Isolde said...
I'm not sure which of the brothers I should direct this question to, and I haven't read all the books yet so it's possible there's one who'd be a perfect fit and I just haven't met him yet.
But my question, for people who live in community and have to be careful not to have exclusive relationships, is about how you avoid playing favourites/choosing sides and getting tangled up about "loyalty". For instance, my family is big and loving but a bit cracked, and there's something I want to tell my grandfather and a couple of uncles about, but I've never discussed it with my father and I don't know if he'll ever be able to receive it if I try. And normally this might not be a problem, except that my father and these other relatives are estranged from each other, and so I can't help feeling that by "choosing" one "side" to reveal my heart to, and leaving the other out of it, I'm playing favourites. How can you tell the difference between having favourites and whatever the legitimate alternative might be? Especially in a context where you shouldn't be splitting up into cliques — whether because it's monastic life or another type of family living in a fallen world.
* * *
I climb the day stairs to where the library is, and the robing room, the brothers’ cells — and the novitiate schoolroom. I’m hoping Father Theodore will be there. I asked permission of Abbot John to talk this through with him, and he said, “Yes, good idea,” somewhat distractedly because he was trying to get through a pile of correspondence before Vespers, but he’d only just begun, and people kept interrupting him, including me.
The door stands ajar, and it is all exactly as I hoped. Theodore is by himself, quietly moving round the room setting things to rights: checking the ink supplies, putting books away, ordering the circle of stools and benches ready for tomorrow morning. The fire is still glowing on the hearth, but very low, enough to air and fragrance the room and send out a little warmth.
He straightens up from what he’s doing. “Oh, hello. Welcome. Were you looking for me?”
So I say yes I am, and that I’ve brought a question from a friend if he’s got time to talk about it. If he’s too busy I can just leave it with him for later because I’ve written it out for him. He smiles and stretches out his hand for me to give him my bit of paper I'm holding, with Isolde’s question.
“Would you like to sit down?” he says. “I do have time, I’m free now until Vespers. This is an excellent time to talk.”
Good. That’s what I was hoping.
He collects a short, thick candle burning in a holder from the table, and carries it with him to the hearth, where he sits down on the hearthstone beside the fire, and reads through Isolde’s question carefully and thoughtfully. I sit myself down on one of the low stools just nearby, and wait. He looks up at me. “This is worth asking,” he says; then he reads it again.
After that he lays my piece of paper down on the hearthstone beside him, weighting it in place with the candle in its holder.
“Let me say straight out,” he says, “that yes, sometimes there are favourites and factions in monastic life as there would be anywhere, and it can all get suffocating and toxic and be difficult to purify, to put right. That can certainly happen.
“But let’s assume Isolde’s situation is different from that — not toxic, I mean, not suffocating. She wants authentic relationship. She has something to confide, but her father — who she feels is unlikely to receive it well — has distanced himself from the men she really wants to tell; her uncles and grandfather.
“It may be unwise to jump to conclusions, but what comes first to my mind is that one man in that situation sounds almighty hard to please. He’s fallen out with his father and brothers, and Isolde thinks he’ll probably object to whatever it is she wants to share. Hmm.
“So, hesitantly, since I can’t actually be present with that group of men to come to my own conclusions, I would proffer this: a relationship is a two-way thing. If you cannot tell your father what you want to tell your uncles and your grandfather, maybe that’s not favouritism or a clique but just that he has indicated he cannot be trusted with your truth. Trust is given, but also earned. Maybe. I cannot be certain if I’m reading it right, but that’s one possibility.
“Setting that aside, there’s the matter of time to consider — because things have a way of working out if you give them space and peace — and, as well as time, timing; waiting for the kairos. It might be a possibility to hold the intention to bring her father into her confidence when the moment is right, when she feels ready to trust him with her truth.
“Because, look, you don’t have to tell everybody everything. There are things I would choose to say to Francis or Michael that I would be unlikely to say to Richard or Gilbert. And this can be a question of mutuality, or reciprocity, or whatever you want to call it — that some things you might want to share belong to this relationship but not that, will be readily understood by this man but not that. I think that has to be all right.
