a different order of time

I arrived at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota on Saturday, June 9^th.  For reasons I cannot explain even to myself, I have wanted to come here for over 20 years.  My plan was simple: for the next eleven days I would worship whenever the monks worshipped.  Within 23 hours of arriving, I had already been to ‘church’ four times.

They call this “The Liturgy of the Hours” or “Divine Office” and the weekly schedule for worship at Saint John’s is as follows:

7:00 a.m.              Morning Prayer
Noon                     Midday Prayer
5:00 p.m.             Community Eucharist
7:00 p.m.             Evening Prayer

The schedule on Saturdays and Sundays is different, so you’ve got to be on your toes or you could miss something.  But there is a built-in assist: a carillon of bells tolls the time in 15-minute increments.  At 15 minutes after the hour you hear a single toll.  At 30 minutes after the hour, two tolls.  At 45 minutes, three tolls.  On the hour, you’ll hear four tolls of the bell, followed by a lower, deeper (obviously way bigger) bell that strikes the hour.  There is no need to wear a watch; wherever you are, you can keep track of the time by the sound of the bells.  To make it even more clear, 10 minutes before worship one of those big bells starts swinging and clanging away, making a heck of a racket, to be sure everybody knows it’s time to set aside whatever they are doing and attend to the one thing that is needful.

The first Benedictine monastery in the United States was founded in 1846.  Saint Vincent Archabbey is located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania — about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.  In 1856 — just twelve years after its own founding — Benedictine monks from Saint Vincent’s traveled to the Minnesota territory to establish parishes, missions, and schools for immigrant German Catholics.  Six months after they arrived on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the monks of Saint John’s Abbey had begun a ministry of education.  Saint John’s Preparatory School, University, and Seminary were established in 1857.  The preparatory school is Minnesota’s oldest high school; the university is Minnesota’s oldest continuous institution of higher learning.  Today, about 140 monks make up the community of Saint John’s Abbey, which is now located on 2,700 acres of forest, lakes, prairie, and wetlands in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Benedictine monks are a community of men who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict.  The Rule is a brief and practical work about how human beings can best live in community.  It was written in the sixth century (somewhere around the year 530 A.D.)  by Benedict of Nursia, who gave up the life of a Roman nobleman to live a life dedicated to God.  Because of its balanced approach to monastic life, the Rule of Saint Benedict was adopted by most religious communities founded throughout the Middle Ages.  As a result, it became one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom.   For this reason, Benedict is often called the founder of western Christian monasticism.  Besides the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Rule stresses communal living, physical labor, common meals, and the avoidance of unnecessary conversation.

My sabbatical studies began at The Simple Way – an intentional community of primarily young evangelical Christians living in Kensington, Pennsylvania who see themselves as part of a movement called, “the new monasticism.”  The new monastics identify 12 marks of their distinctive identity.  These are:

1.  Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.
2. Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.
3. Hospitality to the stranger.
4. Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.
5. Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.
6. Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the community along the lines of the old novitiate.
7. Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.
8. Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.
9. Geographical proximity to community members
   who share a common rule of life.
10. Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us
    along with support of our local economies.
11. Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.
12. Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.

I am still actively learning from and reflecting upon my time at The Simple Way.  But now, my sabbatical journey continues with another community…

One of the first things I noticed was how many visibly disabled people there are on the streets – people in wheelchairs (not the electric ones) trying to navigate the same lanes of traffic as the cars; people on crutches with significant disabilities crossing dangerous intersections; the prevalence of the obviously mentally ill who engage in shouting matches with unseen opponents.  It’s not that the suburbs are free of suffering.  It’s just that this neighborhood seems to be a place where, proportionally, more suffering people live.

Yesterday I saw something I will not easily forget.  I was on my way back to the Hospitality House, driving north on Frankford Avenue.  A sudden and violent rainstorm made driving difficult and visibility poor.  Coming towards me, in the opposite lane of traffic, was a little boy of about 9 or 10 laboring to push an old woman in a wheelchair through the torrential rain.  They were both completely soaked and he was trying his best to run and push the chair at the same time.  The old woman was no bigger than the boy: she was a tiny woman, and both of her legs were amputated above the knees – the stumps protruding below her short pants.

