles, I’ve never met with any trouble worth mentioning. Surprisingly, I felt most vulnerable on this tour while house-sitting alone in a rural home. Here I was, after all, in a large structure that virtually screamed to all comers, “He’s in here!” In contrast, the majority of my stealth-camping sites render me invisible. In fact, even if a person knew in general where I was camped, they’d still have a very difficult time locating the specific place even if they tried. Of course, there’s always a twinge of insecurity while searching for a site each night, but by the time I get settled in, I usually feel very secure as far as humans are concerned. Animals may be another story, but aside from being kept awake by the occasional inquisitive armadillo or other harmless creature, the worst animal experience I’ve had is having a raccoon eat my granola. In the absence of real excitement, then, I found it refreshing to be able to manufacture at least a moment’s high drama in the shadow of the lions.

As for the lions themselves, they didn’t care.

Coming soon: a highly thought-provoking podcast interview with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove of Rutba House in Durham, North Carolina, on relocation, redistribution, and economic repentence.

Next stop: Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage/Sandhill Farm in Rutledge, Missouri.

Here’s how it happened.

I arrived at Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, on Holy Thursday, and found myself in the midst of an Easter Triduum retreat. That evening I attended a talk given by one of the monks and was pierced to the heart. It wasn’t precisely the content of what he said but in what was behind the words: over 60 years in monastic vows, in touch with the latest developments in theology and cosmology, able to spontaneously weave those insights into a lively, engaging conversation—in short, his words and his bearing bore witness to a longstanding, loving commitment to the gift of his vocation. My experience of this encounter prodded and clarified something I’d been wrestling with throughout this tour, and immediately after the talk I sought out the resident spiritual director while the matter was still fresh.

You see, in the retreat house of this monastery there is a room. And within this room sits a woman quietly knitting until someone takes a seat beside her and initiates a conversation. And although she is physically blind, I am convinced that her role within this monastery is analogous to that of the Oracle within the Matrix—the one who sees! I entered the room, poured out my heart, spoke of my longing for that inner wellspring of stability, as well as its outpouring in stable relationships and commitments, and she responded, simply and confidently, “You need to stop. You need a time of stability. You’ve been Martha for so long that you need to take time to be Mary simply sitting at the feet of Jesus. You need to listen to what the God who loves you is communicating to you through all of these experiences.” Specifically, she suggested the monastery’s monastic guest program, wherein I could stay on a month-to-month basis in a work-exchange arrangement, living the monastic rhythms and steeping myself in prayer, silence, community, and simple labor.

At first, I balked at her suggestion. After all, I had responsibilities! I had communities to visit and a podcast to produce! In fact, I had a handful of audio files begging for my attention. How could I let all of that go for even a single month? But the seed had been planted, and after successive visits with her throughout the weekend, on Easter Sunday I decided to take the plunge and spend a month at the monastery. In the meantime, I would have to leave and return in a week. Amazingly, a friend serendipitously offered a house-sitting gig in a small rural town 60 miles away for just that amount of time! I bicycled to her empty house that day, settled in with plenty of coffee, lentils, and rice, and got to business transcribing and editing the last 4 podcast episodes, scheduling their publication in advance, one episode per week, while I remained off-line in the monastery—the first time I’d been able to unplug in a whole year!

In both personal reflections and reflections on community, I’ve kept returning to the themes of stability and commitment. And indeed I think these are the key lines of intersection between the tour of communities and personal pilgrimage, issues that I and so many in our culture struggle with in our lives and relationships, that are so integral to community living. To speak more personally about my own struggles, by my seventeenth birthday I had been placed for adoption twice, endured two divorces in two unrelated families, and for all intents and purposes had no real family left to call my own. I was primed, then, for life in hyper-flux, without stable points of reference or relationship. Ten years later, while on a Zen meditation retreat, all the various living situations I’d had since leaving home began parading themselves before my mind’s eye, and I decided to count them. I was stunned: between the ages of 17 and 27, I had moved 27 times. Yes, I realize that sounds like a virtual mathematical impossibility, and I really don’t know how I managed to move approximately every 4 ½ months. But I did. And this realization was a wake-up call. I needed to learn to live differently.

In the years since that meditation retreat, while I haven’t stayed in one place, I am satisfied that I’ve learned to move more mindfully, and discern wisely where I choose to live and why. However, that moment on retreat wouldn’t be the last time this alarm would ring to alert me that something was amiss in my life, that I needed to change my way of living. In fact, that alarm has been sounding throughout this journey.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t plan to suffer a major loss and disillusionment just before setting out on this tour. I didn’t anticipate that this disillusionment in a personal relationship would spiral inward and, with surgical precision, expose layers of self-delusion, self-defeating motivations, and fantasies that have dominated my life. I could not have foreseen that this journey of self-knowledge would open a seeming abyss beneath my feet, revealing a continuing pattern of a lack of commitment, stability, and intentional engagement that is in fact far more subtle and interior than merely learning to stay in place. And I could not have foreseen the degree to which the communities I’ve visited and the people I’ve met on this tour would serve as intimate mirrors throughout this process, exposing areas of pain and longing in my own life, while pointing to a more fulfilling and fruitful way to live.

I was aware of this emerging inner tumult from the start, and in fact have taken occasional time off the road or from communities, seeking space for reflection, prayer, and guidance. But in each of those instances, the timing seemed somehow off-the-mark, and in any case I was still involved with the podcast and blog.  Now, however, at the monastery, rather than relying on my own initiative, I had responded to an unexpected invitation from a spiritual guide to come and rest in God, and with such auspicious liturgical timing! In fact, I do believe that this past Easter Triduum has marked the end of a certain kind of momentum that had been propelling me, and the beginning of a new stage of the journey.

The month in the monastery was a wonderful reprieve from the constant improvisation, adaptation, and unpredictability of the tour. I reveled in the unhindered periods of silence and solitude, while simple manual labor and friendship with the monks provided a necessary, nourishing balance. And of course, I continued to receive wise spiritual guidance throughout. As the time drew nearer to set out on the road again, I had begun to obscurely sense what the whole self-stripping process of this tour has been leading me toward all along: a gentle invitation to entrust myself in faith, hope, and love to the One who had led me though being reduced to a mere pile of disjointed bones, and who was now prepared to weave me back together.

Throughout this journey, I had been under the assumption that the tour of communities was the primary story and the personal pilgrimage the underlying subtext. In truth, the order has been the reverse. I would even go so far as to say that I was likely responding more to the divine invitation to transformation when I began the tour, whether I realized this or not, than to my interest in exploring intentional communities. At the same time, these two aspects of the journey have been deeply interwoven in ways that I anticipate will bear surprising fruit in the months and years to come. However, at this point I cannot anticipate the forms this fruit will take and can only relax into the invitation to trust the wisdom and love that has enfolded these travels all along.

You may be inferring at this point that the tour is over, and if so, you are perhaps partly correct. What has ended, at least this is my hope, is the restless grasping for what-I-do-not-know that has possessed me till this point. What remains is a more playful, open-ended tour of just a handful more communities that I am eager to visit, with no expectations or problems to solve, but with a posture of curiosity and the anticipation of discovery. What remains is a walk in the dark.

On Pentecost Sunday, I pedaled from the monastery with hopefully less baggage than when I arrived. And so the journey rolls on.

I pray…

Lord, thank you for sending your Angel of Disillusionment and the Vultures of Self-Knowledge as my faithful companions throughout my travels. The Angel has ensured that I’ve been stripped of all sense of direction apart from that of unknowing faith, while the Vultures have stripped my flesh to the bone, not even sparing the ligaments.

Lord, thank you for reducing me to a pile of dry bones. I trust that you have something more in mind than that I return from this journey a mere pile of bones on a bicycle seat. Rather, in ways that I cannot see or comprehend from my narrow perch in this strange and fragile human life, I trust that even now you are weaving a new garment of flesh and a new heart, animated by your Breath.

Lord, apart from you I am nothing, can do nothing, can know nothing. You are the question and the response that haunts me in the dark of night. You are the Ray of Darkness that illumines my steps even when I appear to be faltering.

Lord, all that I have and all that I am is yours, and into your hands I entrust all.

Ever since my first major bicycle tour 20 years ago, bicycle touring has become a central recurring theme in my dreams. In fact, I find myself bicycle touring in dreams so often that from time to time I’ve wondered whether my dream-self is simply on bicycle tour all the time, and that the places I dream of are places I’ve arrived at by bicycle. The other night, in my dreams, I was in such a place, a stopover on a bicycle tour. In this dream, my dream-self was enjoying incredibly vivid, sensuous memories of previous places passed through on bicycle tour. And as I began to wake, still in that liminal space between dreaming and full waking consciousness, I continued to savor these vivid memories, never doubting their validity, until I realized with a start that I had never actually been to these places that, just a moment before, I had “remembered” with such stunning clarity and realism.

But my dream-self, tracing its own contiguous route through elastic landscapes, recognizes these places, these memories, without doubt.

Having just come from Koinonia Farm and gleaned from conversations there that, among some in the New Monasticism movement, there is a growing interest in connecting more deeply with the classic monastic tradition, I was eager to bring “old-school” monastics into the conversation. Here I speak with Cistercian monk Michael Lautieri, OCSO, current vocation director of Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. In our conversation, I asked Michael how neo-monastic communities might better learn from monasteries and the monastic tradition. He offers two concrete possibilities—monastics living temporarily with neo-monastic communities as teachers, and core members of neo-monastic communities spending time in temporary monastic guest programs such as that offered by Monastery of the Holy Spirit. In regard to learning from monasticism, Michael stresses the need to actually experience monastic life firsthand in order to understand the monastic charism. And while he emphasizes monasticism’s adaptability and flexibility according to culture, circumstance, and religion, he’s also clear on what he considers the constitutive elements of any form of monasticism: prayer, silence, solitude, manual labor, and community. Michael also shares his thoughts on what he anticipates for the future of monasticism (mirroring Ivan Kauffman’s conviction that the future of monastic communities lies in stronger bonds with lay people) and his enthusiasm over the broad interest among lay people today in incorporating a depth of spirituality into their lives through learning monastic values and practices.

Embedded in this interview are two questions that have come to the fore for me over the course of this tour of communities. The first question is, simply: what is monasticism? One concern I have is that the New Monasticism movement has been re-defining the very meaning of the word, often with little concrete input from or experience of the classic monastic tradition. While this re-definition process from a fresh perspective expands the monastic imagination, so to speak, sometimes I have difficulty understanding just what’s monastic about particular expressions of the New Monasticism. Hence, I want to carry this question of what constitutes the essentials of monasticism into future interviews with monastics “new” and “old,” and especially into my Monastic Studies program at Saint John’s School of Theology upon my return this fall. Thus far, I’ve received three direct responses to this question: Mary Ewing Stamps, leader of the Methodist-Benedictine Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery, emphasized the structural elements of stability of place, a leader, and a rule of life (incidentally, even though much of her own formation took place in a Benedictine monastic guest program similar to that offered by Monastery of the Holy Spirit, she prefers the idea of monastics coming to live as teachers with new communities in order to preserve the importance of a sense of place). Camaldolese-Benedictine monk Cyprian Consiglio, speaking from the eremitical (hermit) tradition and from years of involvement in monastic inter-religious dialogue, named the primacy of the interior life and contemplative practice as comprising the core of monasticism. And here, again, speaking from within the Cistercian tradition, Michael identifies the essential elements of monasticism as prayer, silence, solitude, manual labor, and community.

What these three monastics witness to is the fact that there is no definitive answer to the question of what constitutes the essentials of monasticism. Rather, there are many perspectives from within a shared body of experience that constellates around certain key features, while allowing for much diversity. Hence, I think Michael makes a crucially important point here: that monastic life cannot be adequately understood from the outside; it has to be lived. And to reiterate an observation I’ve made in earlier posts, this gap of experience between the classic Christian monastic tradition and the New Monasticism contrasts with new expressions of Buddhist communities in the West, in so much as the latter have mostly developed directly from what has been passed down from Asian monastic teachers; the lineage of tradition remains unbroken. Which brings me to my second question, reflecting my conviction that the classic Christian monastic tradition and the New Monasticism have much to offer one another:

How might this gap of experience between the classic Christian monastic tradition and the New Monasticism be bridged? And why? What does each have to offer the other?

Stay tuned…

Books mentioned or alluded to in the interview: Monastic Practice, by Charles Cummings, OCSO; Consecrated Religious Life: The Changing Paradigms, by Diarmuid O’Murchu 

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

“I don’t know whether you’ve ever walked over a piece of ground that could almost cry out to you and say, ‘Heal me, heal me!’ I don’t know whether you feel the closeness to the soil that I do. But when you fill in those old gullies and terrace the fields and you begin to feel the springiness of the sod beneath your feet and you see that old land come to life, and when you walk through a little old pine forest that you set out in little seedlings and now you see them reaching for the sky and hear the wind through them; when you walk a little further over a bit of ground where your child is buried, and you go on over to a hill where your children and all the many visitors have held picnics. When you walk across a creek where you’ve bathed in the heat of the summer. Men say to you “Why don’t you sell it and move away?” They might as well ask you, “Why don’t you sell your mother?” Somehow God has made us out of this old soil and we go back to it and we never lose its claim on us. It isn’t a simple matter to leave it.”

—Koinonia Farm co-founder Clarence Jordan

Yet another sign of rebirth and renewal at Koinonia Farm. Shortly after Brendan Prendergast’s arrival at Koinonia with his wife Sarah and their daughter Ida in 2006 (a second daughter, Kellan, would be born within the year), the community heard and blessed his passion for the land and entrusted him with the management of their 575 acres of farmland. A significant portion of that land had for years been committed to pecan production, and Brendan envisioned how to integrate their staple crop within a broader design plan through application of the principles of permaculture.

Permaculture design was first developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s in Tasmania, Australia, and has since evolved into a flexible set of practical principles built around the core ethics of earth care, people care, and fair distribution. The aim of these principles is to design regenerative landscapes that also take into consideration the social and economic aspects of any human settlement, in all climates and contexts, including urban environments. In fact, in our discussion, Brendan expresses his surprise when permaculture teacher and Earthaven Ecovillage member Chuck Marsh devoted most of his initial consultation with the community on matters of business structures and interpersonal dynamics.

Pineywoods Cattle under the Pecan Trees

Since their initial consultation with Chuck, Koinonia Farm has hosted permaculture and natural building courses with Patricia Allison (also of Earthaven Ecovillage), Cliff Davis of Spiral Ridge Permaculture, and Wayne Weiseman of the Permaculture Project LLC, among other instructors. These workshops have provided opportunities for community members and others to receive hands-on training in the application of permaculture principles, while also inviting the input of a diverse range of people in tackling various design possibilities on the land.

Pecan Orchards at Koinonia Farm

In our conversation, Brendan speaks of how he first encountered permaculture through friends while living and working in Cincinnati, how permaculture design has taken root at Koinonia, and how connecting with God through God’s creation and through being a steward of the land is central to his Christian faith. He also offers specific examples of applied permaculture design at Koinonia, especially the introduction of livestock and the soil-enhancing and other benefits of their grazing among the pecan orchards.

Other resources mentioned in this interview: Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, by Bill Mollison

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

In this second half of my conversation with Bren Dubay, we speak of the rich tapestry of relations Koinonia Farm now enjoys, with communities already mentioned in the previous episode (Jubilee Partners, Reba Place Fellowship, Church of the Servant King) as well as with the Bruderhof, an early 20th century addition to the Anabaptist communal family tree (which also includes the Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, among others). Formed in Germany on the cusp of the rise of Nazism, the Bruderhof were expelled from their native country after refusing to allow Nazi teachers to instruct their children. Finding their way first to England, then Paraguay, the Bruderhof finally set roots in the United States with the help of Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm in the 1950s. Here, Bren tells the story of how this friendship between the two communities has recently, serendipitously been rekindled, and the intimate bond of mutual help and learning that’s rapidly emerging.

Koinonia Farm has also been adopted by the contemporary New Monasticism movement, who consider Koinonia one of its pioneering forerunners. In fact, Bren is part of a network of new monastic communities currently exploring how they might strengthen relations among themselves. She also expresses her strong conviction that this movement’s future lies not only in strengthened bonds with one another, but with the classic monastic tradition. To this end, the core members of Koinonia are currently engaged in a close reading of the Rule of Saint Benedict, with commentary by Joan Chittister, OSB, and plan to continue this practice of shared reading and discussion with other monastic literature. Several members also retreat at nearby Cistercian Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA.

