Volume 40 • Number 1
Fall 2013
IN THIS ISSUE: Reconciliation with Ourselves The Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold, Bishop Visitor to SSJE, shares his annual report on the community as well as insights into what a Bishop Visitor does. Br. Geoffrey Tristram meditates on the scriptural injunction to look forward, and not back into the past, as we step toward life with Christ. How do we heal from trauma? Br. Luke Ditewig points to the story of Lazarus and offers practical suggestions for reconciliation. Br. Tom Shaw looks to Rwanda for lessons in the power of reconciliation in our hearts and the world. The community’s Novice Guardian, Br. David Vryhof, explains his own rocky journey to discovering his vocation at SSJE. Denise M. Ackermann urges us, as individuals and as a church, toward an embodied practice of reconciliation. Letter from the Superior | Spotlight on Community Life Update your address with us! See the postcard inside. To remove your name from our physical mailing list and sign up for our electronic mailing list, please call 617.876.3037x55, or email friends@ssje.org. To follow the latest news from the Brothers, visit www.SSJE.org where you can listen to weekly sermons, watch videos, and view photo galleries of the Monastery. We would welcome hearing what you think of this issue of Cowley Magazine. Visit www.SSJE.org/cowleymagazine to share comments, ask questions, or see Cowley in color!
Cover photo: A glimpse of blue sky through the arched windows of the cloister walk.
Š2013 by The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, North America
A Letter A Letter from the from Superior the Superior Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE
Dear Members of the Fellowship of Saint John and other Friends,
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s I write this letter, we are in the midst of a heat wave, and the temperatures are once more in the nineties, with high humidity. On days like this it is a joy to get up early, well before Morning Prayer, and to sit in our beautiful new cloister garden, listening to the birds singing, and the water of the fountain splashing over the rocks. The renovations of the Monastery resulted in the complete destruction of our garden, and at one stage it looked just like a building site. But slowly, and rather miraculously, the new garden has taken shape. It is now something of an oasis on Memorial Drive, and we Brothers share it with a growing number of birds, butterflies, rabbits, and squirrels. The experience of transformation has been incredible. I vividly remember a great slab of stone lying on its side, on top of one of the former flowerbeds. A couple of workmen hauled the slab upright, and underneath lay a sad, tangled mass of pale yellow shoots. They looked virtually dead. But it only took a few days of sunshine, and those shoots turned green and started growing upwards to the light. Before long they came into bud, and then, into flower. I find that a powerful metaphor for the experience of coming to new life in Christ. The theme of this Cowley is reconciliation with ourselves, and the spiritual experiences of being forgiven and set free by Christ are often felt as the lifting of a great burden, which has crushed us and cut us off from each other
The greening cloister garden, a symbol of new life in our midst.
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and from the rays of God’s love. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” says St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, and Father Benson our founder, writing about the joy of knowing ourselves forgiven and reconciled, urges us “to rise thus to live in the full light of the presence of Jesus, to rise to have nothing hidden, to live in openness of heart to Him, and in an openness of heart to one another.” By the time you read this letter, God willing, we shall have welcomed two new men as postulants – which will bring the number of men in the novitiate to six! We are so grateful to God for all these signs of new life, and I am delighted that Br. Curtis, our Vocations Brother, has now moved back to the Monastery to share with Br. David Vryhof, our Novice Guardian, in the work of formation. We also have the joy of welcoming three new interns this month, who will spend the year 3
Brs. John Braught and Jonathan Maury at Emery House with the Rev. Dr. Margaret BullittJonas, who directed the Brothers’ retreat August 2-10, 2013.
living alongside us and sharing in our life and ministry. Please especially remember our novices and postulants, Brs. Curtis and David, our interns, and Br. Mark our Interns Director, in your prayers. Our Brother and Bishop, Tom, has continued to receive radiation and chemotherapy over these past weeks and has received wonderful care from his doctors. He remains engaged in his work, and is exercising and enjoying throwing pots. He is in good spirits and is very grateful for all those who have sent cards and assurances of their prayers. The natural beauty of Emery House continues to bless us, and it is a joy to share this beauty with our guests. But nature can also be “red in tooth and claw,” and over the past few months we have lost chickens and geese to the foxes and coyotes. We have now built two fine new coops; one for the chickens and a larger one, which is shared by the geese and ducks (the geese are not amused!). We also have four new pigs that are growing remarkably quickly. We continue to plan for the future life and ministry of Emery House, as we seek to discern how God would have us best use the gift of this property. On Tuesday, October 1st, at our 5:30 p.m. Eucharist, we shall be hosting 4
a student supper in the undercroft, to welcome students back for the new academic year. We are continuing our very popular “First Tuesday” tradition of serving a soup supper for the congregation immediately after the Eucharist on the first Tuesday of each month. Looking forward to Advent, we are offering a preaching series on the first three Tuesdays in Advent entitled, “Tomorrow I Will Be There.” Beginning on December 16th, we shall be offering a daily video series – an Advent School of Prayer based on the traditional “O Antiphons” – on our website. As we Brothers look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead, we are very grateful for you our friends who support and encourage us in so many ways. If you have not yet seen the renovated Monastery and new gardens we would love to invite you to visit and maybe come for a few days of retreat. You would be most welcome! You remain as always in our thoughts and our prayers. Faithfully,
Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE Superior SSJE
Letter from the Bishop Visitor The Right Reverend Frank T. Griswold, III
Dear Friends of SSJE,
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s you can see from the accompanying report, the Society of St. John the Evangelist is in sound condition on a number of fronts, not least of which is the wellbeing of the Community as a whole. The Monastery in Cambridge and Emery House in West Newbury continue to attract and provide guests from a wide variety of backgrounds with a hospitality which echoes St. Benedict’s injunction that guests “are to be welcomed as Christ.” The different ethos of the two houses complement each other: urban and rural; farmhouse and monastery; domestic and formal. The life of the community is grounded upon our baptismal union with Christ and our sharing in the paschal mystery of his dying and rising. “We cannot give forth life save by dying,” observes Father Benson. “We must live true to the Crucified. It is not enough to point to him. He must be manifest in us.” This process of manifestation is the ongoing work of the Spirit who, through baptism, “is engaged with us in a strife of intense love as we resist.” Here again Father Benson points to the costliness of life in Christ and the patterns of resistance we carry deep within us. The rhythms and disciplines which shape the lives of the Brothers, and the Rule for the members of the Fellowship of St. John, exist to foster the manifestation of the Word made flesh in the givenness of their lives, and to equip them to be ministers of support and encouragement to others. The Society of Saint John the Evangelist
The paschal mystery, however, is not only experienced personally: it is also encountered corporately. Families, institutions, and religious communities pass through moments and seasons of dying and rising in which the Gospel paradox that we find our lives by losing them becomes deeply known as true. A word needs to be said about the intern program which continues to expand and enrich the overall life and mission of the Society, and to provide the participants with a unique experience of monastic community life. The presence and personal gifts of the interns are a source of great blessing to the Brothers and beyond. In addition, the Brothers are supported in their life and work by an excellent and dedicated staff who are tireless in their attention to everything from the website to a door hinge in need of repair. “What we shall be has yet to be revealed,” St. John tells us. As Bishop Visitor, it is a great privilege to be part of the ongoing life and ministry of SSJE, and to find my availability to the paschal mystery of Christ strengthened by the personal faithfulness and courage of the Brothers. Yours sincerely,
The Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold, III Presiding Bishop, retired 5
2013 Report of the Bishop Visitor Living within the Means of a Balanced Budget In the fiscal year July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 SSJE anticipates a balanced budget. Projected operating expenses are supported by: Gifts to the Annual Fund – 37% Guesthouse income – 13% Other Sources – 14% Spending from Endowment (with a 5% draw) – 36% The addition of four new men in fiscal 2013 and the projected addition of four new men in fiscal 2014 provide certain financial challenges, as each “class” adds approximately 5% to the Society’s operating budget. The Brothers expect the budget will remain balanced, although this remains an ongoing challenge. During fiscal 2013 the Annual Fund recovered nicely, growing by approximately 13% over fiscal 2012. It is very gratifying that as donors complete their pledge payments to the Stone & Light Capital Campaign they remain fully engaged with SSJE. Moreover, through the generosity of our donors, the Green & Light Capital Campaign to renew the Monastery gardens has been successfully completed. The Brothers hope that news of new men, new workshops, and new online offerings will bring continued support. The Brothers are also reviewing their expenses – in this they are assisted by the expertise of lay advisors who serve on three committees: Financial, Investment, and Stewardship. The 2012 audited financial statement reports SSJE in good standing.
