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Practices in Transformation: a Reflection on Six Practices in Transformation: A Reflection on Six Early Monadic Values and Practices in the Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers1 T i m V i v i a n f o r t h e a u t h o r s of the Philokalia, revelation was essentially the gift of a wisdom that opened up fresh possibilities for human action—or, more accurately, that restored possibilities lost by human sin and ignorance.2 I don’t remember where I first heard or read the term “transforma­ tional reading.” That is, reading that is not opposite of but transcends in­ formational reading. Because I’m fortunate to have a small enrollment in my Native American Religion class as I write this, I’ve asked the students to write twice-weekly brief reflection papers on the reading for each class. 1. A different version of this article will appear as part of the introduction to my The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: The Greek Alphabetical Sayings of the Apophthegmata Patrum (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, forthcoming). The Greek text is in Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 65 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1864) 65.75-440 (online). Two English translations are The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG, CS 59 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1975), and John Wortley, trans., Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s, 2014). 2. Rowan Williams, “The Theological World of the Philokalia" The Philokalia: A Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality, ed. Brock Bingaman and Bradley Nassif (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012) 102-121, 102. Cistercian Studies Quarterly 54.2 (2019) 136 TIM VIVIAN We’ve been reading, studying, and discussing the revelatory, insightful, hilarious, moving, and heart-breaking story/stories about Kent Nerburn, a white author, and his transformational journey with Dan, a Lakota Sioux elder.3 At the beginning of class one day I looked at each student and praised the group for its brave and insightful reflections on Dan and Kent—and themselves: they’ve been inspired and given permission by the sacred stories of the Native Americans and the hallowing account of the growing relationship between Kent and Dan to tell their own stories vis-a-vis those in the books. By reflecting and writing, the students are informing themselves of their own journeys and transformations, and sharing them with the class. As one student, a young Latina, recently wrote about Nerburn, and herself: “It’s as if somehow his heart has be­ come his eyes to the world in front of him. I don’t see the change only in Nerburn, I see it in myself. Ever since I began the first book, I started to see the world with my heart; it’s as if a piece of my heart has become Indian, too.” I’ve read and reread, reflected on, and written about the literature and politeia (way of life) of the early monks over the last thirty years; like my student with Native American spirituality, I’ve more and more come to see the ammas and abbas, the mothers and fathers of the desert, as transformational. Without hesitation, even heartily, I can say that they have a great deal to say to us today. Of course, not everything about them is transferable, or even translatable, but if we go beyond the superficial and dive deep, we can see that much of what they lived and tried to live and worked hard at living still speaks to us today—to monastics, yes, but also to many others. Below I reflect on six early monastic terms, representative of values and practices that were transformational for them, that can be transform­ ing for us: Love, Peace, Patient Endurance, Contemplative Quiet, Inward Stillness, and Hope and Joy. In doing so, as part of my effort to make the desert fathers and mothers contemporary, I draw upon two recent trans­ formational books by Gregory Boyle, S.J.: Tattoos on the Heart and Bark- 3. The books are Neither Wolf Nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo. PRACTICES IN TRANSFORMATION 137 ing to the Choir,4 supplemented by Acedia by Kathleen Norris.51 believe that Boyle’s and Norris’s writings and the sayings and stories of the first monks offer a hermeneutic that allows us to see both them and ourselves more clearly. Gregory Boyle ministers to, lives with, weeps with, and loves young men and women, mostly Latinos/as, in Los Angeles; in 1988 he and fellow parishioners founded what became the now-thriving Home- boy Industries.6 These men and women are, or were, members of gangs, gangbangers, the homies and homegirls whose stories Boyle relates in his books. In Barking to the Choir, Boyle speaks of “exquisite mutuality”: “Truth be