Living In Culture, Not In Time

The intriguing statement above is taken from an interview with Drasko Dizdar on 'The Spirit of Things' hosted by Rachael Kohn on ABC National here in Australia.

The interview held me spellbound - Drasko Dizdar is a Theology lecturer with a PhD in hermeneutics, and he is birthing a monastic community in Tasmania based on the ecumenical community of Taize and the Camaldolese Benedictine Monks. The Camaldolese are the oldest continuing Benedictine Order, and Drasko speaks of the teachings of Romuald, who banded together a bunch of eccentric hermits about 1000 years ago and gave them a basic structure for praxis.

With the Tasmanian community, the idea is that the younger generation, today, are experiencing a Christian 'renewal', of sorts, and the community aims to be syncretic in it's approach. Ideally, the path for the novitiate is built via a formation, then a deeper solitude at the Hermitage and finally the monk takes a missonary-like role, back out in the wider community.

He also speaks of the new appeal of the Liturgy to young people, where ritual becomes language, and ongoing expression of God's presence here on earth. My thrill with his statement in the blog's title comes with the notion that the younger (sub 40) generation today no longer live with a sense of history, they live devoid of time, they live in culture.

Further into the interview, the blending of the cosmic, the personal and the historical is the genius of Judaic liturgy is discussed.

The orthodox Catholic church belongs to the part of the Christian world that aligned itself with Temple Judaism - a priestly religion. This was the dominant form of Judaism during Jesus' humans life - Temple religion was destroyed by Constantine and the Romans. They discuss the work of Margaret Barker, who purports that the Temple shapes the whole of the New Testament. The Temple represented the whole of the Cosmos - time before time, space before space and matter before matter, this in which God abides and from which flows everything else. The Universe is recreated at the atonement - the Lord reconciles the world to himself, mysteriously through the person of the High Priest. In speaking the unutterable (ineffable) name of God, the whole microcosm is transformed...

'Do you not know that you are the Temple of the Holy Spirit?, says St Paul.'

But about the community:

"Now my hope is to establish a community of well let's say a handful of people who are dedicated to this way of life, more or less permanently, but certainly indefinitely, as long as it seems right to indeed live like this.

Now that's how the early monks were doing it. There weren't vows and there weren't institutions, there wasn't any canon law controlling it. They were people moved by the spirit to go into the desert to live this life and to live it generously. Because this is what they were called to. So my hope is bring together say a handful who would do that, but around that handful a much larger group of young people who to varying degrees come and live this life for a period of time, whether it's for a short time of a week or so, whether it's up to a year, but really seriously live it and experience it. And then go out and do whatever."

(Dare I say this? She grins, always the dreamer...)

Hopefully there are a few, just a few, who might think Sydney is an inordinately good place to adopt a similar style of vocation. Someday.