Mutual hospitality
By Leo Campos
What is the basis for any community to be considered a community at all? In my own family, for example, is it sufficient that we all inhabit the same house? As it is with different schedules (after school activities, church activities, personal pursuits, chores, and what not) the amount of time we spend together as a unit is very limited indeed. Even the ideal of sharing a meal is not always possible - sorry can't stay for dinner gotta go to church for the 630p Healing Service. Sorry can't stay - yoga class starting in 15 minutes. Sorry can't stay, drumming lessons begin at 7 p.m. And so on.
But still we would consider ourselves a family or no more so than the vast majority of families these days. We have to fight for every scrap of time available. Without a doubt a community, be it a family or a larger organization is more than a collective of individuals. A community is a flexible and dynamic set of relationships. These relationships themselves are driven by the attitudes and behavior of its members, but they are themselves fed by and altered by the other attitudes and behaviors.
So what constitutes a family or a community? First of all a community is artificial. There is no such thing as "community," it is a construct which delineates, more or less arbitrarily, a space for relationships. This much is obvious. Even the "nuclear family" so beloved a myth in America is artificial. Growing up in Brazil I tell you that my "nuclear family" was way larger than what Americans consider their nucleus. It is inconceivable for me that the nucleus of the family should stop at one generation. In our family we make concerted effort to make sure that grandparents are involved in the children's lives. We also want to include cousins, aunts and friends into the mix.
Second thing to keep in mind is that what motivates individuals is not what affects communities. The community as an artificial phenomenon has a life of its own. There will be as varied reasons for members of a community to be together as there are members.
But we must be careful not to take this idea too far and end up thinking a community is some sort of Frankenstein's Monster - an artificial being with a life of its own. We cannot either assume or give what are human characteristics to a non-human thing. For example, while it makes sense to say that a my cats have a family, it is dangerous to think that way because "family" is a human construct. Cats most certainly do not see their own associations with each other and with non-felines in that way. Anyone else here who has ever watched the Dog Whisperer show on TV knows what I am talking about. The same way a community (or a family) is not a creature: it is an abstract entity which "moves" and "behaves" responding to different forces than the creatures that make it.
Some questions which arise when I think of communities: what is it that holds a community together? How is interdependence achieved, fostered, cultivated?
Without good answers for these questions I am afraid we spend a lot of time worrying about things which are less important, things like numbers. How many conversations have I had or heard where the defining characteristic of a church was its size. Sure it is by far the easiest thing to measure: one head=one person. But study after study of mega-churches has shown that the quality, the depth, and the impact of the church on the individual is in no way related to the size of the church. I would probably venture to say that it is in small churches is where you find the true disciples - after all the 5 people that show up for a Wednesday night Healing Service really want to be there.
I have no particular secret advanced monastic technique to increase community. But I can tell you what we do to try and foster a communal environment. First, everyone rows. There cannot be (especially in small groups) any tourists. I remember some time ago a wise priest pointing to me a horrible truth about the church: there are no volunteers in church. It is true! Everyone who calls himself a Christian is a disciple - who is obligated by evangelical commands to roll up their sleeves and work. Volunteering is a secular thing, for those who are idle and searching for something meaningful to fill up the time between lunch with friends and bridge club later that night. So at our Community, from day one, we talk about everyone being responsible for the whole. Second, we throw away rules. I do not mean that anything goes, but rather we try to do away with regulated and regimented verse-and-response communications, and instead hope to foster a more tenuous, sometimes embarrassing, often funny, informal dialog. This allows everyone to talk in their own way, in their own voice. Finally, we are rabid defenders of each other's individual and unique call. By destroying all cookie-cutters, we hope to emphasize to everyone that they are held in unique respect by all of us.
By keeping these three aspects in creative tension we have been able, so far, to maintain both a healthy interest in the global community as well as excitement about each individual's call. Surely there must be a way to do so in the church as well?
Brother Leo Campos is the co-founder of the Community of Solitude, a non-canonical, ecumenical contemplative community. He worked as the "tech guy" for the Diocese of Virginia for 6 years before going to the dark side (for-profit world).
But Leo, is a difference between your monastic community and the local parish that you know about the community rules and choose to join because of that? The average parish doesn't have such rules or make them known.
Carolyn Moomaw Chilton
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January 26, 2010 9:40 AM
I find myself looking at the paragraph on the "three aspects" in light of my own pursuit of Benedictine life. Now, "everyone rows" feels to me like conversion of life. "Defending each person's individual and unique call" feels like stability. Now, "throwing away rules" doesn't really sound like obedience, but that seems to me the parallel. No, it doesn't sound like it, but if the individual embraces that culture, that pursuit of "informal dialog," that becomes the "rule," the norm, for formation.
