This is a meditation on chapter 14 from our Way of Life.

Help Build a Better Future for your City and Creation

Living an urban monastic life does not ask us to disengage from the world around us. It asks the opposite – to step into the mess of life. When I read about the life of Jesus, again and again I see Him comforting those hurting, sitting with the outcast and oppressed, teaching, and healing the sick. He didn’t disengage with the people around him. He went to them. He saw their needs and met them. When I think about being a follower of Jesus in the context of being an Urban Monastic, I think of those things and how Jesus asks us to follow Him in how He lived. 

This must have all been so impactful for the apostles and disciples to see. Watching Jesus – the one they’ve given up their lives to follow – embody this way of living. I can only imagine how they felt the need to carry on this action. Living out the way Jesus exemplified in His life and ministry. 

But when I look to the gospels, I see the disciples couldn’t do what Jesus embodied for them. They denied Him. Betrayed Him. They tried (without success) to imitate Him. They fell asleep in the garden when Jesus needed them to be awake. They kept misunderstanding what Jesus taught. 

They weren’t perfect. 
Neither am I. 

But I’m still called to try to embody the life and love of Christ in my context. A part of that is loving my neighbors and working to make life better for them. It’s loving and tending to creation, the creation God called good. It’s going to the hurting, outcast, and oppressed, and sitting with them. Seeing them. Loving them. 

It can be hard at times to stop and reflect on all that is going on in my city and our world. It’s overwhelming. It makes me want to disengage at times. Yet my heart breaks for every person I see, and I want so deeply for them to know they are loved by our God, and to know the hope and safety in their life that God longs for them to have. To actually feel the love and tenderness of Jesus embodied in their midst. In my best moments I strive to bring that love of Jesus with me wherever I go. I’m not perfect, I know, and never will be. But I know I’m called to embody this love so that the love of Christ permeates every space I touch. It’s a lofty dream, I know. And I fail constantly, I know. But within that, there is the grace God is offering me to try again. To offer just a little more love, a little more tenderness, and a little more compassion to those around me. 

Photo Credit
Paul Prins on 9 May 2026 in Paris, France.