Members of Koinonia Farm with Bruderhof Friends

In addition to these topics, Bren and I discuss communication and trust in community, and how she looks forward to the collective maturity that comes only with time, longstanding commitment, and patience.

What excites me most about Koinonia Farm at this time in their history is this unique confluence of influences: of its own profound spiritual legacy interfacing with that of the Bruderhof, representing the classic Anabaptist tradition (what Ivan Kauffman refers to as the “old” new monasticism), and the younger generation of communitarians involved in the New Monasticism. Koinonia Farm also exhibits the strongest inclination I’ve seen thus far toward seeking ways to learn from and build concrete relationships with the classic monastic tradition. Taken together, these factors render Koinonia Farm a key community to watch as the New Monasticism movement continues to evolve and reach for greater maturity and stability.

Other people and resources mentioned in this interview: Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, School(s) for Conversion.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

According to Bren Dubay, steward (vowed member) and current Director of Koinonia Farm, while the community enjoyed a certain kind of expansion and growth during the partnership housing era, the very forces underlying that expansion were at the same time subtly eroding the original communal vision. Short-term volunteers swelled the ranks through the late 60s and 70s, motivated more by a particular cause than by the aspiration to embody Christian koinonia, or community, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. As one longtime member succinctly described the scene, “The tail began to wag the dog.” Finally, in 1993, with the decision to reorganize Koinonia according to a more conventional non-profit business model, what remained of the original communal pattern of life was dismantled. Consequently, Koinonia’s focus grew more diffuse, and financial losses were suffered in the process of moving from a common-purse economy to paid employees. By 2003, it was clear that a fresh vision and new leadership for the community were needed. To this end, the Board of Directors sought to hire a new Executive Director. That’s where Bren enters the story.

Prior to her arrival at Koinonia Farm, Bren Dubay had worked and served as a spiritual director, retreat leader, playwright, Montessori educator, fundraiser, and development consultant. In May of 2003, she rather innocently took a group of students on a field trip to Americus, Georgia, to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. As they were preparing to leave, she reluctantly accepted an invitation to take the students to Koinonia Farm, Habitat’s birthplace. Unbeknownst to her, this visit would trigger a series of events that have since turned her life in a surprising, radically new direction. Within a year, in May of 2004, Bren moved to Koinonia as its new Executive Director. Within another year’s time, she was leading the community in a retrieval of its original communal inspiration.

Koinonia Farm Members and Friends

In our conversation, the first of two podcast episodes with Bren, she tells the story of her entering the stream of Koinonia’s rich, diverse history, the decision to return to the original communal vision and how that process has unfolded over the course of 7 years thus far, challenges and mistakes made along the way, and her own sense of inner peace amid the difficulties. We speak of particular changes, such as restructuring the Board of Directors to include one member apiece from 3 other Christian intentional communities; namely, Jubilee Partners in Comer, GA (a community that welcomes refugees from war-torn countries, founded by members of Koinonia in the late 70s), Reba Place Fellowship in Chicago, IL (inspired by Koinonia), and Church of the Servant King in Eugene, OR. Finally, Bren shares her joy in the revitalization of the community’s internship program as an expression of the founders’ intention that Koinonia serve as a “school of discipleship.” Through this program, and through other forms of hospitality, Koinonia Farm welcomes and feeds the spiritual hunger of a wide diversity of people, young and old and in between, of all manner of religious faiths or none at all.

What strikes me most in this part of my conversation with Bren is that hers is clearly a vocation story: of an unexpected invitation, of wrestling with the tension between wanting to say “no” yet knowing (without knowing why) to say “yes,” and of an underlying peace and mysterious satisfaction even through difficulties and trials. There’s humility and gratitude in the recognition of having received a graced opportunity to serve; and a posture of faith, even though the way forward may seem anything but clear at times. To my mind, these are the marks of true servant leadership, the branch grafted onto the Vine, and a vital sign of hope for Koinonia Farm’s uncharted future.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Mike Brantley returned to New Orleans, his native home, during Hurricane Katrina and, at the instigation of his wife Susanne, planted roots there a year later to pioneer Communitas, an ecumenical order of missional communities affiliated with InnerCHANGE and CRM. Up till this point, Mike had wrestled for years, as an Army officer and a pastor in various church contexts, with the fact that conventional models of “church” and “mission” simply weren’t reaching people in post-Christian Western culture. Influenced by the ancient Celtic monastic missionaries, the monastic orders, and a handful of people and communities involved in contemporary neo-monastic, New Friar, and missional movements (including some I’ve covered in this podcast, such as Church of the Sojourners, Mark Scandrette, and especially John Hayes and InnerCHANGE), in the ruins of post-Katrina New Orleans, Mike began to experiment in earnest with a model of church that integrates community and mission in a shared, committed way of life. At present, Communitas is comprised of residential communities embedded in three neighborhoods in New Orleans, and a fourth community in Valparaiso, Indiana. Mike is also known to be one heck of a lacrosse coach and is one of the most generous, warm-hearted people you’re likely to meet.

In my experience, Communitas typifies a model of church rooted in intentional relationships, with one another and with those in their neighborhoods. On the surface, especially to those of us accustomed to thinking of “church” as something that occurs in a place and time set apart from our ordinary daily round, and “mission” as applied strategies oriented toward re-making others according to our own religious convictions and ideals, this more diffuse, relational model may appear…well, kind of fuzzy. For instance, I spent one afternoon with a community member, Adam, who took me for a tour around town. We eventually settled in for deeper conversation at one of his “ministry spheres,” a local coffee shop. Better than any explanation he provided, simply watching how well he knew customers and employees alike, and how they spontaneously opened to him and shared about their lives, spoke reams of how a missional, communal church functions: real relationships, real caring, solidarity, and a posture of service and investment of one’s life in the lives of one’s neighbors. Whether or not such people choose to join the community for a meal or to pray, they know that the door is open, and are uplifted by authentic friendship. While members of Communitas may also participate in more conventional types of ministry, this overarching relational context renders them uniquely present and available, addressing real-world concerns through concrete relationships with those otherwise unaffiliated with Christian faith.

Adam also spoke in some detail of the formation he’s undergone as a member of Communitas, an aspect of their life that seems particularly thorough and well thought out. In fact, Mike attributes his past experiences as an Army officer with teaching him effective practices of formation that engender real transformation. He also draws upon a military analogy to explain the role of new communities and orders like Communitas in the church and world today: in the wake of ineffectual and outdated church structures, these pioneering communities are like the reconnaissance mission that forges ahead, tinkering, experimenting, and developing new systems and infrastructure for churches to come.

One concern that Mike brought to me involves finances. While some of the communities I’ve visited manage to meet most or all of their financial needs through support-raising (Servants Vancouver, InnerCHANGE Los Angeles), Communitas members work outside the community at least part-time. While this engenders a certain humility and provides a context for establishing themselves among and serving their neighbors, Mike laments that at present they’re not able to commit themselves fully to the mission to which they feel called, and as a consequence, their time and resources are often stretched to the hilt. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common challenge among lay intentional communities, with no easy solution.

In our conversation, in addition to topics already mentioned, Mike and I discuss the significance of being an order and learning from the classic religious orders; his hopefulness about younger generations; what he sees as the disintegration of Christendom and the opportunity for Christian communities to re-take their place on the margins as a subversive influence; what makes for healthy and unhealthy missional communities; the need for a greater emphasis on contemplative practice; and the satisfaction he takes in the risky venture of coloring outside the lines for the sake of the Kingdom. Typical of the relaxed, relational tone of so much of my experience of New Orleans, Mike and I lingered awhile outdoors over coffee, with a passer-by chiming in at one point, only to return to spontaneously lavish us with several loaves of bread on her next go-round.

Other people and resources mentioned in this interview: Stuart Murray; Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Filed under: Bicycle Touring Tagged: Monastery of the Holy Spirit ]]> http://emerging-communities.com/2012/04/06/conyers-georgia-gyrovague/feed/ 7 juls2456 http://emerging-communities.com/2012/03/26/whats-in-a-rule-learning-from-monasticism/ http://emerging-communities.com/2012/03/26/whats-in-a-rule-learning-from-monasticism/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:43:15 +0000 Julian Collette http://emerging-communities.com/?p=2380 ]]>

“The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves…Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight.“

—Dietrich Bonheoffer

I want to give voice here to a concern that’s been building in my mind. Two interviews that have had a strong impact on me, particularly in how I assess the relative structural health of a community, are my conversations with Lois Arkin on structural conflict, and with Lysbeth Borie on consensus process. Both interviews overlap in terms of content, but they especially converge on a common insight: that ideally, a core community should develop a clear self-understanding of its identity and mission as soon as possible, and develop structures (vision and mission statements, agreements and accountability systems, decision making processes, membership formation and discernment processes, etc.) that allow that self-understanding to grow and flourish, before opening its doors to newcomers.

Unfortunately, unless community founders have made a strong effort to inform themselves, or have extensive experience with groups analogous to an intentional community, they tend to begin with a flurry of idealistic enthusiasm and a boatload of naiveté. Which is to say, many communities don’t do the kind of necessary detail structural work at the beginning, and hence set themselves up for conflict down the road. For instance, most communities begin with sincere, passionate intentions. The buzz of shared chemistry and the excitement of a new, deeply meaningful venture may carry them forward to establish a seemingly-solid foundation. However, if by that time someone suggests that the community develop clear rules, boundaries, definitions, and so on, other members may balk. Too rigid, they say. Or legalistic. Or authoritarian, oppressive, repressive, etc. Besides, we all get along; we can work out our differences as we go, right?

Well, actually…

By the time a group has congealed around the impression that they’re on the same page, fired by the same aspiration, when the honeymoon-period abates and reality sets in and they begin to realize that they may not be as close to kin as they thought, the consequences could get ugly. At that critical threshold, if there aren’t clear, written agreements, if the vision and mission haven’t been spelled out in enough detail to ensure that everyone understands their meaning and implications, if there aren’t shared communication skills and conflict resolution procedures, if there’s no accountability to outside agents, if emotional maturity hasn’t been a primary criteria for selecting new members, then the consequences are likely to get very ugly indeed.

Now, contrast this unhappy picture with how a monastery functions. A Benedictine monastery, for instance, lives by a rule of life that regulates the daily round in some detail, leaving room for a certain autonomy and discernment on the basis of the culture, context, and temperament of a community, but nonetheless legislating a way of life that is extremely regimented and limiting by the standards of the dominant culture. Without this regimentation and limitation, however, the integrity of the charism, or spiritual intent of the community, would dissipate. Without clear limits and boundaries for the self-determining ego to bruise itself against, growth would be stifled. Contemporary sensibilities chafe at this idea, but that’s the point. Chafing against voluntarily chosen limitations for the sake of a way of life formed around higher principles, values, and intentions than impulsive freedom of choice engenders growth and maturity. Again, I do believe that this same basic orientation toward growth and maturity can function in a less formal community that makes decisions by consensus; I just think this option requires a lot more work and clarity of intention at the beginning than many people realize (see Lysbeth Borie).

When I entered monastic formation, I did not participate in the central decision-making body, the Chapter. In fact, because I had only taken temporary vows and left after four-and-a-half years, I never had the opportunity to participate in Chapter, which is reserved only for those who’ve taken permanent vows (a process that takes at least 5 years). In small matters, however, I participated in a weekly group process where I was able to share views and concerns. Still, by and large, the general structure of community life was predetermined, anchored by a codified body of tradition that spanned at least seventeen centuries. In this context, change does happen, but it does so only with careful discernment within the flow of this tradition.

What I experienced in myself and witnessed in many others who entered to be formed as monks during my stay was a fairly predictable pattern: as postulants (those in the first year of formation), we would arrive with varying degrees of enthusiasm and confidence. Typically, however, within our second year—the novitiate—some shift took place in our attitudes, sometimes dramatically. The channel of enthusiasm became gummed up with wads of negativity and a jaundiced eye. In reality, it was mostly our own unintegrated negativity that was bubbling up to the surface under the otherwise gentle, transformative limitations of monastic life; but of course, it never looks that way when you’re in the thick of it. Rather, this is what it tends to look like: the community’s doing this wrong, that wrong, failing at this, mediocre in that, and I know—I know—just how they ought to be doing it. And why don’t they listen to me? How can they do this to me? After all, this is not what I signed up for! The most dramatic illustration of the latter attitude that I’ve witnessed occurred when I went for a walk with a man who had been a diocesan priest for many years. This man had discerned a call to monastic life, had all his ducks in a row—years of counseling and spiritual direction discerning his vocation, extended stays in monasteries—and arrived certain that this monastery was it. No doubt. Two months into his postulancy, on his way out the door, he and I were sitting on a bench together, talking. He shook his head mournfully: “This just isn’t the community I thought it was.” Having seen this phenomenon before, I bit down hard on an irresistible urge to laugh, until I could shake it off freely with my novice director later. After all, the earnest mourner presently in my midst just wouldn’t appreciate the punchline: It never is the community you thought it was. It never matches your wish-dream. And no amount of prior discernment will keep you from having to cross that threshold of disappointment.

Of course, the same punchline holds true in less formal intentional communities. But here’s the rub: imagine if the kind of negativity that tends to arise, that’s actually meant to arise in the process of communal formation, had no defined limits, no boundaries to keep it in check, if the community lacked a clear self-understanding, in writing, that could serve as an anchor and shared point of reference. Imagine (and some of you don’t have to imagine; you can simply remember) such people, chafing at the negativity within themselves that they mistakenly displace onto the community, pouting and pleading and demanding, in often sophisticated-adult-seeming ways, that the community change. Imagine such people participating in the consensus process, even though they’ve been in the community less than a year. Even one such person, lacking the emotional maturity and mentoring to healthily navigate this transition, can easily sink the whole ship.

Of course, none of this is meant to suggest that a community cannot learn from the critiques of its newer members, or that there may be very real shortcomings in a community that warrant strong challenge, or simply the decision to leave. Rather, what I am suggesting is that real discernment, real commitment, cannot be attained until the threshold of disillusionment is crossed. When this isn’t understood, everyone loses.

So, based on my own experience in community and what I’ve learned thus far on the tour, here’s my advice to aspiring communitarians: before you move in together, or as soon thereafter as possible, hammer out in detail who you are and why, what you expect of one another, the rules and boundaries that will shape the integrity of the community you aspire to be. Choose how you’ll make decisions and get solid training (especially if your choice is consensus). Train as well in conflict resolution processes and make a commitment to resolving conflict a matter of policy. To draw an analogy from the monastic tradition, don’t be afraid to draw up a Rule of Life. The content of the Rule can and will change and adapt over time, but the importance of having as much clarity up front as possible is that it can save you from choosing members who really aren’t on the same page, and from the inevitable and potentially devastating conflict that will surely ensue. Once a core group has established such a “Rule,” then open the door to new members. Choose for emotional maturity. Choose those who, as best as can be mutually discerned, really do share your aspirations and intentions, and are willing to submit to the “Rule” because they genuinely value the creative restraint and responsibilities your way of life asks of them. And once a firm foundation is set, make sure new members have weathered their “terrible twos” (I use this phrase because, in my experience, the initial phase of disillusionment often occurs in the second year) before they’re able to make a permanent commitment or make decisions affecting the vision and mission of the community. Take permanent membership as seriously as you would marriage, and make sure this level of seriousness is communicated to those in the membership process (you can always have gradations of membership, such as associates, interns, temporary members, etc.).

And let me know how it goes.

