Concentric Circles: A Year as a Monastic Intern

Transcription

1 RAPHAEL CADENHEAD! Concentric Circles: A Year as a Monastic Intern After completing his PhD on the ascetic theology of St Gregory of Nyssa in 2013, Raphael Cadenhead took up an internship with the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE), an Anglican religious order of brothers, whose house is situated off Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Society gave Raphael the opportunity to continue his engagement in social work initiated in Cambridge, where he had become a volunteer for the Samaritans in The following are his reflections on a year with the brothers. A monastic internship is rather unusual. What does it entail? AIMED AT YOUNG ADULTS roughly between the ages of 21 and 34, the internship programme offers participants a full immersion experience in the monastic rhythm of work and prayer at the SSJE monastery for a season of life. The work is extremely varied: from cooking, general house maintenance, guesthouse hospitality and laundry, to chanting (as early as 6am!) and acolyting.

2 100 RAPHAEL CADENHEAD There are also plenty of opportunities to take part in outreach ministry in the wider Boston community. I tutor grammar to freshmen at a High School in Boston the school is part of the Cristo Rey Network, whose aim is to support and empower children in urban communities with limited educational options. I also regularly visit an inmate at MCI-Norfolk, providing encouragement and support as he completes a college degree through Boston University s College Behind Bars programme. We interns don t live in the monastic enclosure itself but in the guesthouse, whose rooms are equivalent in size to the brothers cells. The whole set-up is that of concentric circles: as interns, we re allowed to go further into the monastic enclosure than congregants are, but there are still boundaries. We eat lunch and supper in the brothers refectory, and clean up afterwards in the kitchen but we never go into their living space. They also have a rudimentary gym in the tower, which we don t have access to! Some interns, past and present, are considering the monastic life in fact, a few years back, one decided to enter the postulancy, a six-month trial period of discernment. One of this year s interns is thinking about becoming a Roman Catholic religious; the other is interested in becoming an episcopal priest in the dioceses of Massachusetts. But a call to priesthood or the religious life is not a prerequisite. Last year, one intern came into the programme from a deeply agnostic perspective and remained agnostic after his exposure to monasticism. He wanted simply to experience this remarkable way of life first-hand. It is this first-hand experience of monasticism which led me to apply for the internship programme in the first place. We interns have a uniquely privileged vantage point from which to look out onto and participate in a way of living in community that is foreign to most living in the Western world. And it was, for me, a

3 Concentric Circles 101 fruitful period of reflection. It gave me the necessary clarity and perspective to reflect on my future, and it led me to take up a place on Frontline, the new graduate training scheme in social work. Has this experience brought you closer to (or further away from) the pastoral vocation that initially brought you to seek out the Society? I have two initial responses to that question. First, I had never had the experience of being involved in the inner workings of a church at Oxford and Cambridge I sang in chapel choirs, but I wasn t involved in running or organising the life of the chapel itself. So, in one respect, this internship experience gave me fresh insight into how church communities operate. I ve often compared the internship experience to working behind the scenes of a theatre production, or a show, something of that sort. If you were a member of the audience, you might feel awed or touched by a particularly spectacular performance. But for the stage crew, the magic wears off by the third production. Likewise, being so intimately involved in the work that goes on behind the scenes of the monastery, I began to realise fairly quickly that the liturgical and aesthetic magic wasn t having the same effect on me as it once did. Many of the presumptions I d had about liturgy, monasticism and the ascetic life they disintegrated in quick succession, like dominoes. I m told that s part of the course. All those projections need to crumble. But it was unsettling, discomforting and disillusioning. Profoundly so. My second response to your question relates to the first: something I became aware of, in the midst of crumbling expectations, was the very human dimension to monasticism. Since I had been studying the ascetic life in monasticism for so long and in so much depth, I tended to confer idealistically transformative

