Hi everyone, this week we are meeting in the Enigma Tap at 7.30. Hope to see yo there.
A few months ago, I had a chat with one of our BCFX family who’d had a really hard week.
It got me thinking that a community like us has its benefits and downsides. And one of those downsides is that we are not always able to pick up when others are struggling. And that got me thinking about cloisters…
George Lings wrote a book called “Seven sacred spaces”. He looked at the areas of a monastery and tried to map these onto our communities. Each has its own purpose; each is a part of the whole jigsaw of what a community needs to be whole, wholesome, and working. The spaces are: The Chapel for worship; the library (or scriptorium) for learning or passing on knowledge; the Cell for alone time with God; the chapter house for meetings and decision making; the garden for work; the refectory for food and hospitality; and the cloister for….?
I’ve used this model a couple of times with churches to think about if they’re living a 360-community life and they find they can find things they do for most of the list (even if a little tenuous). However, people often find the refectory quite hard as church social events often don’t quite exude the idea of hospitality, and cloisters…
The central part of a monastery has a rectangular courtyard. Rather than being a paved area you can cross diagonally, a cloister is a walkway around it. Now you may think that it’s a covered corridor to keep out of the rain, but it has a more subtle and intentional purpose. As you walk from space to space around the courtyard you must walk past those, you’re in community. You can’t avoid your companions. Maybe you’d wish to avoid them – then you are going to bump into them sooner or later. Maybe you are lonely, or down. Well, you cannot avoid seeing those who you share the space with. And if they know you well, they should pick up on it.
To cloister (if you’ll pardon me using it as a verb) isn’t to keep hidden, it’s to be surprised by encounters with others and to come, unavoidably, face to face with each other. We cannot dodge our responsibility to see each other. To miss the opportunity to ask “How are you doing?”
So, I want us to think about what cloister looks like in a community like ours. Our dispersed model is great for some things. It’s fantastic that we can dip in and out. But how do we make sure that we come face-to-face (in reality or virtually) and cloister together?
Questions
Tell us about the most surprising conversation/situation with another person you encountered over the summer?
Have you ever experienced a cloister in a church? What was it like?
Have you ever had a cloistering moment where you’ve bumped into someone and realised they are not OK, or bumped into someone you’d rather avoid?
How do the Seven sacred spaces map onto BCFX?
Are there any other spaces which we miss?
How could we create a virtual cloister?
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
I’ve been a member of BCFX for about 2 years. I love it. It’s home and hearth, welcome and challenge, ebb and flow.