Saint Joseph Abbey, Covington, LA

I’ve been struck most deeply thus far on the journey by the recurring theme of commitment, especially in my earlier interviews. Craig Greenfield’s perception that so many community-oriented young people today seek a kind of “community without cost”—that is, without real commitment or sacrifice—became a kind of conceptual lens through which I reflected on my own life experiences. John Schwiebert’s likening the level of commitment required for joining an intentional community to that of marriage also left a deep impression on me. Finally, Debbie Gish’s reflections on what she learned about commitment in her years of living in Church of the Sojourners, especially her sensed inability to even communicate that experience of commitment to a world that was quickly losing any kind of analogous experience or conception, named the elephant in the room: I’ve been operating without an inner conception or clear analogy from my own life experience of what deep commitment to people and place requires; to some degree, I’ve unknowingly sought “community without cost” because I hadn’t been aware of an alternative. And the emotional ambience within which these self-revelations were unfolding was drenched by my grieving a painful disappointment in an intimate relationship for the first months of the tour. In short, I was learning, in a graphic, visceral way, that I had a lifelong habit of making poor choices around commitment, to my own detriment and at times to the detriment of others. And the communities and people I was now encountering on this tour were serving as gentle but firm mirrors to this habit. Or, to place this discovery process in a positive light, these communities, these people, were helping to establish in me a new imagination, a new sense of possibility, a new hope that I could begin to live differently.

What I recognize more clearly now is that I have brought at least two sets of motivations into the communities I’ve lived. On the one hand, I’ve come to community out of the mature motivations of seeking to co-create a life of spiritual practice and justice-making, personal and social transformation, companionship and collaboration, in the context of serving a common vocation or mission. On the other hand, I’ve been compelled by a child’s motivations to satisfy the ache of unmet needs of the past, of holding others responsible for meeting those needs, and of acting out in unhelpful ways when they don’t (and, of course, they never do!). And to the extent that I have lacked self-awareness around this inner dichotomy, or haven’t had the understanding or ability to engage others responsibly amidst these emotional tensions, I’ve suffered greatly and have caused others to suffer as well.

When I think of Lois Arkin’s strong admonition to select for emotional maturity when discerning whether a prospective community member is a suitable fit, I don’t think this means that such a person must demonstrate pristine psychological health and wholeness. Heaven forbid! Rather, I think first of having a healthy self-awareness of how the kind of dichotomy I describe above functions in their own inner and outer lives; secondly, I think of having an adequate skill set to responsibly navigate their relationships given their unique mixture of motivational centers. On the community’s end, like Lois, I think of the necessity of having clear agreements and accountability structures, vision and mission statements, conflict resolution and participative decision-making processes, and a general ambience of safety that encourages clear, honest communication.

When I probe more deeply into what commitment means to me, however, I am compelled to think in terms of the vows I made in my formation as a Camaldolese-Benedictine monk: stabilitas, conversatio, and obedientia. While these vows were temporary and I have since left the Order, my reflections around the nature of commitment over the course of 3000 miles of bicycling thus far have brought me back to their profound meaning and formative potential, both within and outside a formal commitment to community.

These vows rest upon the foundational experience of discovering oneself called by God to a particular community, people, or way of life: “Listen, my son, to the precepts of the Master, and incline the ear of your heart” (Rule of Saint Benedict, Prologue). Listening in a deep and sustained way to that call (the practice of discernment) leads to a consolidation of one’s energies toward a particular commitment, understood as a concretization of one’s “yes” to God’s invitation. To use Catholic language, this means that one’s actions, responsibilities, relationships, and the events of one’s life become imbued with a sacramental quality. One’s whole life is illumined as an ongoing conversation with God. When I remember to call these vows to mind, for instance, they still resonate with the power to reveal God’s presence and action as intimately woven into my daily round, imperceptibly guiding my steps, meeting me at every turn.

Saint Joseph Abbey, Covington, LA

In particular, stabilitas, or stability, functions as an anchor, reminding me that this moment, this place, this person or people, are sacraments of God. Perhaps especially given my history of relational and geographic instability, both growing up and in my adult life, my only hope for prolonged stability lies in my faith in the gravitational pull of God’s invitation; Christ’s love, the only love that could ultimately bind me enduringly to people and place. Why? Because without this transcendent, relational reference point, as I’ve shared above, I recognize that I am highly vulnerable to relating to people, places, situations, and events as ends in themselves. This kind of self-seeking always leads to disappointment and, often enough, harm or neglect of others. At the same time, without the concreteness of real-world commitments and responsibilities, faith is reduced to a mere wish dream.

The careful discernment of God’s loving invitation requires an intuitive listening beyond preconceived ideas and ideals, beyond habitual likes, dislikes, and emotional predispositions. Staying put in the dispositions of faith, hope, and love carries me beyond the reach of immature, self-centered motivations. Only through abiding in these dispositions can I hope to stay put through life’s inevitable disappointments, disillusionments, and the painful consequences of my own limitations and weaknesses and those of others.

Conversatio morum sorum, often translated as fidelity to the monastic way of life, ongoing conversion, or even (with a pinch of poetic license) conversation, reminds me of the dynamism inherent in staying put in God. Stability, manifested through concrete commitments, places me fixedly under God’s transformative, loving gaze. It’s ironic that I’m learning more deeply of my own need for stability, of rootedness in order to more freely move in God, while on a perpetual-motion bicycle tour. While itinerancy has its place, even its own form of stability in God and conversatio through its constant invitation to nonattachment and letting go, in the context of community, growth tends to happen through an ongoing willingness to carry forward the sacramental conversation; that is, through fidelity to one’s given relationships and responsibilities. Conversatio always flows away from immature, self-centered motivation, and accepts growth, change, loss, and death as nonnegotiables that can neither be run from nor fought. Through eyes of faith, I aspire to see these nonnegotiables as a participation in Christ’s Paschal Mystery, death to resurrection, constant transformation. Through faith-filled, dynamic fidelity, life forms me for God, God forms me for love, and I am freed to hold life and other people lightly without demanding that they stay the same for my sake.

Obedientia, obedience, presumes that God is in the mix, which is not to say that a superior’s dictates are always imbued with the wisdom of God. Nor does it presume that I must simply comply with what I am told to do without question or recourse. Rather, the practice of obedience dis-locates my motivational center from the exaggerated need to have my way, unclenching heart, mind, will, and imagination for real love and creativity. While the word “obedience” strikes modern ears with more than a hint of infantile, oppressive connotations, it derives from the Latin obediere, which means “to listen, to take heed, to respond.” In the context of a sacramental worldview, wherein all-that-is communicates God’s presence and action, this responsive, attentive listening becomes an overarching posture toward life: remaining faithful to God’s invitation, stable in one’s commitments, surrendered to God’s transformative action through life’s rhythms, rests upon constant listening/response. Once again, for the Christian, God in Christ resides as the transcendent, relational reference point, made sacramentally present through concrete relationships and responsibilities. In the context of community, this entails listening and responding faithfully to a superior’s directions (Rule of Saint Benedict, Ch. 5), while also including a faithful listening and responding to one’s sisters, brothers, guests, and all who are received as Christ (Rule of Saint Benedict, Chs. 53, 71). As indicated by my interview with Quaker teacher Lysbeth Borie, this same posture of transformative listening and responding—beyond self-centered motivation, for the sake of love and a shared mission—can also be facilitated by consensus process and decision-making (just make sure you and your community receive solid training!)

I strongly believe that neo-monastic and other Christian communities have much to learn from the largely secular intentional communities movement, especially in regard to structures and practices that facilitate healthy relationships, communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making. These structures and practices help people move from immature motivational centers toward mature wholeness and generativity. This kind of basic, integrative health is a necessary precondition for fruitful, stable community. Additionally, I strongly believe that learning from and incorporating elements of the classic monastic tradition can help take such communities a step further, toward self-transcendence; that is, into the self-giving love that is the hallmark of Christian spirituality. In my experience, the vows of stabilitas, conversatio, and obedientia serve both ends. First, they teach and form me into a life of mature commitment and responsibility. Secondly, they propel me out of the orbit of self-concern in a more profound manner, placing God in Christ at the center, liberating me to live the teachings of the Gospel, whether in the context of community or without. While this tour has taught me something of how very far I am from the abiding, all-pervading commitment these vows imply, I am grateful that they continue to point the way home.

The last time I stopped in Gainesville on a bicycle tour almost 20 years ago, I didn’t leave till over three years later. I arrived without a strong religious orientation and left headed to a Zen Buddhist monastery. In other words, stopping in Gainesville, Florida, on a bicycle tour spells trouble if I’m invested in a certain religious status quo.

Over these past weeks, I chose to spend some time simply bicycling and camping because I know from experience that, not only do I derive tremendous satisfaction through this kind of simple, earthy travelling, but it also serves as a spiritual discipline: tuning out the voices of social expectation, personal idealism, and emotional attachments that no longer serve, and fostering a greater receptivity to spiritual intuition, even when this intuition seems to contradict my own desires. Hence, I believed that this time of biking would help me enter more deeply into the questions that resound in my own heart, and where these questions intersect with what I’m learning on this tour of communities. In fact, I got more than I bargained for.

I generally don’t seek to give something up or take on a new practice for Lent. The reason being, I have come to believe that God plays upon my life with often surprising attention to the rhythms of the liturgical calendar. In other words, rather than giving something up, I’ve found that some kind of loss or disorientation usually sneaks up on me right about the beginning of Lent. I expend my energies through the Lenten season, then, navigating this un-asked-for loss, seeking reorientation and a deeper reliance on spiritual help. This Lenten season has proven no different, except that the experience of loss and disorientation has less to do with anything happening in my outer life and relationships and more to do with uncovering those questions and doubts that simmered below the surface during my previous three years of theological education.

I introduced “Pilgrim Reflections” in my last post intending a series of sharing more about what’s happening within me and the kind of questions that I am wrestling with on a more personal level on this journey. However, after a dozen or so attempts to sit down at my laptop and tap out the next post, I’ve since had a change of mind and heart. There are two reasons for this. First, anything I write at this point on such a personal level would be too raw and tentative for a public forum. Secondly, in trying to interweave my personal journey with reflections on communities, I’ve found that both become rather murky. Rather, focusing objectively on communities helps ground and anchor me in something outside myself on this otherwise solo venture, while attending to my inner life allows me to be more present and wholeheartedly engaged with the communities and people I visit. And in order to maintain a healthy balance, the inner journey has to be bracketed to some extent from bleeding through overmuch into my more objective reflections on communities.

That said, I do want to begin the considerations that follow by sharing that, in general, the questions that I’ve been wrestling with revolve around religious identity and my perennial difficulty in “finding myself” within conventional religious institutions and systems of organized belief. And at least in this sense, I find that my personal journey and what people have shared with me in interviews and private conversations dovetail perfectly. In fact, what has emerged as a kind of overarching narrative to the story of emerging intentional communities is that we are all engaged in a massive historical shift in what it means to live a deeply intentional religious life. This theme was addressed explicitly in my first three interviews. Both Mary Ewing Stamps and Ivan Kauffman, for instance, see this shift in terms of historical cycles of deep mutations in our religious structures every 500 years, with the implication that we should expect nothing less than that we are living in a period of time analogous to the upheavals of the Reformation. And Mary Ewing Stamps, Mary Forman, OSB, and Ivan Kauffman all affirm that what’s facilitating these tectonic shifts today is dialogue: ecumenical, inter-religious, inter-cultural.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”                      —Isaiah 43:19

In the case of Mary Ewing Stamps, the theme of following the promptings of the Spirit toward developing surprising new structures of religious life through dialogue becomes most explicit. Formed within established Benedictine houses while remaining true to her Methodist heritage, she has gone on to establish an ecumenical, non-residential Benedictine monastery embracing both celibate and non-celibate members. Arising from the evangelical end of the continuum, I am particularly impressed by InnerCHANGE as another new expression of ecumenical religious life. Also embracing single people as well as families, modeled upon the historical example of Saint Francis and his followers, among others, and embedded within the framework of the larger missionary organization CRM, InnerCHANGE is poised at the forefront of developing formal structures to nurture and give expression to this impetus toward what Ivan Kauffman calls lay intentionality: patterns of religious life for lay people analogous to the intensity of commitment and intentionality as historically embodied in formally vowed, celibate orders.

Perhaps the most dramatic of structural mutations I’ve encountered thus far, however, is that of San Francisco Zen Center, relative to its roots in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition. In the context of developing new structures, Buddhist communities in the West have at least two advantages over Christian monastic, neo-monastic and other movements. The first is a far more flexible institutional framework that lends itself to an adaptability exceeding that of formal Catholic orders. Secondly, Buddhist communities are also largely unburdened by the kind of historical amnesia and dissociation from tradition that new evangelical orders and movements are in the process of remedying. Hence, it is my hope that Christian monastics and neo-monastics alike might learn from their Buddhist sisters and brothers during this time of transition and experimentation.

And lest I get carried away by the apparent seamlessness of this emerging narrative, there’s Paula Huston’s critique of modernism and celebration of classic monasticism to interrupt the flow, or at least call it into question. Actually, I’ve been surprised by how many people have shared with me how much they appreciate her contribution. I say surprised because these are people who are highly sympathetic with newer movements but realize that the viability or potential viability of these movements lie in their ability to establish some formal connection or rootedness in ancient tradition. I see her critique less as a contradiction, then, as a potential warning or corrective to an overly enthusiastic embrace of change and the allure of novelty. In fact, it seems clear to me that this longing for ancient roots is part and parcel of what’s driving such movements at their best, embodying the creative tension articulated during Vatican II as a return to ancient sources while adapting these sources freshly to the unique needs, aspirations, and challenges of our moment in history. And if I can reiterate Ivan Kauffman’s strong admonition: the way forward is dialogue, dialogue, dialogue—of new movements and communities establishing relationships with classic orders in an ongoing conversation of mutual learning and growth. Evangelicals especially seem susceptible to getting carried away by the apparent discovery of some liberating new insight, only to see this initial explosion of enthusiasm quickly fizzle and fade as a seed cast on rocky ground (I think of Debbie Gish’s chuckling over the extreme presumptuousness and naiveté of her and her community-mates at the origins of Church of the Sojourners: “We found Acts 2 and we were the first ones to get it. Like, how come no one else noticed this before!!??”). Hence, she and others laud the shift in the air among Christian communitarians today in deliberately seeking out and incorporating the wisdom of those who are heirs to traditions of Christian community living that span centuries.

In closing, since these reflections have been a comfort to me, I want to convey to those readers who also haven’t “found themselves” within conventional religious structures, who feel prompted by the Spirit to press forward into an unknown future, that you are not alone. Far from it. Thanks be to God, hopeful signs are abundant.

“You did not choose me, I chose you” (John 15:16)

With 20 podcast episodes published and another on the way, for the next couple of weeks I’m shifting gears a bit, spending more time simply bike-camping. As I shared in a previous post, leaving the West Coast has placed me in a more solitary situation, perfect for deeper reflection and discernment. Also, in this more solitary and reflective place, I sense the two strands of the journey—the spiritual pilgrimage and the exploration of communities—converging in a new way, requiring my giving shape to this convergence through writing. In fact, spiritually speaking, this journey is the sequel to the bicycle tour of over ten years ago that led me back to the Christian faith and into a Catholic monastery. Therefore, to better grasp the content of this present journey, it’s first necessary to recap its prequel.

In January of 2001, I left the Sirius Ecovillage in Shutesbury, MA, which had been my home for 2 ½ years. That previous fall, I had been seized by a mysterious restlessness, not simply to move but to create, to generate life, as if, contrary to the earthly season, new sap flowed in my veins and pressed forward to bud and bloom. I sought for ways to express this impulse—start a cottage industry? join the Core Group?—but nothing seemed to resonate. Within a couple months of searching in this way, the insight dawned that this life-impulse was in fact pushing me out of the community. I didn’t know why or to where or for what purpose. I just left.

Several months after leaving the community, I was on a bicycle, clothing and camping gear atop the rear rack and stuffed into panniers, bouncing around the deserts of the Southwest and finally tracing the California coast. The pressing life-impulse by that time, at least to my perception, had degenerated into a wrenching sense of futility and an eclipse of life’s possibilities. I simply couldn’t see a road ahead of me beyond the asphalt under my tires. I didn’t know why, but the tide of hope and vision had receded. Did I dare expect its return? Still, the more dependable rhythms of ocean tides and redwood forest cradled me each night as I camped, giving me solace, drawing me out of myself and into the cosmic symphony. I may not have known what to do with the life-impulse entrusted to me, but in more lucid moments I could rest assured that Life beneath and above me, within and beyond me, had meaning beyond telling.