Proceeding with the Building Renovations The renovation of the Monastery in Cambridge is complete, and the Brothers have gratefully re-occupied the building and resumed their activities.
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2013 Report of the Bishop Visitor The bridge financing remains to be repaid. Current projections indicate that this will be accomplished on schedule during 2015. It is important to note that neither SSJE’s endowment nor the Annual Fund was used to fund this capital expenditure. The Stone & Light Capital Campaign raised the funding necessary to complete this project. The G reen & Light Capital Campaign to renew the Monastery gardens has been successfully completed and work is underway to renovate both the cloister garden and the historically significant Fletcher Steele-designed Guesthouse garden. It is anticipated that this work will be completed on budget during fiscal 2014.
Long-term Capitalization The Brothers, with the advice of their Advisors, created a Building Fund five years ago, dedicated to the renewal of the Monastery and Emery House buildings. This is a good and responsible discipline. However if, with the renovation largely completed, the Brothers fully funded depreciation they would need to set aside more than double what they are currently putting into the Building Fund. In other words, the Brothers are under-capitalized for the size of the physical plant they now have. The Brothers have begun to address this issue with planning around increasing the range and vitality of the Brothers’ ministry at Emery House in West Newbury. The Brothers are in consultation with Massachusetts Audubon Society, Essex County Greenbelt, and the town of West Newbury to both conserve the land and to raise an endowment for SSJE’s ministry at Emery House. With the completion of the S tone & Light Capital Campaign the Brothers will look at directing bequests into the endowment, as well as continuing to encourage more people to remember SSJE in their wills. Planning is now underway to create new accommodations at Emery House which will enhance the Brothers’ ability to invite additional guests, volunteers, interns, and residents.
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WHAT IS A BISHOP VISITOR?
From time to time I am asked: Exactly what is a Bishop Visitor? The first place to look for some clarity is the Canons of the Episcopal Church; that is, the laws by which we govern our common life. According to the Canons: “Each Order shall have a Bishop Visitor or Protector…who shall be the guardian of the Constitution of the Order, and shall serve as arbiter in matters which the Order or its members cannot resolve through its normal processes.” The Order may also petition the Bishop Visitor in matters pertaining to the dispensation of a member of the Community from his or her formal vows. As well, the House of Bishops Committee on Religious Life has determined that the Bishop Visitor or Protector must visit the community to which they are related once a year in order to examine its spiritual and temporal health. This normally involves meeting privately with each member of the community. The Bishop Visitor then gives a report to the Superior of the community or its Leadership Council, and registers the same with the House of Bishops Committee on Religious Life. Beyond these formal duties, many bishops who serve in this capacity have a less formal and more familial relationship with the community. Certainly, in the case of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, I would describe my relationship as one of friendship, a friendship that has extended over many years. I note that in his rule for monks, St. Benedict says there are times when someone exterior to the intimate life of a community, such as a guest or visitor, may be able to observe something, perhaps unnoticed by the community, that calls for further discernment and attention. The Bishop Visitor may on occasion perform just such a service. The Bishop Visitor also needs to be particularly sensitive to the charism of the community and its sense of mission within the context of the life of the larger Church. The mission of the Church, as stated in the Book of Common Prayer, is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” As St. Paul reminds us, God has “reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” The living out of this reality is at the core of the life and mission of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, and is reflected in its common life and in its various ministries. – The Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold, III
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Don’t Look Back Reconciliation and the Past Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE
Adapted from a sermon preached at the Monastery.
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came to live in this country in 1999 – fourteen years ago. When I first came here, I missed England so much. In the first few months in the Monastery, I would spend much of my time remembering my former life: filled with a mixture of homesickness and nostalgia. I think I lived most of my conscious life at a point somewhere half-way across the Atlantic. If you’ve ever moved to a new country, or a new part of this country, or made a new start in life – and left the old life behind – you’ll possibly know what it feels like to be living in the present, but also very much in the past – missing friends, missing the familiar, wondering, “Have I made the right choice?” But living too much in the past, filling our days with nostalgic memories, remembering past experiences or relationships which have now changed, or are no more, can actually be very damaging to our emotional and spiritual lives. The Scriptures are shot through with this theme and come with a warning: Once you have begun a journey, don’t look back. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah recorded in
Genesis 19 has perhaps the most graphic of all warnings about the dangers of looking back. Lot and his wife are told by God to escape from their city because God is about to destroy it. “Flee for your life – and don’t look back,” say the angels (19:17). So Lot and his wife run away, but as the city is being destroyed, Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. It’s a very strange story, but a powerful image. The Hebrew word used here for “look back” does not mean glancing over her shoulder, but rather, paying attention to, looking wistfully, with yearning. Lot’s wife stopped and looked back at her past life with longing and nostalgia instead of hurrying on to what lay ahead, as the Lord had urged her. The trouble with nostalgia, and why it can be such a challenge to the life of faith, is that it is not usually real or true. What we remember nostalgically is usually a distortion. We do not always remember that which really was. Think of the children of Israel on their long, hard journey across the wilderness toward the Promised Land. Life was so tough for them that they started getting
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very nostalgic for the “good old days” – life back in Egypt. “We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing: the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic. There’s nothing here except this ‘manna’ to look at!”(Num 11:5). But they conveniently forgot in their nostalgia that in Egypt they were slaves, and brutalized by their Egyptian taskmasters. The Early Church Fathers used this story of the Exodus as a metaphor for our own Christian journey through life – from slavery to sin to freedom in Christ. When things get tough we, too, long sometimes for our old sinful ways and habits, rather than pressing forward in the life of grace. Don’t look back! Jesus himself is very aware of the temptation to look back. In Luke’s Gospel, after he has set his face to go to Jerusalem, he calls some to follow him, but warns them to think very carefully before they choose to follow him, because once they become his disciples, they must never look back. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God” (9:62). I like that image because, of course, and as his listeners would know very well, if 10
you are plowing by hand, and you keep looking back, you’ll go off course with crooked furrows. Looking back distorts your vision. You have to look forward – look straight ahead of you – if you want to keep on the straight path. As Luke warns us ominously later, “Remember Lot’s wife!” (17:32). But it is not only nostalgia that encourages us to look back. Our past can have a real power over us: perhaps something in our past which fills us with guilt or regret; something we just can’t shake off, and which we carry as a burden; perhaps a broken relationship, or something we did which we know was wrong. Christ longs to take that burden from us, through the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. He longs to set us free, so that we can look forward and follow him. Reconciliation with ourselves and with God means learning to look ahead, to keep our eyes on the path in front of us, where we find Christ always leading us onward. There’s a great image from the Rule of our Society about this: It says, “We cannot keep pace with the Risen Christ who goes before us if we are encumbered with guilt” (Ch. 30). SSJE
Imagine Jesus walking ahead of you and saying, “Come on!” After I had been in this country for a few months I remember thinking, “It is too difficult for me to live this life as well as the one I used to have.” It weighed me down. I needed to stop looking back at the past and to move forward, following wherever Jesus would lead me. Where are you on your journey of faith? Maybe you feel you’ve rather lost your sense of direction, or you’ve strayed off the path. Maybe you spend too much time looking back. How much of your life
is spent in the past – either in nostalgia, or filled with guilt or regret? I invite you to reorient yourself, to set your eyes once more on Jesus, to get back on the Way. Jesus is always ahead of us, inviting and encouraging us toward reconciliation, with God and with ourselves. Don’t look back at those parts of your past that you feel keep you from God, which prevent you from following on the Way. Instead, cast your eyes ahead. Today see if you can see Christ turning towards you and saying, “Come on! Don’t look back – Follow me!”
