Earlier this month, Robin and I visited Pittsburgh. One of the things that I did while I was there was to attend the 2009 Summer Leadership Conference at Pittsburgh Seminary. One of the presenters that week was Peter Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.
One of the things that Pete talked about during the three day conference was a new monasticism. "We may not be called to be monks," writes Pete, "but we can learn many things from them as we seek to follow Christ in the twenty-first century. We each have, I believe, a solitary, a monk, within us. This is that part of us that needs rich, creative, and nurturing time alone with ourselves and with God. Emotional health and contemplative spirituality enable the contemplative circle of our lives to grow larger and to balance off the amount of activity in which we are engaged. This adjustment has the capacity to lead us to an incredible transformation with the love of God in each day." (Page 56)
I found Pete's discussion of the active life of the missional faith community being in balance with the contemplative practices very helpful. A few days before leaving for Pittsburgh a good friend invited me to live my life more like Saint Francis. His point was that clergy too often model their way of being in the world towards Donald Trump than Saint Francis. He felt that Saint Francis had more to offer me than Donald Trump.
It seems to me that I heard someone say that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Letters and Papers from Prison, was the first to speak of a new monasticism. In another book, Life Together, Bonhoeffer also wrote about the essential relationship between our time alone with God and our time together with God. Bonhoeffer wrote about finding the balance between the solitary life and the times of being together (mission, worship and other gatherings). I am reflecting on what it means for me, today, in Saint Petersburg, to live daily my own understanding of this new monasticism. I invite you to join me in the conversation.