Slowly, this sense of communion with Life coalesced into a voice addressing me personally. I can’t remember how or when I took notice, and no, I didn’t literally hear a “voice,” but somehow, at some point, I knew that I should stay in a Catholic monastery if given the opportunity. The press of the life-impulse took on a strange specificity, all the more strange because “I” didn’t share its prerogatives. A Catholic monastery? Why? Yes, I had gleaned inspiration from scant reading of authors such as Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris, but…did I really want to stay in a Catholic monastery?

In the meantime, the miles rolled on underfoot, until one evening in early November, while pedaling down Highway One through Big Sur, CA, I came upon the drive to New Camaldoli Hermitage. Too late to visit, I pedaled on another mile and a half and slept on the beach below. The next morning, having broken camp, I stood on Highway One, looking north, then south, wanting to keep biking but still possessed by the intuition that I needed to visit the monastery. So I did. And I was offered the possibility of a job on the residential maintenance crew. I didn’t stick around to find out whether the position was available or not, though (all the more baffling in hindsight, considering I had less than $300 to my name, with no job prospects ahead), but continued biking, camping on the beach again that night 50 miles down the road. I had no idea where I thought I was going. I just wanted to keep moving. I was searching for I-knew-not-what, all the while dimly picking up on and yet still missing the cues from the One who had already found me and was inviting me to something startlingly concrete.

The next morning I woke up depressed. I got ready but just couldn’t bike. I lingered in town awhile, listlessly. I opened the book by Thomas Merton I had bought at the monastery bookstore and began to read. The intuition once again flooded me, reminding me: I need to return to the monastery. I called the maintenance supervisor to see if the job was indeed available and the offer still good. It was. “See me at 9am Monday morning,” he said. That night I camped in the same spot as the last, but this time my spirits were buoyant, filled with a quiet peace and joy. I even danced in the moonlight, beneath a tree, listening to Emmy Lou Harris. The next morning, I turned my bike north to retrace the ride of two days before.

Before telling any more of the story, I want to make a few observations. First and foremost, bicycle touring has been for me an act of faith, even when I haven’t been aware of it as such. Yes, I plan and prepare, but I’ve come to believe that these decisions and actions are a participation in a larger pattern and purpose not of my devising. Yes, I planned and prepared for this present tour, and yet I am haunted by the conviction that I’ve also been lured into this endeavor for purposes beyond my own making or comprehension. As the story above illustrates, on the one hand, bicycle touring can have the mark of a restless running-away in a time of distress. On the other, and unbeknownst to me, or perhaps dimly intuited, is a running-toward a wider horizon, a new level of meaning that seems like nothingness until I am led to a crucial breakthrough. The bicycle tour narrated above had a clear, concrete breakthrough-event in my arrival at the monastery. Will this tour have a similar breakthrough? Obviously, I cannot know, but I recognize the telltale symptoms that precede such an event—the sense of being stripped of old ways of perceiving and experiencing meaning, of attachments to particular people, places, goals, activities; in short, being stripped of familiar narratives that held life together for a while but have outworn their appropriateness, a necessary dying in order to receive a new story and direction. Now, having the benefit of being taught by experience, bicycle touring this time around allows me to literally pedal through this process of deconstruction and reconstruction as a conscious act of faith.

To be continued…

Catherine Rundle with Husband Alastair (left), Family, and Friends

InnerCHANGE emerged in the mid-1980s from the aspiration of John Hayes. While living and ministering with his family among immigrant neighbors in the most poverty-stricken, overcrowded street in Orange County, California, John recognized the urgent need to better enable missionaries to share more concretely in the lives and struggles of the poor to whom they minister. Identifying as “a Christian order among the poor,” ecumenical in composition, and affiliated with the larger mission organization CRM: Church Resource Ministries, InnerCHANGE communities have since taken root in impoverished neighborhoods in South and East Africa, Central and South America, London, Cambodia, Bangladesh, as well as a handful of urban centers in the United States.

I first encountered writing by and about InnerCHANGE while reading of the New Friars, a movement of Christian missionary communities seeking to live more integrally among the poor, in part through appropriating the wisdom of the classic religious orders. I was particularly impressed by the maturity reflected in their writing, a clear awareness and responsiveness to historical, economic, and political conditions, and the intention to create sustainable ways of life and lifelong formation in community.  In fact, I had met members of InnerCHANGE years before at New Camaldoli Hermitage, again impressed by their intentionality in integrating solitude and contemplative disciplines into their lives. Perhaps the most significant note of appreciation I heard, however, came from my monastic formator, Michael Fish OSB Cam., who gave a talk at one of InnerCHANGE’s recent annual retreats. After the retreat, he spoke excitedly to me of his impression that such emerging communities represent a springtime of renewal in the church. Hence, I had already developed an appreciation and curiosity before meeting InnerCHANGE members on their own turf, first in San Francisco and then in Los Angeles. In particular, as a former member of a monastic order, I’ve found InnerCHANGE’s capacity for liberally incorporating the creativity and spontaneity of their members a breath of fresh air, a capacity Catherine Rundle compares to the necessary messiness of the artistic process, equally applicable to life and ministry.

InnerCHANGE from CRM InnerCHANGE on Vimeo.

Catherine Rundle’s story was grafted onto that of InnerCHANGE when an urban mission internship in North Hollywood, California, put her in contact with longtime InnerCHANGE Los Angeles members Jude and John Tiersma-Watson. While this internship (unaffiliated with InnerCHANGE) provided the motivation for a way of life among the poor, she and her husband Alastair still lacked the tools, ongoing mentoring, and enduring context to make that happen in an intensive way beyond the period of the internship itself. Hence, in 1999 Catherine and Alastair joined InnerCHANGE as apprentices, therein finding the guidance, maturity, ongoing formation, and  modeling they sought from those who had walked the path well ahead of them. However, an unexpected medical condition compelled them to move to Texas after three years, where they bore their two children surrounded by the loving embrace of extended family members. Six years after their move, having served as outreach pastors for a Presbyterian church, they discerned the call to return to InnerCHANGE and to Los Angeles specifically, where they continue to live and grow and learn what it means to live out God’s tender heart for the poor.

In our conversation, Catherine and I discuss how she’s been transformed by her relationships with the poor, her initial entry and return to InnerCHANGE, the significance of raising a family as members of a diverse religious order, raising financial support for her life and ministry, and her love for the city of Los Angeles where she’s chosen to set down roots. She speaks of her special passion for imparting a sense of personal dignity and value to others through writing their stories in light of scripture and God’s love for them. Finally, Catherine gives a taste of her practice of prayer and praise walking, of sharing holy attentiveness, blessing, and inspired song as she walks the streets of her Westlake/McArthur Park neighborhood.

To learn more about InnerCHANGE, see John Hayes’ book, Sub-Merge: Living Deep in a Shallow World.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

California Touring Companions, Laura and Bob

Leaving the California coast for the rural South was quite a culture shock, and not just for the obvious reasons. The Pacific Coast is the most popular bike touring route in the world. Europeans are nearly as numerous as Americans. Generally, most tourers take advantage of the hiker-biker camp sites in the state parks. Hence, a highly cosmopolitan community develops, with people traveling from one state park to another, meeting and parting and meeting up again further along the way. On my trip down from Big Sur to Los Angeles, for instance, I joined new friends Bob and Laura on their around-the-country tour from Michigan, riding and camping with them over a handful of nights. The companionship and camaraderie were invigorating and a real loss to leave behind.

Now, through Texas and Louisiana, I’m biking off the main touring route so no touring companions, privileging backcountry roads as much as possible. Neither are there campgrounds even if I sought them. Far more than on the Pacific Coast, I am left alone, to my own wits, and often enough to the kindness of strangers. This precarious state of affairs becomes especially acute each evening when I seek a place to lay my head. Here are some snapshots of the outcomes thus far:

Chester’s Trailer, Kerbyville, Texas

1/19 Kerbyville, Texas.
I was following the route penned by Google Maps Bicycle Option when, after pedaling down an isolated country road and not seeing another soul for miles, I was directed to turn down a dirt path for eight miles! Fortunately, a service truck rolled out of the thicket of trees at just that moment.

“Is this County Road 728?”

“Yeah, but it’s a dead end.”

“Really!?…”

And if that wasn’t bad enough, according to the route map, the road I was supposed to turn onto eight miles later was nicknamed Dead End Road. Dead end, indeed!

Not knowing where I was headed but only knowing I needed to get back to a major road, I hightailed it back to US-96. Treading the broad shoulder for ten miles, I landed in the Conoco gas station in the small town of Kerbyville. One cardinal rule of stealth camping: find a site before dark, because it’s much more difficult at night to spot the sometimes subtle signs leading to a good and safe site. At this point, dusk was already settling in and I needed to reorient myself, find a site, and set up camp quickly.

While puzzling over a map I had just purchased in the store, a local named Chester approached and struck up a conversation.

“Minnesota, eh?”

With a jolt of surprise: “What?…how did you know?”

“I saw your driver’s license.”

As is not entirely uncommon in situations like these, five minutes later I was loading my bicycle into Chester’s pick-up, on my way to a cozy trailer on his land for the night: a hot shower, warm bed, a welcome and timely surprise.

1/20 Merryville, LA
Mid-afternoon, shortly after crossing the state border, I pulled off the road toward the tourist info building in Merryville. Immediately, I was virtually run over by Linda who, having seen me from the adjacent gas station, enthusiastically rushed over in her car to meet me. She volunteers at the local museum and, like the town itself, seems to have a special place in her heart for bicycle tourers. In fact, situated on Adventure Cycling’s Southern Tier route, the town bi-annually hosts a troupe of bicycle campers on the museum lawn.

Accepting her invitation, I followed her to the museum, which houses a most eclectic collection of mementos—from pianos to high school photos to typewriters to clothing; something between a rummage sale and your grandmother’s attic. What made it all shine, though, was the love and pride and joy Linda took in the showing. She placed a photo album of past bicycle touring groups before me, telling me their stories. There’s the German couple who stayed on to experience their first Halloween celebration ever. Finally, she offered me a place to camp, anywhere on the lawn. There’s even a bathroom with showers. A bit early to stop but how could I refuse? Right in the center of town, behind a historic log cabin, I spent a peaceful night.

Sulphur, LA

1/21 Sulphur, LA
It was getting late. I came upon a Methodist Children’s Home with a huge, empty plot of land behind it. I tried to find someone to ask permission to camp, to no avail. Finally, as I was pondering what to do, a woman approaches. No, she tells me, I cannot camp because of the children, but there’s a boat launch a few miles down the road. Now, a boat launch on a Saturday night in a rural town is not likely a place you’d want to be as a stranger vulnerably spending the night outdoors, but it was worth a look. As expected, though, lots of pick-up trucks and no discrete space to go unnoticed through the night.

I was starting to panic. Once again dusk was settling in. I had already knocked on one door asking to camp on their land, but they didn’t answer. Now what houses there were had smaller plots, often as not sporting Confederate and/or “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. Far from familiar cosmopolitan California, I was getting spooked!

As an aside, although I find myself in this position fairly regularly, pressed at a late time to find a place to camp, in fact I’ve never had real difficulty finding a campsite (with only one memorable exception, in an extraordinary circumstance). In fact, I consider myself a rather savvy stealth camper. And so when I passed a cluster of houses and spotted a hint of a break in the tree line, I swiftly crossed the road toward it. A truck was coming from the other direction so I slowed to a rolling pause. Once out of sight, I hurled bike and body through the dense underbrush to find myself in a spacious forest among saw palmettos. Past the break, there were no more tell-tale bottles or trash. I was in the clear in a fabulous site!

1/22 Laccasine, LA
This afternoon I decided to stick with Google Maps even when it sent me down a gnarly gravel road. And I must say, though biking was terrible, the quietude through rice fields and forest was a delightful, welcome reprieve from automobiles. To recapitulate at least three familiar themes: dusk was settling in, and, having earlier traversed six miles of thick gravel, I balked when I was directed down yet another gravel road. I hightailed it to US-90, which was frankly even more precarious than the gravel: light-to-moderate but fast-moving traffic with absolutely no shoulder, and only wide-open private land to the left and to the right for seeming miles. Yes, once again I was panicking! Several miles later, riding fast, housing density increasing as I approached the small town of Laccasine, I saw two women and two teenage girls standing in a driveway. Desperate, I swerved abruptly across the street.

“Pardon me if this is a strange request, but I’m just passing through, looking for a place to camp for the night, it’s getting late, and this road is making me very nervous. Any chance I can set my tent up on your land?”

They pointed me rather to the cemetery a half mile down the road.

I beg your pardon if this sounds morbid, but I’ve come to consider cemeteries as stealth camping havens: no one is likely to disturb you, almost every town has one, and they’re usually lined with woods in which to discretely tuck away. This cemetery was no exception, save that it was more open than most, though quite large. I planned a spot on which to set up my tent once dark, feeding on leftover bits of fried catfish from lunch while waiting. After dark, the tent up, thinking about how to top off my supper, a large, white, official-looking pickup truck pulls up. I must have been spotted, I thought. Taking a proactive approach as I do in these situations, I walked over to introduce and explain myself. To my surprise and delight, it was one of the women who pointed me here, and she had a container of freshly cooked spaghetti, a cup of ice, and a bottle of coke for me. Wow.

A little kindness goes a long way to a stranger on the road. I was at least as grateful for the care behind the gesture as for the food itself.

Abshire Cemetery, LA

1/23 Abshire Cemetery, LA
Yes, another cemetery, much different from the last, and much less dramatic a find. Having given up on Google Maps, I fortunately asked for directions at a local gas station. I was informed that the road I was on was out for repairs some miles up the road, but that there was another very quiet country road I could take instead. This advice turned out to be a godsend. The ride was smooth, through small farms and rice fields along a bayou. Having been alerted by a sign that I would find a cemetery at some point, I kept my eyes peeled. Sure enough, I found a beautiful spot with a view of the spacious cloud-streaked sky spread over ponds and fields across the way.

1/24 Maurice, LA
The next day, after breaking camp, I biked east against a formidable, relentless headwind. To make matters worse, I knew rain was coming. Eighteen miles later, during a brief stint on a highway with a wide shoulder, clouds growing ominous and heavy, the first drops came. To my right was a large overhang and I made a run for it. Soon those first drops became a torrent. Lightening flashed to the south, the direction I was now turned. I used the time to prepare and eat a simple lunch of a carrot and tuna and mayonnaise rolled up in a whole wheat tortilla. The rain slowed to a steady, moderate drizzle. The next town was only about seven miles away, so I decided to pedal in the rain and find a place to relax with a cup of coffee. An hour later, I watched the rain turn to a torrent once again out the window of the McDonald’s in Abbeville.

Shit.

Appreciating a good adventure but stopping well before the point of masochism, I took advantage of the free Wi-Fi and got busy on couchsurfing.org. Casting pleas for help within a twenty mile radius, I soon received a call from Annie in Maurice who, with her husband Sam, invited me into their home to wait out the storm for a couple days. After that, no more rain in the forecast till New Orleans by early next week.

People are good.

Our Lady of Love’s Marina and Park; Crosby, Texas

Under your protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God;
despise not our petitions in our need,
but from all dangers deliver us always,
Virgin glorious and blessed.

Yes, Texas. I took a train to Houston from L.A. Keep in mind that the bicycle tour is several weeks ahead of the podcast. Actually, to really bring you up to date…

My encounter with the Nehemiah House was one of those happy accidents one learns to treasure, and perhaps even rely on, during extended excursions on the road. I was biking down the Southern California coast with a still unformed idea of what I would do or who I would meet once I got to Los Angeles. Significantly, I didn’t know where I would stay. Fortunately, through friends at InnerCHANGE Los Angeles (interview here), I was put in touch with Sarah and Scott Yetter, who graciously offered me a futon in one of the adjoining houses that comprise the Nehemiah House community. Over the course of my time there, I grew to feel affectionately part of this bustling hub of friendship, mentoring, and prayerful presence in the historically troubled, predominantly Latino Pico-Union neighborhood.

