A Writer’s Dilemma:  Or Why I Haven’t Posted in a Couple of Months

Although this project has been at the back of my mind for a while, I took a bit of reprieve from posting.  If a reason for my absence from the blog-sphere could be seen as a drink it would be:  1 part desire to not write out of cynicism, 1 part being busy presenting at an Anarchist’s studies conference, Mardi Gras, yet another move and adopting a dog, 2 parts working on my thesis and poured over ice cold insecurity.  I call it “Daniel doesn’t think he has anything interesting to say”.

…and perhaps I don’t.

However, I want to get back into the swing of this because the basic fact remains:  writers write and writing is rewriting is rewriting.   I want to contribute to the larger conversations going on about Theology and Culture.  I can only speak into such lofty and diverse conversations from my perspective: a church community in New Orleans, LA that subscribes itself to an ever growing movement in the West known as “new monasticism” and engages with the city incarnationally with the hope that we have the ability to demonstrate for the city what it can potentially become.

I once again return to the Rule of Saint Benedict and the dilemma of being an anarchist who is bound to a rule of life and a people.  I’m going to pick up where I left off and if you need a refresher here are the links to the other entries I’ve posted in this series.  I’ve revised a few of them to better clarify the task at hand, the framework I’m working within and other reflections.

Encountering the Rule of St. Benedict
Incarnational Anarchy
Cenobites Have All The Fun
How to Not Get Marooned On an Island

And now, on to Rule III….

*     *     *

Decisions are Made By Those Who Show Up

Rule III:  Summoning The Brothers for Counsel

There is a thread throughout the Rule that subtly challenges the way power is typically distributed in a community.  In the previous rule Benedict describes the qualities the One Whom is in Ultimate Authority must possess in order to be the Abbot.  The Abbot is meant to represent Christ to the other monks in the cloister and therefore looks wholly unlike a leader of any other top-down organization.  Taking on the burdens and responsibilities of the Abbot means becoming the servant of all.  In this chapter we see what the Abbot needs to do when making decisions, whom God reveals his wisdom through and expectations of the monks after a decision is made.  Later on Benedict will talk about what the election of an Abbot looks like and also how the majority’s rule ought to be overridden when the minority’s opinion makes more sense.  

Benedict creates a protocol for the One Who Ultimately Makes the Decision that radically deconstructs the power structures and systems he was no doubt acquainted with before leaving Rome: The Military and The Church where both the Pope and the Emperor ruled from the top.  They issued their edicts and expected obedience from those below them.  Sure, they had their advisers and counselors but at the end of the day it was the will of the sovereign ruler that mattered.  Benedict does more than invert this power structure.  He moves the top to the center resulting in the Abbot’s making his decisions from the heart of the community.  He accomplishes this by instructing the Abbot to get the whole community around the table, explain the issue and then open it up for discussion so that everybody else can weigh in.  This is more than just taking counsel from a hand selected group of people.  This is an empowerment for everybody to affect the outcome of whatever decision is being made.  The move Benedict makes that is important to note is in this line “the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger.”  In a world not too much unlike our own where age equals experience which equals authority which equals the right to be heard more than others this rule iterates the fact that the Lord often speaks through those whom the culture sees as weak, inexperience or unqualified.  For the Abbot to best discern God’s will for important decisions he must hear the heartbeat of his community and he must give special attention to the voices of those with the least amount of status or power.

This rule isn’t wholly for the Abbot, however.  There is an important role here for the rest of the brothers: they must show up and participate in the conversation.  They must participate with humility, honesty and without an agenda to win an argument.  Decisions are made after the whole community has deliberated and wrestled with the problem together.  Decisions are made by those who show up and go all in.  That way, after the Abbot carefully weighs everything and makes his decision all are accountable to it.  None should deviate from the rule by “following his own hearts desire” but all are expected to move forward together and abide by the heart of the community from which the Abbot rules.

For the modern person to live by this Rule it would be a subversion of how we typically organize communities and distribute power.  To live according to a Rule like this is an active resistance to modernity’s romantic notion of the sovereign individual because it requires everyone from top to bottom to relinquish out sense of sovereignty, become bound to a people and be hospitable toward those on the other side of the table when hashing important issues out.