In that one moment, so many things went through my mind.  My initial thought was that, here was a young boy doing his best to take care of his grandmother – though I have no idea of the actual relationship between them.  I feared for their safety – there in the midst of a busy street, during a storm, with cars everywhere about them.   I flashed on how many people I had seen on these streets in recent days with amputated limbs and I wondered about the prevalence of diabetes among this population.  I thought, again, about what it means to be poor and disabled – particularly in a society where to be either is bordering on the criminal.  I did not, in that moment, wonder about why a child so young was left with a responsibility so great – an obligation that had clearly put him at risk.  I did not wonder about why he was not, instead, in school – though it was early in the afternoon and he was of school age.  I do not know their story.  But, as a mother, I do know that this child was being asked to do something too big for him to do.

“Nobody comes to Kensington because they want to,” he said.  It was during a conversation with one of the staff members of The Simple Way.  “They come because they’ve been dropped here, or because it’s cheap and they can afford to live here.”

This is a place where people come when they have no margin — when they have no savings, no first and last month’s rent, no security deposit, no medical insurance.  This is where they come when they are trying to get by on a tiny pension, or no pension at all, or Social Security Disability Insurance.  This is where they end up when they’ve run out of other options and find themselves careening through traffic in the middle of a thunderstorm with no margin for error.

“Nobody comes to Kensington because they want to.”  I don’t know if that’s true or not.  What I can say is that, in this one section of Philadelphia there is a great gathering of humanity who live in the midst of terrible deprivation.  And some of them manage to get by — despite very little margin for error.

By the end of the second night I hit a wall.  I’ve never been in a place where I had to contend with cockroaches – until now.  They can live in the refrigerator you know.  Judging from their desiccated little carcasses in the freezer, that seems to be the only truly safe place for food.  You have to really think through food preparation and storage in a place like this.  And then, of course, there’s the surprise factor: opening the silverware drawer to find that you have company.

I had managed to navigate the streets, I had come to terms with the noise, I was starting to figure out the neighborhood, but the cockroaches did me in.  Something about that just wore me down.  I decided to leave and went home that night with Rob.

All night long I lay in my bed in Ambler thinking: I should be in Kensington.  I didn’t sleep well at all.  I also thought about how grateful I am to live where I live – in a safe and quiet neighborhood, in a home that is familiar and secure, and where the only significant animal life inside the house is our aging and increasingly neurotic Jack Russell Terrier.  By morning, I was ready to go back.

Somehow that was a turning point.  Knowing that I could choose to leave made it possible to stay.  I got up early, drove into town (and didn’t get lost this time), attended Morning Prayer and, afterwards, the ‘kids’ actually spoke to me.  The Residents of The Simple Way aren’t really kids — they’re all in their late 20’s or early 30’s.  But now that I’m 50 I can say these things.

Maybe I’ll figure this out yet.

The heat broke overnight.  I discovered this by going on my iPhone and checking the weather app – not by actually going outside.  It said it was 60 degrees.  That meant it was cooler outside than it was inside.  I turned off the AC and tried to open the windows.  They opened with ease.  I tied back the curtains and opened the window in the rear bedroom as well.  The breeze was a godsend.  By late morning, the downstairs windows were open too and fresh air had moved the heat and stench out of the house.  The neighborhood was still unfamiliar, but it was looking less ominous.  I sat by the window to read but became more and more intrigued with the activities of the people below.

I am still trying to get my hands around the work of The Simple Way and what I need to learn from it.  This day had brought two encounters with the community – morning worship, and an opportunity to meet with their CEO (“cEO with a small c,” they said).  I had been frustrated in my attempts to connect with the organization in the ways I wanted.  I knew that if I had work to do – ministry to engage in – I would feel more comfortable.  I would have a purpose.  But that’s not their model.  They do not believe in short-term volunteers.  Ministry grows out of deep relationship and in order to be a part of the ministry of The Simple Way you need to make an 18-month commitment to live in community.  The Hospitality House provides an opportunity to ‘come and see’ but not touch.  They seemed to believe there would be value in this kind of exposure, so I was going to trust that they were right.