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Remember Lazarus Healing and Reconciliation
Luke Ditewig, SSJE
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t has been a hard year, with hurricanes, tornadoes, school shootings, and a marathon bombing in our neighborhoods and around the country. In the wake of these events, we’ve learned that trauma is not a narrow category for a few but broadly real for many in our communities. “Trauma occurs when persons perceive themselves or their senses of well-being (including family, income, housing, and community) is threatened, and their ability to cope is overwhelmed.”i The effects of this sort of overthrow can be serious and far-reaching. How do we heal – reconcile with ourselves and reconcile ourselves with the world – following trauma? Sometimes when we call out prayers for help, the situation seems to grow worse. We get more upset, wondering: Where is God? Then after more carnage and loss, with life really out of control, God shows up. Like Job, we can rage against the God who appears to have let this tragedy unfold: “God, if only you had been here sooner, the situation wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand, with so much loss and hurt. Pick us up. Get us out of here.” We want to be rescued and healed i Kate Wiebe. ICTG Blog: “Seven Key Traits of a Trauma-Informed Congregation,” July 12, 2013. http://www.ictg.org/ictg-blog.html 12
right away, for life to be resolved and back to normal. Yet healing is a slow work, not usually quick or simple. Not neat and tidy. Not as complete and fulfilling as we’d like. Remember Lazarus. People told Jesus that Lazarus was sick and dying. Jesus was close by and could have arrived in time, but Jesus shows up late. Much too late. Four-days-dead too late. Martha and Mary say: “If only you had been here sooner!” Jesus says: “Open the tomb.” “But, Lord, the stench of a four-dayold corpse!” Jesus persists. The stone is rolled away. Mary and Martha re-encounter death, and now decay, face-first. It is there, in that revolting, terrible place, that Jesus brings life: “Lazarus, come out!” The story of Lazarus reveals something true about the time and scope of healing after trauma. Jesus comes where and when we need him most, where the stench and grief of death overwhelm us, when hope seems lost. There, in those very places, God comes to weep with us and to shine light into the darkness. Lazarus walks out of the tomb – amazingly alive – yet still bound. He is not ready for a party to celebrate. Lazarus shows us that a restoration of life SSJE
comes with strings (or cloth) attached. Jesus gives embodied life, and not instantaneous or magical wholeness. We are created to be in relationship. Lazarus is still human, which means that he still needs help from community with God and others. “Unbind him, and let him go.” Jesus gives Lazarus life and then invites others to help. There is still much work to be done in unbinding and restoring and reconciling. Lazarus cannot unbind himself. Neither can we. For us, as for Lazarus, healing happens through others. Kate Wiebe, Executive Director of the Institute for Congregational Trauma and Growth, shares “three keys to healing trauma. Trauma experts say that three things diminish post-traumatic stress and ameliorate PTSD symptoms: safe, trustworthy relationships; relaxation and self-regulation; and sharing life stories honestly.”ii Those who practice these keys “create environments that heal trauma effectively and consistently are life-giving.”iii These keys help point us to concrete practices we can use to “unbind” those for whom we care. Unbinding is delicate work requiring vulnerability for those on both sides of the process. To be ready for this work, we need to cultivate safe, ii Kate Wiebe. ICTG Blog: “Three Keys to Healing Trauma,” June 20, 2013. http://www.ictg.org/ictg-blog.html iii Ibid, July 12, 2013
trustworthy relationships. Practice keeping your word, maintaining trust and confidentiality, and offering safety. Nurture trust from everyday words to big commitments. Invest in trustworthy relationships, seek to know and be known. These relationships then prove to be most valuable when in trouble. With this foundation of trust and mutual love, we can be the ones who unbind each other in times of trouble. We can also cultivate rituals of self-care that help us restore ourselves after trauma. Trauma disrupts, disorients, and overwhelms, breaking norms and balance. Practice relaxation and self-regulation. Be active. Whatever you like to do, move: go walking, sing and dance, exercise, or get a massage. Relish and enjoy small pleasures: use a swing, fly a kite, lie in a hammock, build a sand castle, make a craft, take a bubble bath, go to a spa or relax at home. Give yourself time and creativity to rest. What have you found to be stunningly beautiful? Revisit those gifts. Visit a botanical garden or wildlife refuge or beach. Go out and gaze at sunrise or sunset. Attend the theater or a concert. Listen to your favorite music. Walk through an art gallery or museum. Whether with one painting or one hundred, let beauty capture your heart again for a moment. Listen for what is beautiful to someone for whom
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you care. Send or usher them into an encounter with beauty. Whether we seek restoration from ordinary troubles or extraordinary trauma, the wonder of beauty can relax and heal us and those for whom we care. Listening is one of the most important healing gifts we can give to ourselves and to others. Safe, trustworthy relationships best enable sharing life stories honestly. Letting ourselves, our emotions, desires, pains, and inner lives be seen and recognized by another graces us to live more fully and honestly. “This form of witnessing,” Wiebe says, “actually shifts our internal chemistry and instigates internal healing processes.”iv Those of us who are primary caregivers to others especially need a loving, listening presence in our lives. When sharing our life stories, it is important and freeing to be honest with ourselves. We like to edit, restrict, categorize, or deny our lives. For example, I have learned that I can have multiple emotions at once, including ones that seem at odds with each other. I can feel happy, mad, and grateful at the same time. Good listeners help me heal by attentively listening to my story with its emotional surprises, seeming contradictions, and scattered pieces. Attentive listening can help me hear how these scattered pieces come together to form me, and put me on the path toward reconciliation. We Brothers hope to offer the Monastery and Emery House as safe places where all are invited to relax and refresh in monastic rhythms, to sleep well and eat well, to be immersed in worship and silence, to be surrounded by simple beauty, and to have the opportunity to be listened to and accompanied in the work of restoration and reconciliation. Much iv Personal conversation with the author, July 25, 2013. 14
healing happens here. We hope that you will know that you are welcome here, to seek a safe refuge following trauma, and to discover healing practices you can continue in your own family, parish, and community. For more on the Institute for Congregational Trauma and Growth with research, education, and networking for the emotional, psychological, and spiritual long-term care of congregations and communities, visit: www.ICTG.org
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Upcoming Workshops & Retreats SATURDAY WORKSHOPS A series of five workshops celebrating the gifts that God offers us will be held at the Monastery on Saturday mornings, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Participants are invited to stay and join the Brothers for Noonday Prayer at 12:30 p.m. October 12 November 16 September 21 The Gift of Forgiveness The Gift of Discernment The Gift of Gratitude This workshop will consider the We will explore biblical and Drawing on the wisdom of practice of gratitude as a way of psychological insights, and the St. Ignatius of Loyola, this recognizing and experiencing practical dimensions of forgiving workshop offers guidance in making choices in life. God’s presence in our daily lives. and being forgiven. January 11 March 15 The Gift of Meditative Prayer The Gift of Silence and Solitude Meditative or contemplative prayer seeks The monastic wisdom of seeking God in silence to provide a different kind of “software” for and solitude is much needed today and can be processing the big questions: death, love, infinity, a wonderful balm for our troubled souls. We’ll suffering, and God. This workshop will explore discuss practical applications of the wisdom of both theory and praxis of contemplative prayer. silence and solitude for life in the 21st century.