Who determines what issues are important and what aren’t?  Well, I imagine that would be the very first important decision a community needs to make.  There is a counter balance that Benedict offers at the end of this chapter.  For the less important decisions the Abbot is still instructed to speak about it with the “seniors” – my guess is this is for the sake of expediency – before making the decision.  In the end the Abbot, although the one in authority, is still bound to community in everything he does.  He does not have the right to act on his own volition because that isn’t the sort of power he has been endowed with.  His authority is grounded in being chosen by the community as the one who can best speak and act from within.

Benedict’s final words on this matter:  ”Do everything with counsel and you will not be sorry afterward”.

How to Not Get Marooned On an Island

Rule II:  Qualities of the Abbot

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  - Matthew 20:25-28

A central concern for any sort of political theory (anarchist or otherwise) is relationship between culture and power.  Or, to be more specific, political theory is concerned with the distribution of power within a culture.  So while this “concern” will be suspended over this whole interaction with the Rule I do not intend to make every post about power.  Actually, I’m more interested in exploring the inter-workings of the Monastery and imagining what an anarchistic community could look like.  However, there are rules in here that have to do with power.  This rule has to do with the character of the Abbot**; the one who manages all of the affairs of the monastery, who is the spiritual director of the monks and even, at times, the one who disciplines those who have deviated from the Rule.  This rule teaches us what kind of person the Abbot needs to be in order for the monastery to thrive.

**Parenthetical Note #1:  In the 7th Century there came about a movement of “Benedictine Nuns” that is still with us today.  This is an order that has had no trouble translating the male leadership roles within the Rule into female ones.  Although Benedict speaks only of men, practice of the Rule is gender neutral.  

I’m lucky to live less than an hour away from a Benedictine monastery and to be able to go there for my personal retreats.  This past summer, the in the wake of Hurricane Isaac I went up there for a couple of days to rest, pray and practice the liturgy.  We’ll get into this later on in the Rule but there is strict observance of silence during certain parts of the day – mostly around meal times – and this is a story about a time when I broke Silence.  Before a dinner I was talking to Brother Immanuel while he was doing his shift at the front office desk.  We had all sorts of questions for each other and one of mine was about the Abbot’s relationship to the Diocese, his over all function within the monastery and what he looks like.  In one of his explanations Br. Immanuel told me that the Abbot is the one person who basically gets to do whatever he wants and everyone else has to obey is directions.  I wasn’t able to press into that further because it was time for dinner and we had to be quiet.  So in my silence I contemplated what he had said and I had a whole number of questions swimming around in my head.  Mostly I was wondering how a community could thrive with only one person who is sovereign over the rest.  Yes, yes, it seems like my western liberalism roots are showing but I don’t think that is the case.  What community/church/business/organization do you know of that is both thriving and solely rests on the sovereignty and wisdom of one individual?  There has to be real accountability on some level, right?

Now, during dinner one of the monks reads a chapter from the Rule, book on church history and some other book they fancy.  While thinking about all of these questions the reader was reading some book on the history of monasticism in the middle ages and that day’s chapter was about some monastery in Spain (i think).  There was a new Abbot to come in and apparently he ruled the monastery harshly – the the point where the rest of the monks eventually tied him up, kidnapped him and marooned him on some island for him to die.  This is the part where I choked on my soup, made a bit of a mess and definitely broke Silence.  Did the monks really just perform a coup d’etat against their Abbot?  The lesson I learned from that story:  The Abbot is ultimately accountable to those whom he leads and his power is contingent upon the level of trust between him and the rest of the monks.  It is through building a trusting relationship with the community that the Abbot gains authority in the hearts and minds of the monks.  How then can one earn the level of authority and trust that is necessary to peaceably rule over the people and affairs of the monastery?   In this rule I believe St. Benedict responds to  this implicit question with three focal images and a charge that communicates the gravitas that comes with this holy office.

The first image for the Abbot to conform to is the Shepherd.  He is one who is entrusted with the health and well being of those in his monastery.  One aspect of this is spiritual.  The Abbot is one who contends with those who are less mature in the Faith and monastic life for their growth and maturity.  Unlike some distant corporate executive or even a “head pastor” the Abbot must have an intimate relationship with each of his monks so that A.) the monk can experience the Abbot’s character in order to build trust and B.) the Abbot can learn how to speak into the monk’s life not in a prescriptive manner but in the way friends who have walked a great distance can talk. This is not just for reproof or correction but a genuine relationship also includes the knowledge of the monk’s dreams, hopes and fears.  Without that knowledge how could the Abbot ever begin to help his monks cultivate those dreams and utilize their gifting for the glory of God?

