Becoming Human Part 5c -Sin and Monasticism

"I have only found one religion that dares to go down with me into the depth of myself."

G.K. Chesterton

"Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; i confess and know it.  But who shall cleanse it?"  

Augustine

My current focus on this blog is to putter around this idea of becoming human. This might seem to be an odd pursuit.  Why would someone want to explore what it means to be human? After all, isn't being human just a matter of existence?  This is true, but i am using the word human in a fuller sense.  When i say human, i am intending for us to consider, a whole, centered person, not driven by impulses and grasping desire but rather by love and mercy.     

That is why i find the theological category of sin so helpful because it provides a means to examine and expose all the attitudes of the heart that move us away from love and mercy. This exploration of the un-examined or dark sides of our souls can be resisted for a number of reasons. Let me explore three.  

First, the category of sin can, at times, lead to control, manipulation and power games in faith communities. Second, as Stanely Hauerwas notes, "given a choice, most people in America

would rather be sick than a sinner. 'Sin' sounds too judgmental for a 'compassionate culture'" (A Better Hope, 189). Thirdly, Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury states, "not judging anyone sounds at first like a very contemporary thing, the nonjudgmental attitude that so well fits a postmodern reluctance to identify any absolute rights and wrongs, truths and falsehoods" (Where God Happens, 28). Just by a cursory examination of the currents that affect our modern conception of sin, we see how complicated this issue has become.    

Clearly, unravelling this problem or rehabilitating a word like sin with more healthy viewpoint is a challenge. Particularly, because within this confusion about judgement, truth, rights and wrongs is the most ancient and simple aspects of human evasion of responsibility and blame. This has been examined in our own way in our world under the labels passive aggressive, obsessive compulsive and triangulation.    

As i consider the complexity of this issue i have been drawn to Christians writers who reflect on this issue from the perspective of ancient thinkers. I am thinking most specifically of the church fathers and the monastics. I think when issues, like sin, are complicated that it is helpful to look back at how others have wrestled with this issue in a previous historical period. I think it is hard to step out of my own historical epoch and reflect on it but i can, in a more objective fashion, examine another time and place. 

The monastic tradition with all its faults, like extreme asceticism and stoicism, can be viewed with disdain and even revulsion. But we would be mistaken to simply reject it outright.  For those in who live in a highly therapeutic age, with its cacophony of self flattering and self indulgent voices, we need other voices, maybe somewhat "mad" voices to snap us out of our stupor. As Williams states, "it is left for the ironic sanity of the monk or nun to demonstrate--at some personal cost--that God's call is a far stranger thing than any human social definitions might allow" (Williams, Wound of Knowledge, 103). Maybe the ancients can provide wisdom in an age of trite slogans and easy believisms?  

To The Desert

Monastic types did not go into deserts, monasteries, mountain tops or caves simply to avoid sinful humanity but rather to find a "stable and geographic and psychological location where the important battles may be fought" (Ibid, 105). And far from being a flight away from social interaction or the challenges, the monastic tradition allowed for the social interactions among fellow monastics to be the place where they could continue to expose their sinfulness. These individuals were committed to the stripping down of the illusions of life and to find the reality of self and God.    

I find it hard to argue with this approach to faith. What kinds of evasions and illusions do we perpetuate as participants in North American culture? How do the forces of commercialism, style, celebrity, the "good life" shape our approach to life? These are great questions but ones that do not emerge at block parties or church potlucks. They are unpleasant and indicting questions. Maybe they are best sought in small groups of radicals, in deserts, in the fringes?  

  

But whatever our hesitations to participate in such a rigid self examination, it was a motivational force for the monastic movement. We, who are in the church, have some strong ideas about external behavior, which at their most servile, are evidenced only in manners. But ascetic types realize that the externals are just that, external. The true battle, on the other hand, happens deeper within. In fact, this deeper battle with sinful attitudes are pinpointed and catalogued in the seven deadly sins. This examination of the heart allows us to see that our inner motivation becomes grasping and selfish pretty, dang quick. And that the solution is not self help mantras or better relationships or more community involvement, although those things are good in their own right. But what is required is that we enter into the disquiet or clattering of our own hearts and souls. This journey is an arduous one. Most people will want to avoid it or more innocently simply not know how to go about it.    

But thankfully, we have the Lent season.  Edna Wong tells us that, "the spirit of truth does not seek comfort.  The purpose of Lent is not to escape the conscience, but to create a healthy hatred for evil, a heartfelt contrition for sin, and a passionate felt need for faith" (Wong, in Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter, 22). Sounds like something a monk might get excited about.