Religious sisters and brothers are eccentrics.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m not referring to our being rather dated curiosities (though we often do attract attention).\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m speaking of how, since the early centuries of the church, individuals have been drawn to the edge, to be eccentric, from the Greek \u00e8kkentros, out of the center.\u00a0\u00a0This movement has often been as a protest to the \u201csuccess\u201d of the church, its power colluding with the rather than confronting or transforming the surrounding culture.\u00a0\u00a0The movement out of center has also been a radical, sometimes-desperate response of individuals who know their personal culpability and who long to see more clearly, follow more nearly, love more dearly the God of their desire.\u00a0\u00a0The psalmist prays, \u201clift me to a place that is higher than I.\u201d It\u2019s that longing sense of perspective, of integration, of withdrawal that often attracts a person to explore the religious life.<\/p>\n\n
An early desert father, Evagrius of Pontus (346-399), spoke of this separation not as a point of exclusion but rather of inclusion, about our being \u201cseparated from all and united to all.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0What we read on the front pages of the newspaper \u2013 about war and conflict, about hope and desire, about fear and failure \u2013 we surely understand in our own hearts.\u00a0\u00a0From that point of identification, we seek to pray our own lives and help others find the prayer that God is giving them.\u00a0\u00a0In religious guesthouses, individuals are offered a king of holy space to stand back from their lives in order to see God\u2019s hand at work within them and around them.\u00a0\u00a0A retreat is not the same as an advance.\u00a0\u00a0Especially in North American society, where the tyranny of urgent demands can be so blurring, some regular experience of retreat (even daily, if only for a few minutes) is often crucial to retrieve or redeem or reflect on what otherwise could be lost components in making us whole and really present to life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
Robert Putman, in a recent book, Bowling Alone, offers a provocative and comprehensive study about the collapse (and hopeful revival) of American community.\u00a0\u00a0Putman, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, documents the vast decline in civic, political, and religious participation in our culture, noting a steady move toward individualism and alienation especially in the last fifty years.\u00a0\u00a0He speaks to the need for viable organizations \u2013 I would include religious orders \u2013 to simultaneously \u201cbridge\u201d and \u201cbond,\u201d to create \u201csocial capital,\u201d the ways in which we connect with friends and neighbors and strangers.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBonding\u201d is an ongoing necessity to abide with one another, not just to bunk under the same roof.\u00a0\u00a0The Johannine literature of the New Testament gives such fruitful images for a community of love and practice, gathered in Jesus\u2019 name, where there is friendship, a united vision of discipline, and a generous availability for what is new and what is now.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBridging\u201d is also crucial, especially as religious orders seek to live out close to the edge.\u00a0\u00a0Religious orders look and pray for new links to other people, organizations, traditions, disciplines where there is the experience of reciprocity and illumination, otherwise we simply live in a pseudo-bastion of truth, with no currency to trade.\u00a0\u00a0I recently had a conversation with a graduate student who came saying she had no background in any religious tradition but was desperate to learn about \u201cthe Real Deal.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0We bridged our two worlds by finding a common second language.\u00a0\u00a0These days living the religious life is both an adventurous quest and an urgent invitation.\u00a0Consider exploring the way with us!<\/p>\n\n
Brother Curtis Almquist<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is the Superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) in Cambridge, Massachusetts and an experienced preacher and spiritual director. \u00a9 CAROA \u2013 used by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Religious sisters and brothers are eccentrics.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m not referring to our being rather dated curiosities (though we often do attract attention).\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m speaking of how, since the early centuries of the church, individuals have been drawn to the edge, to be eccentric, from the Greek \u00e8kkentros, out of the center.\u00a0\u00a0This movement has often been as a protest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[480,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3481037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categorizar","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":480,"label":"Sin categorizar"},{"value":1,"label":"Uncategorized"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"srands","author_link":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/author\/srands\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":480,"name":"Sin categorizar","slug":"sin-categorizar","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":480,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":79,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":480,"category_count":79,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Sin categorizar","category_nicename":"sin-categorizar","category_parent":0},{"term_id":1,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":79,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":79,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3481037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3489140,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481037\/revisions\/3489140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3481037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3481037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3481037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}