By God's grace, I will be a good steward of my money, working toward giving ten percent to the church and those in need, mindful that "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21)
By God's grace, I will "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 236) the Holy Scriptures, trusting that they are "inspired by God" for my "training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16) working toward knowledge of the entire book.
By God's grace, I will listen for God's call on my life, confident that I have been given a "manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Corinthians 12:7), entrusting my Discipleship Group to test and support that call.
The final discipline is read in unison.
By God's grace we have joined ourselves to one another as this Discipleship Group, and we commit to meeting regularly for this season of our lives, believing that "if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:12).
Check In and/or Activity
Each person may check in for a specified time, as the group determines. Groups may choose to insert an activity such as Bible Study between Check In and the Closing Prayer and Closing Words.
Closing Prayer and Closing Words
Someone leads a closing devotion such as whichever Daily Devotion (pp 137-40 of The Book of Common Prayer) is appropriate for the meeting time of the group. The leader ends the meeting by reading aloud these Closing Words.
Please remember that what we have said in this gathering was spoken in confidence. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
The members respond:
Thanks be to God.
Acknowledgements
The Restoration Project is the fruit of many years. First, I'd like to thank all the churches that I have been a part of and that have influenced this book in many ways, seen and unseen. This includes Christ Church Christiana Hundred; Battell Chapel of Yale, St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle, Washington; Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut; All Saints in Beverly Hills, and St. Paul's in San Rafael, both in California. The clergy and laity of each of these places have been tremendous gifts to me.
In 2002 I spent a weekend visiting The Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. That weekend changed my life and what I've come to learn of its ethos, only a small part I'm sure, is soaked into this book. I would especially like to thank Dick Busch and Gordon and Mary Cosby.
This book also would not be possible without the great blessing in my life of relationships with three different Anglican monastic orders, each of which has taught me a different and essential facet of the gospel. These are the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Order of the Holy Cross, based in West Park, New York but which I encountered in Santa Barbara, California; and the Society of St. Francis in San Francisco. I have been blessed with a tremendous spiritual director from each community. Br. Paul Wessinger, SSJE; Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC; and Br. Jude Hill, SSF have each, through their words and example, found their way into this book.
I have also been exceedingly fortunate in my intellectual and academic formation. I am deeply grateful to The Tatnall School and in particular to Gale Flynn, Marnie Barnhill, and Rosemary Crawford; also to Yale College and in particular to Maurice Natanson, Jeff Burnett, Lynn Singer, Harry and Mannette Adams, and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus; and finally to the Yale Divinity School and to Philip Turner, Roan Greer, and Ellen Davis.
Through the course of writing the book, there have been many friends and companions. These include my colleague group Dan Hall, Daniel Simons, Chris Rankin-Williams, Mike Kinman, Thomas Brown, Marshall Shelley, Clayton Crawley, and my Camino buddy, Scott Barker. This book has come into being at the same time as The Restoration Project community, and so I am particularly grateful for the leadership team of Suzanne Wille, Tracey Lemon, Kate Moorehead, John Ohmer, Scott Barker, Mike Kinman, and Thomas Brown. Several people have been very kind, insightful, and generous readers along the way and so special thanks go to Jude Hill, Art Greco, Kyle Thayer, Dan Hall, Chloe Martin, John Ohmer, Tracey Lemon, and Curtis Almquist. Many thanks to the team from Forward Movement for helping to bring this process to rich conclusion, Jana Reiss, Richelle Thompson, and Scott Gunn.
Finally, above all, I would like to thank my family. Thank you to all the Drakes for their kind inquiry and persistent encouragement. Thank you to my mom and dad, Vicky and Peter Martin, for more than I can write; and to my sister Elise for being such a full-on supporter and cheerleader. Thank you to Chloe, Harper, and Simon, to whom this book is dedicated. You all have been, in so many ways, the face of God to me.
— CHM
Endnotes
1 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, translated by George Bull (New York: Penguin, 1965), 261.
2 Giovanni Battista Armenini, 1587 as quoted in David Alan Brown, Leonardo's Last Supper: The Restoration (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1983), 7.
3 Pinin Brambilla Barcilon and Pietro C. Marani, Leonardo, The Last Supper (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), 328.
4 There is not a direct connection between Benedict's Twelve Steps of Humility and the Twelve Steps of the recovery program. However, they do bear a family resemblance. I once spent some months in long talks with a parishioner in Narcotic Anonymous making connections between the various steps. I believe this is a great avenue for further exploration.
5 Barcilon and Marani, 341-3.
6 Saint Augustine, Confessions, translated by Garry Wills (New York: Penguin, 2006), 87.
7 Fr. Simon O'Donnell, The Degrees of Humility: A Virtue for Today's Christians? (Valyermo, CA: St. Andrew's Abbey, 2002), 5.