But this brings me on to the more general aspect of what Isolde says — about what is appropriate and what is exclusion, and how we manage that here.”
He draws the paper out from under the candleholder, and reads through it again, tilting it to the illumination of the flame, then carefully replaces it.
“This is easier for me to answer, because it’s certainly something we think about and I know how it works in this house.
“We understand there can be pitfalls in this matter of relationship and confiding, closeness and trust. It's aspect of our commitment to celibacy — availability as well as restraint. There is meant to be an openness to how we love, a generosity of spirit that welcomes and includes. But at the same time, you can’t force people to be loved and included; sometimes they just want to stand there with their arms folded, glaring at the ground and saying ‘Shan’t!’ through gritted teeth; and we all have to live with it as best we can until they thaw — or leave. I think you know, loving Father William was a very long-term project, that paid off handsomely in the end. We had to stay open and accepting; and I tell you, ‘hard work’ doesn’t begin to describe that man when he first came here, but it was worth it.
“And then, when we make the choice to take our way together, that requires us to develop a habit of acceptance, not of jealousy. If Father John wants to talk something through with Father Francis and not with me, it’s part of the discipline of holy chastity that I refrain from getting defensive about that, I don’t let it drive a wedge between me and Francis, I don’t go all frosty on John; I just respect his right to have conversations with whoever he wants, whoever he finds most helpful. Because, why not? Another time I’ll be the one he wants to confide in; it all depends what he wants to talk about, I suppose.
“As well as that, in the monastic way we make a regular practice of confession, when we take time to talk in depth privately with our confessor — and what we say there is sub rosa and absolutely nobody else’s business. Just having that aspect to monastic life frees us from the supposition that everyone has a right to know everything that’s going on. They don’t. End.
“There’s also the way we handle privacy here. Each man has his own cell, of course, and we each spend a substantial amount of time alone; but even so, living in community is very . . . er . . . exposing. We do end up knowing one another very clearly, very well. We see one another’s mistakes and indiscretions, everyone’s faults and foibles are on view. We see one another’s disappointments and the antagonisms that arise. We behold one another’s grief and humiliation. All of that.
“So, privacy here is a gift, that we make to each other. It’s part of the attitude of respect and compassion we each bear towards our brothers. There are times when you weigh up whether to see — or not — a man’s tears or his immaturity or his vulgarity. Or sometimes a person just wants to be left in peace. We have to learn to weigh it up, and decide when to see and include and comment — and when to just let something pass, decide we didn’t hear, didn’t see. Otherwise we’d all go crazy from being altogether over-observed.
“In monastic life, we have a name for this clear choice to not see: mortification of the eyes. It’s how we give one another privacy, and also how we protect ourselves against temptation. ‘What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.’ Something like that.
“And of course, we spend a significant chunk of every day in silence. We come out of Compline into the Great Silence that lasts all the way through until after the morrow Mass, and we keep silence in the cloister and go about the work of the day in silence for the most part.
“It allows us to get things in perspective, to refrain from hasty judgements, to bring whatever’s bothering us before the sacred heart of Jesus to be restored to peace and properly understood.
“Silence, solitude — I hold firmly to the view that everyone needs these as much as good food and sunlight and sleep. They are necessary for the spaciousness that allows generosity, and the peace that nourishes the human spirit.”
“George Fox,” I tell him, “said ‘Carry around some quiet inside thee.”
Father Theodore considers this, and smiles. “Did he?” he says. “Yes, I love that. Who’s George Fox?”
“Well,” I say, “he lived about 200 years after your time. But I think you would have liked him. George Fox was heavily into silence. And peace. He proposed four testimonies, in terms of how we live — peace, simplicity, equality and truth.”
Father Theodore takes this in, and nods in appreciation. “Yes,” he says. “I think you’re right about that. I would have liked George Fox.
“But, look, do you think any of this will be of use to Isolde? I dearly hope so, because there’s the Vespers bell, so I’ll have to love you and leave you — in the nicest possible way. Is that all right?”
And I certainly hope it is, because he had to go.
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