Living in community, and the advice of the ancients on the art of doing it - gathering online 11 July 2021

The July gathering was an interesting confluence of ancient and bang-up-to-date streams of thought.  It was held on 11 July, which has traditionally been marked as the feast of Benedict of Nursia, whose organised rules for living monastically, written in the sixth century, have been handed down and continue to influence monastic living today.  Benedict’s insights on living in community today also influence thought-streams in the spheres of business management and personal improvement.  That was the ancient bit.  And the up-to-the-minute bit was: raising the topic of what it means to live in community is particularly appropriate in these days of hybrid living — part face-to-face and part online, and trying to sustain long-distance relationships.

We had some singing together in the way we all do on Zoom: all muted, but each hearing the lead musicians; we listened to some recordings by musicians on YouTube; we used this month’s chalice lighting words from the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists; we held our seven minutes of silence; and we spoke together the version of words of shared affirmation that are becoming a regular feature of our gathered time together. 

YouTube music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oBFBW7zQn8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfSzv_y1DCg

There were two readings, one from Bill Houff, a Unitarian Universalist in the USA, and the second from what would normally be called the book of James, in the New Testament of the Bible, but which ought to be known as the letter of Jacob.

Bill Houff spoke of the discipline needed for spiritual growth but also of the ordinariness of the spiritual life, and cited the following well-known story from Zen Buddhism:

A particularly eager spiritual novice went to the master of a monastery and said, “I am ready for every sacrifice; please teach me the way.”

“Have you eaten your rice porridge?” asked the master.

“Yes,” replied the student, “I have eaten.”

“Then you had better wash your bowl,” said the master.

The reflection by the president of the day wandered through the 'family tree' of western Christian monasticism, starting with the apostles Paul and James (who as mentioned above, might better be known in the English-speaking world as Jacob) living in a rural region outside Jerusalem, moving through the Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt, John Cassian of Romania, and finishing up with Benedict of Nursia.  Much use was made of the following reference sources, which are not associated with any religious institution but instead are academic historical researches:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-versions-and-translations/james-or-jacob-in-the-bible/

https://www.biblestudytools.com/gnt/james/

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/people/related-articles/james-and-paul

The reflection also looked at the message of James/Jacob, as it eventually emerged through the Benedictine order in western Europe.  It was suggested that the most important point carried down through the generations is why the church places such importance on long-lived relationships and commitments, and how that is related to the ordinariness of spiritual growth in community — the need to wash the rice bowl.  It was summed up in some words from Rowan Williams:

“The church celebrates fidelity....it lives by the regular round of worship — the daily prayer of believers...meeting the same potentially difficult or unexciting people time after time, because they are the soil of growth.”

The president concluded: “It’s hard in UK to be a Unitarian.  Our communities are so small and so thinly scattered, we all have to travel such distances.  But it’s even harder to be a Unitarian completely on your own.  That’s because the mark of a Unitarian is they are someone who has seen that it’s not enough to be a solo seeker. A Unitarian may start on their own but, if my experience is anything to go by, they get lonely, and they see and yearn for the gifts of learning and sustaining inner growth through the company of others.

"Learning and sustaining requires trust.  Trust is only built via travelling a bumpy road together, with persistence, humour, humility and generosity.  It takes time.  And these days, thankfully we have an online space that allows us to continue along our bumpy road, no matter how far apart we physically live. The mark of Unitarians is living in community, and today we celebrate the life of Benedict, who had a great deal to say on the subject.”

Being a disciple of Yeshua, a teacher of 'oneness'

The thing about Unitarians is that we seldom stand completely in one camp.  Just as we rarely hold a vision in common about how the multiverse operates, we rarely confine ourselves to one community of faith.  Seeking guidance, help and inspiration from a wide range of human sources (experiential, emotional, artistic, historic, scientific, mystic; solo and collaborative) - and from environmental sources as we live as animals on this Earth - we also tend to wander freely between circles of influence in terms of faith teaching.

So it is a rare Unitarian who adopts a single, or even prime, teacher to guide their path.  A number of UK Unitarians are satisfied in labelling themselves Unitarian Christians, and in doing so are content to be seen as people for whom the Jewish rabbi Jesus (or Yeshua) is the prime reference.  But the practice and contemplation of Unitarian Christians is not exclusive to Yeshua - there is a wealth of guidance available under the generic “Christian” banner that has not directly come from the words or actions of Yeshua, but instead, has come in an indirect way, from the thoughts and actions of other followers of Yeshua who have gone before.

