During one of the dialogues the Worth community have had recently with the Buddhist monks of Chithurst, we were discussing community life. The Buddhist abbot told us that considerable numbers of people who came to him said they wanted to live as hermits; they did not want to live with the other monks but wanted to live on their own immediately. He pointed out to them that the Buddha has much to say about community life and about learning to live with others. Benedict's own life seems to have involved a similar excess of zeal for the hermit life: he left Rome as a student and went into the hills east of Rome to seek God on his own, in a cave. While the Rule allows for monks who want to live as hermits, this is only for those 'who have come through the test of living in a monastery for a long time, and have passed beyond the first fervour of monastic life' (RB, 1: 3). Benedict seems to have learned from his own youthful errors. In the struggle for purity of heart, the great monastic goal, our reactions to other people teach us a great deal about ourselves. Only when we have learnt those lessons are we 'ready with God's help to grapple single-handed with the vices of body and mind'. ( From finding sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life , page 115)
You may remember the BBC TV programme The Monastery in May 2005, where five men with no experience of monastic life joined the community at Worth Abbey for forty days and forty nights. The public interest was so great, the Abbot wrote this book on a secular imprint, to engage with the many viewers who had expressed interest. It was published on 1 May 2006, Bank Holiday Monday. Christopher Jamieson appeared on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week and then I travelled to Coventry Cathedral for the first ever Christian Body, Mind and Spirit Festival. He led a workshop and I heard him speak. We were told he would be signing copies in the Cathedral bookshop. It turned out the books had not been delivered and so I ordered one from the late SPCK Bookshop in Sheffield. They found the whole print run had sold out and so I had to wait for the next printing and obtained my copy on 27 May 2006.
The message is we are formed by the people with whom we live. Jamieson argues we cannot know God and so what God reveals to us is the truth about ourselves. He does this through our lives in community. This is why I believe marriage is a spiritual discipline. If the marriage (and family life) works it is because the couple have worked at living together. In saying this I by no means wish to imply that marriage is some sacred institution. It seems to me a lot depends on whether those who do it understand at some level this is a spiritual discipline. But what would I know as a lifelong single?
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