RETREATS AT THE MONASTERY Oct. 25-27 & May 16-18 First Time in Silence If you haven’t yet come on retreat with us because it’s new or daunting, this weekend is for you. A Brother will gently usher you into the experience of silence and solitude, offer reflections, and suggest ways you might experiment with prayer between sessions.
December 20-22
O Come Thou Wisdom from On High This Advent retreat
offers expectant silence, prayer, worship and rest, as we await the coming of the Christ, and prepare to join in the doing of justice, the making of peace and reconciliation, and the healing of the whole human family and the planet.
March 21-23 Come Play Lent is about divine love, not dreary inconvenience. Come be refreshed through silence and creativity. We’ll play with our prayer to rekindle child-like wonder and trust. This weekend retreat includes invitations to praying with color, collage, movement and the imagination.
RETREATS AT EMERY HOUSE November 15-17 First Time in Prayer and Quiet This retreat invites you to enter into the prayer and quiet of retreat in the beautiful surrounds of Emery House. February 7-9 Gay Men’s Retreat An opportunity for gay men living in partnerships to explore the meaning of their commitment in the context of gay and Christian cultures. What does it mean for us to be both Christian and gay? How do we integrate these two parts of our identity?
December 6-8 Advent Retreat The lead-up to Christmas can a hectic time of year. Prepare your heart to meet the Lord with a time for reflection, worship, and silence.
March 21-23 Lent Retreat The Law, sin, and repentance lie at the core of Jesus’ gospel teaching. This Lenten retreat will invite participants to re-imagine the meaning of these core elements as sources of transformation, healing, and new life.
June 6-8 Eco-theology 101 Theology literally means “God-talk.” This retreat is an introduction to that conversation that seeks to re-frame both meaning and context for man’s dependence on and responsibility for the health of our planet.
For more information or to register visit www.SSJE.org/guest The Society of Saint John the Evangelist
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O SAPiEnTiA
O AdOnAi
O RAdiX JESSE
O CLAViS dAVid
O ORiEnS
O REX GEnTiUM
O EMMAnUEL
“TOMORROW i WiLL BE THERE” An Advent Video Series on the O Antiphons www.SSJE.org/advent
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Called to Reconciliation Reflections from Rwanda
Tom Shaw, SSJE
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e are all called to the work of reconciliation. To be agents of reconciliation we need to be able to hear God’s voice in the other. God speaks through every one of us, even those with whom we disagree. When we can learn to listen to the other for God’s voice, we can begin the work of reconciliation. I experienced this profoundly in 1998 while attending the Lambeth Conference. There were about 750 bishops present at the meeting, and I happened to be sitting among a group of African bishops when a resolution on homosexuality was being considered. Only about seventy-five of us voted against the resolution, and these African bishops all around me started booing and stamping their feet when they saw my hand go up. Then I walked outside and saw a young, gay English priest being chased by an African bishop who was insisting he be healed. The first thought that went through my mind was, “I have to get to Africa. I have to go there – not so that I can change their minds about homosexuality, but because I clearly don’t understand them.” I believed God would speak to me through these Christians whose views I struggled to understand.
Since then I have made a number of trips to Africa. My experiences in Africa have helped me to understand what African Christians uniquely have to teach me for my own salvation. For example, for the longest time I didn’t understand that all of Scripture – including all four Gospels and even Paul’s letters – was written by and for people who had deep tribal affiliations. Christians in east Africa, where I’ve spent a lot of time, still come to Scripture with a deep tribal commitment. They understand who they are through their tribe, so they have a different context from which they listen to the voice of Scripture than we do in the West, especially around issues like forgiveness. When I hear their stories, I am reminded of how I sometimes hold onto things that people have done against me. Africans remind me, because of where they receive their identity, of a different reality – and one part of that reality includes an intense drive toward reconciliation. I witnessed the reality of this drive toward reconciliation when I recently took a group of college students to Rwanda. I wanted to expose these students to a larger experience of
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“It doesn’t matter how educated we are or how old we are or how much money we have; we are part of the body of Christ.”
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Christianity, to get them concerned about Christians all over the world. Some years we go to Rwanda; some years to Israel/ Palestine. This year, we went to Rwanda specifically to meet Philbert Kalisa, who runs an organization called REACH Rwanda, which brings together Hutus and Tutsis who were so bitterly divided by the genocide. Philbert works with Hutus and Tutsis in their villages, trying to get them to talk about their experiences and to pray together. Often they develop a project that comes out of and supports this interaction. We went one day to a celebration of the Hutus in a village where a house had been built for a Tutsi woman. The house was finished and ready to be dedicated, a typical African event. There were about 800 people present, and it seemed like everybody spoke. One woman, named Lydia, got up to speak. She was probably in her late forties. She told us that her husband had been murdered in the genocide, along with her two children, ages one and three. She herself was raped multiple times and is now HIV positive. Philbert’s organization, REACH, had come into town to try to work toward reconciliation, but Lydia wanted nothing to do with it. Gradually, as time went on, she began to get involved in the organization’s cooperative work among the women, making and selling baskets. And then, gradually, she was drawn more and more into the group’s prayer. Eventually, the man who killed her husband got out of prison and came to see her, to ask for her forgiveness. And she forgave him. In front of all of us that day she called him up, held his hand, and said, “Now Nathan is my friend, and we talk almost every day.” Sitting there, listening to this, I just felt so convicted about my own life: I still remember petty things done to me by one of my Brothers maybe twenty-five years ago, which I’d found it impossible to forgive. Watching this incredible reconciliation, I knew I had to start living
my life in a different way. We all do. In liberal Massachusetts we often hear people express the belief that all of us have the same rights, or we hear people say that they’re against discrimination and violence. For Christians, these are absolutely hollow statements that have no reality – unless we’re actually out doing something. We collude with bigotry, violence, and oppression unless we’re actively working for change. In the church, it’s easy to become overly concerned about our own piety. Yet prayer should lead us to activism. I knew a Roman Catholic spiritual director who used to teach that if somebody came to you for spiritual direction and, after eighteen months, still was not involved in any kind of active work of reconciliation in society, their prayer life had failed them. God draws us to the communities and individuals and causes that we’re supposed to be working on. We need to listen for that impulse, concern, or passion in our prayer. And then we need to actively join in the work of reconciliation that is happening around that cause. It doesn’t matter how educated we are or how old we are or how much money we have; we are part of the body of Christ. In and through the body of Christ, healing is offered to each of its members. Each and every one of us, as a Christian, is given power in the resurrection. We are the Risen Christ. And we are given a choice about how we exercise that power. God calls us to exercise the power of the resurrection in working for the reconciliation of all. To learn more about opportunities to join in the Episcopal Church’s ministries of reconciliation, visit: www.diomass.org/content/our-mission To view images and hear audio from recent SSJE intern Seth Woody’s project on “Hope Amidst Bones” in Rwanda, visit: http://wp.me/p2kcxp-1TG
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The Best Fit A Conversation about Vocation with Br. David Vryhof
When did you first have a sense of your vocation?
