For awhile now, I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to form a neo-monastic order. I’d like to be an Abbess. Urban Abbess, isn’t that cool? (I didn’t think of it, but I still think it’s cool.) I mean, we’re all floating around out here in this urban landscape and we sort of need a taproot, a house to call home. I think Paul and I and the kids can be that for people. I think some other people might come be that with us. I think still others might move in and out of the circle and be a part of us to.

In a lot of ways we already are doing this.

We have a worshipful rhythm to our year and our week. We celebrate the seasons of the year in little ways – throwing parties, cooking seasonal foods, hanging out on the front porch, switching out the floral and fauna in our little shrine. We practice the Christian and Jewish holidays that are significant to us (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Passover, Easter…and sometimes Sukkoth and Pentecost). We step out of the mayhem each Thursday and into a little bit of Shabbat Shalom. Someday, we may even have a daily rhythm of celebrating together …right now; for instance, we all have the option of meditating on the same piece of art each day during Lent. Maybe someday we’ll try reading the same compline service, the same vespers prayer. Who knows?

We share a common meal, say a common prayer, break bread, drink wine. We commune with God and each other. We have an informal examen, hearing the ups and downs of each other’s week, learning what we felt the most grateful for, what we struggled with the most. Again, maybe someday we’ll get more formalized about this. Maybe someday we’ll all practice the Ignatian examen more formally in our homes, bring our observations more carefully to the group. Is it necessary? Let’s see.

I’m really pleased with all of this–happy and comfortable and well fed.

But there’s something that’s knocking around in my brain, and I think it’s this idea that monastic orders had a Rule. ….

Now “rule” is not a word that is going to go over well at ThPM. We’ve made a pet of the anti-conformity bunny and we like our pet a lot. That’s actually what turns me off about the monastics—well, that and the celibacy, the poverty, and the isolationism. But seriously, they too often became about merely obeying rules. But I think the Rule was there for a reason, right? To make sure certain values were underscored, to be intentional about a certain way of living, so that the things they valued wouldn’t fall off the map, so that they wouldn’t find themselves believers but not followers. (Which by the way is part of the theological shift that I think is occuring in the postmodern/emergent church — from believer to follower.)

So I’ve been thinking lately, “What would I like ThPM to be intentional about?” It’s all stuff that has to do with incarnational living – with living in a way that is reflective (and reflexive) of the reality that Christ dwells within you. Here are some of the things that knock around in my half-consciousness. (I think my friend Barb Henderson would say this me trying to figure out how to practice the practices.)

I’d like us pay attention. I’d like us to notice stuff. This really doesn’t happen that much in our busy world. But Jesus paid attention. Jesus noticed people: like a lady touching his coat, or some blue collar workers on the docks, or some children hiding behind their parent’s legs. This is important, and often requires the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I think it always requires some amount of stillness in your life, which means a whole other set of things – like maybe a more serious Sabbath, or centering prayer, or some sort of empty time to listen in on what the Father is doing so you can, in the words of Eugene Peterson “get in on it.” Someone wrote in my comments lately that this new theology that we are forming will “get people saved.” I’m not sure what I even think about a phrase like that anymore. But I do know that I want people to be aware of Jesus now, not just later. If I’m going to help introduce them, or help bring someone to the awareness of their already-salvation, the already-presence of God, then I have to practice the practice of paying attention. I’d like to see us figure out how to be intentional about that.

I’d like us to be good listeners. Todd Hunter said the other day “If you were doing free association it would take a long time before you found someone who said ‘good listener’ when you said ‘Christian.’” I have a lot of theories about this. The main one has to do with the fact that we’ve been so busy trying to convince people that the good news is “Jesus died for you” that we’ve become great apologists but not very good listeners. We’ve worked so hard on “give a good answer for what you believe” that we’ve forgot how to listen to what someone else believes – or even to ask what someone else believes. And while we’re on the topic of belief, we’ve decided to care so much about belief that we’ve forgotten how to let people belong. (Sigh. Sometimes it all just makes me tired. And scared. What am I, right now, this very momement, screwing up for the next generation(s)? Anyway….) Jesus was a good listener. In listening to stories, he created a place to belong. But to be a good listener we have to stop trying to convict and convert. I am pretty damn convinced that that’s not my job anymore. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, let her do it. It’s my job to be like Jesus –to listen to stories, to tell stories.
The thing is with this practice, is that we can’t do it until we unlearn something. We have to unlearn our tendency towards debate, correction, and defense. I am really REALLY bad at this. The minute some starts to talk to me, or I start reading something, I immediately start assessing it. Do I agree with this? What do I need to say in response to this? Again, I really think this has a lot to do with growing up in the evangelical church and being groomed to constantly be ready to convict and convert. It didn’t make me a very good listener–a good debate team member maybe, but not a good listener. So to take on the practice of “listening” I have to lay down the practice of “being right.” I have to learn to trust my own story, and God’s story, and the presence of his story within my story and within other people’s stories. I have to learn to say, “I don’t need to argue that one. His story is in our story, his truth is in our story–it’s the incarnation. It will rise to the top.” Now that, in my life, would be faith. That would be really believing what I say I believe about the incarnation, and God, and the power of his truth. Now that would be some serious discipline.

There are other things I’m thinking of. Like how I’d like us to be empathetic. Like how I’d like us to be a truly safe place. Like how I’d like there to be such an atmosphere of honesty here that no one would have to wonder where they stood. I think we already do all of this stuff. I’d just like to see us do it even better. But I’m all out of writing time for today. It feels good to start sorting some of this out though. I like my friend Ryan’s name for his worshipping community, “Along the Way.” That’s definitely where I’m at, figuring it out along the way….