Secular Monasticism: A Journey

Copyright © 2012 by Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon, Andrew Fitz-Gibbon.

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Cover photograph The Holy Island of Lindisfarne 2007 © Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon

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Contents

FOREWORD

PART ONE

ONE Peregrinati Pro Amore Christe Wanderers for the Love of Christ

TWO Which Monasticism? Whose Story?

THREE The Monastic Spirit

FOUR Rule, Understandings and Emphases

FIVE The Abbess’s School

SIX The Apostolic Succession

PART TWO

SEVEN A Woman Finding a Voice

EIGHT An Engineer’s Journey

NINE Lessons Learned on the Buddha Path

TEN The L’Arche and Lindisfarne Communities

ELEVEN Please Hold While I Connect You

TWELVE Methodism, Gnosticism, and the Lindisfarne Community

THIRTEEN Finding the Path

FOURTEEN Called to Something Bigger

FIFTEEN A Secular Religious Order

SIXTEEN From the Mainline to the Margin

WORKS CITED

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dedication

For members of the Lindisfarne Community, past, present and future

FOREWORD

The Celts are a people of pilgrimage. Perhaps this is knit into their very DNA. After all, the Keltoi (a word of uncertain etymology that may have meant simply the strangers or those unusual folk) originally hailed from somewhere around the Black Sea. Over close to a millennium during the pre-Christian era, they gradually migrated from their homeland south into Asia Minor (Paul’s letter to the Galatians was addressed to such an Anatolian Celtic community—think of the similarity between Galatian and Gaelic), and west, through the heart of Europe, all the way to the very edge of the continent, to the lands we think of as the Celtic countries today, including Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and Galicia. But these wanderers didn’t stop there—for during what we rather arrogantly call the dark ages, monastic Celts wandered throughout Europe, often bringing Christianity (and scholarship) to new settlements in what is now France and Italy. Later, when the icy winds of political misfortune turned against them, came the Celtic diaspora—as the Scots, Irish, and other Celtic peoples scattered from their homeland to literally the four corners of the world, from Patagonia to Nova Scotia, from Australia to Appalachia. Today, some seventy million Americans claim at least some Irish ancestry—over ten times the population of Ireland itself. By being a people on the move, the Celts have become truly a global community, with a mythology, history, and culture that broadly speaks to the human condition.

Speaking of mythology, the Celtic penchant for pilgrimage is as much a part of its spiritual heritage as is it part of its more mundane history and archaeology. Some of the great legends surrounding the journeys of their great saints, such as Patrick‘s travels to evangelize the Irish or Columba’s similar, though more bittersweet, move to Iona, have at least a semi-historical basis. But perhaps the most dramatic story of a Celtic pilgrimage fully belongs to the misty realm of sacred story. In this, I am referring to the adventures of Brendan the Navigator, a slightly crazy Irish monk who launched a seven-year odyssey through the dangerous waves of the North Atlantic in search of the Land of Promise, a fabled earthly paradise. But even such a Gaelic tall tale has its defenders, who assign to it a faint echo of history. Some speculate that Brendan made it to North America some four and a half centuries ahead of Leif Ericson and nearly a millennium before Columbus (and lest the Irish have all the glory, there’s also the story of a Welsh explorer named Madog ab Owain Gwynedd, who, legend has it, sailed to North America in 1170. His companions eventually settled among the Cherokee, even building a stone wall in what is now the mountains of north Georgia, which can still be seen today).

Such stories are as intriguing as they are unprovable. I would suggest that the true power of Brendan‘s tale is not whatever tenuous link it might have to seafarers of centuries past, but its evocative, mystical foray into what the old rock band Yes called the topographic oceans—the vast, silent, waters of the soul. Based on an old pagan category of myth called the immram or wondrous sea voyage, Brendan’s adventures (like those of his pre-Christian forebears Bran, Mael Dúin, and Uí Chorra) involved encountering sea monsters and devils, birds that chant the Psalms, and fierce fighting gryphons, monks who lived in utter silence, and hermits who offered gracious hospitality—even Judas Iscariot, chained to a rock in the midst of the ocean’s freezing, surging waves—, where he got a weekly Sabbath respite from the fires of hell! After years of traversing the indigo depths, Brendan and his Irish companions finally reach the Land of Promise, the Blessed Isle of the Saints, filled with lovely music and abundant fruit, and a river they dared not cross. Refreshed by this unearthly earthly paradise, the Irish voyagers were sent home, where they lived out the rest of their natural lives, sharing with others the incredible tales of their travels, culminating in that always-beckoning promise of that mysterious land beyond the waters.

Reading the Brendan voyage today, it is easy to see that it functions as an initiatory guide to the contemplative (mystical) Christian life. C. S. Lewis, who hailed from Belfast, was no doubt influenced by the immram when he wrote his children’s tale The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which updated the Celtic penchant for wandering (and looking for heaven on earth) for our time.

