From what has been said, community life as shaped by mutual obedience is not a matter of perfect homogeneity. Quite the contrary! All are equal in their dependence on others, and in honoring their duty to mutual service (35:1), but the shape of each relationship is fluid and uneven. Mutual obedience is not collegiality, in which all have equal status and authority. In most cases mutuality does not deprive superiors of their right to give orders, as Benedict states explicitly (71:3). Those who are in charge of departments are still in charge. Even in the process of consultation, there is complementarity rather than equality between giving counsel and receiving it.
I believe that “the good zeal that monks ought to have” (RB 72) is to be exercised always in a community of unequals, a community of the weak and the strong, of some with one gift and others another, of those who need more and those who need less, of the advanced and less advanced in the monastic way of life. All are radically one in Christ (2:20), all are brothers to one another within the community. Yet the community is complex, messy, diverse. Each member has a specific place within it. Relationships are not perfectly symmetrical. There is nothing smoothly egalitarian about it at all. It is in such a community of unequals that the brothers are called to practise obedience with the warmest love (72:3).72
People have different gifts and different areas of skill and expertise. This inequality is grounded in reality rather than in privilege, although it may happen that at different stages of a community’s history some talents will be more highly prized and praised than others. True mutuality is based on recognition of the intrinsic dignity of each person rather than on their extrinsic status or position. Native giftedness is one source of differentiation; on the other hand, as Benedict recognizes many, many times throughout the course of the Rule, particular individuals often have special needs. “[The abbot] should have an equal love for all and for all maintain a single discipline according to their merits” (2:22). Charity is universal, but the application of the rule needs to accommodate the particularities of individuals. “Let [the abbot] know what a difficult and arduous task it is to govern souls and to be at the service of many [different] dispositions” (2:31). This delicacy is evident in the statement of principle that Benedict often uses to open his chapters. “Every age and intelligence has a distinctive measure” (30:1). “Distribution was made as each had need” (34:1). “Although human nature is drawn to mercy in dealing with old men and children, nevertheless the authority of the rule must also make provision for them” (37:1). “Each has his own gift from God, one this and another that” (40:1). Action based exclusively on the principle of equality is often very unfair; it penalizes some and gives others an easy time. This is why Benedict so often advocates differentiation according to individual qualities and moderation. In this way everything is done according to due measure, some receiving more, others less. “Let [the abbot] temper all things so that the strong will have what they desire and the weak will not seek refuge [elsewhere]” (64:19).
Because all are different each is called to curtail private preferences so as to make room for others in the common space. This self-denial is relatively easy when it results in a visible benefit to another, especially if that other is cherished. It is a bit harder when it means submitting to a numerical majority or force majeure. The ability to give way to an extrinsic will is even more necessary when it comes to accepting the “common will” of the community. In his younger days Thomas Merton developed a strong theory about this, developing an idea he picked up from Bernard, though somewhat beyond its original intent.73 Living in community involves my recognizing that I am not alone in the house. I do not have unrestricted access to community resources—these are to be shared by all. I alone do not have the right to decide future directions; each accredited member will have something to contribute to the common vision. If something is to be done, all are to be consulted, and sometimes the solution adopted will go against my preferences. I need to have an entrenched belief in the probable integrity of options taken as a result of the common decision-taking and leave the outcome to Providence. For me to isolate myself from a community activity because I disagree with aspects of policy is destructive both of community harmony and of my own progress. If I have painted myself into a corner by being too dogmatic and outspoken, I may end up very lonely. We saw examples of this in the years following the Second Vatican Council; those unwilling to accept the common will regarding particular adaptations withdrew into their own world of indignant righteousness, denying to themselves the benefit of fraternity and the possibility of future influence, and depriving the community of the blessing of loyal opposition.
Participation is an essential component of effective community; without it morale declines, tasks are less efficiently performed, and the quality of relationships is degraded. Before any participation occurs, however, there must be a willingness to participate, to take part in community activities and discussions. Taking part means exactly what it says: taking a part of the action—not nothing and not the whole. It means being involved in a corporate enterprise, claiming for oneself no more than a measure of the totality. Let me exaggerate the mathematics of this for a moment. If I am one of a community of twenty, I am justly expected to contribute about one-twentieth of its exertions, and I have the right to no more than one-twentieth of its resources. I participate appropriately in a community discussion by speaking for one-twentieth of the time and by listening to nineteen-twentieths of the time. Beyond that rough proportion, there is a possibility that I am restricting my participation to its active mode and forgetting to leave scope for others. It is not always easy to know when to act and when to stay still, when to speak and when to listen, especially when matters concern me directly. Knowing when will be easier if we really want to do the right thing and if we recognize that, more often than not, doing the right thing is a matter of negating the impulses of self-will.