told, we are all in need of healing; we are all a cry for help.”7 1. LOVE (AGAPE)8 [Thomas Merton] learned that the deepest meaning of solitude was love.9 If love is the answer, community is the context that others can follow, and tenderness the methodology.10 first, the bad news. Gregory Boyle offers this insight: “gangs are bastions of conditional love—one false move, and you find yourself outside.”11 I’m pretty sure that most of us, you reading this, and I, have never thought of ourselves as gangbangers. But, spiritually, we often are: we’re good at pushing people, and our true self, outside, making love con­ ditional. Boyle’s “one false move” is chilling. But it should prompt each of us to ask, “How many of my loves are conditional?” I’ll discuss below four other key early monastic virtues and practices: peace, patient endurance, 4. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (New York: Free Press, 2010), and Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (New York: Free Press, 2017). 5. Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life (New York: Riverhead Books, 2008). 6. See homeboyindustries.org. 7. Boyle, Barking 172. 8. Agape: pronounced a-GA-pe. 9. Donald Grayston, Thomas Merton: The Noonday Demon, The Camaldoli Correspondence (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015) 3. xo. Boyle, Barking 85. 11. Boyle Tattoos 94. 138 TIM VIVIAN contemplative quiet, and inward stillness (parts 2-5). But as Paul says of the virtues, the greatest is love {agape) (1 Cor 13:13), so we’ll begin with love. In the 1960s, Thomas Merton told social justice activists—whom he in general supported—that each had better be grounded spiritually, firmly planted in her or his own (and Gods) true self, before he or she went and told others to do what’s just and right. Otherwise, they’d be tak­ ing their own inner demons, false selves of self-righteousness, anger, and violence, along with them, and using them as placards and signs to beat “the enemy” over the head.12 Here again, the oft-supposed dichotomy between prayer and action breaks down. As the monks show, those who desire a life of prayer, quiet, and stillness must act.13 The monastic cell is the redoubt of an early monk, where he or she worked, prayed—and confronted demons. As Abba Mo­ ses instructs, “Go, stay in your cell; your cell will teach you everything.”14 James Gilligan, says Boyle, “writes that the self cannot survive without love, and the self, starved of love, dies.”15 But, as Boyle and the ammas and abbas show (not tell) us, we need both love of the (true) self and the love of others, and we must have love for the other, who, really, is not other, but a mirror image of our true self. Ancient Israel did a very good job of welcoming the stranger, the other, but its welcome mat spread only so far: one of the Jubilee require­ ments was the manumission of slaves, but only Israelite slaves, not foreign ones.16 So, too, with early Christians: Paul declares, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free” (Gal 3:28; see 1 Cor 12:13), and he sends the slave Onesimus back to his master and urges him to free Onesimus. But by the time of the later, pseudonymous epistles, 1 Timothy (6:1) and Titus (2:9), in capitulation to conformity and the ways of em­ pire, modern capitulations still, Christians have long forgotten, or ignore, 12. Norris 116-17, agrees: “Anger over injustice may inflame us, but that’s a double-edged sword. If our indignation feels too good, it will attach to our arrogance and pride and leave us rant­ ing in a void.” In the New Testament and in the sayings here, Gk. dikaiosune can mean both “justice” and “righteousness.” 13. See Merton’s seminal Contemplation in a World of Action, 2nd ed., restored and corrected, Gethsemani Studies in Psychological and Religious Anthropology (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, repr. ed., 1998). 14. Alphabetical Apophthegmata Moses 6. 15. Boyle, Tattoos 46. 16. Lv 25:39-46. PRACTICES IN TRANSFORMATION 139 Paul’s words.17 What happened among the first followers of Jesus tells us to ask ourselves, “Where are my boundaries? Who’s out of bounds? The refugees, the homeless, the poor, the prisoners, the transgender... ? Who are the victims of my fear?” For Christians: “Why do I ignore what Jesus and Paul say?” As Greg Boyle says, “Our frightened selves want only for the gath­ ered to like us, to agree with us, [or be like us,] or be intimidated by us.” But then, importantly, he quietly continues: “I suppose Jesus walks into a room and loves what he finds there.”18 We need to parse that “suppose.” It’s dry humor (Boyle, like Merton, has humor a-plenty), humor with a punchline: Boyle continues, “[Jesus] delights in it, in fact.” Ah.
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