A few years back, two visionary Christians from Great Britain, named Andy and Jane Fitz-Gibbon, went on a voyage of their own, sailing west to a much more humble and ordinary land of promise—eventually settling in upstate New York. Their spirituality had its own Celtic stamp, having been deeply formed by their affection for Lindisfarne, the Holy Island of northeast England, where Celtic saints such as Aidan and Cuthbert once knelt in prayer. It would be redundant for me to recount the particulars of their adventures, since they share their faith journey in the pages of this book. But, like the countless generations of Celtic wayfarers and wanderers before them, their journey entails more than a mere physical relocation from Europe to North America. It is also, and perhaps primarily, the tale of an inner pilgrimage, one shaped by and powerfully resonant with so many of the challenges and promises facing the Body of Christ today. Launching their pilgrimage from a nurturing, but in some ways limiting, homeland of charismatic evangelical piety, these two explorers have embraced the great conversations and debates of our time: How can Christianity respond to the rapid social changes that are liberating the ways men and women relate to each other? How do emerging insights into sexuality and justice shed new light on the role of gay and lesbian persons in the Christian community? In what ways can the beloved community remain faithful and prophetic in a time when increasingly people, both within and outside the institutional church, find the old neighborhood congregation model (with a huge budget for staff salaries and building maintenance) irrelevant if not actually profoundly inadequate to deal with the social and economic transformations of our time? What can an authentic ecumenism look like today, allowing all strands of Christian spirituality, from orthodox/catholic to evangelical/charismatic, to truly come together, not in some sort of top-down program of managed interaction, but organically, emerging from the ground up? And finally, What does it mean to be radically faithful to Christ and his promise of deification and liberation in a world where adherents of all the great religions and wisdom traditions of the world are no more than a mouse click away (and, increasingly, live as very real neighbors to each other, in every city and town)?

The faith community that emerged in fellowship with the Fitz-Gibbons and under their guidance, named Lindisfarne after that Holy Island where the Celts long prayed, is small and liminal—it exists in threshold spaces, in-between places, and within the nooks and crannies on the edges of things. In this way, the character of the Lindisfarne Community is not unlike the personality of another one of the great Celtic saints, Brigit of Kildare. But where Brendan, like Patrick and Columba, is known primarily for being a pilgrim, Brigit’s defining qualities are hospitality and liminality. Brigit was born neither in winter nor summer, neither at night nor in the day, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither pagan nor Christian, neither slave nor free. She spent the rest of her life forging her unique expression of Christian faith and ministry occupying these and other sorts of in-between spaces. This characterizes the Lindisfarne Community as well. It is a house church, but one with many members scattered far apart by miles that separate them, who nurture their common life through the Internet, Skype, and Facetime, and an annual retreat. It’s a catholic community of the independent sacramental movement, yet continues to carry at least a sense of the evangelical roots of its founders and some of its members. It is at once profoundly Christian and deeply open to interfaith exploration. It expects its candidates for ministry to undergo serious theological and spiritual formation, and so offers real, workable alternatives to the burdensome costs associated with a seminary education. It is rooted in the ancient witness of the Celtic saints, and yet clearly holds an affinity to the emergent and neo-monastic movements of our time. Lindisfarne may be a small community in terms of sheer numbers, yet like the Celtic people whose spirituality inspires it, it is and will continue to be influential beyond what its numbers might suggest, if for no other reason than how holistically and poetically it embodies so many of the spiritual and social issues that both challenge and inspire the Body of Christ today.

One of the more interesting books on Christian mission that I have read recently is Elaine A. Heath’s The Mystic Way of Evangelism. A mainstream seminary professor and Methodist elder, Heath addresses the decline of mainline Protestantism by suggesting that churches need to turn to the wisdom and spirituality of the great mystics and contemplatives as a way to re-vision their mission and ministry. Among other things, she suggests that churches should employ unpaid, bi-vocational clergy; that theology should be anchored in radical hospitality; that Christian communities ought to be leaders in the struggle against racism, sexism, classism, and ecocide; and that a vibrant spirituality ought to be at the heart of the community of faith. Her ideas are smart, progressive, visionary, and fully Christ-centered—and as I read her book, I kept thinking how, so unlike the big, wieldy churches of the mainline denominations, communities like Lindisfarne are already doing everything she proposes!

After all, Christianity is like the Celtic people: it is a faith community always on the move. Jesus sent his friends out into the world, and Christians have been missionaries, pilgrims, and itinerants ever since. Even when the spiritual master Saint Benedict insisted on locational stability for his monks, he did so as a way to provide them an enduring center from which they could more safely face the unending dynamics of life in Christ. Lindisfarne, as a truly postmodern (or, in their words, secular) monastery, recognizes that such an immutable place can only emerge from within, and never be forced on us from without, even if by chance or privilege we can live in the same place for many years.

A prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer seeks God’s protection, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness. We are pilgrims not because God is unreliable, but precisely because God is our only rock, our only stability, our only sure center. God may not change, but human beings change continually, and so from our perspective faith, religion, and even our images of God seem continually evolving. We are a pilgrim people because this is who we are called to be.

Lindisfarne Community has graciously accepted God’s call to dance with the radical (and sometimes wearying) changes of our time. Like the Celts, they find meaning in their ongoing spiritual evolution through poetry and story, through a willingness to navigate the waters of the soul while remaining fiercely loyal to the good earth that bore us and nurtures us. Like the Celts, this family of secular monastics hungers more for mystical union with the Divine Mystery than for any trappings of earthly renown or success. Like the Celts, this people of pilgrimage understand that their journey never comes to an end, and that even a homecoming is but a rest stop along the adventurous way. Never at ease in Zion, these lovers of God remain open to new surprises and unfolding possibilities where their life, their ministry, and their sacramental presence in the world might reveal yet another new way to share grace with a world so desperate to receive it.

Many voices dance through the pages of this book—not only those of the founding abbot and abbess, but also of a variety of community members, each speaking with candor about how the Lindisfarne Community revitalized (and in some cases rescued) each person’s relationship with the earthly Body of Christ. Real diversity can be found among these voices, which is as it ought to be. For this community is not about conformity so much as simply finding authentic, living union in Christ—a union that is personal, authentic, and truly free, which means it is as unique as every person who breathes.

Reach the end of this book and you may feel, as I did, that it has a sense of being unfinished—a progress report of an ongoing mission. This is not a flaw, but an important marker of the true character of this pilgrim community. For that epitomizes the nature of being on the move—. This experiment in secular monasticism, like the spiritual journey itself, is never concluded, never complete, never sewn up and neatly tucked away in a container somewhere. God is the God not only of the heavens but also of the earth, which means God is a God of dirt, of mud, of chaos. It is a category of God’s glory for things to be growing and changing, in process, filled with possibility and promise, but also messy and awkward and just a bit out of control. It is in that mess and that uncontrolled possibility where grace really happens. The Lindisfarne Community is dedicated to seeking out, embodying, and passing on the grace of God, wherever they may find it. For this reason alone, it is a community worth getting to know.

Carl McColman

Corpus Christi, 2012

PART ONE

Roots

ONE

Peregrinati Pro Amore Christe

Wanderers for the Love of Christ

Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon

Our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you.

St. Augustine

It was after this therefore that there grew up in [Brendan‘‘] heart a great love to the Lord, and he desired to leave his land and his country, his parents and his patrimony. He requested earnestly of the Lord that he would grant him some secret country, far removed from men.

Life of Brendan of Clonfert, in Charles Plummer,

Lives of the Irish Saints, Volume II, 48.

Mum, are we there yet? The voice from the backseat of our 1986 Volvo wagon was plaintive.

We’ve only been driving fifteen minutes! came the reply, with exasperation.

An hour later, I’m bored. Are we there yet?

An hour later, Are we nearly there yet? Can we stop? How much more?

Children are destination-fixated. Adults learn to enjoy the journey. At least we have. When we moved to the United States in 1995, like most British we were overwhelmed by the distances people drive in the States. Seventeen years later, we can’t wait for our next road trip. Our grown sons live in Georgia and Arkansas. To visit one is a fifteen-hour drive; the other, twenty-fours. To visit them both in one trip is a 3,300-mile road trip. We have learned to enjoy the journey.

We had no blueprint in the summer of 1994 when we began what became the Lindisfarne Community, and haven’t one still as we write in the spring of 2012. Our community has grown organically, with a steady evolution, into a secular monastic religious order. We made no plans to be so. We have been led along the way by hints and glimpses of past movements, helpful friends, and an inner drive for authenticity. Our community is diverse and in these first six chapters, we do not pretend to speak for all members. This is a record of our journey. While personal to Jane and Andy Fitz-Gibbon, it also intersects with those others who have joined us along the way. Why write now? We are eighteen years into an experiment and it is time to document what we have found. When we began, we had vague ideas of where we might be going. Now we have traveled a way down the road and have something to say about the terrain.

Journeying. A holy restlessness gripped the hearts of many of our Celtic forebears. They were known as wanderers for the love of Christ. They would take to wandering or sailing to seek the land of promise, to find their island, the place to lay their heads. Among these giants of old was St. Brendan, who sailed with sixty men in three boats to find their promise. Brendan’s story tells a wistful romance, and has been picked up again and again in subsequent story telling. It is, perhaps, most famously told by C.S. Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawntreader.