This is not the place to repeat what I have written elsewhere concerning the bane of individuality or, as it was termed in the monastic Middle Ages, “singularity.”74 Western culture is profoundly individualistic, and this makes community living unnecessarily difficult. Most of us enter the monastery with a deep-seated conviction that we have the right to run our own lives any way we want to, and it is not incumbent on anybody else to tell us how we should act, what we should wear or when we should do something. We prefer to think that we reserve such decisions to ourselves. If we were living on our own, such an attitude would not matter much. In community we need to change, to break down the defensive barriers and let other people into our life—not just one or two whom we happen to like, but people in general. This means that we offer hospitality to all, permitting them to enter our lives, to look around and make comments. And we are not afraid to listen to them and pay attention. They may be donkeys, but sometimes they utter oracles that come from God. On the other hand we are prepared to accept the invitation of others to come closer, knowing as we do, that opening the frontiers will inevitably make demands on us.
There is an ascetical character in mutuality, because it is one of the most effective means of combating unrestrained self-will. It would, however, be misleading to see mutual obedience merely as mortification. Its function goes beyond that because it lays a very solid foundation on which affective community can be built.
3. From Empathy to Intimacy
In the Acts of the Apostles the common life of the primitive community seems to derive from the fact that they had but one heart and one soul. For most of us, the dynamic probably goes in the opposite direction. It is through years of living together and sharing first tasks and then vision, that affective bonds are formed and strengthened. When we enter a community our contact with most other members is superficial and usually lopsided. We probably had not previously encountered them in their home environment and seen them acting as themselves. We may have tried to project onto them all sorts of false ideals and then were disappointed that they failed to live up to them.
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nbsp; The price of seeing others as they really are is to stop play-acting and to allow others to see us as we are, without pretense or self-inflation and not trying to disguise our limitations or defects. Self-knowledge is, as Bernard often insisted, the basis of all compassion—which was the word that he used for what we would call empathy. If I accept myself then I am far less likely to be dismayed by the folly of others and far more likely simply to welcome them as they are. All true friendship is conditional on the truth of my perception of my friends. I cannot really be a friend to someone I idealize. I may be an admirer or a fan, but I cannot be a friend. In this situation probably there is much in the other which I do not accept simply because I cannot perceive it. Friendship means understanding how another’s virtues interact with vices, how melancholy may follow moments of high humor, and creativity may give way to listless inertia. A friend is a “man for all seasons,” and there is no better way of seeing persons in all their seasonal variation than living in community with them, sharing their ups and downs. Those whom we meet only when both of us feel like it can be enjoyable companions, but we don’t have to deal with each other when one or both is in a bad mood. In community there is no escape from the whole truth, and because of this there is the possibility that all our relationships, some deeper than others, will be more truthful.
To the extent that we are self-aware we will probably tend to grow in understanding of others. Our own experience opens the door to feelings of solidarity. My personal experience is as a man in a community of men. I have the impression that there is much in the dynamics of affective community that is gender-specific. It seems that pure empathy comes more naturally to women than to men.75 Men seem to concentrate on getting systems in operation, uniting to complete a project, and finding friendship in shared endeavor. Ask us to sit around and relate and most would be at a loss. I suppose that it does not much matter at which end of the continuum we begin, building community presupposes both affective love and effective love: feelings of communion and the capacity to share one another’s lives, on the one hand, and, on the other, the willingness to unite in pursuing a common goal, whether this be an ultimate ideal or merely the efficient completion of a practical project.
How is it possible to create a community dynamic that is omnidirectional without being chaotic? Probably the best foundation is the acceptance of a common discipline of life, conversatio, motivated by a shared fund of beliefs and values, and powered by a single finality, the search for union with God. But that is only the foundation. Effective community is but a first step in the direction of affective community. Those who are of one mind in their pursuit of the monastic ideal soon find themselves growing in affection for one another so that they also find themselves becoming more and more of one heart. Thus the community becomes, slowly but surely, a school of love. In our times, when the incidence of family fragmentation is increasing, many men and women who enter monasteries bear serious affective wounds, and some may even be hoping to avoid the traumas that love seems to inflict. Unconsciously they are looking for love, yet they are fearful of intimacy. For such people an authentic and loving community may represent affective redemption. The experience of a love that is not poisoned by violence or exploitation gradually helps to restore their humanity, and is the necessary condition for their growth in holiness.
The key component of such nurturing is trust. These days, in which the Church and many of its instrumentalities no longer enjoy the routine trust once given it by its members, we have to work hard to win the confidence of those who come to us. We have to survive a twenty-four-hour scrutiny in which will be weighed our honesty and integrity, our clarity of vision together with our competence in implementing it in practice, and, on an interpersonal level, our approachability, affability, and capacity for two-way communication. Only if we have attained an acceptable level in all these areas will trust be forthcoming. We have to earn trust, and it seems that the only way that we can do this, especially if we are in the front line of formation, is to live at a level of fervor much higher than that with which we would otherwise be content.