My parents and family are devoted Christians. I was raised in the Christian Reformed Church, a predominantly Dutch, Calvinist denomination. My sister and brother and I attended Christian schools, and our family was very active in the church. From my early years I was formed towards a life of service. My whole sense of calling and my devotion to Christ grew out of my upbringing in that context. Obviously monasticism wasn’t part of the religious culture in which I was raised (in fact, it’s still almost unheard of for someone from that tradition to end up living in a monastery). I first encountered the vowed religious life when I was teaching at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, where I met a Dominican nun and a Franciscan friar who worked with the Roman Catholic students at the school. I was moved by their lives of service. I was also inspired by hearing the story of St. Francis of Assisi for the first time, and by reading about Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was in the news during those years. 20
When I look back on my life, I can remember a moment in seventh grade when I saw in a church history textbook a picture of a monk coming down the stairs from the dormitory to the chapel, candle in hand, to pray the night Office. I remember that picture to this day, and how I was mysteriously drawn to it. Many of us Brothers can recall moments like these, moments that pointed the way towards our future vocation. We didn’t think anything of them at the time, but they seem meaningful now, because they suggest that some part of us was drawn to this life even at an early age. Some part of me resonated with that image even before I knew what a monastery was. How did that initial resonance develop into a sense of being called to be a monk?
The Dominican nun I knew from the Rhode Island School for the Deaf suggested that I go on a silent retreat. She took me to the La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, Massachusetts, a retreat center just north of Providence. During that retreat (my first silent retreat), I had a memorable spiritual experience: I remember standing in a field of tall grass on a sunny, cloudless afternoon, watching the wind move gently over the grass. As I watched the tall grass bow and bend gracefully before the wind, there came to mind a verse from Psalm 73, where the psalmist says to SSJE
God: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you” (v. 25). In that moment, I felt touched by God. I felt that God had awakened in me a desire to love and serve God above all else. Both of these experiences – seeing the picture of the monk and then this experience in the field – spoke to the part of me that wanted to give myself to God as completely as I could. Monastic life seemed to me one way in which someone could do that. Missionary life was another, which is part of the reason I ended up going to the MICO Teachers’ College in Kingston, Jamaica, where I trained teachers for the deaf for three years. Around the time I was deciding to go to Jamaica, I came to realize that there were religious orders in the Anglican/Episcopal Church. I decided to become an Anglican. I joined St. Andrew’s Church, Half Way Tree in Kingston and was confirmed. The rector of that church, a wonderful priest named Herman Spence, was a member of the Fellowship of St. John in England. He is the one who actually introduced me to SSJE and its life and ministry. He also put me in touch with Bishop Alfred Reid, then the Bishop of Montego Bay, who served as my spiritual director for three years. Both of these godly men were extremely influential in shaping my religious vocation. I had visited two other religious communities in the Episcopal Church before I learned about SSJE: the Franciscan community at Mt. Sinai on Long Island and the Benedictine community at Three Rivers, Michigan. Those two orders are about as far apart as you can get. The Franciscans are very active and mission-minded; they sometimes hold full-time jobs outside the community. The Benedictines at Three Rivers are very contemplative, The Society of Saint John the Evangelist
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and pray an expanded Daily Office that begins at 4:00 in the morning. I kept bouncing between these two alternatives, wondering, “Which of these is right for me?” Fr. Spence and Bishop Reid listened to me and told me about SSJE. They said SSJE was somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: more monastic and contemplative than the Franciscans but more active in ministry and outreach than the Benedictines. When I finally had a chance to visit SSJE, I saw that balance; it was a key factor in my being drawn to this community. I think people come to our community for any number of reasons: some because they’re drawn to our mission, some because they want to live in community with others, some because of their commitment to prayer. I was drawn chiefly by the desire for prayer. I can remember, years earlier, going to the pastor of the evangelical church I belonged to in Rhode Island and asking, “How can I learn to pray? Is there somebody here that could teach me to pray?” (That was long before I learned about the ministry of spiritual direction.) I had a hunger for prayer and appreciated how clearly SSJE’s mission grew out of its life of prayer. That was very important to me. How was that first visit to SSJE?
Finding a community is really like developing an attraction to another person. When you find someone that you like and that you feel comfortable with, you have a sense that you fit together. A lot of Brothers say that when they first came to the Monastery, they somehow felt at home or felt a sense of rightness – a good fit. I felt that, too. I was strongly attracted to this particular community. The building was beautiful, and the location was amazing, but it was really the people
who were here – Tom Shaw and James Madden and Paul Wessinger, among others – who made the difference. On that first visit I was only in Boston for a day; I didn’t even stay overnight, but it was enough. I began a correspondence with James Madden (then the Novice Guardian) from Jamaica, and it just felt increasingly right. I knew that this was the Order in which I wanted to try my vocation. I felt free to make this kind of radical choice of my life. So I made up my mind to come. The moment you step across the threshold of a monastery – (and I think we Brothers experience it again when we make life vows) – you have a wonderful sense of freedom. You don’t have to wonder anymore about option A or option B or option C. You know that this is the option; you’re going with it. There’s a delightful sense of freedom and release that comes in making that decision. It doesn’t always last – sometimes you return to a place of uncertainly – but it’s there at the beginning. Did you struggle along the way from your initial entry to your profession in life vows?
I struggled a lot, actually. I’m the only Brother here now who has left the order and returned again. From the start, my novitiate was quite rocky, in spite of the feeling of ‘rightness’ about the decision. My parents were opposed to this choice at first, which was difficult for me, because they knew me better than anyone else. I valued their opinion, and they felt this was wrong for me. I think they were disappointed that I was setting aside my training and experience teaching the deaf. Gradually, as they got to know the community over the first years that I was here, they became more and more supportive. But initially it was difficult for them, and it was difficult for me because of that. I wasn’t sure if this
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was the right path for me or not. The novitiate is a lot like trying something on: You think, “Well, it sort of fits. It’s not quite perfect, but is it good enough? Should I look for something else?” This life seemed like a good fit for me on so many levels, but there were also parts of it that didn’t seem to fit me very well. I struggled most with the desire to be closer to people who were materially poor. And I struggled with the issue of family. I wanted a family and children of my own and wasn’t sure I was ready to choose life-long celibacy. Those were the two main things I was struggling with as I went through the postulancy, the novitiate, and initial vows. I even extended my initial vows for an extra year. Finally I made the very difficult decision to leave the community because I just didn’t feel ready to take life vows. I didn’t feel a sense of freedom around that decision. How did you end up returning to the Monastery?
After I left, I completed my seminary training at Duke Divinity School and at the General Seminary in New York and then took a position as a deacon in the Diocese of Michigan, working in a small parish on the eastside of Detroit, in a very poor neighborhood. These were very rich years for me as I grew into the new identity of being a deacon and priest. When my contract came to an end there, I had to discern what was 24
next. The draw to SSJE and monastic life was still there. I felt that, given my temperament and my particular gifts, this was the best fit for me. I believed that I would be more effective at SSJE than I would be as an inner-city parish priest. So I asked the community if I could come back. At first they said no. I had been gone for almost four years. I wrote a letter to the Superior and explained why I thought that my experience coming back would be different from my earlier experience. I explained that I’d sorted through a lot of the things I was struggling with, and I now felt ready to make the commitment to life vows. He wrote back, saying that the community had read my letter and agreed to let me come for a visit. I visited in September 1994, and rejoined the community in January of 1995. Three years later, I was allowed to make life vows. I’ve been here ever since. Do you think that everyone has a vocation to which they are called?