4 102 RAPHAEL CADENHEAD qualities onto its practices. I think that s only natural in an agonistic academic environment in which you are desperate to prove your overarching thesis, particularly if you re trying to remonstrate against the excesses and evils of contemporary capitalist society. So monasticism became, for me, the go-to idealisation, redeeming most of what s gone awry in secular Western society. In reality, however, you come across the same basic human faults, illusions and limitations in monasticism as you find in all other contexts. This is not to deny that there is much to learn from the monastic way of life, but to put things into perspective. Community life, after all, is challenging, complicated and exposing; if anything, it places a magnifying glass over those faults. As my time went on, I began to realise that the very things that I had found disillusioning could be seen afresh as sources of transformation, and incentives for moral and spiritual growth. Nonetheless, I think that after this experience I m going to take a break from overly zealous religious activity! I ve had my share of that for the time being. We ll see where things lead. How do you find that individuals are shaped by this kind of community setting? I m always reminded of the proverb that says Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17). In an intentional community (a buzz word in the States), it would be a mistake to expect an absence of conflict or antagonism. You re likely to be disappointed, and it spells bad news anyway. Without conflict and confrontation, sharpening is impossible. What you do see in a healthy community is a high level of functioning in spite of the many differences of opinion that exist. The brothers keep relationships going; they re constantly seeking

5 Concentric Circles 103 reconciliation. They discuss conflict openly. And they have to. In order to fortify the health of a community, there needs to be honesty and transparency. It goes without saying, I guess, that harmonious relationships within a community are never secured once and for all. They need to be worked upon constantly. So it s been interesting seeing how community life functions in a monastic setting. It s a remarkably functional community, that s what s so astonishing. I don t think I ve met a more functional group of people. That s not to say they don t have conflicts and difficulties, as indeed everyone has, but they ve learnt how to negotiate differences of opinion and have difficult conversations with each other. In a few months time you will be returning to England to take up a position in social work for the British government, moving from a sacred to a secular pastoral vocation, as it were. What are your thoughts on this shift? That s a good question! I m not sure what it s going to be like until I get in the thick of things. But I suppose that s hedging the question somewhat. One thing I ve increasingly become aware of over the years is the potential for religious discourse to conceal the reality of emotional conflict and turmoil. I ve seen it over and over again in much of the volunteering work I ve done. Religious motifs, concepts and experiences come to the fore at the very moment when difficulties in relationships, career and so forth become unbearable. It often amounts to evasion fleeing reality and finding solace in an escapist pseudo-spiritual world of human imagination. For example, I remember listening to someone trying but failing to deal with her aggressive, sometimes violent, father The debilitating conflict which she faced on a daily basis was interpreted

6 104 RAPHAEL CADENHEAD as a religious battle: it was the Devil who was doing the attacking and she viewed the whole situation as a test of perseverance. I think that way of thinking can be very dangerous because it diverts energy from what s at stake and can sometimes take away human agency. So I m interested to see, in an ostensibly less religious milieu and in a secular profession, what strategies of evasion exist and how they compare to what seems to be fairly ubiquitous among those who live and breathe religion. Another issue is hierarchy. In the SSJE community, there is an unambiguous sense of hierarchy: there s a Superior, and everyone has to obey him. But the community s understanding of obedience is always one of listening, from the Latin, oboedire. The Superior does not simply dictate legislation to a docile audience. Everyone has a responsibility to voice his thoughts, and it is the Superior s responsibility to listen. There s hierarchy but not inequality; power is exercised humbly. For instance, on Maundy Thursday, the Superior was the first to wash the brothers feet I, as it happens, was first in line! That was a symbolic gesture, but it also did reflect his manner of exercising power as the Superior. He listens and cares; you never feel a distance between you and him. That humble leadership extends to the brothers themselves, who are responsible for the interns duties and work schedule, are courteous and kind, always willing to express their gratitude and appreciation. In an avowedly secular setting, people are suspicious and distrustful of hierarchy, often for good reason, but I think it gets reintroduced in the work environment in all kinds of subtle ways through an insidious managerial culture, for example. I m wondering how hierarchy will operate in social work and what I ll make of it. No washing of feet!