“Re-monking”: What can secular monastics learn from Christian “New Monasticism”?
In “Re-Monking the Church: new monasticism“, Dr. Chris Armstrong (author of the book Patron Saints for Postmoderns) asks: Can Western monasticism’s “father,” Benedict, still give us an antidote to cultural compromise? His question is inspired by the words of historian Mark Noll: “For over a millennium, in the centuries between the reign of Constantine and the Protestant Reformation, almost […]
Benedict’s “Conversatio Morum”, Ezra Pound’s “Make it new” & Confucius’s “日日新”
I discussed the panoply of translations of Benedict’s vow Conversatio Morum. I wonder if the intent of Coversatio Morum, is similar to the Confucian 茍日新，日日新，又日新. “If you renew yourself for one day, you can renew yourself daily, and continue to do so.” [1. “The Great Learning 大學”, Translated by A. Charles Muller] Ezra Pound fixated […]
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well
Speaking of the inner life of nuns… Most of the scholars I’ve met who study Western monasticism are also hardcore medievalists, and some of them would fit well into All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be a well, the first novel by Tod Wodicka. The description from GoodReads: […]
The Elements (part 1): Conversatio Morum » “Conversion of Life”
[This series of posts, “The Elements of Monasticism” asks the question, what exactly is monasticism? The first three Elements are from the Catholic Benedictine tradition: Conversatio Morum, Stabilitas Loci, and Obedientia.] Conversatio Morum (or Convertio Morum) is interpreted variously: from merely “to live the Benedictine form of the cenobitic life” / “fidelity to the monastic life,” to […]
Baroque nun’s music
Last night I watched my fiancé Phoebe sing with Cappella Artemisia in St. Elizabeth Cathedral in Wrocław, Poland. Cappella Artemisia performs music by/for 16th-17th century Italian nuns. Cappella Artemisia is an ensemble of voices and instruments which attempts to provide some answers to an intriguing mystery. Throughout the late 16th and 17th centuries, the chronicles […]
Getting the questions right
Examples of the secular world learning from the world’s ancient contemplative and spiritual traditions abound. Neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, cognitive scientists and cosmologists are learning from inner technologies of meditation and contemplative practice. But what of the outer, visible, measurable technologies of those traditions? How are we learning from those technologies that fit into what is […]
