What I love about blogging...

... is the way conversations can intersect and shed light on one another.

Here are a couple of posts I ran across today:

Chris at Transfiguration Community (a new monastic order in Australia) wrote several posts on Charles deFoucauld last week (HT Antony). This one touches on some of the questions I raised in Suburban. Foucauld's quote has to do with God allowing us to remain poor in order to "become the treasurer of the poor." Chris asks some penetrating questions:

Does what I/we own, what I fleetingly possess, bring me closer to God through it use, or drive me further away?
Is my/our life style cutting me off from others, or opening doors?

In our affluent west, these questions are of urgent importance.
What do I have to offer someone in Dafour, Iran, East Timor - apart from my gift of aid?
But is this too easy?
Send off some excess cash and feel better.

What about the poor and needy in my neighbourhood,or in my own family?
What about those in our affluent west who are spiritually poor?
How do I respond to these people?
Do my possessions, my lifestyle, hinder my connections, or the possibilities of contact?

In the spirit of small beginnings, our family is launching an experiment in being "treasurer to the poor" through Kiva. I hope it doesn't fall into the category of "send off some excess cash and feel better," but can actually become a learning experience for our kids as well as us.

Antony at Coming to the Quiet posted the other day about apotaktikoi or "city monks" from the early church era. It's an interesting counter point to all the talk about emerging church forms, to realize that so many radical approaches to faithful life and witness are right there for us in the history of the church.

The first persons ever to be called monakos, "monk", in the ancient world were not the "fathers and mothers" like Antony and company who went away from society into the desert to seek God in (mostly) solitude. They were a group called the apotaktikoi, (The word means something like "those who stand out from the established order.") men and women of the Egyptian cities, towns, and villages who attempted a very different way of life while remaining in the midst of society. They took vows to live simply, not accumulate many possessions, to live lives of prayer and social service. The apotaktikoi began to appear sometime before the middle of the third century, as this is when they first show up in any documents.

Some of the apotaktikoi became revered by the locals and sought out as spiritual guides, just as the desert monks would be. Often they were supported by the locals, who asked them for their constant prayers. They lived lives of spiritual discipline and often in groups very near a church where they could worship daily. They actively sought to influence the values of their society through the example of their "counter-cultural" lives.