The presence of new life in the community in the form of a new generation of recruits, is a general invitation to greater fidelity. By being what we are called to be, we give newcomers an inkling of what they can become if they continue to pursue the monastic ideal. This modeling is an arduous responsibility—but there are benefits for us as well. We re-discover our own ideals in the aspirations of the young and—if we allow it to happen—we are spurred on by their enthusiasm. This is true mutuality, where each finds in the other the means of growth and fervor.
The interchange that trust facilitates is not merely at the level of interpersonal relationships. It also allows for deeper communion at the level of faith and charism, in which the handing on of the tradition becomes inseparable from sensitivity to the signs of the times. This harmony between generations, in which each keeps its special characteristic, is surely what Benedict intended when he recommended respecting the seniors and loving the juniors. There is no place for polarization or class struggle, but the blending together of linked but opposite energies for renewal. Benedictine peace is the result of walking on two legs instead of trying to hop ahead on one.
Such trust renders competitiveness unlikely and makes it possible for me to cling less tenaciously to what is (perhaps temporarily) mine. By this means I become willing to add my resources and gifts to the common pool so that what I am and what I have are at the service of communion and not merely elements in a program of self-enhancement. Baldwin of Forde spoke eloquently about this in his tractate On the Common Life.
[Charity] loves to have things in common, not to possess them individually without sharing them. In fact, it loves to share them so much that it is sometimes unwilling to reclaim good which rightfully belong to it and which someone else has taken. Charity is generous and shuns disputes; it does not seek its own interests and has no wish to enter into legal controversy, when charity itself would be in danger. It prefers to be cheated than to perish; to suffer the damages rather than be awarded the costs. Why would it be eager to reclaim what it does not have? Individual gifts are led by [charity] to [serve] the common good, and a gift which one person has received as his own personal possession becomes of benefit to another because its usefulness is shared with him…. Someone who has should share with those who have not, as we are taught by him who says, “Give, and it shall be given to you.”… Thus, whoever is good to himself should also be good to others and not troublesome. Whoever has the utterance of wisdom or knowledge, whoever has the gift of work or service, whoever has any other gift, whether greater or lesser, should possess it as having been given by God for the sake of others. He should always be afraid that a gift he has received may turn against him if he does not strive to use it for the benefit of others, for we receive the gift of God in vain if we do not use it to seek the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbor. But if the personal gift which some[one has received] from God is turned to the common good, it is then that this gift is changed into the glory of God, and when the gift given to each one individually is possessed in common through the sharing of love, then the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is truly with us.76
Monastic community and mutuality are realized most fully in the communion of adult disciples gathered around God’s Word, looking forward to the coming of the kingdom. Preferring nothing to Christ’s love, each gives priority to another, and all bear one another’s burdens. Oddly enough such concern for others does not issue in the annihilation of self but makes way for its flowering. True community is the matrix of both originality and creativity.
9 Generativity
Let him be as a father to the
whole community.
RB 31:2
One of the problems with responding to the individual neediness of the “weak” is that it can lead to neglect of the “strong.” They are considered to have no need of encouragement and support. All are easily convinced that those
with abundant gifts can look after themselves. Many people find it fulfilling to be a source of comfort and strength to those in trouble and so, unconsciously, they tend to reward those who seek this kind of care from them, and thereby give the message that neediness is the most effective way of getting attention and love. There is danger here of setting up a co-dependency situation in which neither party grows toward a more mature autonomy. At the level of community, priority given to the “weak” may force those who are “strong” either to deny their strength so as to be eligible for pastoral concern, or to develop their gifts in isolation from the community. In either case the community loses out. As Ayn Rand demonstrated in her novel Atlas Shrugged, rewarding weakness and penalizing strength is a surefire recipe for social decline.
An effective community needs every single member to be operating at the peak of their present potential—at least, most of the time. No doubt this introduces wild cards into the community dynamic—control freaks will certainly feel uneasy at the prospect. A community that defines its activities as much by the talents of its members as by precedent or market forces will certainly need a large measure of courage and a good capacity for discernment and dialogue. Nobody quite knows what previously undiscovered gifts will emerge as a person develops, but there is no need to be afraid. We have all been acquainted with monks and nuns who have been ordinary enough people at the beginning of their monastic life and who, at some point down the track, began to blossom. In the right circumstances during mid-life we often see an explosion of talents that we never expected: Music, art, or some useful craft, writing or teaching, a knack for administration, an empathy that heals others’ wounds, an affability that creates common warmth, a wisdom that forms and nourishes. These are community-building gifts. By their means a community thrives; without them we will be condemned to a sterile, precedent-bound mediocrity.
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