Definitely. And I don’t think there’s just one path for each of us; I think there are many possible paths. There were any number of paths I could have taken. I could have remained a teacher for the deaf. I also think back on those days in Detroit: I did some useful things in that parish and contributed in good ways; I could have gone on doing something like that. I could also have been a priest SSJE
for a congregation of the deaf. I’m aware that I’m one of the few Episcopal priests who is fluent in sign language and is familiar with deaf culture. I think I could have been a good husband and father. I think I could have been happy and could have been used by God in any of those paths. Discernment is a matter of figuring out who we are and what’s important to us, as well as what’s important to God. In discernment we identify our likes and dislikes, our talents and gifts, what gives us a sense of purpose and meaning in life, what is most life-giving for us, and what taps into the passion in our heart. In terms of those questions, I think this life fits me as well or better than other possible paths I could have chosen. Can you offer any words of encouragement to those struggling to discern which path to take?
I always tell people in the discernment process: God can work with us in so many ways; don’t let yourself be paralyzed by anxiety or fear that you might make a wrong choice. Weigh your options and go ahead and make the best choices you can, trusting that whatever choice you make, God will be able to work with you, in you, and through you in that setting and context. Don’t be afraid about having to get it right. Whatever you choose, God will work with your choices. God will never forsake you.
As you look back now, what stands out among the greatest blessings of the path you have chosen?
It is a privilege to live this life. It’s a privilege to gather with a community of Brothers who are committed to one another and the Gospel, to pray together several times a day. It’s a privilege to be able to celebrate the Eucharist as frequently as we do, six days a week. It’s a privilege to hear sermons from so many different voices in the community – I’ve grown so much from listening to different preachers here. It’s a privilege to welcome all kinds of guests, a wide spectrum of people, to our Guesthouse and Chapel. It’s a privilege to be able to teach and to preach about Christian faith and to draw others to God. It’s a privilege to be supported by this community, to feel known and loved, and to enjoy a sense of belonging. It’s a privilege to have space and time in the day that’s reserved for growing in intimacy with God. It’s a privilege to go out from this community on mission and to go to different parishes and dioceses and countries and seminaries. I’ve traveled so much and met so many different people in so many different contexts that have enriched my life. I love the rhythm of our day; I love the order of the life; and I love the community’s flexibility and openness to the Spirit. There are so many things that I love about this community and about this life. It’s a very good fit for me in terms of who I am. It’s been a very good life for me. I am very grateful for it.
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Making Way for the Image of God A Theology of Reconciliation
Denise M. Ackermann
This essay is taken (with slight alterations) from the collection I Have Called You Friends: Reflections on Reconciliation, released by Cowley Publications in 2006 in honor of Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold.The book is available for purchase through Rowman & Littlefield (www. rowman.com) and other online book retailers such as amazon.com.
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s a white South African woman, a theologian and an Anglican, I have been challenged by the complex and daunting task of reconciling across race, gender, and class differences for as long as I can remember. Looking back over the forty years of apartheid and the years of democratic rule, I see failures, threads of hope, and above all the abiding certainty that in my life, reconciliation across anger and difference, is a gift from God and not something of my own making. This gift, undeserved and gratefully accepted, lies at the core of what I understand by spirituality. My erstwhile spiritual director Francis Cull recalled an old rabbi who said: “An angel walks before every human being saying: ‘Make way, make way for the image of God.’” This essay attempts to heed the angel’s cry by describing aspects of an embodied spirituality of reconciliation. Reconciliation has many faces – a fact I shall refer to below – but I shall focus on reconciliation among Christians, a dire need in our fractious church. Understanding reconciliation
In Christianity there is no one clear 26
view of reconciliation. Context and circumstance dictate our understanding of it. Reconciliation is, however, central to being a Christian trying to live in relationship with others and with God. Flora Keshgegian in her work Redeeming Memories argues that through the power of Jesus Christ we not only encounter God but we become participants in the divine through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. Such participation is embodied. Our redemption is a concrete process that brings us fully into a different kind of relationship. Such relationship has been described as reconciliation and right relation. Reconciliation implies right relation – that which has been out of harmony or off balance or at odds is brought back into right relationship.i
Reconciliation thus takes place within the framework of the redemptive narrative of our relationship with the God of grace and mercy and is expressed in the embodiment of right relations – with God, ourselves, others and our world. Reconciliation is the work of God who restores our brokenness so that we may i Flora A. Keshgegian, Redeeming Memories: A Theology of Healing and Transformation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 195. SSJE
live with justice and love in community. Keshgegian’s stress on the relational aspect of reconciliation is particularly valid where prejudice, estrangement, and dogmatically held views have alienated people in the church from one another. For me reconciliation means a tangible action, a contextual practice involving our whole being, something we choose to become involved in and we celebrate, before we explain it. It is not in the first instance a theological doctrine, but a process which we engage in as God’s hands in the world. Reconciliation as change
Reconciliation requires change. Not surprisingly, the question then arises: Can human beings really change? Can we fractious members of the Body of Christ change and become truly one? Dorothee Sölle’s reply to this question is scathing: “I see this question as true atheism. Whoever poses such a question, whoever believes that human beings cannot change, does not believe in God. In the bible what we call ‘change’ is really ‘redemption’” [my translation].ii Overcoming discord and reconciling across our differences is, therefore, possible if one accepts that human beings can change. What resources do we have to propel us towards change? Our most accessible and treasured resource is the Gospel. The Gospel provides motivation by setting before us a story of what has happened and what will happen. Confronted with the past and the future, our attention is drawn to the ethical quality of our present ii Quoted from Herman Wiersinga, Verzoening als Verandering: Een gegeven voor menselijk handelen (Baarn: Bosch and Keuning, 1972), 18. Original text reads: “Deze vraag zie ik als het echte atheïsme. Wie zo’n vraag stelt, wie gelooft dat de mens niet veranderen kan, die gelooft écht niet in God. In die bijbel heet wat wij ‘verandering’ noemen immers ‘verlossing’.” The Society of Saint John the Evangelist
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actions and we are invited to meaningful participation in changing the world. God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ is our model and sets the pattern for us to emulate by pointing to the centrality of reconciliation. God crosses the bridge to us, not by demanding, but by reaching out in grace.