By evening of the second day, I was sitting on the front steps of the house waiting for Rob to arrive on the Market-Frankford Line.  He was coming to join me for the Midrash conversation that night – a class on Liberation Theology.  It dawned on me then how much had shifted in little more than 24 hours: from doors and windows closed and locked and me hiding behind them, to sitting outside on the front stoop – the windows to the house wide open – waiting for my husband to arrive.  It’s not my neighborhood, but I’m starting to recognize it.

I spent most of my first day holed up in that one air-conditioned bedroom.  The curtains were closed to keep out the sun but I was just as happy to hide behind them until I got my bearings.  I peered out the back window and saw a view that I have only seen from the R5 train as it makes its way through North Philadelphia – the backs of narrow dilapidated row homes.  I peered out the front window and saw an impoverished urban neighborhood that left me ill at ease.  I closed and locked the hollow bedroom door (like that would do anything) and took a 2 ½ hour nap.

Eventually, I forced myself to go outside — walking along Kensington Avenue under the tracks of the “El” — nothing seemed recognizable.  There was a woman on one corner in a full burka, and a shop selling large, gold, dollar-symbol necklaces.  There were more Checks Cashed stores than I could count and more places closed than open – their doors barred with chains and padlocks.  This was not the right direction to walk.  I turned around and headed down Allegheny where I found a tiny little market.  I bought eggs, milk, corn flakes (the only choice), asparagus, nectarines and butter.  I’d figure it out.  A little further on I stopped at the Chinese restaurant that one of Residents said was worth a try.  The young Asian woman took my order from behind bullet-proof glass.  I couldn’t even hand her the money directly: I had to reach in and to the left to pay her and retrieve my package.  When I returned ‘home’ I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be going out again that day.

The rest of the night I read in my upstairs bedroom, grateful for the air conditioner.  From my chair I could see around the edges of the curtains.  I kept looking out the window to check on my car.  I kept making sure the bedroom door was locked.  I am not at ease here.  This reminds me of what Israel felt like: trapped inside with the doors locked out of fear.

Even though I had made the journey the day before, I got lost anyway.  I missed a few important turns and ended up on streets even more narrow and unfamiliar than the ones I had navigated the day before.  There is nothing that makes me more anxious than being lost: it stirs up all my feelings of incompetence, and once those demons have set upon me the way is open for more to rush in.  And so I arrived at The Hospitality House exhausted and without confidence.

It was the oppressive heat that hit me first – that, and the overpowering stench of cat urine.  A row house in a heat wave is like an oven.  Suddenly, all those people hanging out on their front steps made much more sense to me.  One of the young residents of The Simple Way showed me around the house, set me up in the one room with a tiny window air conditioner, and said as he left, “lock as many locks as you want.”  There were two.

The sounds of a neighborhood like Kensington are entirely different than the sleepy little borough of Ambler where I live: the constant din of traffic, emergency sirens, honking horns, speeding vehicles, barking dogs, the ice cream truck making its rounds, the Market-Frankford Line pulling in and out at regular intervals — the automated voice announcing, “Doors are closing,” the occasional but distinctive sound of colliding automobiles, and the pulsing beat of competing cultures both in the music that lives in the neighborhood and in that which drives by with regularity.  Families pour out into the streets to escape the heat of their homes and all manner of communication takes place right there on the sidewalk – carried on at great volume.  Everyone else’s language always sounds like an argument to me – loud, insistent, indecipherable.  Probably more likely, they are discussing the weather or the economy.  But with four different languages audible through the walls and windows, it’s hard to know.   And finally, there is the occasional sound of firecrackers or gunfire or the backfire of a passing vehicle.  It could be any of these things and probably is all three.

