New Monastics

I read this article in my Sojourners last night about a movement called "New Monastics" and found it quite intriguing! Here is something from San Francisco Chron about it.

Their key tenets (pasting here, since Sojourners requires a log-in to view):


The 12 Marks of a New Monasticism - by Josh Andersen

Moved by God’s Spirit in this time called America to assemble at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, N.C., we wish to acknowledge a movement of radical rebirth, grounded in God’s love and drawing on the rich tradition of Christian practices that have long formed disciples in the simple Way of Christ. This contemporary school for conversion which we have called a “new monasticism” is producing a grassroots ecumenism and a prophetic witness within the North American church which is diverse in form but characterized by the following marks:
1) Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.
2) Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.
3) Hospitality to the stranger.
4) Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.
5) Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.
6) Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the community along the lines of the old novitiate.
7) Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.
8) Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.
9) Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.
10) Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies.
11) Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.
12) Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.
May God give us grace by the power of the Holy Spirit to discern rules for living that will help us embody these marks in our local contexts as signs of Christ’s kingdom for the sake of God’s world.

From http://www.newmonasticism.org/.
Josh Andersen, a former Sojourners intern, is a student at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa.
The 12 Marks of a New Monasticism. by Josh Andersen. Sojourners Magazine, January 2007 (Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 35). Features.

The Compact

The other day on the radio, I heard about this group of friends who swore off buying new things in 2006. I tried to remember their name so I could look it up when I got to work, but got distracted by this and that. Then my mom emailed me a link about The Compact. Very interesting stuff! I joined their yahoo group and think it would be fun to meet like-minded folks. I may give this a try also, now that I understand it's more about reducing footprint than being abstemious. They enjoy buying things used, making an effort to reduce landfill and waste. That I like.

I also love it when things get another use, another chance, a new beauty.

I also highly recommend a book called Mongo: Adventures in Trash. It's all about people in Manhattan and how they re-use things that are tossed. Also see NY Times review.

One reviewer (Rob Hardy on Amazon.com) : " "Mongo" is slang that originated in New York in the 1980s for "any discarded object that is retrieved." This decidedly does not mean mere garbage, the worthless rotting ephemera which no one wants. There are plenty of discarded things, however, from books to wood scraps to blocks of buildings, which the person who did the discarding thought were worth zero and which the eventual collector thought had value. And many times, that value is in the thousands. Frequently this is a surprising story of rags literally going to riches. Botha reminds us, 'The street collector you see today could well be a bum or a lunatic, that's true enough, but just as easily a millionaire, a schoolteacher, an accountant, a doctor, a housewife.' He has contacted all these levels to report on them."