message of reconciliation. Sadly the church itself has often been stricken with strife that imperils its true nature as the one Body of Christ and damages our witness to a world in need of reconciliation. Christians have no option but to be reconcilers. Such is our calling. It requires a spirituality that is tuned to God’s intention for the church Embodied change and its witness in the world. So where Why embodied change? We live embodied to start? lives. The fact that we can see, hear, First we start with an incontrothink, touch, smell and feel is the source vertible truth: God is the author of of what we know. All reality and all reconciliation. Reconciliation is a knowledge are mediated through our gift from God, it is not earned; it is bodies. All theological reflection starts accepted, not deserved. The acceptance with the body. It is nonsensical to think of this truth means waking up to God’s that theology or spirituality are separate loving intention for our daily lives. from the concreteness of the human body We are to be reconciled to God, to our and concerned solely with some abstract true selves, to one another and to all of realm of the spirit. Reconciliation itself creation. God gives, we receive and in is not abstract. It needs to be absorbed the receiving, awareness of God’s mercy in minds, articulated on tongues, and love enables us to begin the process visibly demonstrated in bodily acts, and of being reconciled to ourselves and embraced in hearts. to one another. We change, moving God offers us reconciliation in the away from self-centredness, prejudice Incarnation. “The Word became flesh and and estrangement to the truth of our lived among us” is a statement of faith identity that has been hidden in the that God became “embodied” as one of us. love of God. We may choose not to Incarnation is about meeting God in the be the real persons God intends us body. Yet Christians still struggle with the to be. Or we may choose to work very bodiliness of our salvation. Centuries together with God in the creation of of theological thinking have belittled the our true identity and destiny to be a body and relegated it to a lower status reconciled people. Reconciliation in than the spirit. This I fail to understand. the church requires people who, in The Christian idea of reconciliation discovering themselves, discover God (and salvation) has no meaning outside in themselves, enabling them to be the body and its well-being. When we reconciled to themselves and to others. speak of the Word who became flesh, Awareness of God’s reconciling we are not only hungering for healing intention then raises the issue of and wholeness, but we are claiming the forgiveness. totality of reconciliation promised to us Forgiveness is the thorniest part in and through the Word. Our bodily of reconciliation. It is hard to forgive, experience is the fundamental realm of and often harder to accept forgiveness. the experience of God. Hasty forgiveness can seem like a betrayal of the past, an effort to wipe An embodied spirituality of reconciliation out painful memories in order to The church is called to be an agent achieve cheap reconciliation without for change and bearer of the Christian 28
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honouring such memories – a kind of tawdry “forgive and forget”. Then as Keshgegian remarks, forgiveness “gets in the way of remembering fully.”iii There, is no “forgive and forget.” “Remember and forgive” is more appropriate.iv This requires forbearance from revenge. Then we may be able to redeem memories to the extent that reconciliation becomes a possibility. It is necessary to distinguish between divine and human forgiveness. God forgives sins, not simply because God has the power to do so, but because God is infinite love. We are not required to change in order to be forgiven by God. We cannot earn God’s forgiveness. Instead we can become whole because we are forgiven. Then confession is not some vain attempt to make us acceptable to God, but an acceptance that enables us to re-narrate our lives so that we are capable of appropriating God’s forgiveness into our lives as forgiven and forgiving people.v We can then live the grace of reconciliation granted us through the work of the Holy Spirit who judges, consoles, and guides us into new ways. God’s forgiveness comes first. Human forgiveness starts from a different point, namely, through acknowledging the truth of our un-reconciled lives. Being able to forgive is in Robert Schreiter’s words “an act of freedom.”vi It involves choice. But first a word of caution. Some acts are so evil and destructive that forgiveness seems impossible. Premature speech iii Keshgegian, Redeeming Memories, 195. iv See Donald W. Shriver, An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 6-9. v L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 184. vi Robert J. Schreiter, The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1998), 58.
“Reconciliation needs to be absorbed in minds, articulated on tongues, visibly demonstrated in bodily acts, and embraced in hearts.”
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about forgiveness and reconciliation can fail to acknowledge the moral force of righteous anger. When we decide to forgive we decide to become free from the power of the past. We do not forgive because those who have wronged us have repented. We acknowledge our wounding and decide to move on. We choose a different future. Forgiveness does not mean that we wipe out the past or excuse a wrongdoer. Rather it asserts that the balance of power has passed from the wrong that was committed, from the violator to the victim. It is the victim’s sole prerogative to decide to forgive. Forgiveness is an active, willed change of heart that succeeds in overcoming naturally felt feelings of anger, resentment, vengeance, and hatred. It has a gift-like quality. The decision to forgive is the point at which divine and human forgiveness intersect. If God had not forgiven us first, human forgiveness would not be possible. Third, this process of awareness, acknowledgment, and forgiveness then meets the inescapable need for justice. Reconciliation is about restoring justice. There is no consistent understanding of justice in the modern world. We usually understand justice in a way that suits our individual and collective interests. In South Africa today justice bears many labels: punitive, corrective, distributive, retributive, remedial, restorative, practical, and redemptive are but some. I choose to understand justice as restoring “right relationship.” Restorative rather than punitive justice is that which re-makes what God intends for us – that our human worth be affirmed and upheld in right mutual relationship with one another. Restorative justice rebuilds communities of right relationship and its goal is healing and reconciliation. What would it mean for the church to bear witness to restorative justice? It would certainly mean the re-ordering of power relations in church structures. A good 30
place to start would be to get our house in order in terms of just gender relations! Fourth, we believe that we are all made in the image of God. That is to say that love is the reason for my existence because God is love. In Thomas Merton’s words: “Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.”vii Therefore anything that I do or think or say that is not purely for the love of God, says Merton, cannot lead to peace, reconciliation or fulfilment. To embody the image of God is to be holy as God is holy. The very thought of being holy can at first glance seem absurd. Can we possibly be holy? Feelings of unworthiness surface. Why? Are we instinctively recoiling from a demand that we feel we cannot meet? Or are we at heart obstructing the working of God’s Spirit in each of us? Whatever the answers to these questions are, the idea of holiness is central to our faith. Our scriptures do not allow us to avoid the call to holiness. In fact holiness cannot be acquired. We already possess holiness. We must live in our holiness. In the New Testament, Jesus is the revelation of the holy – in a manger, a carpenter’s son, crucified as a criminal. He was born and died on days that were not then holy but on days that were made holy by the way he lived them. From the raw material of everyday life, Jesus fashioned his holiness. So the apostle John calls Jesus Christ the “Holy One of God” (Jn 6:69). The Holy One of God is the One who abides in us. Abiding in Christ who is holy, can mean nothing other than that we too are called to holiness. Thus believers are “saints”, “a holy priesthood,” “partakers of the divine nature.” For Christians ‘the vii Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (London: Burns and Oates, 2002), 49. SSJE
“To live in my holiness is to live in God, hearing the angel’s cry: ‘Make way, make way for the image of God.’”
holy’ is never just the church, the chapel, the shrine, or the place set apart where only a few may enter. It is never simply a holy day, or a holy woman or man. Holiness is at the core of every Christian’s identity, both personally and as members of the holy priesthood of believers. Holiness is not an optional extra; rather it is the whole point of creation which enables us to pray “Our Father, Hallowed be your name.” It is both encouraging and comforting, although at the same time unnerving, to know that our call to holiness comes from the Holy One who longs for us to be holy as God is holy. It is a simple matter that is no less than everything. It calls for a renewing of our minds. We must begin to think about our visions and our vocations in terms of holiness. For such thinking is in fact thinking about God. The journey to holiness is the discovery of what it means to be made in the image of God. God is love. Love is my true identity. God is holy. Holiness is my true being. To live in my holiness is to live in God, hearing the angel’s cry: “Make way, make way for the image of God.” Fifth, an embodied spirituality of reconciliation is nurtured by the discipline of silence and solitude. The discipline of silence is cultivated in every religious tradition that I know. For instance, the Hebrew word for the The Society of Saint John the Evangelist
presence of God – shekinah – has the same root as the Arabic word for that pause or silence that a pious Muslim observes in the course of daily prayers. The longing for stillness is not a longing for pleasure, happiness or peace. It is a desire for encounter, for moving away from words to and words about God, to waiting upon God. Times of stillness, silence, and solitude are vital for nurturing a spirituality of reconciliation. Words come readily to our lips, often too readily. We shy away from trusting God in silence and quietness. It is just much easier to keep the chatter going. Ambrose knew this when he instructed Augustine: “I have seen many”, he said, “who were saved by silence but none who were saved by chatter.” We are too often preoccupied instead of quiet; restless instead of still, noisy instead of silent; over-burdened and hurtling along unable to stop – all rendering us incapable of hearing the call of the Holy One. Thomas Merton said: “My life is listening. God’s is speaking.”viii In the struggle to be still with God, our utter poverty is revealed to us. All our plans, visions, talk, and spiritual ambitions are useless, for all that matters is God’s glory. Glimpsing our poverty is viii Thomas Merton, Thoughts on Solitude, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988), 74. 31
a blessing that shatters us. Then, for the first time, we see the magnitude of God’s mercy and our hearts swell with gratitude. But soon, very soon, holiness demands to be put to work in the service of love. Mere withdrawal and quiet without returning to the active work of reconciliation, will only lead to spiritual inertia or even worse, to pride that finds pleasure in contemplating our “holiness.” The spiritual life is a constant movement between times of silence and solitude, and times of active participation in God’s hands in this world. Sixth, the truth of our holiness raises a difficult question: “Am I prepared for sacrifice?” There is an old saying about any task you undertake, that when you have done ninety-five percent of the work you are only halfway there. This is true in our quest for reconciliation. The further we go, the more intense the demands upon us become. Paul speaks of our lives as “a living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1). We recoil immediately for we know that sacrifice entails suffering. We know through the person of Jesus Christ, that the climax of the whole creation is self-sacrifice. The truth is that we are very much beginners, we are neither spontaneous, nor pure, and we shrink from suffering. But if we long for reconciliation, we can begin with small,
often unnoticed, sacrificial acts, and be courageous enough to embrace their consequences. Finally, a church that seeks to embody reconciliation has a valuable asset in the power of ritual. Ritual can express deeply felt but seldom articulated feelings, because its drama can speak of that for which we have no words. Rituals can hold the promise of healing broken relationships. The Eucharist is extraordinarily significant for reconciliation. In the Eucharist the themes touched on thus far come together: the promise of change, the embodied reality of our faith, the need for forgiveness and restorative justice, and the restoration of relationship given to us as common bearers of the image of God. We not only share in the ‘one bread’ of the communion, but we commit ourselves to share ourselves with those who are needy, alienated or simply ‘other,’ because this is what it means to become ‘bread for the world.’ This is by implication the impetus for restoring community. The Eucharist is the bodily practice of grace. Suffering and alienated bodies can partake of the feast. Bodies are absolutely central to the Eucharist, our bodies and the body of Christ. Participating in this rite unites our bodies in a mysteriously wonderful way. “The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are
“The Eucharist is the bodily practice of grace. Suffering and alienated bodies can partake of the feast.”
