Little Portion Hermitage

I just returned from a delightful day in Arkansas (yes, it is possible--as long as I can be back across state line before dark). I started off at Pea Ridge National Civil War Battleground, then went through Eureka Springs to John Michael Talbot's monastery.

(If you want to read about how the two are related, at least in my experience, you can check out post at http://beegleanings.blogspot.com/. But that may be more than you care to read, so feel free to ignore...)

I called Sr. Carolyn when I was leaving Pea Ridge to get directions to the Hermitage. I have been acquainted with Sr. Carolyn for a number of years through CBA. I would visit with her at the convention each year, and each year she would invite me to come visit the Hermitage. (I would also see her jogging in the mornings through the city streets wearing her habit and running shoes.) I had emailed her a few weeks ago so she was kind of expecting me. The drive from Pea Ridge is awesome--through the Ozark Mountain region, through Eureka Springs (a quaint old mountain town with really neat historical stone stores that, inexplicably, all sell the same plastic crap and same vulgar t-shirts. Sigh...), past Holiday Island. Then I turned onto a gravel road for the next 10-12 miles. At first I wondered about driving on this kidney-busting road. But the further I drove down the gravel road, the further I felt myself driving away from civilization.

Sr. Carolyn met me at the bottom of a last steep drive; she was not wearing her habit as they dress in, as she calls them, "regular clothes" on Saturdays.

The good news is that no one was hurt in the fire. The bad news is it destroyed the chapel and the common building. On Tuesday, April 29, just after midnight, a spark from the wood-burning stove in the corner of the chapel flamed to life and spread rapidly.

"Fortunately," said Sr. Carolyn, "we were saturated from weeks of rain. We had been complaining to God that we had had too much rain. But God knew we needed it. If it had been dry, the fire would have spread and it would have been a huge forest fire."

Four volunteer fire departments, three from Arkansas and one from Missouri (which is just a few miles to the north) responded and kept the fire from destroying more than it did. It stop just short of the small stone chapel--right in front of a stone depiction of Mary.

"It seemed that God said, 'You shall come this far, but no more" said Sr. Carolyn.

The small chapel is now where the brothers and sisters say Mass and pray together. Behind the altar are a few stairs that lead down into a prayer grotto with two kneeling benches for prayer before a hand-carved crucifix. The brothers and sisters join together in prayer, I believe, three times a day. They use the Common Book of Prayer for their daily offices and prayers.

Outside of the chapel is the prayer garden. Honestly, I don't remember when I have been in a more beautiful garden. It is better than Cox Arboretum in Dayton; it is even better than the beautiful Linnaeus Garden here in Tulsa. If I were a brother at the Hermitage, I think I could spend most of my waking hours either in the chapel praying or in the garden.

And that is where the members of this community spend many of their waking hours. But they also have work assignments. The community supports itself in part through raising and selling chickens--"meat chickens," as Sr. Carolyn calls them. They have chicken coops where they raise fowl from chicks ("We get them in the mail. The post office calls and says, 'Your chicks are here.' They want us to get them quickly because they make so much noise!") Part of Sr. Carolyn's assignment during work times is bookkeeping--not only in the sale of chicken, but also in the sale of John Michael Talbot books and music. The fire destroyed her office and computer--she lost the last five weeks of sales records in the fire.

As we walked through the garden, I asked Sr. Carolyn why she chose to separate from the world and join this community. I mean, there are many times I wish I could separate myself and join a monastery. There is a member of our small online community who has told me many times, I told Sr. Carolyn, that she is fed up with this world. That there is nothing this world has to offer. So is it right to pull away and live apart from the world like this?

"Oh, no," she said. "Living in this way makes us much more able to engage this world."

How so?

"When we are able to give ourselves more fully to God, we draw closer to His heart, which is to love others. So we are able to love others as we should."

Wow. Makes sense to me.

A lot more I could share. I asked as I was leaving how I could help. How can I serve her and the Hermitage?

"The fire destroyed our library in the common room. We will need to rebuild that."

So I am going to start gathering books for them. And I will call publishers I know and have them send books as well.

How can I pray for you?

"Pray that I can learn to love others as I should," she said. "And that I can give myself to God more fully."

How could we possibly improve upon that?

I have some ideas for our community, for us Misfits, following this trip. But you've had enough of me for now. I will digest these ideas and get back to you.

In the meantime, here are some shots from the Hermitage (the last is actually taken on the road to the monastery--I told you it is beautiful there).

Not wearing shoes...