After seven years on the journey, Brendan found his promised land:

[T]he borders and regions of Paradise, where will be found health without sickness, pleasure without contention, union without quarrel, dominion without interruption, attendance of angels, feasting without diminution, meadows sweet in the scent as fair blessed flowers . . .

Life of Brendan, Plummer, 1922, 76.

Perhaps strangely, Brendan did not stay on his island paradise. He speedily returned with his comrades to Ireland to tell the tale. But then, perhaps paradise is ever only glimpsed, sweetly tasted for a while. Like the wind, the promise can be felt but never finally grasped or held on to.

And so in the spirit of the ancient Celts, we have journeyed. Our journey has taken us physically from our beloved Northumberland to our home in upstate New York, conceptually from an exclusive Christianity to a deeply inclusive ecumenism, and spiritually from the many to the One. Like St. Brendan, we continue to seek, and occasionally catch a glimpse. Our hearts are restless. We await the enduring rest of the One.

Along the way, we dreamed of, founded, and built a new monastic community. It has been a slowly evolving spirituality with others, which we have come to think of as secular monasticism, but we didn’t invent the term. To our knowledge, it was used first by our friend, Fr. John Skinner, in a letter to David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham, in 1985. In 2011, Fr. John kindly shared the letter with us. For us, the phrase fits, and we are in the process of shaping such a secular monasticism. We know that we have not reached the destination. We are enjoying the journey.

1. Why a Secular Monasticism?

German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and Nazi-resistor Dietriech Bonhoeffer, has had a formative influence on the new monasticism as we are practicing it in the Lindisfarne Community. His writings are enigmatic and suggestive, rather than definitive. For that reason, many interpretations of Bonhoeffer exist, of the kind, this is what he really meant. We are of the opinion that no definitive interpretation can be given of any work, let alone someone as enigmatic as Bonhoeffer. So much depends on a reader’s response to anything that is written. Any particular reader’s response will depend on their personal life circumstances, presuppositions, and life story.

We look to two periods in Bonhoeffer’s life as especially significant for our journey: 1935–1937, when he formed an underground seminary and community (brother’s house) at Finkenwalde; and from April 30, 1944 until his execution April 9, 1945, when he was imprisoned for allegedly taking part in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. In the first period, Bonhoeffer began to train a small group of young men for the Lutheran ministry. For some time, he had been writing about the shape of Christian community, being dissatisfied with the state of Christianity in Germany (see Bonhoeffer, 1954). He had visited the United Kingdom, where he took note of Anglican religious orders and began to develop a vision of intentional community. It would be something akin to traditional monasticism, but with an Evangelical (in his context that meant a Lutheran) flavor. It was with this small group of seminarians that he began to practice a new form of monasticism with mixed results. As a number of the men considered the experiment too catholic, for instance, some resisted introducing a weekly meditation session. Most of the seminarians chose to read, or found something else to do with their time. The religious temper of Germany in the 1930s was very different to the twenty-first century, where meditation has become commonplace. Now we see much less resistance to unfamiliar practices. So, it is not to Bonhoeffer’s actual practice that we have looked for inspiration, but more the suggestiveness of something like monasticism that has intrigued not only us, but others too.

In a letter dated January 1935, Bonhoeffer wrote:

I think I am right in saying that I would only achieve true inner clarity and sincerity by really starting to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. This is the only source of strength that can blow all this stuff and nonsense sky-high, in a fireworks display that will leave nothing behind but one or two charred remains. The restoration of the church will surely come from a new kind of monasticism, which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. I believe the time has come to rally people together for this. (Bethge, 1970, 462)

We were introduced to this idea of Bonhoeffer’s in 1990, when Fr. John Skinner and Andy Raine produced the first Filo-Fax version of A Northumbria Office, the daily prayer book of what became the Northumbria Community. From the late 1980s, we had been part of Northumbria Ministries, a small group of mostly Baptists and Anglicans. With this group, under the leadership of our good friend and Baptist minister Roy Searle, we explored Celtic spirituality. We found the link between our growing love of Northumberland and its rich spiritual traditions. We had formative retreats on Holy Island and at Sunderland.

Eventually, Northumbria Ministries merged with Fr. John and Andy Raine’s group to become the Northumbria Community. We felt our calling was to something else, and so we parted company with the newly formed Northumbria Community, while remaining friends and keeping a keen interest in their development.

With Marshall Pickering, the Northumbria Community published its Daily Office as Celtic Daily Prayer in 1994, and we used it with gratefulness. In 1996, Celtic Night Prayer followed. In it, the Bonhoeffer quote on the new monasticismwas rendered as:

The renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism, which has only in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the