Mike's musings

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Synchroblog - Anchorites for the modern world

An anchor - or an anchorite or anchoress - was a type of hermit, but typically one attached to a religious community: of it, but not in it, maybe. It's a little-used term these days, but the life of an anchorite had its attractions, particularly for a woman in the early middle ages, and many of them were highly revered. Two of the best known in the UK, at least, were Julian of Norwich and Christina of Markyate. There was even a manual written for them, known either as the Ancrene Riwle (Rule(s) for Anchorites) or Ancrene Wisse (Knowledge of/for Anchorites), which is a fascinating book, written in English, rather than the usual clerical Latin, as many of those for whom it were written only spoke or read (if they were lucky) the former.

But what of this today? We hear so much about how we don't engage with each other, how our sense of community is gone, how our lives are ruled by time. And these are always viewed as negatives. In many - most - cases they are, of course. But it occurred to me that there are people who are in situations where this is the way that they have to live their lives, or even may wish to live their lives. Are we to condemn them in all cases? I'm on a bit of a counter-cultural tide at the moment - as earlier posts this month may show - and I'm very interested in how we can value the little-valued, particularly when the people doing the devaluing are ourselves. So, what positives can we pull out of these livings, these lives?

Well, there are times when one is in a storm when that storm can itself impart a moment of calm, a little like the "eye of the hurricane". Sometimes, you can just poke your head out of the maelstrom, for a moment, and that eye-blink of tranquility can be all the more, because it is taken in such a way. I find, sometimes, that at the end of a hard day of travelling and meetings, for instance, that saying Evening Prayer means more to me, by a long chalk, than it normally would. And there are times when not engaging with society gives us a chance to see it, and ourselves, from a different perspective. And when being ruled by time may mean giving ourselves up to it, refusing to fight, and allowing ourselves to be carried along in God's hands.

It's not always easy to do these things. It's not always easy to find God in the day-to-day, the humdrum, the flurry, the hardship. But sometimes, just sometimes, S/He will show Godself.

And, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed.

Synchroblog

Synchroblog Today is a "synchroblog" on the subject of "monasticism". If you've liked what you read here, or, more particularly, if you didn't, and you'd like to read some other opinions, please visit one of the other participating blogs: