My apologies for what could be a longer blog – but here goes …
(who is to say what is “real” and what is “spiritual” – what indeed is truth?)
The last day I was walking I felt I had something to say based on Henri Nouwen’s book “The way of the heart”, an old book of his written in 1981 on “desert spirituality and contemporary ministry”.
He quotes a story from the Desert Fathers (pointing out then that there were desert mothers as well) about Abba Arsenius who heard a voice (from the Lord) saying:
“Arsenius, flee, be silent, pray always …”
and uses this as a basis for “desert spirituality”. He interprets these three instructions as a need for solitude, silence and continual prayer.
In looking at the first, solitude, he has a chapter headed “The compulsive Minister” in which he talks about the danger (for a minister/priest) of being sucked into society’s values. He says this:
[“Just look for a moment at our daily routine. In general we are very busy people. We have many meetings to attend, many visits to make, many services to lead. Our calendars are filled with appointments, our days and weeks are filled with engagements, and our years filled with plans and projects. There is seldom a period in which we do not know what to do, and we move through life in such a distracted way that we do not even take the time and rest to wonder if any of the things we think, say or do are WORTH [his italics] thinking, saying or doing. We simply go along with the “musts” and “oughts” that have been handed on to us, and we live with them as if they were authentic translations of the Gospel of the Lord. People must be motivated to come to church, youth must be entertained, money must be raised, and above all, everyone must be happy.
Moreover, we ought to be on good terms with the church and civil authorities; we ought to be liked, or at least respected, by a fair majority of our parishioners; … and we ought to have enough vacation and salary to live a comfortable life. Thus we are busy people like all other busy people, rewarded with the rewards we give to busy people.]
A long quote – written from a Catholic priest’s perspective, but very clearly indicating the dangers clergy and others face. (words to our PCCs too, and all in active lay ministry). He says “horrendously secular our ministerial lives tend to be.” Why is this so? Because our very identity is at stake.
He quotes Thomas Merton saying that our self (or rather “false-self”) is fabricated by “social compulsions” and narrows them down to anger and greed, claiming that the first, anger, is close to “a professional vice in the contemporary ministry”
He finishes this chapter by saying “it is not our so strange that Anthony considered it a spiritual disaster to meet passively the tenets and values of their society”,
and then uses this later as a basis for our need for solitude and silence (together, I presume, with continual prayer).
This was written in 1981, but speaks to me with a fresh voice today.
However, I’m uncomfortable with it and almost disagree in parts (with Henri Nouwen!?!), but recognise the dangers of accepting society’s values. [Ironically, as I am writing this Daff is watching “Neighbours” where a priest is breaking his dog-collar in half].
Before I left for pilgrimage I was much taken with a short article Kenneth Cross (an Exmoor Deanery priest) has written about the danger of the “churchified” language we sometimes use. Others as well as him have criticised the church using management techniques and their language. We have to guard against this when talking about vision and mission and yet this is not an excuse not to do it.
We live in difficult times – but so have Christians always in a sense.
I’ve said enough – for now. …
I need to continue to think about the need to be in the world and out of the world.
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