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many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:16,17). Our differences melt away as we are all drawn into the one body of the risen Christ. After participating in the Eucharist, we join in thanks and then commit ourselves as “living sacrifices in Jesus Christ” to live and work in the world to God’s praise and glory – a noble, moving undertaking. The significance of both the gift given in Christ in the Eucharist and the fulfilment of that gift in the future, lie in our willingness to embody reconciling action that serves the needs of the world. An awareness of injustice, a willingness to forgive and a commitment to making right relationships in our communities become embodied in practical actions. Without such commitment, the Eucharist is little more than an empty rite.
us to do God’s work of reconciliation.” Then we will have heard the angel’s cry. In his book No Future without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu, with characteristic passion, sets out his credo. I can think of no more appropriate way of ending than by quoting a passage that describes the Christian hope for reconciliation. There is a movement, not easily discernible, at the heart of things to reverse the awful centrifugal force of alienation, brokenness, division, hostility and disharmony. God has set in motion a centripetal process, a moving toward the Centre, towards unity, harmony, goodness, peace and justice; one that removes barriers. Jesus says, ‘And when I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw everyone to myself,’ as he hangs from His cross with out-flung arms, thrown out to clasp all, everyone and everything, in cosmic embrace, so that all, everyone, everything, belongs. None is an outsider, all are insiders, all belong. There are no aliens; all belong in one family, God’s family, and the human family.ix
Conclusion
What do we want for ourselves and for our church? This is an important question, for we shape ourselves and our church in the image of what we desire. We need spiritual wisdom that, in faith, can say: “Blessed are we, for our hearts long for reconciliation and we know we are sanctified through the transforming power of the Holy One who abides in
ix Desmond M. Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (London: Rider, 1999), 213. Denise Ackermann is extraordinary professor of Christian theology at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. She is a practical theologian with a particular interest in Christian spirituality and women’s issues in the Christian tradition.
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I am currently spending a year in China, away from my home and family and faith community, while I write my dissertation. During this challenging time of engaging a new place and exploring new dimensions of myself, I turn to SSJE for words of wisdom and nourishment. This community has become a spiritual home for me that I can carry across the world. Thank you! – Christina Kilby The Society of Saint John the Evangelist
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SPOTLIGHT ON 34
Ministry with Students From our founding in Oxford in 1866 we have recognized ministry to students and young adults as a very significant part of our mission. The establishment of our community in Boston in 1870 and, later, the building of our Monastery in Cambridge, Massachusetts were both influenced by the presence of so many institutions of higher education in close proximity to our place of residence. Our founders’ intentions continue to illuminate our ministry today. Chapter 31 of our Rule of Life, on “Ministry and Service,” describes how “our tradition, experience, and discernment of the signs of our own times encourage us to be alert for Christ’s invitation to serve.” Specifically we recognize the call to serve in ministry “those who desire to learn how to pray, to understand the things of the Spirit, and to press forward on the way of conversion.” Our ministries with students flow from this understanding of our tradition and call. Year by year, our ministry with students continues to grow. On the first Tuesday of each month we host a soup supper following the 5:30 Eucharist, which offers us a great opportunity to interact with young adults. These “First Tuesdays” are well attended and full of lively conversation. We also regularly host groups of students and young adults for retreats, quiet days, workshops, and other special programs. Brothers travel to teach in seminaries and schools around the country and, back at home, meet with students and young adults for spiritual direction and mentoring. For the last few years, we have teamed up with the Episcopal Service Corps to offer a Monastic Internship Program for young men and women who wish to live and work alongside the Brothers at the Monastery. Each Intern is assigned a mentor from among the Brothers, with whom they meet regularly to discuss their experience of life in community, their study, their prayer, and their life goals. The Interns also undertake substantial projects of their own devising. Last year’s Interns organized a candlelight vigil, hosted a symposium of scientists on faith, and chaired a multimedia art installation in the Chapel. As we strive to meet the needs and concerns of the present day with faithful hearts, we are grateful for the presence of young adults in our midst, mooring us in our own history and pointing us toward the future. SSJE
The Library is Back
COMMUNITY LIFE
Back in 2005, needing more office space in anticipation of a major capital funds drive, we Brothers dismantled our library, packed our books into boxes, and placed them in storage. During the year of renovation (2010-11), we retrieved the boxes and went through all the books, keeping only those we felt would be most useful to have on hand. We then formed a small committee, assisted by retired professional librarians May Daw and Janet Scinto, to evaluate and select a library software program that would help us catalog our entire collection. We chose a program called “ResourceMate,� which we then customized for our situation. There were two possible ways we could catalog: ResourceMate offered us online access to the catalogs of lots of large libraries, and if we could match a record to one of our books, the software would import the record directly into the database we were creating. Or, we could go outside the libraries offered to us, find another library with the same book (using a national database called WorldCat), and enter the record manually into our database. And so began the painstaking work of cataloging each book, keyboarding the entries, and affixing bar codes and spine labels so that the books could be ordered in the stacks. Over a period of nineteen months, over 7,500 volumes were cataloged. Most of the books are stored in new library space within the enclosure, but several hundred volumes have been made available in the Guesthouse library. There are still other materials to be entered, including a separate collection of materials by SSJE authors and an archive of all the books issued by our former publishing arm, Cowley Publications. Team Leader May Daw, assisted by Janet Scinto, oversaw the work of several regular volunteers: Pat Beamish, Monica Liberman, Bruno Leung, Elizabeth Sherlock, Elizabeth Wright, and Bob Buckwalter; as well as our interns and postulants. Together they put in countless hours of meticulous work. We are profoundly grateful for their efforts and for their perseverance. They have given us a great gift!
Left: Our gratitude to May Daw and the whole team for their expertise and hard work. Right: New furniture and books populate the Guesthouse library.
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