Prayer and the community

Last week was the feast day of St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein).  I remember when she was canonized, but until recently had not payed much attention to her.  Her philosophy and response to modernity and its offshoots (such as feminism) is amazing.  Here is an excerpt from The Hidden Life.  

The work of salvation takes place in obscurity and stillness. In the heart’s quiet dialogue with God the living building blocks out of which the kingdom of God grows are prepared, the chosen instruments for the construction forged. The mystical stream that flows through all centuries is no spurious tributary that has strayed from the prayer life of the church it is its deepest life. When this mystical stream breaks through traditional forms, it does so because the Spirit that blows where it will is living in it, this Spirit that has created all traditional forms and must ever create new ones.

Without him there would be no liturgy and no church. Was not the soul of the royal psalmist a harp whose strings resounded under the gentle breath of the Holy Spirit? From the overflowing heart of the Virgin Mary blessed by God streamed the exultant hymn of the “Magnificat.” When the angel’s mysterious word became visible reality, the prophetic “Benedictus” hymn unsealed the lips of the old priest Zechariah, who had been struck dumb. Whatever arose from spirit-filled hearts found expression in words and melodies and continues to be communicated from mouth to mouth. The “Divine Office” is to see that it continues to resound from generation to generation. So the mystical stream forms the many- voiced, continually swelling hymn of praise to the triune God, the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Perfecter.

Therefore, it is not a question of placing the inner prayer free of all traditional forms as “subjective” piety over against the liturgy as the “objective” prayer of the church. Allauthentic prayer is prayer of the church. Through every sincere prayer somethinghappens in the church, and it is the church itself that is praying therein, for it is the Holy Spirit living in the church that intercedes for every individual soul “with sighs too deep for words.” This is exactly what “authentic” prayer is, for “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” What could the prayer of the church be, if not great lovers giving themselves to God who is love!

On Communities

Take it as you will, but remember that the web is not you and it’s not me. The web is just a braindead platform for moving information around, but it’s not your actual friends. And, while it’s insanely understandable to tire of all the horseshit and look-at-me stuff, I must advise you: never miss an opportunity to meet the faces behind your favorite avatars. Especially when they’re all in one place? Wow.

Not a list of peoples’ jokey internet names, not a moldy hillock of kinda-funny-once “memes,” not a series of asynchronous “@” responses, and not a goddamned drama about who follows whom today and what it all means. Talking about meeting people who speak in sentences and have complicated lives and make great things and care about a lot of the same stuff you do. That’s the thing.

Online, offline, or whatever: as far as I’m concerned, it’s only a community when it’s made out of people.

--Merlin Mann

I'm alone but I ain't lonely

Michelle at Daedalus Notes posted a link to an article entitled The End of Solitude. For centuries the author posits solitude was a social good and something to be sought.

Man may be a social animal, but solitude has traditionally been a societal value. In particular, the act of being alone has been understood as an essential dimension of religious experience, albeit one restricted to a self-selected few. Through the solitude of rare spirits, the collective renews its relationship with divinity. The prophet and the hermit, the sadhu and the yogi, pursue their vision quests, invite their trances, in desert or forest or cave. For the still, small voice speaks only in silence. Social life is a bustle of petty concerns, a jostle of quotidian interests, and religious institutions are no exception. You cannot hear God when people are chattering at you, and the divine word, their pretensions notwithstanding, demurs at descending on the monarch and the priest. Communal experience is the human norm, but the solitary encounter with God is the egregious act that refreshes that norm.

Modern society sees solitude as an anathema to be eradicated rather than a gift in which to revel. Technology such as AIM, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, is aimed at giving us constant connection to others ensuring that we are never alone. The article glosses over the fact that technology can be more isolating than true solitude ever was.

For how often do we check someone's away message instead of actually talking to them? Text them a few lines instead of having a conversation? Follow someone's blog and twitter and feel as though that counts as actually knowing them? (And yes I am very guilty of this as I stalk Neil Gaiman sedulously and feel as though we are friends.) These brief technological brushes are hardly substitutes for time spent with someone, for dreams and fears and laughter and life spent together, as the basis of friendship.

The point of solitude, of meditation and introspection is to gain a deeper knowledge of ourselves and the world which we can then share with others. Modern technology places us in a type of limbo; we are never alone so have no true solitude nor do we actually connect with others but rather approach through the interface of technology which allows us to hold people at arms length and saves us from allowing people in. We are not alone, yet neither are we replacing solitude with a web of meaningful human connections.