Thread by @Helenreflects

Been thinking about the monastic life.
Monks and nuns throughout the ages have deliberately aimed for a lifestyle many would recognize as our pandemic lifestyle: boring, predictable, with a few close people or alone.
What can their choices tell us about our lives now?
Thread 1/

After a year in pandemic world, we see articles like this that frame the pandemic as having very negative effects on our minds. The article quotes a neuroscientist saying "We’re all walking around with some mild cognitive impairment" - are we? 2/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…

The Desert Fathers and Mothers, the earliest monks and nuns, deliberately chose a life of isolation (either by themselves or with a few close people), conveniently close enough to a river, a city, but still, predictable, boring, not fun, why did they choose lives like that? 3/

The reasons for this are complex. Part of it has to do with the fact that early Christians wanted to move away from the world and its many distractions, also the route of martyrdom was not open anymore as Xianity became the de facto state religion of the Roman Empire 4/

But also, interestingly, monks and nuns throughout history have believed that a lifestyle we now would recognize has a lot in common with pandemic sheltering (with a few close people or alone, boring, predictable, work) would provide spiritual clarity 5/

They believed that the monastic lifestyle would open up our minds and souls to become closer to God. You see this in for instance St Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, where she likens the soul to layers of inner mansions 6/
sacred-texts.com/chr/tic/index.…

She responds to the objection that "if this castle is the soul, clearly no one can have to enter it, for it is the person himself: one might as well tell some one to go into a room he is already in!" as follows "There are, however, very different ways of being in this castle" 7/

The contemplative life, in Theresa's view, creates the possibility of clarity but many do not reach it. They only reach the outer mansions of the castle of their souls. But with deep contemplation, it becomes possible to reach the inner mansions. 8/

Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa's apophatic mysticism likens the soul to a mirror. Our souls are like a mirror reflecting God's beauty and splendor. When the bad effects of original sin, which mar our divine image are restored, we can reflect God again. 9/

The human soul/mirror of God can only convey an image of its original only as and when it is “looking to” its original. Contemplation then, by focusing our minds on God and away from worldly affairs, helps to restore the divine image in us (commentary on Song of Songs) 10/

The contemplative, monastic life creates the conditions for the soul to become clear, like a shining mirror, purified from the muddle of social expectations and worldly attractions. This is quite different from the very negative experience that sheltering-in-place provides 11/

I've been thinking of these contrasting images--of brain fog and cognitive impairment and of clarity and cognitive enrichment--that the Atlantic article presents and that medieval mystics present to us. Under what conditions can boredom and isolation provide clarity? 12/

A huge difference is probably that many (not all!) monks and nuns who chose the monastic lifestyle did so voluntarily whereas sheltering-in-place is either state mandated or done because one wants to protect health and health of loved ones 13/

And we mustn't forget that indeed that threat is real: so many people with long covid, so many people who lost loved ones, the huge burdens when we do venture out (masking, social distancing etc) that all makes a huge difference 14/

But in spite of all of that, in spite of the fact sheltering-in-place in a pandemic isn't voluntarily, that the monastic clarity is something we've glimpsed. I'm still struggling to articulate this clarity. 15/

Take the social look of others, which philosophers such as Sartre, Fanon, De Beavoir discuss as "le regard"- the social expectations that demand of us to be a certain way. When it is diminished/falls away, what happens? 16/

People, especially women, have taken to: not wearing makeup, not wearing uncomfortable pants, not wearing heals, not dyeing hair to mask grey. Deodorant sales have plummeted. There is a kind of freedom in not being told to smile. 17/

There is a kind of alienation toward our previous lives. Anyway, maybe I'm just trying to make lemonade with the lemons I'm having now (acknowledging my privilege as a middle-class person!), but there are those moments of clarity and contemplation this past year I've had 18/

...that I haven't had before. My kids have been schooling at home for a year, I've had a lot of service work etc so it is not a calm bed of roses. Still the boredom of this strange existence made me think of anchorites, hermits and monks, and the clarity they were seeking /end

Thank you to @SaraLUckelman and @RebeccaBamford for helping me further think about this issue. It's complex and difficult!