Kirkepiscatoid

Well, we are back to having to deal with monasticism again, this time in the venue of Thomas Merton’s view of monasticism. He said that monasticism concentrated on the presence of God in the present, and this made it able to leave the confines of the monastery and go into the world. This included having a world view to care for those in need, and that seeds of contemplation lead to action.

(Oh, swell...monasticism again...grrr)

Reflection Questions:

1. Review your commitments for alleviating poverty and promoting peace and nonviolence. Do you feel called to do more?

I hate to say it, but these concepts don’t really resonate well with me in a deep sense...superficial yes, deep, no. I think part of it is b/c I am a little on the “parochial” side (small town folks have a hard time wrapping around concepts like “world hunger” yet can see “local hunger” clearly and clearly feel a need to do something about it). Another part of it is, like a lot of people in medicine, we like “acute” illness better than “chronic” illness. Acute illnesses can be treated and have a good chance of seeing some of the results of your handiwork...chronic illnesses, you often find it hard to see the forest for the trees in whether you have “helped” a person. Poverty, war, etc. seem so “chronic” to me that I can get to feeling like “nothing I do matters.” I know this is not true, but it does cloud my ability to be sensitive to it.

2. Write about the ways your spiritual life reflects the universal values Merton espoused. Reflect on how your spiritual practice might contribute to the diminishment of suffering in your everyday life.

I think, at least, I can feel these values in an “acute” sense. My trip to help with the cleanup in Iowa City was an example of that. The seed of that was planted by another person in our parish who used to live in Iowa. That set up a little contemplative seed in me that got to thinking, “Hmmm...I could take off time and do this....” I don’t think I would have come to this conclusion had I not been engaged in more regular prayer than I was a couple years ago.

I think part of the reason things like “world hunger” don’t resonate well with me is other than “throw money at it”, what is it that I can personally DO that matters? I can’t take off work and hand out food or run off to a foreign country. “Throwing money at it” seems so passive to me. I have a problem—and it is MY problem, and I think it’s a little bit of a control issue and a “self” issue—and it is if I can’t be waist deep in it myself, it doesn’t feel like I am “doing anything.” When I feel like I can’t “do anything” it frustrates me and short-circuits me and I feel impotent, for lack of a better term.

3. What impedes—and what helps—your ability to adopt a monastic mindset?

Oh, we WOULD have to go there, wouldn’t we?????

The biggest impediment, frankly, is ME. I have two friends who have informed me in no uncertain terms that there is a monastic side to me and that I have some difficulty in embracing it. They came up with this independently. One is Episcopalian and the other is Roman Catholic. They both kind of make gentle fun at me for my inability to embrace it. They both try to re-define terms to make it sound a little more palatable to me. But if we used my analogy of “I have been learning to eat new foods” it is a little like being told to eat my vegetables. I don’t DISLIKE the vegetables, I’m just not ready to say, “Oh, I like spinach and brussels sprouts,” because the world view is that it is WEIRD to like those things, and I have enough things I’m weird about, and I think maybe I just don’t want to put one more weird thing on my plate.

There is still that part of me that wants to cling to a stereotype—that monastics are weird solitary people who wear funny clothes and have funny haircuts and sit around with their thumb up their butt and pray all day over nothin’ in particular, and shut themselves off from the world and make rum-soaked fruitcakes and goat cheese and sell it on the Internet. I know that is not a terribly accurate nor attractive image, deep in my heart, but I can’t get a grip on the image I WANT to embrace! The image I want to embrace is not clear. Maybe if I could see it better, I could go to it more readily. Sometimes I think about my blogfriends who ARE involved in monastic orders. I think about what would come out of it if I could sit over dinner and a beer with people like T. or E. What would they tell me that would help clarify this mess?

What helps? I think the one help is seeing the outward results of what I know to be monastic behavior in myself. I had said in an earlier reflection, I am intrigued by the paradox of inward contemplation and reflection leading to an outward expression. I am aware of the fact that I am, by most tests, 55% extrovert and 45% introvert. This creates an odd sense of “needing to balance both halves of myself.” I am a little afraid of the fact my introverted side embraces parts of monastic contemplation, and likes it...yet the extrovert in me goes out and “does” as a result of this soulwork. It is very confusing and I don’t have a great handle on it yet. Maybe time will reveal more.