So, I Did a Thing
Last night, I became a novice in a brand new religious community of the Episcopal Church, the Community of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer (CMMR). You can see some pictures of it on our Facebook page--I'm the shorter guy second from the left. The day before that, the Founders of our community took their first vows, meaning that CMMR has been officially in existence for a grand total of two days. Still, we have been working on this and praying about it for a while now, and so I figured it was time to talk a bit about this new thing I am a part of and how I understand what I am doing.
If there is a Big Idea that shapes the project of CMMR, it comes from Psalm 137:
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
"How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" I think all of us who are part of this community feel themselves to be, on some level, out of sync with the world as it is, and are looking for a way to live our faith in the midst of this tension. We believe that, notwithstanding this tension, we are being called to sing the song that we have been taught, even if it seems weird or out of place in our present context. In between embracing the present wholly and casting away the wisdom and practices of the past and of the faith on one hand, and trying to create some artificial virtual reality version of the current situation on the other hand, our vision is to be present in the middle of the uncertainty and dissonance, modeling in concrete and practical ways how others might deal with the challenges of our current time.
The charism of the order--what we are about and what we do--has three parts. The first is a focus on liturgy and worship. This takes the form of a commitment to public prayer and the cultivating of public prayer in the broader church. It also involves producing our own liturgical materials to share with the wider church--we have an set of materials for the Daily Office (Morning and Evening Prayer) and we are working on materials for the Eucharist. What I like about the approach we are taking is that it is built on the foundation of taking the material that is already present in the Book of Common Prayer and other approved texts of the Episcopal Church and adds on to that, as opposed to creating alternatives. That way, our materials can be used by other folks in other contexts, even if they don't use all of it. We are clearly approaching this from an Anglo-Catholic or "high church" point of view, without being slavishly devoted to old forms or expressions.
The second element is formation. We want to be a resource for the broader church in forming people in the Christian life and the Christian faith, as well as our own personal formation as members of the community. What precise form that is going to take is somewhat up in the air. One idea is to be a locus for assisting the formation of non-traditional clergy, which surely will be a more common reality in the coming years. We have also talked about publishing and other kinds of media work, which you might imagine is pretty exciting to me. But this is definitely an area that we are going to have to grow into.
The final element is creation care. I probably don't need to tell many of the people that might be reading this, but our world is on fire right now. We as a few individuals may not be able to unilaterally fix climate change or other macro threats. But we can model simple behavior that builds attitudes and awareness of the natural world and our duty to conserve it. Everyone can learn to grow food, everyone can build a simple compost pile in their back yard or even in a garbage can. The focus here is on the practical, on building habits and cultivating behaviors as opposed to flailing away at what can seem like abstract and overwhelming challenges.
The community consists of all types of people in all states of life--men and women, single and married, gay and straight. We are unambiguous and unapologetic in our embrace of the full inclusion of all people into the life of the Church and its leadership, with no exceptions or qualifications. One of the goals of the community, at least from my point of view, is to challenge the claim (held by both conservatives and by progressive elements) that you can either have a robust embrace of the historical core and expression of the Christian faith, or you can have equality and dignity for women and LGBT people in the church, but not both. I think that's a false dichotomy, but saying so is not good enough--it needs to be embodied in a concrete form, to show how that can be made manifest in the modern world. This is what we are going to try to do.
Structurally, we are organized in two ways. Eventually, the goal is to have one or more monastic communities, drawing on both traditional expressions of monasticism as well as the "new monasticism" that has sprouted up in the Protestant world in the last few years. With the focus on creation care that CMMR has, the idea will be for those communities to sustain themselves in significant measure through agriculture and agriculturally-derived products, just like historical monastic communities sustained themselves. But the other form of life will be groups associated with and attached to a particular Episcopal parish, with brothers and sisters living privately in the local community. Right now, there are two such communities--one attached to All Saints Episcopal Church outside of Columbus, Ohio (where I am), and the other attached to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Seattle, Washington. Others will come in time, and there are already some nibbles in a couple of other places.
I think it is important to re-emphasize that CMMR has existed, in an official sense, for only two days. It is very much a work-in-progress, with everyone understanding at we are building something and figuring out what we are going to be as we go along. We are truly in on the ground floor. And, like all new things, it may flop and come to nothing. I kinda doubt it, given what I know of the people who are involved, but it is always possible. But that sense of newness and adventure is really exciting to me. I don't know what's coming, and neither does anyone else. It's a step into the unknown, but I have hope and confidence in the people involved and the ideas that we are putting together. If you are a praying person, I would ask that you keep us in your prayers.