For myself, for instance, I have gained a lot from paying attention to the guidance of the Abbot Benedict, a Roman Catholic monk living in the sixth century, and the Rule for life in community which he crystallised for his monks; as well as from various contemporary commentators on Benedict.  But that feels a long way removed from the words I hear reported as coming directly from Yeshua, as written in the Bible.  I have learned from Christianity rather than directly from Yeshua; and so I do not really think of myself as a Unitarian Christian.

Now, because of my interest in Benedict, I belong to a Benedictine group, whose members alongside me are traditional Christians.  One of the books we are currently reading together is a book by Professor Rowan Williams, Being Disciples.  Unlike the rest of the group, in the reading of this book there is work for me to do, to translate terms, directed by the author at traditional Christians, into terms that seem to me to be universally applicable.  It is only by doing this that I can hold true to my Unitarian calling: I strongly feel that a teacher has been truly wise only if their teaching can be applied to all humankind, not to just a select grouping, or to a specific time.  ‘What is true everywhere, over all time’, worded also as ‘oneness of all humankind’, is crucial to me.

So I am now reading Williams’ Being Disciples with this question, this context in my mind:  Yeshua the teacher of ‘oneness’.  Because, if ‘oneness’ is the touchstone for a Unitarian, then a teacher will be helpful to the extent that they address the ‘oneness’ issue.

Williams suggests that being a disciple - a student of a teacher or guru - is not a set of ‘I can pick up-I can put down’ activities, but rather is a state of being; and that it requires staying in the company of the guru or teacher over long periods, even when nothing much seems to be happening.  It requires being attentive to the teacher, he says, and going with them even as they go to places you would not have chosen for yourself.  That bit is very important.

In Williams’ book we are reminded that Yeshua went to some places his contemporary followers found very uncomfortable; and that he received criticism for both his behaviour and for the company he kept.  From the ‘oneness’ standpoint, I see Yeshua deliberately taking action to challenge and break down the traditional divisions between people.  He taught, as well as showing by demonstration, that those granted power and authority over others should behave humbly and put the needs of others before their own needs: the famous foot washing (John, Chapter 13).  He broke taboos by eating and associating with people who were regarded as the dregs of Jewish society; and with despised collaborators with the Romans (e.g. tax collectors).  It is clear that Yeshua saw such exclusions as running counter to what is best in and best for humankind, and he demanded that those who followed him should set aside such barriers.  He emphasised an old teaching of non-exclusion in Judaism: that the very ingredient left on the side is the key element in the whole affair. (Psalm 118, quoted by Yeshua in Matthew, Chapter 21; Mark, Chapter 12; Luke, Chapter 20).

Yet - demonstrating to me his humanity - Yeshua was not himself perfectly consistent in living his message (and knew it: “Why do you call me good?  Only one is good, and that is God.” (Matthew, Chapter 19; Mark, Chapter 10; Luke, Chapter 18)).  He was challenged to reach out beyond his Jewish cultural habits: to a Roman soldier who sought healing for a member of his household (Matthew, Chapter 8), and to a Samarian woman at a well, whom at first Yeshua seemed reluctant to include (Matthew, Chapter 15).  Yeshua was stretched on both these occasions, but he passed the test of his own message - when the chips were down - by treating these others as he treated his own.

So Yeshua was looking for ‘oneness’ between all sorts of people.  And if we choose to use his teachings and example as our guide, we must work to break down barriers between people, and treat the last as first, even at the cost of placing ourselves in situations not designed for our own comfort.

~~~~~

But Yeshua’s teaching is not limited to ‘oneness’ of human society.  As a mystic, his teaching extends to relationships with God.

Prof Williams suggests that: “…The relationship of Jesus to the Father is not episodic.  Jesus does not receive an occasional bit of instruction from the Father; his relationship is sustained, eternal and unbroken.”

My own reading is that Yeshua is attentive to the divine reality in a continual way; an unending ‘oneness’ subsisting between him and what brought him into being and sustained him.  And then he extends that: he extends the ‘oneness’ between God and himself, to a ‘oneness’ starting with God and including himself then extending to his disciples: “I am the vine and you are the branches.” (John, Chapter 15).  “My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.  I and my Father are one.” (John Chapter 10).  “Truly, I say to you, he that receives whomsoever I send receives me; and he that receives me receives him that sent me.” (John Chapter 13). “No man knows who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” (Luke, Chapter 10).

It seems that Yeshua sees this experience of ‘oneness’ with truth and reality as both possible and essential, for anyone who wishes to follow the same path: “The Kingdom lies within you.” (Luke, Chapter 17). “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke, Chapter 10). 

And Yeshua uses the idea of God as Father, rather than Judge, to indicate the familial intimacy and connectedness that we should feel with God.  So Yeshua, the breaker of barriers between people, is encouraging his followers to see a continuum, not a separation, between their worldly being and the creative power, or will, that brings them into being.

And perhaps the most famous of all the teachings of Yeshua is this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Deuteronomy, Chapter 6 and Leviticus Chapter 19, quoted together by Yeshua in Matthew, Chapter 22; Mark, Chapter 12; Luke, Chapter 10).

As Williams has it: “…so we in our discipleship [of Jesus] are summoned to gaze into the mystery of that infinite love and to seek to do that same eternal will: to ‘act’ that same action, on earth as it is in heaven, as the Lord’s Prayer puts it.”