Another aspect of this Shepherd image is this is a role that manages the pragmatics of monastic life.  At the end of the day someone has to sign off on budget plans, travel allowances and be the one who interfaces with outside organizations.  Like a Shepherd, the Abbot is one who navigates through all of these aspects of the Monastery while keeping the well being of his monks in mind.

The next image is the Teacher and Benny’s words are pretty straightforward on this subject:

Anyone who receives the name of abbot is to lead his disciples by a twofold teaching:  he must point out to them all that is good and holy more by example than by words, proposing the commandments of the Lord to receptive disciples with words, but demonstrating God’s instructions to the stubborn and the dull by living example.

The Abbot must be consistent in both word and deed; engaging in discourse with those who can be persuaded through argument and demonstrating what it good practice to those who are limited in some other way.  I think the truth in this point is self evident but it is a principle that is forgotten (or ignored) often.  In order for me to build trust with those that I lead I must practice what I preach.  Now, obviously the virtuous life is a journey without a point of arrival but the Abbot cannot gain credibility (and therefore authority) in the hearts and minds of his monks unless he is on the same journey they are striving for the same Good.

Parenthetical Note #2:  How this actually works out in community life is extremely complex because there is a basic truth underlying any sort of submission to leadership.  There will be a moment (several, actually) where the followers will experience the pain and disappointment that comes when the leader fails.  When that happens it takes work to rebuild that trust and give back that authority.  However, the depth of knowledge and relationship that is produced by staying at the table (what I wrote about last time) make this whole process worth it.  

Finally, Benedict speaks to the image of Father for this is what the title “Abbot” literally means.  He does not refer to “Father” much in this section but he seems to suggest in a couple of places that concepts of discipline and responsibility are central for this Father figure.  Discipline is something that is discussed more in depth elsewhere but Benedict uses some heavy words to charge anybody who bears the title “Abbot” with:

The Abbot must always remember what he is and remember what he is called, aware that more will be expected of a man to whom more has been entrusted.  He must know what a difficult and demanding burden he has undertaken: directing souls and serving a variety of temperaments  coaxing, reproving and encouraging them as appropriate.  He must so accommodate and adapt himself to each one’s character and intelligence that he will not only keep his flock entrusted to his care from dwindling, but will rejoice in the increase of a good flock.  Above all, he must not show too great concern for the fleeting and temporal things of this world, neglecting or treating lightly the welfare of those entrusted to him.  Rather, he should keep in mind that he has undertaken the care of souls for whom he must give an account.

The Abbot (as Father) is responsible for much and must never lose sight of the task he has endeavored upon in leading a group of monks who are intrinsically different from one another.  He must never forget the souls that have been entrusted to him and the fact that he will answer for the quality of his stewardship in this life or the next.

Now, I’d like to return to the question of authority, dominion and incarnational anarchy.  On the surface the hierarchy of the Monastery, beginning with the Abbot, may seem autocratic but I suggest that there is this incarnational anarchy at play because the monastic life from the top down begins and ends with the imitation of Christ.  If the Abbot is expected to be an incarnation of Christ in the Monastery this suggests that he is one who, in his own way, makes Christ’s story his own; which, as I’ve argued before, is inherently anarchistic.  The apparent autocracy within the Monastery is thus countered and rearranged by the anarchistic DNA of the Incarnation.

The Abbot, then, is the chief instigator of and model for the anarchistic movement that is inevitable when any community endeavors to incarnate their faith and hope in Christ in their day to day lives.  The virtuous Abbot will look like these images that St. Benedict evoked in the second chapter of his Rule.  The viscous Abbot may end up marooned on some island somewhere.

Cenobites Have All The Fun

Rule I: The Kinds of Monks

At the title of every rule I will turn it into a link so you can be able to read the whole thing on your own. Some chapters are longer than others, this one is but the preamble to what is to come. In it we find out Benny’s intended audience, or whom this Rule of Life is for: The Cenobites (monastics). In getting to that point he writes of the “Four Kinds of Monks”. His descriptions are colorful, interesting and a bit harsh at times. To unpack The Hermit would bring us into an entirely different discussion. The other two, I think are much more relevant and helps us better Benedict’s ideal in the Cenobite.

