devotio post-moderna ?

It is all too easy to dismiss the so-called ‘institutional church’ and it’s structures. So people leave. But I actually think that the real problem concerns us more with what or who we have lost sight of – the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the piety/devotion and spirituality of that life as a disciple. Furthermore, I think that we have so engulfed the life of the church with traditional-ism and sense of our ‘good order’, that these have become the new ‘relics’ for our devotion. I am suggesting that simply to balk at institution and structures alone is inadequate. The cracks in the structure of the Christendom church are seeing various movements arise as I would suggest we can see from church history. In the crucible todays world I wonder if there are insights we may more fully gain from the past.


I have been following the threads of Paul (Prodigal kiwi Blog) on monastic spiritulaity, forms and old new, emergent church matters. Most of which has been part of my own ongoing musings. You can pick up some of Paul's stuff here - June 02, 2005 Shaping Holy Lives - on Benedictine Spirituality; June 07, 2005 Imagining a New Old Church; June 08, 2005New Monasticism – Contemplating a way of living publicly
I was also interested in June 21, 2005 The future of the Church in the West Doesn’t Lie in the Emerging Church Movement and followed from there the piece by Alan Rox. on emergent where he offers very insightful and dare I say 'balanced' critique.

So to lessons from the past. I do think that the recovering of spiritualities from the great monastic traditions and their directing us to key aspects in areas such as leadership, are helping inform and give potential to reshape us today. I want to add to that mix by suggesting that to be emergent, also has something of the devotio moderna in it.
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Devotio has classical patristic and medieval roots. It carries the sense of inner and outer devotion; modernus simply meaning present day, now. Hence devotio moderna is the piety for now. A religious movement of the 14th Century that lasted to the 16th century in the Low countires of Europe. It had its devotional roots in the 12th century devotion of the likes of St Victor, mysticism of the Rhineland (Eikhart and Jan van Ruysbroek) had created fervour that moved out of the religious institutions and into what are seen as houses of laity. Their intent? To establish the religious, pious life by other forms, spiritualities and structures, than was thought to be offered by the older orders rules and traditions, especially monastic institutionalism. So perhaps we also need to push on beyond lessons from the monastic and explore what led towards reformation. Devotio moderna emphasized the following of the example fo Christ, while living communally, but without vows, in the world. They had a stress on habits of prayer, meditation, communal reading and work. It empahasised a practical piety. Seems to me that emergent is such an expression among us today - a devotio post-modern ? as we find ways forward into reform and beyond.

Dear Frankie...

Dear Frankie ... a simple little film set in Glasgow and in Greenock. It is nothing flash and maybe I'm being nostalgic about Scotland just now, but it it is the story of nine year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie who have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside town of Greenock. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie goes thorugh this complex 'ritual' of reading Frankies's letters to his 'da' sent to a PO Box which she then writes sending news and a stamp from some far off places, pretending to be his dad. It is a big cover up to keep Frankie safe. But she is always afraid.

As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day. See the movie for the rest, but for me it offered hope and said something about love that sets us free again. Lizzie needs to re-learn and in the end you are left to make your choice on these things. But I think its humour, its touch and story speak of hope in the realities of life and asks of us what are we afraid of to be loved and move on in hope?

Today we came nearer to the end of our sojourn with the Book of Lamentations (in case you wonder it is not that I am morose, but we worship in Roslyn 1 and 3rd Sundays of the month, so it takes a bit longer!) We thought about it's teaching resistance as a means of being able to 'lament' and share the stories of our pains etc in a safe place/space together in God's presence, further one that is a resistance borne out of our very weakness in which God's strength is shown and known. Indeed, resistance through lament weakness begins to untangle the mess and knots of greif, woundedness, despair and violent rage that so pervades society. So often resistance is NOt that of the child graspng for the stronger hand of the parent, et tha is what I sense is here and gives us hope to be agents too of different practices in mission. Practices that allow us to be less individulaistic as a church and more of a community sharing faith and life in Christ.

The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties...
But still - that is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the
enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood
and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced. (Henri Nouwen in Reaching Out , p64)

So today we had some new families present, one with Paul who cannot speak and was in a wheel chair. What touched me was to see and hear how people from the congregation responded and welcomed and laughed with this family. It was not forced or awkward. I pray we continue to grow into being a congregation that with Christ in our midst, and in our weaknesses practices resistance and has the identity as a people who care with the fervour of God and reveals that care in hospitality in and through the precious gift of friendship. LAment encourages us to be such in these 'exile days', and we too must ask and face the honest question 'What are we afraid of in the face of love?'

Go see Dear Frankie if you can, not with blockbuster expectations, but quiet enjoyment of life touched by a stranger.