The Yetters did not come to the neighborhood with the intention of starting a community. Rather, their journey began when Scott participated in a mission trip during college with Campus Crusade for Christ. During this trip, Scott not only fell in love with the neighborhood, but fell more deeply in love with the Lord and what the Lord was doing among the people he met. This inspired him to pick up and move into the neighborhood in 1997, working first as a high school teacher and then as a pastor for the First Evangelical Free Church of Los Angeles. While the intention or hope was that Scott and Sarah would draw local young adults to the church, God seemed to have something else in mind. In short order, Scott found himself flooded with children asking for help with homework, forming relationships with them, while comparatively little came of their outreach to young adults. Quite organically, these relationships with children and their families coalesced into an afterschool program affiliated with the S.A.Y. Yes! organization. Continuing to listen for what God was doing in the neighborhood, and needing physical space for this dynamic network of relationships focused on the afterschool program, Scott and Sarah facilitated the church’s purchase of the Nehemiah House in 2002, which became both their own home and the home of the teen center for S.A.Y. Yes! Pico-Union, Los Angeles.

Today, having purchased an adjoining house in 2009, Scott, Sarah, and their three young children are now joined by two local families who live with them, as well as a handful of interns volunteering with S.A.Y. Yes! and other local ministries for a year or more. Some of these interns, after completing their internship, have themselves chosen to move into the neighborhood also, providing a growing sense of cohesion and relational stability among children, families, mentors, and friends.

In our conversation, Sarah, Scott and I discuss how their faith and concrete relationships led to the forming of Nehemiah house, starting a family in the context of community life, and what they’ve learned living and working with an ever- fluctuating population of young adult interns. Finally, they speak of their hope of seeing today’s young adults shed negative cultural influences, grab hold of the values of discipline and commitment, and fully step into the lives God intends for them—a hope whose realization might be aided by learning from the monastic tradition.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

In this second half of my conversation with Lois Arkin, having introduced the general landscape of ecovillages and the Los Angeles Eco-Village in Part I, we now hone in on lessons she’s learned along the way. Specifically, Lois addresses the issue of structural conflict, reflecting on her own experience in light of the insights of ecovillage and intentional communities author, consultant, workshop leader, and conference presenter, Diana Leafe Christian. The concept of structural conflict points to the fact that, if a community or organization doesn’t adequately address fundamental issues of identity, values, and vision, and how these are to be implemented over time, conflict will most likely ensue, regardless of who’s involved. Given that communities are often founded with an exuberant mixture of idealism and naiveté, drawing on this very practical wisdom from those who have weathered first fervors, successes and failures, can be lifesaving.

In this vein, we spend time talking about membership processes and how these have evolved for the Los Angeles Eco-Village, becoming more narrow and restrictive over time. Earlier, Lois spoke of ecovillages as having porous boundaries, neither closed nor wide-open to the world of which they’re a part. Membership requirements, discernment, formation, education, etc., play an essential role in ensuring that these boundaries, and the integrity of a community’s identity, purpose, and common life, remain healthy. Membership is also an area sure to become highly contentious and problematic for all if these criteria and processes aren’t clear from the beginning.

How does a community clearly impart to new members and communicate to the world its own ethos, while integrating new energies and ideas from without and within? How does this fluid communal organism remain open while retaining its distinctiveness? For a start, through building on solid footing by alleviating structural conflict as soon as possible.

Other resources mentioned in this interview: Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community and Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities by Diana Leafe Christian, and Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making by Tim Hartnett

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Lois Arkin is the founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit CRSP (the Cooperative Resources & Services Project) Institute for Urban Ecovillages. In 1993, she co-founded the Los Angeles Eco-Village as a project of CRSP. Other organizations that she’s co-founded or have grown out of CRSP include the Eco-Home Network, the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing, the Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust, and the Urban Soil Tierra Urbana Limited Equity Housing Co-op (LEHC). She is co-author and co-editor ofSustainable Cities: Concepts and Strategies for Eco-City Development andCooperative Housing Compendium: Resources for Collaborative Living. In the late 1980s, Lois received an award from the American Planning Association-L.A. Section for Advocacy Planning for, in her own words, “having a big mouth.” She is also a founding member of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas and a board member of the Global Village Institute.

In this episode, the first of two with Lois on the subject of ecovillages and the Los Angeles Eco-Village in particular, we explore what constitutes an ecovillage, the history of the ecovillage movement, and Lois’ own experience as an ecovillage founder. From her suburban childhood romping unfettered amid her close-knit neighborhood, to working with troubled youth in inner city Los Angeles in the 1960’s, Lois was passionately drawn to explore the question of how to reinvent urban living to enhance quality of life and address the underlying causes of social ills. This aspiration took a decisive turn in the wake of the L.A. riots in 1992. In light of the glaring, urgent needs this tragedy exposed, a plan to build a demonstration ecological neighborhood on an unpopulated site outside the downtown area was scrapped in favor of revitalizing and retrofitting Lois’ own 2-block Koreatown neighborhood. Beginning January 1st, 1993, Lois and fellow volunteers hit the streets, talking to neighbors, spreading “positive gossip, ” planting trees and garden plots with children, hosting social events, all intended to build a sense of safety and community. Thus were laid the foundations of the Los Angeles Eco-Village.

What inspires me most about Lois’ story and ecovillages generally is their truly integrative approach to re-envisioning how human beings inhabit the planet. Taking into account the social, economic, environmental, and technological dimensions of shared living, ecovillages function as research and development centers, evaluating new possibilities and critically reevaluating processes and practices that the dominant culture takes for granted. In the case of Los Angeles Eco-Village, this includes integrating human-scale, ecological technologies, growing food and running a food cooperative, establishing an affordable housing co-op and community revolving loan fund, implementing inclusive, participatory decision-making and conflict resolution processes, all within the heart of a preexisting urban neighborhood.

Links to other resources mentioned in this interview: Global Ecovillage Network, Ecovillages Newsletter, Los Angeles Eco-Village blog, Los Angeles Ecovillage Wiki.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Says a country legend told every year:

Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see
what the creatures do as that long night tips over.
Down on their knees they will go, the fire
of an old memory whistling through their minds!

So I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold
I creaked back the barn door and peered in.
From town the church bells spilled their midnight music,
and the beasts listened – yet they lay in their stalls like stone.

Oh the heretics!
Not to remember Bethlehem,
or the star as bright as a sun,
or the child born on a bed of straw!
To know only of the dissolving Now!

Still they drowsed on –
citizens of the pure, the physical world,
they loomed in the dark: powerful
of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.

Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas!
And you are no heretics, but a miracle,
immaculate still as when you thundered forth
on the morning of creation!
As for Bethlehem, that blazing star

still sailed the dark, but only looked for me.
Caught in its light, listening again to its story,
I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled
my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me
the best it could all night.

Dan Schmitz with wife Jan and their son Peter

By the time I arrived in Oakland, California, a question had grown in me that I now sought to address more directly: what makes evangelicals tick? Having grown up Catholic and returned to the Catholic Church by way of Buddhism, the differences between my self-identity as a Catholic Christian—from how I read the Bible, to how I pray, understand the nature of Christian community, tradition, authority—seemed strikingly different in many respects from the evangelical Christians I was meeting. While I may have known about these differences on paper, I still found myself somewhat disoriented in my actual encounters with evangelicals and evangelical communities. At the same time, I was aware that there were profound shifts taking place in the evangelical ethos that underlie these community movements; I’m merely swimming along the surface of currents whose depth and breadth I could only dimly infer. And the most curious aspect of these shifts, from my perspective, is that they’re prodding evangelicals, especially young evangelicals, to mine the riches of the pre-Reformation tradition, in search of a wisdom that can more thoroughly address their aspirations and challenges today. Hence, wanting to deepen my own understanding in these respects and learn to better situate myself in the growing overlap between evangelical intentional communities and the classic monastic tradition, I spent some time sharing in the lives of and learning from the kindhearted, generous folks of New Hope Covenant Church in the Lower San Antonio District of Oakland.

The beginnings of New Hope strike themes I’ve heard several times thus far (see for instance Debbie Gish of Church of the Sojourners): a youthful immersion into the whirlwind of urban ministry leads to an aspiration for a more sustainable way of life in community, but the resources and models needed to bring this aspiration to fruition aren’t close at hand. Dan’s insertion into this story begins with his affiliating with Harbor House Ministries in East Oakland and moving into Oak Park Apartments in 1989, inhabited primarily by poverty-stricken Cambodian refugees and Latino immigrants. His intention was to live in a local equivalent to the overseas urban slum conditions he anticipated encountering though foreign mission work. Soon joined by others, especially young Christians associated with InterVarsity, the budding community found themselves deeply enmeshed in the often chaotic lives and overwhelming needs of their neighbors, including organizing a successful lawsuit against the building’s negligent owner. Rather than go overseas as originally intended, however, Dan chose to remain among these neighbors he learned to relate to as family, participating in the shaping of this community of mission-minded Christians into the multiethnic, socioeconomically diverse New Hope Covenant Church, of which he is the present acting pastor. Given the lessons he’s learned helping to birth this new model of church from such unformed beginnings, Dan recognizes some of the challenges faced by evangelical leaders and communities in light of radically changing social and cultural conditions.  As a response, he presently focuses much of his energies on leadership development and formation as interim chair of The Mosaic Center of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Dr. Joan Jie-eun Jeung prays during a Sunday service at New Hope Covenant Church. Photo © 2010 Lacy Atkins / San Francisco Chronicle

In our conversation, Dan and I discuss how the complexities of our increasingly religiously and culturally pluralist “post-Christian” world challenge evangelical theology and spirituality to adopt more holistic perspectives. In contexts where a basic Judeo-Christian framework can no longer be assumed, the good news of salvation must be expressed through a living witness of rooted commitment, living side by side with the poor and marginalized and sharing their struggles. This in turn requires processes of formation that impart a deeper understanding of social, historical, and economic issues across cultures, and practices that can integrate this learning within one’s own self-awareness and spiritual development. How am I connected to the exploitation of migrant farm workers? How has the church been implicated in racist attitudes and practices, and how must I repent and change in response? What presumptions and privileges must I divest myself of in order to live in solidarity with the poor? How do the Bible narratives reflect God’s ongoing concern with structural injustice and oppression, and where am I situated in that story? An adequate formation for contexts like that encountered in Oak Park must prepare leaders to ask and respond to these kinds of questions, for themselves and their congregants.

Another element that makes Dan’s perspective unique is his Catholic upbringing in a Franciscan parish. And while he now serves as an evangelical pastor, in his own words he never “protested” his Catholic origins; rather, he has sought to integrate in his own life and ministry the values and strengths of both worlds. Hence, he’s right at home among evangelicals now eagerly learning from “Catholic” figures such as Ignatius of Loyola, Francis of Assisi, Benedict of Nursia, Antony the Great and the early desert abbas and ammas. As well, in thinking about new models for evangelical churches that incorporate the kind of changes we discuss, Dan looks to the Catholic orders and their ability to diversify and incorporate people in varying lifestyles and degrees of intensity of commitment, such as the three Franciscan orders: Order of Friars (celibate men), Order of Saint Clare (celibate women), and the Third Order (inclusive of lay people, married and otherwise). His larger hope? That this integrative impulse and drawing on the whole Christian tradition helps facilitate the healing and unification of the Body of Christ, the Church.

My heartfelt gratitude to all in the New Hope community who welcomed me, fed me, gave me a bed or couch upon which to lay my head, played games with me, drank, laughed, prayed, shared enlightening conversations, and all-in-all made me feel right at home.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

I knew going into the interview with Paula Huston that she had a different perspective than Bruno Barnhart, and I was (and still am) glad to be able to offer listeners diverse of points of view on the subject of the current status and future possibilities of monasticism. What surprised me, however, was how stridently and single-mindedly she put forth her views. Whereas she sees the fruits of the Romantic Movement as continuing to exercise a corrosive influence on modern/postmodern culture, making the flourishing of traditional monasticism or any deeply committed, highly disciplined way of life all but impossible, I wondered if she herself wasn’t operating from an exaggerated idealization of monastic life. So I put the question to her and am publishing her response below, which I think is a clear, concise summary of her main point.

On a personal level, this interview perplexes me in so much as it’s likely the one thus far wherein I find the most to disagree with, while at the same time am sympathetic to her argument. Hence, while Paula and Bruno’s views on everything from art and creativity to theology and monasticism can seem diametrically opposed, I personally cannot take a side. Rather, I see Paula’s caution and skepticism toward new developments, and reverence for ancient patterns, a necessary compliment to Bruno’s dynamic, revolutionary approach. On a deeper level, this perception of complementarity reflects how this journey is stimulating my own wrestling with the tension between attraction to “emerging communities” on the one hand (dynamic, creative, spontaneous) and “ancient roots” on the other (depth, stability, historical continuity). Paula tips the scale strongly toward the latter and I welcome that contribution, even while I cannot give it my full assent.

St Catherine’s Monastery © 2007 Christopher Chan

Paula Huston has been an Oblate of New Camaldoli Hermitage since 1999, after encountering the monastery during a period of acute spiritual crisis and having her life’s direction turned in an entirely new direction. She is the author of The Holy Way: Practices for a Simple Life, By Way of Grace: Moving From Faithfulness to Holiness, Forgiveness: Following Jesus into Radical Loving, and Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit, as well as works of fiction. Her spiritual writing regularly appears in such journals as The Christian Century, America, Image, and Geez, in addition to websites like www.explorefaith.com, www.catholicexchange.com, and www.godspy.com.  She has four grown children plus small grandchildren, and lives with her husband in rural Arroyo Grande, California (full bio here).

This conversation is largely a response to my previous interview with Bruno Barnhart. Taking a decidedly different tack than Bruno’s vision of a new role for monasteries and the emergence of small, local experiments budding into new forms of monastic or quasi-monastic communities, Paula strongly defends the enduring validity and necessity of preserving ancient forms. In contrast to Bruno’s optimistic assessment of human creativity as a kind of revolutionary force unleashed by the Christ event, Paula sees, particularly in the Romantic Movement and the social upheavals of the mid-to-late 20th century, an unrestrained, destabilizing approach to both art and life that tends toward dissipation and broken relationships. Whereas Bruno suggests that the containment of the monastery often best serves as a period of training for a more creative kind of life, Paula sees the limitations imposed by a highly structured, disciplined life as the context wherein true creativity flowers. Not surprisingly, where Bruno sees the 1960s, and Vatican II in particular, as a time of grace, Paula paints a picture of the social fabric coming undone due to an exaggerated ideal of the good life as one without constraint or limitation. Paula also discusses her experience of the Oblate community of which she is a part, of how they’re held together in a bond akin to family with the monastery firmly at the center, and the liberating effects of learning to align their lives with the monastic values instilled by their relationship with the monastery. As regards the vocational crisis facing so many religious communities in the Christian West, Paula shares her belief that this is primarily a clash of cultures between modern and ancient prerogatives, a historical lull that actually gives monasteries greater opportunity to witness to something truly countercultural.

While these contrasting views might be caricatured as “liberal” and “conservative” (which I believe is an unfair simplification), I also see something else at play. The context for both interviews revolves around Bruno’s and Paula’s responses to the state of monastic institutions in the West, and New Camaldoli Hermitage in particular. As such, they appear to inhabit virtually opposite poles. I believe this kind of stalemate permeates much of the discourse around how to address what many see as a vocational crisis among monasteries today. Are changing cultural circumstances calling forth new forms of religious life? Do monastic institutions need to hold their ground as a countercultural witness and weather the crisis? Obviously, these are complex questions with no easy answers. What I find intriguing, however, is how different the context is among new evangelical communities that I’ve encountered. Because these communities have as yet no formal institutions of religious life of their own, there’s a spirit of freedom and spontaneity relatively unhindered by the kind of polarities one finds in Catholic circles. In other words, they’re able to draw from scripture, tradition, and human experience without bumping into overarching, longstanding structures, and hence do not suffer the kind of inertia that results from polarized reactions toward such structures. In fact, I would say that because of this freedom, the kind of small, local experiments Bruno foresees are actually happening now, though more often than not outside Catholicism.

My growing hope? That evangelical “new monastics” and Catholic monasteries forge stronger bonds, which would allow “new monastics” to establish deeper roots in history and tradition, and the “old monastics” to benefit from an infusion of youthful openness, enthusiasm, and spontaneity—the “many possibilities” of the beginner’s mind. This development leans more toward the less contentious idea put forward by Mary Forman, that we are entering a period of expanding diversity not unlike that which emerged in similar periods of cultural upheaval, a diversity fostered today by ecumenical dialogue and new relationships between monastics and laity.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Church of the Sojourners 25th Anniversary Celebration

Debbie Gish is a founding member of Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco’s Mission District, a community of the Shalom Mission Communities network. She works as an adoption social worker and, with her husband Dale, is parent to two daughters, Annalise and Rebecca.