St. Benedict doesn’t spend any time explaining why the monks who do not live according to any specific Rule or stay in any one place for a very long time is a lesser kind of monk. For him, the why is self-evident but unless we read this short chapter closely what is obvious for Benny alludes us. From our modern lens isn’t there something romantic, adventurous and inherently good about going out and taking the world by storm? We grow up learning about historical figures like Hemingway or Thoreau who abandoned any sense of community and face whatever may come on their own. We’ve been taught about the Magna Carta, The Constitution of the United States, Manifest Destiny. We live in the age of couchsurfing.com and an ever present “hipster” culture dedicated to rejecting social trends (not really) by being infatuated with the obscure (again, not really but the irony is sort of the point). The pursuit of happiness means to let our hearts navigate us through the often perilous landscape which all of us are journeying through. The descriptions of these lesser monks seem to match up fairly well with the ideal Individual in our (post)modern milieu. Given our cultural and political lens are Benedict’s judgments of these sorts of monks archaic, paternalistic and even a bit coercive? Perhaps, at least some of his words don’t seem charitable. However, I think Benedict sees the untethered life for exactly what it is. To put it into the matrix of incarnational anarchy – these are people who have yet to dethrone their individualistic sense of sovereignty. They do not grow roots or gain stability and are in a constant state of flux and chaos. They live as estranged ones to the monastery. The why for St. Benedict is found in the description of the Cenobite – one who belongs to the monastery, serves under a rule and an abbot. Benedict understands that we, as humans, have a need to belong. On a fundamental level we need to be known and accepted for exactly who we are by others. We are orientated toward community and to truly reject this we are rejecting something that makes us human.

Doesn’t it seem that one way or the other all of these kinds of monks are being ruled? Yes…and that’s kind of the point. I would like to suggest that incarnational anarchy can only take place within community; which is inherently a type of rule. Those who remain at the table regardless of how hard the conversations may be are the ones are who have the opportunity to re-enact this Anarchistic Moment. Only in this context can the dysfunction that is present in every culture be subverted because kenotic-hospitality is contingent upon community. Community, as we understand from St. Benedict, are those committed to the same Rule and have a vested interest in the prosperity of the order. Those drifting on the outside or those who leave the table for whatever reason inherently cannot be a part of the transformative overthrow that both incarnational anarchy offers and the community’s culture requires.

St. Benedicts’ audience are those who are committed to the individual and communal process of kenosis, subversion, death and resurrection. His Rule is for those who equally embrace the idealism of “community” and the reality of it. This Rule of Life is quite straightforwardbut it gets unbelievably messy as it becomes the flesh and bones of a community dedicated to the inauguration of God’s Kingdom. In the end, though, it’s the Cenobites who have all the fun.

Incarnational Anarchy

Whenever I talk about anarchy (which isn’t very often) the first question that I am almost always asked is “What do you mean by ‘anarchy’”?  Before encountering the Rule I would like to unpack that a bit and share the framework that I am working within.

I found this meme to be pretty funny – although I admit some of the humor is kind of crass – and pretty accurate to what anarchy is perceived to be.  Whenever I talk about having a conversation on anarchy or that I am presenting an essay at this year’s North American Anarchist Studies conference there is an inevitable joke about the perceived irony of something organized having something to do with anarchy.  There’s a chuckle that is had and we move on in the conversation.  There’s usually nothing to those kinds of comments in the conversations I have but in other contexts this is a way the status quo (the Controlling Order) minimizes and dismisses anything that an anarchist point of view could bring to the table.  More dangerously, though, anarchy is often portrayed not as some sort of mechanism for building a better culture but rather as the destruction of culture and civilization.  The Joker’s character in The Dark Knight is a stark example of this portrayal and to be fair, some people just want to see the city burn.  Therefore, conversations and memes like this begs a rather serious question:  Is anarchy and idealistic, youthful “damn the man!” protest that is more interesting in burning down the house or is it about community and changing cultural paradigms of power?  The answer is “Yes”.  I don’t pretend to be any sort of expert in anarchist theory but in my dabbling I have come to understand the label “anarchy” to have a wide range of meanings with not much of a compass on it.  Perhaps being a decentralized theory is the point, I don’t know.  This is why it is important to say what I mean by “anarchy” before working through Benny’s Rule.  I need a compass.

