This the first of five Lenten reflections on care and harm in community, the theme of our convocation at the end of June.
One of my favorite quotes about community came from an Episcopal Sister of the Transfiguration: “Community life is like the sandpaper on the wood, polishing each of us” as it scrapes away the outer defenses of our egos.
I lived for 25 years in a first-order community, where every morning we said morning prayer together and had breakfast together. Another favorite quote came from a Cistercian monk who was the guest master at the Abby in Northern California: “Have you ever been in the chapel stall next to a brother who sings off-key —– for 25 years”. Community living is a challenge day after day. It is only care that makes this possible. When we learn siblings’ ways, we can be there and support one another. Caring can transform community living from endless frustrations to a sense of home.
Community by its nature will create harm. There is no way to be with others intimately without causing pain. We know each other well. We are in each other’s space. We bring our views and judgments and our ego to the relationships. I am just on more “bozo on the bus” who is a work in progress. The people who live closest to me know that very well.
So, my work is to listen. Listening happens with the ears, with the eyes, with the tongue, with the body, and by walking. It is hard to listen if I haven’t done my work. The old proverb about “walking a mile in my shoes” gives me the insight that my care requires me to enter and humbly seek to know the other’s experience. I need to learn how to understand how that person lifts their hand, holds their head, clinches their jaw, tightens their shoulders. There are so many signals that lead me deeper into the other’s experience. I need to know how to read the message when they say something that distresses me — where it comes from.
Listening requires that I seek to learn the other’s narrative. How were birthdays celebrated when they were six? How many times did they move as a child? What was it like to be a girl in their family, their school, on the job? What are their dreams? And how have these dreams been frustrated? By whom? I can’t listen for just an afternoon. But as I practice listening, I get better at hearing the story sooner. As I build my listening tools, I come to see things that I would have missed before.
Listening is about humility. Am I ok being me, with all of my warts? Or am I rejecting parts of myself? For me, the first stage of humility is self-acceptance. It’s about being able to laugh at myself and being comfortable weeping about myself and being able to open myself – to let down my defenses and just be there. Through hard knocks, I am learning that I won’t be able to listen to you if I can’t compassionately listen and accept me. From this place of self-acceptance and self-compassion, I build the skills of knowing you. I learn to listen beyond skin deep. It’s a lifetime endeavor with many trips to the confessional, learning to love my neighbor as myself. Care is about listening. Redress of harms starts with listening. Only as a weep with Francis and Clare about my sins do I become able to be there with you and for you.
In OEF, this is more difficult. We are in community for one weekend a year (if we get there), through the chat, through quarterly reporting, in regional gatherings. How do we possibly get to know one another so that we can listen to the deep intimacy everyone brings to our little order? And we are all busy trying to live the gospel where we are planted. For OEFers, living our rule in community is very important. If that weren’t true, we would not have added this extra obligation to our already too busy lives. We bring our rule and our lives to the order. These are very tender parts of you and me. They matter deeply to each of us. It takes deep listening and the practice of humility to see my sibs, to be there, to see through the misunderstandings, and to manage my ego so that my ego defenses do not react and harm you/others. My life in OEF becomes a sort of gym, where I can build my muscles of care, listening, and humility. With these newly developed strengths, I build my capacity to serve the living God in all my doings. As Paul says: I move from mother’s milk to full servants of the living God.
Of course, none of this is vaguely possible without prayer, prayer for ourselves, prayer of penitence, prayer of thanksgiving and prayers for you, for each of us. Coming from this time of prayer, I might be moved to call you, or to send a note. But much more centrally, you become someone who has a piece of my heart.
This Lent, I pray that I may seek with the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the care, to accept the harms that I have inflicted, to listen. I pray in humility that the Spirit will lead me (and you) ever more into the love of Jesus.