In our conversation, Debbie and I discuss the emergence of Sojourners as both church and community from a small collective of five young women and three older couples with children engaged in urban ministry in the mid-1980s. Debbie speaks of the community’s search for healthy balance and boundaries in their life and ministry together, which led to the development of a particular self-understanding as church that emphasizes loving one another well as the Body of Christ. This understanding manifests in a form of ministry and hospitality that Debbie describes as functioning primarily as the Inn rather than the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). In other words, whereas much emphasis tends to get placed on ministry as going out to those in need, Sojourners’ role looks more like that of the Inn to which the injured are brought to heal. Such people are often integrated into the community, become family, so that the boundary between ministers and those ministered to dissolves. Debbie also shares about her own learning process through 25 years of communal living: from an exuberant honeymoon period, to a deeper realization of community as her way of living out her discipleship to God, the joys of living through the various stages of her life in the close company of others, and a grasp of the necessity of stability and commitment to human flourishing. Finally, since Church of the Sojourners is often identified with the New Monasticism, and Debbie and other members were present when the 12 Marks of the New Monasticism were developed, we spend some time talking about the strengths and challenges in this vital, emerging community movement.

As someone who appreciates contrast, I found going from spending time with Mark Scandrette to staying with Church of the Sojourners particularly illuminating (incidentally, they’re friends and neighbors). In my perception, whereas Mark emphasizes spiritual formation and building community within a highly fluid social environment, Sojourners places great value on stability and mutual commitment in the context of living together for the long haul. Not to exaggerate the contrast, since both overlap in their seeking greater intentionality as Christian disciples through caring, committed relationships. But I was struck by Debbie’s reflections on enduring commitment as the place wherein human beings grow and flourish, a truth our culture has largely forgotten, to the point where it’s difficult to even communicate this wisdom to others. Does our culture need pockets of strong counter-witness, like Sojourners, to excessive autonomy and mobility? I’m inclined to believe, yes, without diminishing the value of forms of community such as Mark’s that can accommodate mobility and flux.

(Tech lesson of the day: avoid recording interviews next to a refrigerator with a high-sensitivity mic in a high-ceilinged, uncarpeted kitchen…)

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

From childhood, Mark Scandrette was taught a highly intentional form of putting the teachings of Jesus into practice in everyday life. In the ensuing years this practical intentionality has grown into a lifelong habit of sensitive discernment and active response to Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom, in dialog with the personal, social, and global realities of our time and place.  Mark now shares this practical wisdom as founding director of ReIMAGINE!, a collective that engages people in integrative spiritual experiments and practices. He is the author of  Soul Graffiti and Practicing the Way of Jesus , and contributing author to Community of Kindness , The Relevant Church, and Emergent Manifesto of Hope. He lives in San Francisco’s Mission District with his wife Lisa and their three teenage children (read Mark’s full bio here).

In my experience, spiritual formation has tended to be a rather introspective and private affair, centered on meeting regularly with a spiritual director, discerning God’s presence and action, and making decisions based on this shared reflection. And even though this often occurred within a community, it was not a deliberately communal process as such, nor did it necessarily draw concrete connections between spiritual development and local/global social, economic, and political concerns. Hence, I was attracted to Mark’s work because of his ability to integrate personal transformation with community building and social action. He does this through shared experiments he calls “learning labs,” which may involve such practices as activism aimed at ending human trafficking, applying Jesus’ teachings on money and possessions to personal and group finances, addressing addictive and compulsive behaviors, or sharing silence and contemplative prayer. From these experiments in faith emerge small communities or “tribes,” who make vows together annually, continuing to love, support, challenge, and hold one another accountable through successive experiments aimed at living ever more fully into the Kingdom of Love Jesus proclaimed.

One aspect that makes this model of community unique is its plasticity. According to Mark, about one third of his tribe move away each year, as other members join, which is only slightly higher than the degree of transiency in San Francisco generally (every year, approximately 20% of the population leaves). Amidst this high mobility, a core group remains, while those who depart may form similar communities where they land. Furthermore, because members of the community engage in an ongoing process of shared action and reflection, this allows for a flexibility that can discern best practices that endure over time, while providing a framework for addressing new challenges as they arise (as an example of the latter, we talk about online social media, the pervasiveness of which  could not have been anticipated 8 years ago, yet has now become a central and even consuming part of many people’s lives in a very short time).

Among other topics, Mark and I discuss spiritual formation in this context of an often dizzying mobility and social fragmentation (of which San Francisco is but a highly condensed microcosm). Against this backdrop, Mark shares his perception of a new consciousness rising, a longing for wholeness in ourselves, our relationships, our communities, and our world. In Mark’s view, this new consciousness has profoundly impacted young Christians, who today tend to be more concerned with issues of justice, community, ecology, and creativity—of a whole way of life—than traditional roles of priest, pastor, or missionary. As emerging communities seek to embody this new consciousness, integrating body, mind, and spirit and the personal, social, economic, and political dimensions of life, traditional models of formation may not be completely adequate. “Learning labs” that give rise to, shape, and sustain community offer one possible, complimentary approach of ongoing engagement in the cycle of action and reflection, catalyzed by a steady gaze upon Jesus’ vision of Kingdom of Love.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

John Main, OSB, was a pivotal figure in the revival of the Christian tradition of contemplative prayer in the late 20th century. Similar to the paths of Trappist monks Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating, John Main’s exposure to the spiritual traditions of the Far East compelled him to dig deeper into his own contemplative heritage as a Christian monk.  Rediscovering the teachings on Christian meditation as taught by John Cassian in his Conferences (compiled in the 5th century as a synthesis of the Egyptian desert monastic tradition, foundational to Christian monasticism East and West) and the anonymous author of the 14th century book of instruction in contemplative prayer, The Cloud of Unknowing, John Main developed and taught a practice of Christian meditation accessible to those leading busy lives in the world. Today, his teaching continues to nourish many through the World Community for Christian Meditation.

Hesed Community makes this contemporary expression of the Benedictine contemplative tradition available to those who, in the midst of the frenetic pace and excessive stimulation of urban life, thirst for silence and spiritual depth. In fact, S. Barbara believes that this model of contemplative community in the city represents one prominent path for the future of monasticism, making monastic values more present and available to the world. In this regard, Hesed has developed varied forms of participation and commitment—extended family members, brothers and sisters, and Benedictine Oblates—as well as being open to the public, to accommodate a diverse range of people’s needs. Significantly, as a community, Hesed has remained non-residential, with S. Barbara being the only full-time resident. A unique take on Benedictine living, S. Barbara shares her conviction that, because the community comes together primarily for shared silent prayer, this has led to a depth of intimacy and caring that a more complex, intensive living arrangement might make more difficult, especially for those already raising families and juggling multiple commitments.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Victoria Austin is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. She has practiced for forty years mostly at San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. She has also taught Iyengar yoga for more than 25 years.

In our conversation, Victoria and I discuss how the Soto Zen tradition Suzuki Roshi transplanted from Japan took root in fresh ways in the United States. In particular, Victoria speaks of an emphasis on everyday life as the field of practice, of lay people moving from a supportive to a creative, participative role, the rise of women leaders, and the development of more communal structures of leadership. We also talk about the emergence of San Francisco Zen Center’s unique constellation of City Center, an urban, residential meditation center; Green Gulch, a rural farm for families and others; and Tassajara, a more traditional monastery in the remote Ventana Wilderness, inland from the Big Sur coast, which opens to guests during the summer months.

Several features of this conversation I find worth highlighting, especially in light of previous interviews. San Francisco Zen Center represents a unique translation of a monastic tradition that exhibits great flexibility, while retaining ancient practice and teaching forms. To my mind, this illustrates a wonderful “middle way” between what I see as the institutional inertia of classic Christian monasticism, and the relative lack of continuity or rootedness among communities identified, for instance, with the fledgling New Monasticism movement.

The integration of lay and ordained, monastic and householder, and the flexible permutations among these categories, along with the fluid variety of practice and lifestyle options the three Centers foster, provide a striking example for  Christians seeking new forms for an emerging “new monasticism.” This model comes very close to the “concentric circles” concept for monastic communities Bruno Barnhart and I began to explore. Furthermore, this model also provides cues to what cultural and institutional support for lay intentionality (an intensity of commitment and participation analogous to that of monastic orders) might look like, which Ivan Kauffman insists Christian churches urgently need to develop.

For the last 30 years, Phil McManus has been actively engaged in promoting peace, justice and active nonviolence in Latin America and in U.S.-Latin America relations, working with a number of different organizations, including the interfaith Fellowship of Reconciliation. He is the Latin America Program Officer for the Appleton Foundation, and with Gerald Schlabach, co-editor of Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America (available from Wipf and Stock Publishers). He is an Oblate of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA, and a member of the Redwood Nonviolence Community, an intentional community based in Santa Cruz, CA.

In our conversation, Philip and I discuss his experiences in Latin America working for nonviolent social change in the context of often brutal repression and injustice. In particular, we discuss the widespread phenomenon of Christian base communities, which continue today but flourished especially for several decades after Vatican II (1962-65). Prompted by Vatican II’s emphasis on the church as servant to the poor, sensitive to reading the ‘signs of the times’ as the lens through which the gospel message is received and acted upon, the Conference of Latin American Bishops met in 1968 in Medellín, Colombia, to discern what this entailed for Latin America. Taking serious stock of the Latin American social, economic, and political landscape, the Conference took the unprecedented step of urging a ‘preferential option for the poor’ for their churches, posing a strong challenge to 500 years of the Catholic Church’s virtual collusion with the economic and political elite of the region. Amid this ferment, Christian base communities arose in astounding numbers, comprised of mostly poor, disenfranchised people who read, studied, and acted upon scripture from the reality of their own experience, perceptions, needs, and challenges.

Philip speaks of how his own Christian faith has been nourished and transformed as he encountered fresh, challenging readings of scripture from the “base”; that is, from within the collective struggles of those at the bottom of the social pyramid striving to realize the reign of love Jesus taught and inaugurated. This form of reading and responding to scripture challenges North American prerogatives in at least four ways: first, social conditions illuminate the meaning of scripture and vice versa, which is to say that the truths of scripture do not float above history but rather dynamically address our common needs and concerns today, and what God intends therein; secondly, the reading of scripture is a communal rather than individual undertaking; third, the poor and marginalized, as the victims of social systems that glorify wealth, power, and prestige, occupy a privileged position from which to understand Jesus’ message; and fourth, the gospel cannot be understood apart from action—through a cycle of action and reflection, the community interiorizes and actualizes the gospel message as an ongoing transformative process. These basic tenets pose a stark contrast to the common tendency to privatize the gospel message as primarily concerned with individual salvation, independent of social, economic, and political realities.

I was eager to include Philip’s thoughts here because of his ability to communicate, from a particular perspective, a theme I encounter over and over again. From Parish Collective’s insistence upon doing theology in the context of rootedness in one’s neighborhood, to New Monasticism’s provocative first mark (“relocation to the abandoned places of Empire”), to Servants Vancouver’s incarnational approach to mission, each share the insight that context and community matter. The concrete needs of our neighbors lay claim on us as disciples of Jesus Christ, and this requires some understanding of the social, economic, and political systems in which we’re embedded. From a Catholic perspective, this “method” was profoundly enfleshed amid the liberation movements of Latin America during the time period alluded to above.

For many of us Christians in North America, formed in a fragmented culture, habituated to an illusion of self-sufficiency, taught a gospel of individual and more often than not unearthly salvation, the habits of communal living don’t necessarily come easily. Hence, lessons gleaned from people on the margins, who are inescapably sensitive to their dependence on God and one another, can be indispensable to our own growth in community.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Unfortunately, I am still extremely limited in terms of my ability to choose what shows up in iTunes, such as podcast information and information for individual episodes. Apologies for this inconvenience.

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the Redwood Nonviolence Community, I would like to invite you to a discussion on faith-based intentional community with Julian Collette. It will be on Monday, October 10 at 7:30 PM in Room 108 of the old High School Building at Holy Cross Church. (It is the building between the parking lot and Highway 17, which runs behind it.) We hope you can join us.

Julian is a former monk of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur and currently a student at St. John’s School of Theology-Seminary in Minnesota. As part of his studies, he is researching faith-based intentional communities in the U.S. He has an interesting blog (http://emerging-communities.com) that charts his adventures and also includes a number of interviews with people who are very thoughtful and engaging on these issues. As he says, “I am taking my education and aspirations on the road—on a bicycle, to be exact—in order to explore the various ways Christian intentional communities in the United States are taking shape in response to rapidly changing social, cultural, economic, ecological, and technological conditions. While I am privileging Christian communities, I keep the lens of inquiry open enough to include non-Christian communities as well, in order to engage and learn from a diversity of perspectives, models, and practices. Additionally, while my understanding of what constitutes an intentional community remains flexible, I privilege those that actually reside together and participate in some form of shared prayer and ministry.”

If you are interested to know more about what he has seen and heard and to engage in conversation with him and others on this topic, please join us.

Warm regards,
Phil McManus

For the Redwood Nonviolence Community

Bruno Barnhart is a Camaldolese-Benedictine monk of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California, and was one of my primary teachers during my own monastic formation. He is the author of The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center, Second Simplicity: The Inner Shape of Christianity, The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity, and co-editor of Purity of Heart and Contemplation: A Monastic Dialogue Between Christian and Asian Traditions.

What might happen if a monastery, whose Oblates (nonresident lay associate members) outnumber the monks within by a 50 to 1 ratio, embarked upon an experiment in renewal that altered the very form and function of what conventionally comprises a monastic community?

This interview is actually the tail end of a much longer conversation, wherein we had discussed such topics as wisdom, evolution, poetry, and especially the exhilarating, irrepressible, revolutionary impulse at the heart of Christianity. Our primary guides were the restless, Christ-possessed, future-oriented Apostle Paul, and the 20th century Jesuit scientist, theologian, and philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, especially in their understanding of the Cosmic Christ. Also relevant to the interview, we spoke of literary figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and his distinction between the Party of Memory and the Party of Hope (applied by Emerson particularly to political parties but ultimately seen as forces in tension underlying all human affairs) and Owen Barfield’s notion that the Christ event fundamentally shifted the trajectory of human history from a position of receptivity and learning to one of creativity or co-creativity with God. What emerges is a hope-filled vision of a divinely-charged human creativity flowing from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, with a preference for the innovative and experimental.

At the point at which this interview actually begins, I bring the conversation down to earth by asking, in essence: what does this have to do with monasticism? That is, how would this dynamic, creative, future-oriented perspective change a monastic culture that tends to focus its energies on conserving and recapitulating the past? From there, we begin to sketch what such a new monasticism might look like in the present day; the role existing monasteries would play in this transformation; and how this might actually take shape in a monastery like Bruno’s own. Since New Camaldoli Hermitage’s situation—of a flourishing life outside the cloister, yet seeming diminishing life within—is by no means unique, the ideas expressed here have a potentially broad applicability for a new monasticism and new monasteries.

(For a critical response to this interview, see Paula Huston)

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Cyprian Consiglio is a Camaldolese monk, musician, and teacher, as well as a personal friend and confrere. After ten years at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA, he has lived for nine years near Santa Cruz, CA, where he divides his time between solitude and extensive travel, performing and teaching around the world. He has been deeply involved in inter-religious dialogue for many years and is the author of Prayer in the Cave of the Heart: The Universal Call to Contemplation.

In our conversation, Cyprian distinguishes between what he sees as two forms of monasticism in the West: the familiar, institutionalized model and one arising from a more spontaneous, flexible contemplative impulse, manifesting across religious traditions in a variety of emergent forms. In this light, Cyprian discusses the sources that have inspired him in his own journey, from living as a monk in community to the less predetermined path of “hermit, preacher, and wanderer,” or Christian sannyasi, in the spirit of inter-religious pioneers Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux, OSB) and Bede Griffiths, OSB Cam.

