Another woman rejected by a Benedictine monastery suggested we need a "post-modern" community. That sounded good, or at least interesting, but what does it mean?
Wikipedia first notes that the term “post-modern” defies easy definition, then says post-modern expression:
- Is a reaction against grand, absolute values, & establishments.
- Accepts that all communication contains myth, metaphor, cultural bias and political content.
- Challenges the legitimacy of knowledge and identity.
- Is based on personal experience and individually created meaning.
- Often uses parody, satire, self-reference and wit.
- Replaces dominant power centers with cultural pluralism and profound interconnection.
- Denies absolute, original referents in favor of inter-referential representations.
What would a post-modern monasticism look like?
O.k. Here are some features of post-modern art and possible monastic community equivalents.
P-M Art
Dissolves distinctions between fine art and craft
P-M Monasticism
Dissolves distinctions between lay and professed. Realizes we are all ordinary schlepers in one and the same boat.
P-M Art
Uses any and all material as media
P-M Monasticism
Plays creatively with organizational & ritual forms... not to mention vows and promises, perhaps in the spirit of Rumi "Even if you have broken your vow a hundred times, come, yet again, come."
P-M Art
Both challenges and freely expresses cultural identity
P-M Monasticism
Equally honors multi-faith and tradition-centered practice
P-M Art
Holds a fearless and searching mirror to cultural norms
P-M Monasticism
Makes no assumptions on the “proper” interpretation of monastic practices, openly sharing personal experience and responses, without judgment.
copyright R. Elena Tabachnick, April 2007
Agree with you about interfaith monastic without no one 'path'; in my 60's been a hermitmonk 35 years. Hermitary.com the website about hermits is also interfaith. I have Yahoo list 365 members, ecumenical )must keep it mostly xtian because of the members, would prefer it interfaith, thus 2 smaller lists as well), List on monasticism, spirituality, contemplation, mysticism, info, news at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/monasterion, appreciate your bolg, also live/d allover africa, europe etc. John
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information. The hermit website had lots of interesting stuff on it, including an interesting book review of Anneke Mulder-Bakker's _Lives of the Anchoresses_.
ReplyDeleteIt's fascinating that as a new urban culture rose in Europe in the 1100s, women created for themselves a way of being a "recluse" with connections to the world - all divorced from the control, constraint and meaning-making of the male-dominated church hierarchy. A hundred years later, women's communities (beguinages) flourished that were similarly self-created and outside church control.
As in this quote from the book: “They were strong, self-assured believers who chose to live at the heart of the community and to serve God in a way that included service to their fellow human beings. … blessed with a seemingly innate spirit of independence, unburdened by social obligations, they were free to act as the spirit, the Spirit, moved them.”
Of course, the powers of the church could only tolerate such conditions for awhile and eventually cracked down on both.
So now in a climate of global cultural exchange, opening and cracking, here we are again, exploring lives of religious/spiritual devotion - outside the constraints and authorities of the various church powers. We are free to draw on the centuries of tradition, both condoned and "heretical." We are not only free to disgard norms that take us away from God instead of helping us get there, we have an aboslute responsibility to do so.