“Remember, people are essentially good beings looking for safety to be who they are,” a friend sent in her 2006 Christmas message.An important question for spiritual communities, and spiritual seekers, is this: where is the balance between group needs and individual inspiration? Can a healthy monastic community grow individual gifts - even though some will go against the plans of superiors, long-held group practices or a community’s stated mission? On the other side: can individuals be obedient to internal, divine inspiration and yet bow to the needs of a community?
My monastic experience raised this question in spades.
I entered community desperate to discover, and live as, who I truly was - a basic part of humility. That meant accepting my whole self: good, bad and indifferent. And that meant facing shameful parts of myself. I thought community would hold up an uncompromising mirror to show my deep flaws AND my wondrous divinity. Yet offer the support and loving acceptance of others engaged in the same work.
As I read Benedict, this seemed to be the main purpose of monasteries. Maybe other modern communities had this goal. Mine didn’t. For one thing, the old sisters were bound up in a superiority that derailed everything else.
They seemed to exemplify a flaw that Syncletica warned vehemently about. “Through pride [the Enemy] attacks subtly and secretly a soul that considers itself zealous and diligent in discipline. …The soul imagines that it has grasped matters that are incomprehensible to the majority and that it is superior in [spiritual practices]. He seduces it to forget all its sins… He steals from its mind the memory of its mistakes… He deludes this person with positions of command and high office… with teaching posts and displays of healing. Thus deceived, then, the soul perishes and is destroyed, smitten with a wound [pride] that is hard to heal.”
Of course I did my part with an excess of doubts, angry muttering in my head, and a fearful protectiveness when asked to forgo personally inspired, creative work.
The sisters said my negative thoughts were the resistance of an ego that refused to die. Submitting despite myself would lead to freedom.
They could also have quoted Syncletica: “Another evil precedes [pride in spiritual discipline]: disobedience… By means of the opposing virtue of obedience, it is possible to cleanse the festering cancer of the soul, for obedience, Scripture says, is better than sacrifice. (1 Sam 15:22).”
There was the rub. The Spirit in my heart demanded artistic obedience. Wasn’t it denying God to put a human authority above this? Or was I undermining my desire to be emptied by grasping after a personal need?
By the end of my first year, it felt like a knife was twisting in my guts. Breathing was hard and I rarely slept. Each morning I rose frantic to escape. But during morning meditation and prayer, joy would bubble up and I’d see amazing good in the place. If chanting had that effect in a year, I wanted to know what would happen after decades. So each day I committed to stay.
I just didn’t know. Did the pain come from old ego habits refusing to let go? Then persistence would bring me through. But if it was caused by going against my spirit, I didn’t belong, no matter how illuminated I felt in prayer.
I was in the midst of this struggle when the sisters kicked me out.
This monastery let in few new women. All had an intense call. All struggled to meet the old sisters' demands. Yet almost all were kicked out. We had different personalities and the reasons given varied widely.
Now I believe we were dumped because we brought too much SELF - too much individual gift. We just couldn't lose ourselves under the personalities, behavioral norms and control of the old sisters while staying true to the person our souls demanded we be.
This points to an interesting dichotomy of extremes. In most western monastic communities throughout history, group identity vastly overwhelmed individual identity. The point was to dissolve your self in group norms and habits. American Benedictine communities like mine grew up in the 1940s and 50s when hordes of teenage girls were strongly molded into group behavior by authoritarian, punitive methods.
Meanwhile, the rest of American culture moved toward extremes of individuality.
Neither extreme seems particularly healthy for individuals - spiritually or psychologically. And neither extreme seems healthy for communities.
We all are seeking safety to be ourselves. Warped by loss or fear of loss, as well as the sense of needing to please to deserve love, many people have no idea who they really are. And few have hope of a community that wants only to provide the safety for each to find out.
Could a new kind of monastery fulfill this desperate need?
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