I’ve been thinking about my Dad a lot lately.  After Rob and I moved to Philadelphia 24 years ago, Dad made the trip from California by train.  He visited with his mother in Boston and also with us.  I was still getting used to the culture shock of an east coast city and I must have told my Dad that many parts of Philadelphia felt very dangerous to me.  Dad said something like, “What’s unfamiliar feels dangerous.  When you get to know it, it won’t feel that way so much anymore.”

I miss my Dad.

The day before I was set to arrive I drove to Kensington to get the feel of the place.  I’d been on some of these streets before – back when I coordinated the Old First Retreat as Associate Pastor.   Then, we’d take the bus from 9th and Arch to “Whosoever Gospel Mission” in Germantown or we’d drive from Old First to St. Francis’ Inn on Kensington Avenue to help serve lunch to anyone who showed up.  At St. Francis’ Inn they have a practice of seating everyone at tables of four and waiting upon them as honored guests.  But that was almost ten years ago now and I hadn’t been back in a long time.

The Simple Way “Village House” sits on a corner, occupying a triangle-shaped brick building.  This is the place where the Residents live – currently three young adults who have committed to living in community with one another and the neighborhood for a period of one to two years.  The Village House is also the place for Morning Prayer at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday, an after-school program Tuesday through Thursday afternoons, a class on Liberation Theology Thursday nights, and where Community Potlucks are held and outside speakers come to visit most Friday nights.  In between all of this, it is a hub of ministry – coordinating neighborhood volunteers to oversee a food distribution program, neighborhood celebrations, and a small community garden.

The Simple Way owns a total of seven properties, scattered throughout the neighborhood: The Village House, The Hospitality House, The Office on Allegheny Avenue, and four additional row homes housing members of The Simple Way community.  With the exception of the office on Allegheny Avenue, the other six properties are all located within a small triangle of streets:  Potter, “H” and Westmoreland.  Where able, they have reclaimed abandoned lots, turning them into green spaces.  There are now four of them – a sweet little triangle-shaped park across from The Hospitality House, two small lots — one with a hydroponic garden in-the-making, another with boxes of raised beds for a small community garden, and a newly acquired large lot (the result of a fire five years ago) which has just been fenced and seeded in order to provide a safe place for children to play.

My ‘scouting’ day was a hot one and a few fire hydrants had been opened to allow both children and adults to cool off in their forceful spray.  Though mid-afternoon, the neighborhood bustled with activity.   Philadelphia schools let out early due to the high temperatures and there were plenty of adults catching what breezes they could on their front steps.  Children darted between parked cars and I navigated the narrow and unfamiliar streets with care.

This would be a time of learning, and an adventure.

On Wednesday, May 30^th I arrived at The Simple Way for a week-long stay.  Their Hospitality House is a three-bedroom row house located on “H” Street in Kensington, Pennsylvania.  I had the run of the place: the other person scheduled to be here at the same time re-scheduled.

There’s a plaque on the wall of each of the bedrooms.  In addition to posting the house rules — such as no firearms or weapons of any kind, no alcohol or illegal substances, no taking photos or video of our neighbors and neighborhood – the plaque also said this:

The Simple Way is a faith-based non-profit organization that has been living and working here for over 10 years.  Formerly a factory town, the surrounding neighborhood is called Kensington.  The row houses, like the one you are in, were built around the factories, some by the factory owners themselves.  Over the past 40 years, many of the factories have moved out of the neighborhood, and we have lost over 200,000 jobs.  You can see over 500 abandoned factories and over 20,000 abandoned houses.  This neighborhood is one of the most ethnically diverse in Philadelphia, with a pretty even mix of African-American, Latino (mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican), and white folks (many Polish and Irish descendants of the factory days).

The Simple Way is a web of subversive friends, many of whom live within walking distance of the Hospitality House.  We are committed to Loving God, Loving People, and Following Jesus.  While it has its struggles, we believe Kensington is poised for resurrection.