The person with the worst feet in history was most likely St. Francis. He went mostly barefoot on rock or sand, rain or snow. If he was given sandals, he didn't keep them for long. He would give them away to the first person he found who was barefoot. His feet were a mass of bleeding wounds and scars. But he kept walking, and walking, and walking.

Today I am wearing Johnston and Murphy slip-ons with sheepskin lining. They are maybe the most comfortable shoes I have. Do I have sheepskin-lined faith as well? Is my walk with Jesus way too comfortable? This article was on the Out Of Ur blog. It talks about our too-comfortable walk much beter than I can, but not as well as St. Francis' feet could.


May 30, 2008
You Walk (with God) Wrong
Do our spiritual practices insulate us from the benefits of pain?

In a recent issue of New York magazine, Adam Sternbergh accuses, “You Walk Wrong.” And I can’t help but think that his insight into feet has spiritual application for Western Christians.
As the title suggests, Sternbergh claims that none of us walks correctly. But it’s not our fault; it’s shoes. “Shoes are bad,” he claims. In fact, he cites researcher William Rossi as saying, “Natural gait is biomechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person.” After comparing the feet of 180 people from different cultures, along with a few feet from 2,000-year-old skeletons, researchers concluded that feet were healthier before shoes became fashionable (the skeleton feet were better off). And people who don’t wear shoes—Zulus, in this case—have healthier feet than we Westerners. Athletes who wear cheaper, less padded, shoes have fewer injuries. Elderly people with back, knee, and hip problems report less pain when barefoot. This is, to oversimplify, because feet absorb shock better than shoes (because they flex) and because we walk lighter when barefoot (because we can feel the ground).
Growing up, I loved the feeling of shag carpet and cool mud between my toes and feeling the earth as God made it, with all its points and sharp edges. So I was particularly pleased at Sternbergh’s conclusion: that our feet—and the rest of our ambulating parts by extension—are healthier when we avoid the temptation to wrap them in foam. Lacing up to avoid the momentary discomforts of walking unshod causes long-term problems, because although our feet adjust to walking without shoes, our joints never adjust to walking with them.
Now for the spiritual application.
Our culture is determined to mediate its own experiences, so that we feel what we want when we want. That explains my frustration with NetFlix. Who knows what kind of mood I’ll be in by the time I get a movie in the mail? Will I want to laugh or think or cry on Friday evening two weeks from now? Or to take another example, when my wife brings up a difficult conversation (like the family budget) at an inconvenient time, I’m tempted to say, “I can’t deal with this right now.” It’s as if I have some right to determine when to face difficulty and what emotions to engage.
This impulse appears in broader Christian culture. The title of a book by the bestselling author of Boundaries (Zondervan, 2002) says it all: Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t (Zondervan, 1996). We’ve learned to protect ourselves with spiritual gifts inventories: “I’m afraid I can’t help in the youth group; it’s not my gift.” We consider things edifying if they reinforce what we think, not if they unsettle us (I had this conversation with Christians concerning Pedro the Lion.)
Churches, too, can further insulate their members by catering to these tendencies. Instead of encouraging parishioners to submit to the congregation, an elder, or mentor, churches often teach them to self-diagnose and self-prescribe their spiritual formation regimen. Or they offer a variety of service times and styles to prevent congregants from making difficult (and formative) decisions about priorities.
When you walk without the insulation of shoes, you don’t have the privilege of deciding when to tread rocky ground or cool mud or warm sand. But that’s just what makes our feet resilient. We take the rough terrain when it comes and learn balance in the process. Similarly, if I lived without spiritual insulation, I would learn balance by adjusting my stride to account for difficulties when they arise, not by avoiding them until I’m ready to face them. My spiritual feet would toughen and I would be healthier for it.
What’s the solution? Spiritual disciplines are a great place to start. We can slip off our shoes and maneuver uncomfortable ground through fasting, silence, and giving. Over time—according to the saints who do this sort of thing—you find the periods of discipline more natural than indulgence, and your feet stay bare more often.
For myself, I’ve found liturgical worship and following the Church calendar to do much the same thing. Pentecost Sunday—regardless of how I feel about my finances or family issues—is a cause for celebration. I may not feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, but I am directed to rejoice in it nonetheless. Conversely, whatever my personal victories, Good Friday is a time to mourn.
In The Gift of Pain (Zondervan, 1993) Paul Brand (with Philip Yancey), explains that insensitivity to pain has serious medical consequences:
Without this chorus of pain, a leprosy patient lives in constant peril. He will wear too-tight shoes all day. He will walk five, ten, fifteen miles without changing gait or shifting weight. And…even if sores break open inside his shoe, he will not limp.
Does the same not apply to our souls? What do we risk by ignoring the “indispensable protection of pain?”