If there is a Big Idea that shapes the project of CMMR, it comes from Psalm 137:
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
"How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" I think all of us who are part of this community feel themselves to be, on some level, out of sync with the world as it is, and are looking for a way to live our faith in the midst of this tension. We believe that, notwithstanding this tension, we are being called to sing the song that we have been taught, even if it seems weird or out of place in our present context. In between embracing the present wholly and casting away the wisdom and practices of the past and of the faith on one hand, and trying to create some artificial virtual reality version of the current situation on the other hand, our vision is to be present in the middle of the uncertainty and dissonance, modeling in concrete and practical ways how others might deal with the challenges of our current time.
The charism of the order--what we are about and what we do--has three parts. The first is a focus on liturgy and worship. This takes the form of a commitment to public prayer and the cultivating of public prayer in the broader church. It also involves producing our own liturgical materials to share with the wider church--we have an set of materials for the Daily Office (Morning and Evening Prayer) and we are working on materials for the Eucharist. What I like about the approach we are taking is that it is built on the foundation of taking the material that is already present in the Book of Common Prayer and other approved texts of the Episcopal Church and adds on to that, as opposed to creating alternatives. That way, our materials can be used by other folks in other contexts, even if they don't use all of it. We are clearly approaching this from an Anglo-Catholic or "high church" point of view, without being slavishly devoted to old forms or expressions.
The second element is formation. We want to be a resource for the broader church in forming people in the Christian life and the Christian faith, as well as our own personal formation as members of the community. What precise form that is going to take is somewhat up in the air. One idea is to be a locus for assisting the formation of non-traditional clergy, which surely will be a more common reality in the coming years. We have also talked about publishing and other kinds of media work, which you might imagine is pretty exciting to me. But this is definitely an area that we are going to have to grow into.
The final element is creation care. I probably don't need to tell many of the people that might be reading this, but our world is on fire right now. We as a few individuals may not be able to unilaterally fix climate change or other macro threats. But we can model simple behavior that builds attitudes and awareness of the natural world and our duty to conserve it. Everyone can learn to grow food, everyone can build a simple compost pile in their back yard or even in a garbage can. The focus here is on the practical, on building habits and cultivating behaviors as opposed to flailing away at what can seem like abstract and overwhelming challenges.
The community consists of all types of people in all states of life--men and women, single and married, gay and straight. We are unambiguous and unapologetic in our embrace of the full inclusion of all people into the life of the Church and its leadership, with no exceptions or qualifications. One of the goals of the community, at least from my point of view, is to challenge the claim (held by both conservatives and by progressive elements) that you can either have a robust embrace of the historical core and expression of the Christian faith, or you can have equality and dignity for women and LGBT people in the church, but not both. I think that's a false dichotomy, but saying so is not good enough--it needs to be embodied in a concrete form, to show how that can be made manifest in the modern world. This is what we are going to try to do.
Structurally, we are organized in two ways. Eventually, the goal is to have one or more monastic communities, drawing on both traditional expressions of monasticism as well as the "new monasticism" that has sprouted up in the Protestant world in the last few years. With the focus on creation care that CMMR has, the idea will be for those communities to sustain themselves in significant measure through agriculture and agriculturally-derived products, just like historical monastic communities sustained themselves. But the other form of life will be groups associated with and attached to a particular Episcopal parish, with brothers and sisters living privately in the local community. Right now, there are two such communities--one attached to All Saints Episcopal Church outside of Columbus, Ohio (where I am), and the other attached to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Seattle, Washington. Others will come in time, and there are already some nibbles in a couple of other places.
I think it is important to re-emphasize that CMMR has existed, in an official sense, for only two days. It is very much a work-in-progress, with everyone understanding at we are building something and figuring out what we are going to be as we go along. We are truly in on the ground floor. And, like all new things, it may flop and come to nothing. I kinda doubt it, given what I know of the people who are involved, but it is always possible. But that sense of newness and adventure is really exciting to me. I don't know what's coming, and neither does anyone else. It's a step into the unknown, but I have hope and confidence in the people involved and the ideas that we are putting together. If you are a praying person, I would ask that you keep us in your prayers.
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