In a significant contrast to Mary Ewing Stamps, who in an earlier interview identified the non-negotiables of monasticism as a leader, a rule, and a stable place (which is about as succinct a definition of the first form of [Benedictine] monasticism as you’ll likely find), Cyprian goes to the heart of the matter in identifying the primacy of the interior life and contemplative practice as the fundamental, nonnegotiable elements of monasticism, which in turn imbue the whole of a monk’s life and activity. With this more flexible definition in mind, Cyprian and I explore various forms of monastic community and itinerancy East and West, how to maintain a disciplined contemplative life on the move and without direct community support, and the critical necessity of daily practice, rootedness in tradition, and spiritual direction for the monk in the world.

While the distinction shouldn’t be drawn too starkly, I find Cyprian’s understanding of two forms of monasticism helpful and refreshing. Having myself been trained in the Camaldolese tradition, I tend to identify with a middle-ground, wherein the monastic institution meets, and ideally fosters, the kind of adaptability, spontaneity, and freedom of the second form. Hence, like Cyprian, I’ve also taken inspiration from the more flexible ascetical traditions of the Far East and the kinds of monastic or “lay monastic” communities they’ve established in the West (Cyprian speaks particularly of Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery (see interview here) and Mount Madonna Yoga Center, of which I have visited only the former). As Cyprian affirms, this is not to say that one form is better than the other, but it does help to clarify important differences in, say, vocational dispositions.

Incidentally, this is the same Cyprian who performs the music I use in the podcast…

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

On the Way, North of Big Sur

Funny thing. Two weekends in a row, in two towns, upon my arrival I’ve found myself invited to attend retreats I hadn’t previously known were happening. In Eureka, through a chain of logic that still eludes me, a friend of a friend of a friend thought I’d like to participate in a retreat given by a Catholic priest on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as part of my tour. In fact, I was grateful to participate, but perhaps for different reasons than this person anticipated.

“When two or three are together in my name, there am I in your midst” (Matthew 18:20)

A common theme running through the presenter’s exploration of the 12 steps was how recovering addicts and codependents in 12 step groups “come to believe that a Power greater than themselves can restore them to sanity” (Step 2), and acquire the courage to “turn their wills and their lives over to God as they understood God” (Step 3) not so much through explicit religious belief (although this can help) but through coming to know something of God communicated implicitly through interactions and relationships formed with other members. The sense of dignity, understanding, respect, and compassion a new member receives, from those further along in recovery who have undergone a spiritual liberation they could not have imagined or willed on their own, can often communicate the God who saves more surely than a catechism class or a Sunday sermon. This theme struck all the more deeply when we broke into sharing groups.

If you’ve ever been welcomed into a circle of women and men who’ve suffered similarly as you, who can listen to you with deep empathy and respect (without needing to give advice, sell you on their religious views, or shift the focus onto themselves) and are willing to reciprocate by sharing from the same level of vulnerability, then you are likely familiar with that peculiar quality such a group can evoke: the visceral knot of habitual guardedness uncoils, and a pain you may not have known you’ve been carrying wells up in your solar plexus, your chest, your throat, wells out as tears long overdue. From a Christian perspective, and without negating God’s transcendence or the necessity for the addict of receiving help beyond the merely human, I believe we can say that such moments of compassionate presence to one another reveal the Triune God in our midst; the God who is loving relationship, who is less an object of belief than a constant discovery, leading us through our pain and fear and the pain and fear of our world, to be surprised again and again by new life awaiting us on the other side.

Liz Song and I Working Our MSR Stoves, Portola Redwoods State Park

Next, in Palo Alto I met up with new friend Liz Song (aka the Dancing Panda of the SFO baggage claim area) on the eve of her departure on bike with a few friends into the Santa Cruz Mountains, to attend a camping retreat with members of their church, the Highway Community. In spite of being the oldest attendee at this “post-college” retreat, I felt right at home and grateful to meet so many passionate, engaged, thoughtful young Christians. How surprising and inspiring it is to hear them talk about such topics as monasticism, ecology, intentional community, and Christian anarchism, nearly all in the same breath. In fact, a handful of them have already formed an intentional community. This is definitely a clear, hope-filled trend I’m seeing: young evangelicals eager to learn from the whole of the Christian tradition, open to a variety of radical perspectives, creatively engaged in applying what they learn into shared ways of living—something is definitely afoot! I look forward to re-connecting with this particular group in the near future.

Stealth Camping, Carmel Beach

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and there speak tenderly to her heart” (Hosea 2:14)

It’s always a fine line between reading the hand of God at work in the events of your life and mere narcissistic magical thinking, but I’m going to take the risk and trust that these turn of events were no accident. The tenderness that these retreats, these people, touched in me, each in their own way, has been vying for my attention for a while now. And if they’ve helped to lower me closer to the bottom of the well, they’ve also spoken of where I need to go to plumb the depths. And the word they’ve spoken is:

Get thee to a monastery!

Altar, New Camaldoli Hermitage

If you’ve been following thus far, then you may already be aware that at the beginning of this tour I had the unique experience of being struck on the Achilles Heel both literally and metaphorically: while the physical injury grounded me for a month’s time, a particularly painful event in my personal life instigated a period of deep reflection. And the truth is, as a consequence of the latter, my attention has been drawn inward, my enthusiasm for the tour flagging, and the passionate questions and aspirations that underlie the inspiration for this journey have lost their sharp edge. Where my intention has been to attend closely to and learn from the lives, perspectives, and concerns of those with whom I visit and interview, I simply haven’t had the energy or focus available for that level of presence.

Now, please do not worry! This is still very good news, both personally and for this endeavor I’ve set out upon. It simply means that I need to take a brief sabbatical from the actual tour of communities in order to give the rumblings of my heart the attention they deserve; to re-charge, re-evaluate, and re-connect with my monastic roots so as to be able to give myself fully to the work before me.

“O God, you search me and you know me; you know my resting and my rising…all my ways lie open to you”  (Psalm 139:1-3)

For the time being, then, I’ve returned to my “home group”—my once physical, enduring spiritual home, New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California. This is where I come to attend to “deep calling on deep in the roar of waters” (Psalm 42:7). As I see it, intertwined with this tour of communities is the opportunity to dig more deeply into the aspirations God has gifted me with to shape a life with meaning, a life that bears fruit, and to let go of those habit-patterns that have recurringly led me down paths of futility and disappointment along the way. This inner work is the personal analog of what I see new forms of community engaged in on social, cultural, economic, political, ecological, and ecclesial levels: how do we take the life conditions we’ve been given and forge a Spirit-infused, liberating path together?  And this is by no means a dreary process but one that’s already filling me with a renewed sense of vitality and clarity of direction, qualities I am eager to take back onto the road again (picking up where I left off in the San Francisco Bay Area, possibly as early as mid-September). Hence, in no way do I see this as a set-back but rather a leap forward in what I’m actually seeking interiorly from this venture—transformation—which can only have a positive influence on the outer rind of the journey; that is, visiting communities, blogging, reflection, interviews, etc. In any case, while I am here, I hope to corner a hermit-monk or two for an interview (no promises!) so that I might keep the podcast rolling. We’ll see…

Banana Slugs Say, “Welcome to California!”

Incidentally, travelling by Greyhound on bicycle tour is not recommended where other options are available. In this case, the ticket cost me a little over $30, which wasn’t entirely unreasonable. But the bike had to be broken down, boxed, put back together at the other end in the bus station parking lot, all for an additional $30! I am still kicking myself for having spent so much money to cover a relatively small distance. While train tickets are generally more expensive, the cost for taking a bicycle on Amtrak is minimal, and often the bike can simply be rolled up and onto the train without being boxed. Fortunately, since then, my friend Mandy from WithinReach turned me on to Craiglist rideshare listings: dozens of people potentially headed your way, willing to take you along for the ride in exchange for splitting the gas cost. I easily found a ride in this way from Ashland, Oregon to Crescent City, California, covering another 120 miles for a fraction of the cost of the bus. In addition to Craiglist ridesharing, I’ve also benefited from the generosity of good folks I’ve met through warmshowers.org, an online network of bicycle tourers offering hospitality to their fellows on the road, and couchsurfing.org, a similar but larger, less specific network of travelers and adventurers. Be sure to check into these resources the next time you’re planning a road trip: informal, off-the-grid, cooperative hospitality and transportation.

Morning Fog, Highway 101 South of Crescent City

I arrived in Crescent City three evenings ago. Knowing that there’s a LONG climb immediately upon leaving town, I offered my driver another $5 to get me to the summit (well worth the cost if you ask me, especially considering it was already 7pm!). Near the top, we came upon a state park with camping. We turned down the drive, and drove down and down and down another 2 1/2 miles, almost enough to negate the climb out of town! At the least, I had a place to lay my head without having to wear myself out to get there. I shared the hiker-biker site with two other tourers and was grateful to be sleeping outdoors again, cradled by the redwood forest. Pedaling/walking the bike back up to the highway the next morning, I was greeted by my first pair of bright, bulbous banana slugs gleaming from a utility box, as if to say, “Welcome to California!” The very good news is that I biked 45 miles that day without a hint of pain, beyond ordinary soreness and fatigue. And though I miss the sun already, it’s a sheer blessing to see and hear and touch the Pacific Ocean again. In fact, I intended to spend 2 days pedaling to Eureka but was stopped on the way by two men in a pick-up who had pulled into a turnout and were attempting to lure me with a banana and two granola bars. Easy prey, I took the bait. One of them was curious about my recumbent bicycle and wanted to ask me questions. A delightful conversation ensued, until finally they asked me if I needed a ride. “Where are you headed?,” I asked. “Eureka.” Ah, serendipity.

First Sight of the Pacific Ocean

Unfortunately, hiker-biker campsites in the California State Parks are now $5 a night, up from a mere $1 less than 10 years ago. This puts me in something of a quandary. $1 is mere pocket change, but $5 is significant when my average daily living expenses while biking are in the range of $7-15. My philosophy is that often the less money I have on tour—short of destitution!—the better. I say this because in my experience, when money is short I am forced to use ingenuity and creativity, which generally makes for a more satisfying, if less secure, journey. Furthermore, an extended bicycle tour has a way of weaning me from the sense of needing what I often take for granted when I am settled. The most obvious example is shelter. When I landed in Big Sur on my last bicycle tour, even though I had a room of my own, I still preferred to sleep in my tent, even on cold nights. There’s a tremendous satisfaction in being woken up by wild turkeys making their morning rounds, stepping out of a tent at 3,000 feet above the Pacific, and peering over a vast sea of clouds below.

Blue Whale in the Klamath River

In other words, on bicycle tour I tend to have fewer options in many respects than ordinarily. I live simply, eat simply, sleep simply, am exposed to the elements in an often inescapable way. And the longer I stay with that simplicity, the more my values and attitudes are analogously simplified: I come to value this simplicity more than I value conventional securities and comforts (within reason, mind you). To me, this transformation of mind and heart is what makes bicycle touring so worthwhile. Not only do I come to a deeper appreciation of the ordinary and simple in life, but when I do have the opportunity to enjoy something beyond this threshold, I am all the more grateful for it. In fact, the more I undergo this transformative process, the more I realize that many of the values I leave behind were not truly “mine” in the first place but an inherited distortion of heart (“original sin”?) received from family, culture, religion, and so forth. This in turn gives me the opportunity to discern more clearly the values and aspirations that truly matter. What can short-circuit this process, however (or at least mitigate it), is having the resources on hand to choose the restaurant, the fancy foods, or the hotel, not as an occasional treat but as a habit. Of course, now I am in the ambiguous position of having a fair amount of money, but it’s been given to me by others with the understanding that I’ll put it to good use toward a particular purpose, and it’s meant to last a very long time.

My heartfelt gratitude to the Harrison and Wheeler families for their unfathomable generosity and patience, and for making me feel right at home. Special thanks as well to Gregg in Ashland, Larry the Driver, Bert and/or Ernie and Phil, Amy and so many other good people in Eureka.

Lysbeth Borie of the Alpha Institute has been involved in consensus decision making for over thirty years, including 10 years of daily practice at the Alpha Farm community in Deadwood, Oregon, and has worked as a consensus trainer, both privately and in partnership with her mentor Caroline Estes, since 1988. In our conversation, among other aspects of consensus process, Lysbeth and I explore how consensus process done well enriches the culture of communities, fostering growth, intimacy, and clarity of discernment; how it functions best when approached as a personal and collective transformational practice; the elements that go into healthy consensus process; and the role of consensus in the organic stages of group development.

While this is one of my longer interviews, I believe it’s well worth your time if this topic holds interest for you. What I most appreciate about Lysbeth’s reflections is the sense of consensus process as able to integrate the material, personal, social, and spiritual concerns of a community and use them as the raw material for mutual growth on all of these levels. This raises further questions that might be worth exploring more in depth at a later time. For instance, underlying this process is a worldview relying on a systems or ecological perspective that emphasizes the interrelationship and interdependence of those within the system, as opposed to a hierarchical worldview that implies the necessity for a clear chain of command. This contrast in worldviews in turn affects how we conceive of God and God’s action in the world, determines the forms of institutions that we develop, and the pattern of relations with one another and the planet.

Interestingly, the Rule of Benedict, while tending strongly toward the hierarchical (with the embodiment of Christ’s authority centralized in the person of the abbot), does not neglect the horizontal, or “that of God in all people.” For instance, as outlined in the third chapter of the Rule, the abbot should consult the whole of the community before making important decisions because “the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best.” While the brothers in this instance play only a consultative role, there is nonetheless an acknowledgement that no one person, not even the abbot, can presume to have access to the whole truth but must patiently listen for God potentially speaking through each and all.

For me, this raises the further question of whether consensus process can adequately account for differences in levels of maturity and the appropriation of the ‘charism’ or calling of a community. Especially in a monastery or neo-monastic community, where the intent is to form its members according to the wisdom of a centuries-old tradition, there would seem to be a need to integrate both hierarchical and egalitarian approaches, though this ought to look different in our day than it did in Benedict’s sixth century context.

Much food for thought.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise

-From a talk entitled “The Five Myths of Community“ by Mark Scandrette, a man I hope to meet when I hit the San Francisco Bay (my interview with Mark here).

The “myth” that I resonate with the most in Mark’s talk is what he calls the myth of belonging—the insidious expectation that, if only I find the right community, my needs for companionship, direction, and growth will be met. This reminds me of a talk I attended years ago by Dorothy Maclean, co-founder of the Findhorn Community in Scotland. A young man stood up at the end of the talk to ask her a question: “My friends and I are interested in starting a community. What advice do you have for us?” Her response: if you’re interested in creating community for community’s sake, don’t bother. This is a recipe for disaster. A community bent on self-fulfillment will implode under the weight of accumulated disappointment, because this is not what community is for. Rather, a community must first be comprised of people with a shared intention that carries each out of themselves in some form of service. With so much talk of longing for community and meaningful connection in our day, I believe this understanding is crucial. And it would seem to present an odd paradox: in a sense, community as a goal must be aimed at indirectly, arising from the aspiration to serve rather than for the fulfillment of the legitimate personal need for community.

As anyone who has lived in community for any significant amount of time knows, this is not as simple as it may sound. Even with the best of conscious intentions, the unfulfilled needs and wounds of the past will insinuate themselves in the form of subtle or not-so-subtle demands on our community-mates. How we respond when this happens makes all the difference, especially in a dominant culture that may seem to exuberantly affirm us in our perception that our needs will be better met elsewhere, providing us with all manner of seductive images of greener pastures. And of course, sometimes it’s true—sometimes we simply need to move on. But when we do, we will as likely find ourselves haunted by the same unfulfillment in a different guise. The script remains essentially the same, only the actors and stage props change. What then?

In his Rule, Saint Benedict provides a startling contrast to the rootless search for fulfillment that has so many of us in its grasp. Everywhere we are confronted by a radical de-centering, from ourselves to the other who is Christ, especially as encountered in the person of the abbot or abbess, to whom is given willing obedience; in the stranger or guest, whose needs press upon the comfortable rhythms of the daily round; in the sick, who require our care and attention; in all our sisters and brothers, with their unavoidable foibles and weaknesses. At the heart of this Rule lies the 12-rung ladder of humility, outlining the descent of the self in terms that even many contemporary monks and nuns find jarring. Difficulties with language aside, this is actually my favorite part of the Rule. Why? Because if in my obedience to Christ whom I meet in others I can quietly embrace suffering in my heart, without weakening or seeking escape, in times of difficulty, dissatisfaction, or even injustice (fourth degree of humility), then I am no longer ruled by suffering, disappointment, insult, or injury. Pain no longer compels hand or heart. If I can be content with what is deemed the lowest occupations and pursuits (sixth degree of humility), and believe in my heart that I am nothing, a nobody (seventh degree of humility),* then I am liberated from the feverish pursuit of trying to be a “somebody”; liberated from the rivalrous game of comparison. Then, I am liberated from the allure of the whole array of symbols our culture (and subcultures) dangles before us as bearers of the rewards of prestige, security, power, love, fulfillment. Only then can I be free of the burdens of anger, lust, the urge to retaliate; free to forgive, to be an agent of peace and reconciliation, to love Christ above all else.