To those that know me and have heard me talking about this ad nauseum know that I’ve only come to understand anarchy through the Incarnation of God.  In the essay that I’m writing for this conference I am working through some anarchistic implications (what I call the “anarchistic DNA for the Church”) of the Incarnation.  Here I want to reflect on Paul’s “Christ Hymn” in Philippians 2: what I believe to be the Anarchist Moment in the Christian story.

Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,
who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be used for His own advantage.
Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men.
And when He had come as a man in His external form,
He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.
For this reason God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow
of those who are in heaven and on earth
and under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

There is quite a bit here and it is a playground for students who are cutting their teeth in Biblical Studies.  I don’t have the resources on hand to do that but I am confident that my theological reading of this text doesn’t stray too far from what we understand St. Paul’s mind to be.  I see this as a central text which tells a Three Part Drama of “Christianity’s Anarchistic Moment”.  The very first line is a short and simple Prologue:  Make your attitude that of Christ Jesus.  Yes, yes we are essentially reading Paul’s mail to a church on the other side of this world thousands of years ago – but do we have any real reason to believe Paul’s exhortation would be any different if he were posting on some blog from an obscure coffee shop in Whatever City, USA?  Not really, so while this letter isn’t written to us we can safely understand that these words are truly for us as well.  This is why the rest of this hymn is both Christ’s and Christianity’s ‘Anarchistic Moment’ – we are expected to imitate the character of Christ as displayed in this poem.

In “Part 1″ we witness a sort of dethronement of God.  Christ, in taking on human form (the Incarnation) emptied himself (kenosis).  Theologically speaking, Christ relinquished the rights and status he was entitled to as One who participates in the divine trinitarian community and entered into a reality that was utterly estranged from this community (cf. Romans 1-5, Colossians 1).

Part II is a bit more implicit as Paul does not write much of Jesus’ life on earth but rather lunges forward to his death.  Jesus lived a life which was constantly and directly confrontational to the power structures he was born into.  Through his words and life he gave those whom would follow him a different imagination the nature of power and how it could be used for what is truly good.  Ultimately Jesus was charged with sedition and crucified.  Paul understood all of this to be Jesus’ obedience to a divinely inspired cosmic scheme to overthrow the ‘powers and principalities’ (Ephesians 6), ‘the domain of darkness’ (Colossians 1:13), the ‘sting’ of Death (1 Corinthians 15).

Part III speaks of Christ’s exultation and elevation.  In his resurrection these powers were overthrown.  This is the hope for all of creation because, as was noted in the ‘prologue’, we are called to participate in this story with Him and live out a resurrected way of life.

In this three part drama I believe we see an anarchistic character in the Incarnation and this gives me an idea of which way is North.  ”Incarnational Anarchy” isn’t some attempt to burn down the house for its own sake but rather a process of kenosis, subverting our cultural mileaux of an Ayn Rand type of rugged individualism.  Ultimately incarnational anarchy leads into a life of obedience, of non-violence, forgiveness, love and hospitality.  This “Incarnational Anarchy” is my compass for encountering the Rule of St. Benedict and community life.

An Anarchist’s Dilemma

Over the past several years I have become more and more acquainted with anarchist theory.  At first I found my friend’s anarchistic inclinations to be deeply offensive but rather than discounting the lot of them I asked questions and wrestled with my own beliefs about power, Christianity and Empire.  I got to the point this year where I did not register to vote because of some confused convictions that I had (still have).  Now, though, I think I more or less subscribe to a form of anarchy that I want to use this space to try to suss out a bit more.  I want to approach this series in a way that seems to be dialectical by reading the Rule of St. Benedict through my burgeoning anarchistic perspective.  However, I sense that these two aspects may be more compatible than one might initially believe – at least that is what my experience living in a vowed community has taught me.

I’ve titled this series “An Anarchist’s Dilemma” and I will be writing this in tandem with my thesis on The City, the Incarnation and the Church’s call to demonstrate for the City what has the potential to become.  Hopefully the two projects will inform each other.  The version of St. Benedict’s Rule I’m working with can be bought on Amazon for a couple bucks here OR you can check out this online version.

I am coming to the Rule with questions and I will probably end up with more by the end.  My hope is that they will be better questions and that I am able to share what its like to live in community within a wider culture where the individual is sovereign, time is currency and knowledge is power.  Perhaps, in this day and age, living according to a rule of life is the most anarchistic act one can do.