~~~~~

So it seems to me that Yeshua is - among other things - a teacher of ‘oneness’: a ‘oneness’ stretching from the source of the multiverse, through the laws governing evolutionary environmental existence and human society (“heaven and earth”), through the compassion wisdom of the spiritual guides and the prosaic nature of ordinary life, to concrete expression in the most outcast, ignored and helpless of our kind and of animal kind.  Yeshua’s teaching infers a demand for an attentive recognition of the integrated web of relationship and interdependence, and this as part of an unending search for what is best in and best for humankind.

And again from Prof Williams, regarding what the actions and teachings of Yeshua can be used towards as we live today: “…what it’s all finally about is enabling you to do some very ordinary things a little bit better, in a way that is suffused by eternal love taking up residence in the heart…..what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”

What we did (2) in Aug 2016 Ringwood #unitarians

So while some of us were meeting in Ringwood this month, other encounters were going on elsewhere.  In France there was a trip to a pilgrim refuge on the Limoges route to Santiago in Spain – one of the branches of the Camino de Santiago de Compostella.  This is one of the toughest branches of the famous pilgrim trail, and people researching taking that route are advised that their motivation will be well tested.  On this route there are only three refuges especially set aside for pilgrims; otherwise pilgrims must find their accommodation in the normal range of B&Bs or hotels.

The refuge at St Ferme in Gironde is simple, build as a mezzanine to a barn, and comprising a kitchen/dining room/office, a bedroom with bunks for six, two showers, a loo and a washing machine.  There is a small separate bedroom set aside for the hospitalier who welcomes and hosts the pilgrims, and who themselves must have completed the pilgrim route in the past.  All pilgrims must move on after one night.  It was the hospitalier for the week that we went to visit; someone known to us in the UK, someone who gives up a fortnight a year to live in very bare circumstances alongside pilgrims who are doing the same.  

While visiting our friend, we also visited the Benedictine Abbey of St Ferme, which is vastly larger than such a small hamlet as St Ferme would normally be associated with. And the Abbey is visited by many of the Santiago pilgrims, as a sanctuary in which to restore their spirits, and perhaps once more focus on why they have chosen to make their pilgrimage.

In this part of France it is clear that the whittling down of pilgrim paths to the few that are well documented and supported today is a very new thing.  Many villages and towns not today recognised as being on the pilgrimage route still display the scallop shell denoting a pilgrim in little architectural details, over the doors of chapels, or houses.

Until contemporary times it is likely that pilgrims drifted down towards the crossing into Spain across a much broader swathe of countryside.  Some were welcomed, but in other areas the pilgrims were seen as harbingers of disease, and were strongly encouraged to remain outside the precincts of the bourg.  Little chapels in the middle of nowhere, established to allow pilgrims to pray apart from the townsfolk, are still found in some places.

Another interesting August encounter was with the French nun of the Russian Orthodox convent near Grassac, in the Charente.  There are now four sisters there and the convent, which is regularly open to the public, was inaugurated in the late 1980s.  All the icons inside were painted by the sisters themselves, and they cover the interior walls of the striking church.  Like Ely Cathedral, there is a lantern window in the very centre of the church that lets light down into the nave below.  Unlike Ely, the flat ceiling of this lantern is painted with an icon of Christ, and this too was painted by one of the sisters, some 15 m above the floor of the nave.

Our nun guide lit up when she understood that some among our visiting party were Scots, and she broke into good English to describe how she was for quite some years a nun at a Buddhist community outside Glasgow.  The hamlet with the Russian Orthodox convent is even smaller than St Ferme, yet the nuns have set up a long, new-ish building set aside for inter-religious conferences, meetings and training sessions.  We couldn’t help thinking that the nun’s experience as a Buddhist before finding her vocation in the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the experience of being Russian Orthodox in a secular state like France (yet faintly influenced by the Roman Catholic Church), probably explains the success of this venture.