Of course, contemplating this “lofty” downward trajectory of the path of monastic transformation makes me painfully aware of my own radical insufficiency and failings. After all, I am attracted to this topic of cutting through the illusion of community as a source of self-fulfillment because I have been guilty of it time and time again. This is why I value such wisdom from the monastic tradition, not as a measuring stick to compare myself to an impossible ideal (which would be to create yet another symbol of self-fulfillment), but as the North Star pointing away from self-concern to the face of Christ who meets me in every person, every encounter, in the sacrament of this very moment. This, as I see it, is the way of Christian community, or any mature form of intentional community: a way that is not for “me.” And for those of us who are followers of Christ, we tread this way not because we choose it but because we first experience ourselves as chosen for it; not because we love but because we first experience ourselves as loved, with a love that increases in our hearts the more that we give it away.

*For those of you who may be cringing at this point or have cringed while reading this part of the Rule, what made the ladder of humility come alive for me as a vivid description of the path of spiritual liberation was a simple insight a teacher once shared with me. The humility being asked of us—for instance, believing in our hearts that we are the lowest among human beings—is not first a psychological reality but theological: we are made humble because of the growing appropriation of the insight of our “nothingness” before God. This living, transforming insight in turn radically reconfigures our relationships with other people, along the lines that Benedict and his sources such as John Cassian outline. It is intimacy with God, and the dethronement of self-centeredness that this entails, that underlies and permeates the ladder of humility, not self-loathing. Obviously, a pathological conviction that one is literally the lowest among all humanity is a gross inflation of self-preoccupation. Rather, to my mind, to believe in your heart that you are the lowest kind of human being is to see in yourself the potential to be what you most despise in others—that at heart you are no better than the rapist, the murderer, etc. And furthermore, God does not love you or anyone else the less for it. To see oneself as “good” leads to arrogance, hard-heartedness, and self-delusion. To see and accept oneself as in solidarity with the lowest of the low not only liberates from comparison but yields compassion, forgiveness, and creative action; or as Benedict assures us, yields the spontaneous love of God that is its own reward, uncompelled by fear or self-concern.

John Schwiebert has served as pastor of the Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church of Portland, Oregon, since its inception in 1985, and is a founding member of the 18th Avenue Peace House, an intentional community that serves as the central gathering and worship space for the larger community and congregation.  In our conversation, John and I discuss how the community came to adopt the Quaker process of spiritual discernment, or “sense of the meeting,” after the consensus process they learned from their social activism endeavors failed to provide an adequate means of addressing serious differences among community members. We also talk about the community’s present process of discerning the future and living into the next generation as John prepares to step down from his leadership position. Finally, John offers strong words on the degree of commitment necessary for healthy, enduring communities, likening the decision to join a community to that of entering into marriage.

Metanoia Peace Community

The Metanoia Peace Community took its inspiration from the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC, particularly the latter’s approach to intensifying and balancing both the inner (contemplative) and outer (sociopolitical) dimensions of Christian discipleship. In appropriating this model of radical discipleship, members of the Metanoia Peace Community commit to practices of resource sharing, common and individual prayer, peacemaking in the home and through acts of civil disobedience, participation in smaller discipleship groups that meet for mutual support and accountability, and, as a “Reconciling Congregation” within the United Methodist Church, welcoming and advocating on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons.  For residents of the 18th Avenue Peace House, these commitments include income sharing and a more intensive sharing of daily life, prayer, and ministry together. In its ministry of hospitality, the Peace House has provided residential hospice care, particularly to persons with AIDS. The Peace House also functions as the hub for Grief Watch, which provides resources, publications, and support through the grieving process, especially for those suffering perinatal loss and the loss of children to murder or suicide.

When I first arrived at the Peace House, it was a bit of a culture shock: from Tacoma Catholic Worker in the midst of the inner city to a beautiful, spacious house in a relatively affluent Portland neighborhood. Nevertheless, in hearing stories (off-tape) about the community’s history—particularly risks taken financially and in their commitments as war tax resisters and peace activists—and the array of ministries that spin from its creative center, I was impressed. I geared my list of questions in the hope of eliciting some of those stories and John’s reflections on their significance, but in the actual interview he responded with quite different material. That’s not a bad thing, but if I was savvier, I would have tried to probe deeper into what he did offer than continue with the questions I’d preselected. For instance, John shared his thoughts on servant-leadership and his own role as leader within the community. But because this left me more confused than enlightened in regard to how his leadership interfaced with the community’s consensus process, I chose to leave that material out. In any case, the two topics that I found most engaging in this conversation were his reflections on commitment and spiritual discernment, the latter being the perfect segue for my next interview, which will focus exclusively on consensus process in community.

Metanoia Peace Community has built a strong foundation with its witness to Christian community and its dynamic ministries, but it’s also clearly a community with an uncertain future. As its original members age and its leader steps aside, it will be particularly interesting to keep an eye on what follows, since this is universally a sensitive pivot point in the life of any community.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise

Siesta

I left Portland with dread. My tendons were still somewhat sore and I had made up my mind to visit a doctor once I hit Eugene, another three-days’ bike ride away at a modest pace. I didn’t know how my body would handle biking again, and on top of that, the weather report predicted a 70% chance of rain at every hour of the day! However, the rain became the least of my worries. Thirty miles into the ride, I stepped out of the Safeway grocery store with nut-butters, bananas, and other assorted road-food, sat on the curb, and sobbed. My tendons were getting worse, and from my internet research I feared that I may have done serious damage. Was this it? Had I sabotaged the tour so early into the journey? Resigned to taking whatever action was necessary, I called a friend and arranged for a place to stay in Eugene. A couple more calls and the rescue mission was set in motion: from Canby back to Portland, and then, when I learned that the evening train was running too late, to another friend’s house for the night. Fortunately, this gave me the opportunity to meet and befriend two fabulous, generous people—another Parish Collective  connection, Candice and Brandon of Canby House and Springwater Community respectively—and spend more time with another fabulous, generous friend Angela. The next evening I arrived safely in Eugene by train.

New Friends Candice and Brandon

Old Friend, Angela

I visited the doctor the following day and, thankfully, was told that no damage had apparently been done, and that rest and ice should do the trick. And scouring the online recumbent forums, I learned as well that changing to clipless pedals (ironically named, since they’re the kind that clip your foot into the pedals by a cleat at the bottom of your shoe) should also mitigate the difficulties I was having. That’s the unambiguously good news. The more ambiguously good news is…well, now here’s where boundaries get a little fuzzy. What I mean by that is, while communities and bicycle touring comprise the primary content of this blog, underlying all of this is the personal journey, the pilgrimage, so to speak. Typically, I write about that journey in private and will have to negotiate the boundaries of how public that writing becomes as I go. But I feel compelled to allow a little bleed-through here.

Now, if a pilgrimage is true to its name, the pilgrim soon finds him/herself, in some sense, losing control of the journey, necessitating greater surrender in faith to the journey itself and where it leads. Oftentimes, this loss of control occurs with the onset of some form of wounding. So perhaps it’s not coincidence that my physical injury has coincided with having to revisit a personal loss and the consequences of  poor choices of the past, at the same time that commitment and stability have become recurring themes in my interviews, which has prompted a deeper realization of the lack of stability and enduring commitments in my own life. Even after having lived in community for nearly ten years (well, okay, three separate communities in that time period), I’ve never been so powerfully or painfully struck as I am now by my own self-defeating attitudes, evasions, and impulsive behavior that routinely sabotage the possibility of real stability, whether geographically, relationally, or vocationally.

Office Hours

This makes me wonder about the deeper questions of aspiring to commitment and stability for so many of us whose initial “household formation” took the shape of our conditioning in broken homes, in a broken culture that exalts the value of individual freedom and gratification often at the expense of stability and commitment, whose energies are engaged in expanding the opportunities and possibilities for that freedom to maneuver. However long it takes to realize that this path of unlimited options is a spiritual dead-end, ultimately destructive to people and planet, that realization is only the beginning. Having made the conscious choice to take a different path, the next step is to confront the myriad unconscious factors that militate against that intention; or to paraphrase Saint Paul, though my inner being delights to do God’s will, the habit-patterns forged in my mind, emotions, imagination, impulses, and attitudes follow a different law. And the journey toward integrity of intention and action is one of a lifetime and, I suspect, beyond.

The good news then, ambiguous as it might seem, is that, according to my spiritual director, these “wounds” and uncomfortable realizations indicate that the pilgrimage is on in earnest.

So the journey must continue. I hope to be biking again within the week, on to my next stop, Lost Valley Education Center and Ecovillage. In the meantime, my interview with pastor John Schwiebert of the Metanoia Peace Community will be published shortly, and soon thereafter, an extremely interesting, thought provoking conversation with Lysbeth Borie, a consensus trainer with the Alpha Institute.

Stay tuned…

Nora with Daughters Bridget and Maggie

Nora Leider has been a resident of the Tacoma Catholic Worker community for the past six years, involved in a variety of the community’s activities, including helping guests transitioning from homelessness to develop strategies toward greater relational and financial independence, advocating for fair, affordable housing and mixed income communities in downtown Tacoma, and managing the community’s organic garden. Continuing on the theme of family in community, Nora and I discuss her journey of becoming wife and mother within the context of discerning and becoming a core community member. She describes the lessons she’s learned along the way in negotiating boundaries and establishing balance between community and family life, and the importance for her of living in a faith community that combines addressing immediate needs with working for systemic change. Nora also shares how the consensus process has led her to a deeper trust and openness toward others’ intentions, perspectives, and insights, and offers an encouraging word for young families discerning a call to life in community.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine

The Tacoma Catholic Worker grew out of a movement of houses of hospitality initiated by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in New York City in the 1930s. Combining the practice of welcoming the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the marginalized as Christ (Matt. 25:31-46) with a social vision embracing anarchist and pacifist principles, the Catholic Worker movement has since taken on many and varied expressions, with over 180 Catholic Worker communities in the United States at present.

Founded in 1989 with the initial intention of opening their doors to provide emergency shelter for the neighborhood’s homeless, the Tacoma Catholic Worker community soon found itself overwhelmed by the sheer number of slumbering people about the house each night. Reflecting on this experience and recognizing that Tacoma already had facilities for emergency shelter, the community decided that offering transitional housing for those seeking to get off the streets was a more effective, needed service that they could more manageably offer. Many singles, families, and women recently released from prison have all found help and home in the ensuing years.

Today the community is comprised of eight houses, with approximately fifteen permanent members, plus children, alongside temporary guests, residents, and interns.  In addition to transitional housing, Tacoma Catholic Worker hosts weekly open houses including liturgy and a communal meal, shares the yield of their organic garden, offers showers and phone services, and engages in local advocacy on issues that affect the neighborhood’s poor and marginalized residents.  Tacoma Catholic Worker is also a center of activity for Disarm Now Plowshares, organizing nonviolent actions in protest of the nearby Trident submarine base in Bangor, which houses more than 2,000 nuclear warheads, the largest single stockpile in the United States.

What I appreciate about Nora’s reflections is that, while her story may not be as dramatic as that of Craig Greenfield’s—nothing approaching taking small children in tow from Cambodian slums to one of the most destitute neighborhoods in the Western world—she manages to capture in a simple, accessible way the value of community for families and children, and for finding meaningful engagement with the people, the challenges, the hopes, fears, and dreams embodied in an inner city neighborhood. Like Servants Vancouver, the Tacoma Catholic Worker witnesses in a deliberate way to the possibility of breaking down the stratifications—economic, relational, and otherwise—inherent in so much of modern urban culture.  As communities of faith, each witness to the possibility of an intensification of following Christ, especially as he is to be found in one another and in the ‘least’ among us. As a young mother, Nora can insist that this work and witness is enriched by and enriching for children.

For more on the history of the challenge of Catholic Worker communities to accommodate families, see Dan McKanan, “Chapter 6: Inventing the Catholic Worker Family,” in The Catholic Worker after Dorothy: Practicing the Works of Mercy in a New Generation (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2008), 146-180.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

Trailside Picnic

In the morning, I made some mechanical adjustments to the bike, intended to mitigate knee pain, then off to an agonizing start. I made a judgment call, assuming that the pain was something that could be worked through rather than exacerbated by more biking. By midday, however, it was not my knees as much as my achilles tendons that throbbed with jolts of pain at every pedal stroke. After crawling at three miles an hour up a prolonged but thankfully not terribly steep incline, it began to rain! I dragged myself limping into a pizza shop and wondered if I could even continue. Was I setting myself up for serious injury? Would I even be able to do this tour after such extensive preparation? Ninety-two miles to Portland and I was scheduled to arrive the next day. I ate my pizza, swallowed my resistance, and, having vaguely considered and dismissed plan B (making my way to I-5 to hitchhike the rest of the way), I climbed back onto the bicycle and achingly pedaled on.

The upside of the day was the stunning views through rolling forested hillsides that followed. This is why I bicycle tour!—this slow, quiet, solitary movement amid such primordial beauty (never mind the logging trucks!). Ultimately, I covered sixty miles by the day’s end, landing on the Oregon-side of the border just south of Ranier. Having been tipped off that I should be able to find camping space in a county park along the Columbia River, I rolled downhill to the waterside. However, I was more than a little dejected when I discovered a mere grassy parking lot at the edge of the railroad tracks. Not safe. Unable to bike, I pushed uphill to the last house I passed with a sizable yard, knocked on the door to ask for a place to set up my tent for the night, and instead was offered a bed and warm shower! An awkward moment ensued as Bob and I sized each other up, sensing whether the other might actually be dangerous.

“So…is it just you who live here?”

“Just me and my wife.”

I accepted the offer but had a moment of panic when, having stowed the bike, set myself up in the guest bedroom, and yet still hadn’t seen a sign of another inhabitant, Bob turned to me and said, “Well, the wife seems to have disappeared!” Really!!?? But my anxiety was quickly assuaged when his wife Bonnie finally did appear, having gone to track down the cat who had been startled away by my sudden intrusion into their otherwise quiet, secluded rural home. Tensions eased, I spent a very pleasant evening slurping strawberries and cream, conversing, and watching television. And the warm bed and shower were greatly appreciated. Another reason to love bicycle touring: placing yourself in the position to discover and enjoy the serendipitous hospitality of strangers.

I set off early morning refreshed but still in pain, once again taking the gamble that my body would acclimate rather than suffer injury. Happily, more than forty miles later I rolled into Portland with vigor, knee pain all but completely gone, tendon pain no longer an obstacle. I arrived at Metanoia Peace Community late afternoon, with plenty of time to settle in, shower, and enjoy a family-style meal, exhausted but grateful.

Now, my hope was that along the way I would stop at cafes and edit and publish interviews and blog and otherwise keep on top of my responsibilities. In the end, however, at least this time around, it was enough to simply bike these 170 miles, nothing extra. Which is to say that, although at the end of my interview with Craig Greenfield I suggested that I would publish interviews at the rate of approximately once a week, I have learned that, until I acclimate to the biking and become a more efficient editor/blogger, this is an unrealistic goal. I have an interview from Tacoma Catholic Worker on hand and soon one from Metanoia Peace Community, but I make no promises as to when they will be published. Since most of the communities I plan to visit on the West Coast are geographically consolidated, a more reasonable approach might be to do most of the editing and publishing in the long spaces between, such as from southern Oregon to the San Francisco Bay.

In the meantime, the good news is that my body does seem to be acclimating rather than disintegrating, and the tour is finally underway in earnest. Next step: learning rhythms that sustain me physically, emotionally, and spiritually, that also allow me to enter and be open to the rhythms and relationships of the communities I visit.

One day, one pedal stroke at a time.