8 There are many variations of the Jesus Prayer. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Prayer offers several.
9 Saint Romuald's Brief Rule is posted at the website for the new Camoldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California. http://www.contemplation.com/community/history.html.
10 Saint Augustine, City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (New York: Penguin, 2003), 637.
11 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart (Amity House, 1986), 93.
12 L. Paul Jensen, Subversive Spirituality: Transforming Mission through the Collapse of Space and Time. (Portland, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009). 257.
13 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Cistercian Publications, 1975, Trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG), 192.
14 The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, 236.
15 Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert (New York: New Directions, 1960), 68.
16 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, translated by Gillian R. Evans (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), 137.
17 Like so much else in The Restoration Project, this term comes from Gordon Cosby. The best introduction is an ARTICLE Journey Inward, Outward that appeared in 2001 in the magazine for the Vineyard churches. A copy can be found on our website at therestorationproject.net.
18 Merton, 71.
19 Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 366.
20 A description of the structure of the Psalter reading is also on the website for The Restoration Project at therestorationproject.net. It includes a sample handout. The experience has a brief break for a light meal.
21 Barcilon and Marani, 6-20.
22 The best translation available is Saint Augustine: The Trinity (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2007, trans. Edmund Hill, OP). The notes and essays throughout the book are a necessary to aid to all non-professional readers.
23 Saint Augustine, Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings, translated by Mary Clark (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984), 128. The passage is from Book X of the Confessions, one of the greatest texts in our tradition for slow, spiritual reading.
24 BCP, 236. This quote is taken from a collect by Thomas Cranmer used in The Episcopal Church every year in November on the Sunday before Christ the King Sunday, two Sundays before the beginning of Adv
ent.
25 J. D. McClatchey, "Braving the Elements," The New Yorker, March 27, 1995. The quote is from Lord Byron's poem, "Beppo."
His heart was one of those which most enamour us,
Wax to receive and marble to retain
He was a lover of the good old school
Who still become more constant as they cool.
26 The Rule of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1997),
27 Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 49-50.
28 BCP, 427.
29 Shared at the "Come and See" weekend in GIVE PLACE in the fall of 2003.
30 Hill, 255.
31 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwkU8-d1gIk.
32 Clark, 142.
33 Michael Casey, A Guide to Living in the Truth (Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph, 2001), 125.
34 Barcilon and Marani, 426-8.
35 Barcilon and Marani, 367-9.
36 The American Heritage Dictionary (Delta, 1992), 285.
37 Saint Anselm, Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, translated by Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 87. Note that Anselm begins his prayer with the Augustinian trinity of remembering, thinking of, and loving God. The prayer concludes with words that give us the great summary of Anselm's whole project "faith seeking understanding."
38 Casey, 147-8.
39 Michael Casey, Bernard of Clairvaux: Man, Monk, Mystic (Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 14.
40 Ibid., 17.
41 Evans, 255-56.
42 BCP, 424, 427.
43 BCP, 532.
44 My two pages of notes from that talk can be found on our website, therestorationproject.net. There are six elements Gordon Cosby names that he believes must be in place if any Christian community is going to have authenticity and depth. The Restoration Project movement is intended to encourage all six elements.
45 Barcilon and Marani, 363, 371.
46 Casey, Guide, 116.
47 Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge (Wipf and Stock, 2000), 78. The quote appears in a chapter on Augustine called "The Clamour of the Heart." The chapter is the best single introduction to the spiritual value of Augustine that I know.
48 Merton, 30.
49 O'Donnell, 17.
50 Casey, Guide, 176.
51 O'Donnell, 16.
52 Dante, Paradiso III. 85, translated by Robert and Jean Hollander (New York: Anchor Books, 2007), 69.
53 Retreat on silence at the Bishop's Ranch, Healdsburg, CA. Spring, 2009.
54 Cowley Magazine, (Cowley, Volume 31, Number 2, Easter 2005), 9.
55 Merton, 74.
56 Evans, 124.
57 Ibid, 124.
58 Ibid, 124.
59 John P.H. Clark and Rosemary Dorwood, eds., Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection (Classics of Western Spirituality Series) (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1991), 227-28.
60 Barcilon and Marani, p. 342.
61 Ibid. p. 342.
About the Author
Christopher H Martin is the rector of St. Paul's, San Rafael, a parish in the Diocese of California where he has served since 2004. He previously served parishes in Los Angeles and Connecticut. He is the founder of The Restoration Project, a national movement of churches devoted to spiritual maturity through a balance of spiritual practices, including friendship with the poor. Other elements are structured small groups and formation classes. For sixteen years he led national gatherings for GenX and then Millennial clergy. He received both his B.A. and his M.Div. from Yale. He married his college sweetheart, and they have two boys.
Learn More about The Restoration Project at www.therestorationproject.net
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