No, it doesn't exactly sound like it; but at some level it feels like it.
Marshall Scott
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January 26, 2010 11:48 AM
Brother Leo, I need to take some issue with you on several points in your essay.
First, family/community is one of the very few dimensions of human life which is NOT "artificial". It is utterly and totally "natural" -- and even Aristotle noted that human beings are community-based animals. Any anthropologist can tell you that if you remove all artificial social stimuli, human beings will NATURALLY form families and communities. [If you need an example look at the natural formation of city gangs where other (more healthy) human community is lacking.] And, as a matter of fact, contrary to your example, even dogs and cats also (and most animals) naturally form families and communities (e.g., PACKS of wolves and PRIDES of lions).
Secondly, I question your three parameters for community life:
1) "Everyone rows" and "everyone is responsible for the whole" -- well, frequently a member of a community has nothing to offer the community except his/her need, and literally CAN'T "row". So I would turn your principal around: "The whole is equally responsible for every one in it".
2) "We throw away rules": I certainly wish you well on that one, but 1500 years of monastic experience has shown that, indeed, the Rule is at the very center of community life, and preserves the community from private tangents and individual diversions. In fact, it is primarily the objective and universal Rule which keeps a community from becoming simply a cult.
3) "Rabid defenders of each other's individual and unique call" seems to be nothing more than a consecration of and indulgence in individualism (in religion), romanticism (in art) and capitalism (in economics). It seems to reject commonality -- the "likeness" and "similarity" of all. It sounds very "modern" and, unlike every historical Christian contemplative monastic and mystical tradition, it seems to puts "self-realization" and ego at the center of things.
I may be wrong in my understanding of your enunciated principles, in which case I sincerely apologize, but they seem to me romantically unrealistic and even possibly harmful to true community as I have come to understand and experience it after nearly 30 years in contemplative monastic life -- which may be why I am in a monastery and you are not (grin).
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January 26, 2010 12:10 PM
Thank you all for your comments - it is wonderful to dialog on these issues.
Carolyn: Good to hear from you BTW! I believe parishes do have a "common rule" - the Baptismal Covenant! Granted it does not regulate to the detail that monastic rules do, but it does regulate to a certain degree, and I would venture to say that the Baptismal Covenant does "regulate" an individual's private/family life as well.
Marshall: I think you may be right. In fact see below.
Br John-Julian: thank you so much for you thoughtful response. I think Marshall had the beginnings of a response to some of your concerns regarding "rulessness".
I still hold that families are artificial - or let me be more clear the American "nuclear family" strikes me as very artificial indeed. There are a variety of "chosen" family arrangements which have nothing to do with biology. I am sure you are aware that there are many solitary animals, so observations from the natural world cut both ways.
To take your points:
1) Yes I think it says (almost) the same thing. But at the same time, the capacity to support those who cannot contribute is a luxury afforded to larger communities - I am afraid we are not at such a point. In our Community everyone simply MUST contributes "something" (this does not mean everyone contributes the same thing and the same amount, though).
Small businesses are the same I believe: everyone has to help, unlike very large organizations which often subsidize underperforming workers.
2) I believe my sentence continues "do away with regulated and regimented verse-and-response communications, and instead hope to foster a more tenuous, sometimes embarrassing, often funny, informal dialog".
The "rules" I talk about jettisoning are those which try to formalize communications and which eventually deaden the human spirit (and the Spirit).
We do not BTW throw away "The Rule" (either that of Benedict, or our own Constitution and Customary, or the Gospel). We try to follow the Spirit - that is our primary rule.
We, because we are small and dispersed, must communicate differently (and very deliberately) than those who live together (or perhaps not?)
3) Yes we hear the charge of "rampant individualism" often. This may take another article! The founders of the Camaldolese and the Carthusians and others have written many tomes of apologies to this way of life. I defer to them.
But please bear in mind that many in our Community are married - in itself a wonderful way to prevent some excesses of individualism. LOL
Also bear in mind is that I think of "individuality" as something to strive towards (against the ego). There is a quote by CS Lewis (I think, though I cannot locate it just right now) which says something to the fact that the saints are the most truly individual persons there are - in Heaven everyone is truly the individual that God intended them to be. In our Community we strive to live that out.
So we are "individualistic" in the sense of the Desert Fathers, not of Freud - which is how most moderns read and criticize the call. We have lost a way of talking about individuality without egotism, which is a tragedy. We ourselves are claiming a call which is much much older.
Hope this all clears up the muddle a little? Please feel free to contact me - I love these conversations!
Please pass on my love to all in the Order of Julian of Norwich. May you be blessed with many more vocations - I think that the rediscovery of the contemplative approach is THE way forward for the church (but I am slightly biased)...
Blessings of Peace to all
brL
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January 30, 2010 12:06 PM