Monasteries

 

St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai

A friend—two friends, actually—have recently casually condemned the monastic life: “Faith without works is dead. Self-awareness without action is….? a retreat to the monastery.” And: “At this point in time [nothing] is worse than a retreat to a monastery - it is an abdication of responsibility as an enlightened human to help Earth and to be an active part of Earth.”

This especially perturbs me, as I believe monasteries are of great value, and the solution to many of our urgent problems. 

When one retires to a monastery, one is of course not withdrawing from Earth. One is withdrawing specifically from the social life. One is withdrawing from at least one, presumably three, of the great temptations: “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” We are told to be “in the world, but not of it.” That’s what the monastery offers.

Recall too the example of Martha and Mary: in calmly worshipping rather than puttering about, Mary had chosen the better part. “The wicked will not rest.”

Nor is one withdrawing from good works by withdrawing from social life. Monasteries perform many good works.

The greatest value of the monastery, and the reason we have urgent need for them, is as a refuge for the persecuted. Many families are dysfunctional. This is, I submit, on the evidence, the cause of most if not all of what we call mental illness. At least, more broadly, bad life situations, bad social situations, are the cause of “mental illness.” Unfortunately, especially for the young, we have nowhere to go—to escape, to get a little quiet, a chance to get away from the incessant noise and sort things through. Mental hospitals failed at this—and in any case, have all been closed down. As have the orphanages.

As a result, many lives are lost, many live in unending torture, many are unproductive who might have given much. Many explode, lash out, and cause further harm to themselves and others in chain reactions unto the fourth genertion.

In earlier times, there was a safety valve. “Get thee to a nunnery.” It was so obviously valuable that it emerged independently in most societies: in the Buddhist East, in Sufism, in the Hindu ashram, as well as in Christianity East and West. We need that desperately. Society needs that desperately.

We need it for social justice.

Justice means everyone gets their just desserts, what they merit: meritocracy. “Social justice,” a Catholic concept, amends this by pointing out that all humans deserve respect and a decent life, even if they are not contributing to society. 

Monasteries provide this element: the poor can always find a home and respect in a monastery. Monasteries have automatically taken in the disabled, infirm, orphaned children, or the congenitally incapable; and given them a purpose and a community. Monasteries were the first hospitals. They are also the only successful “communist” or “socialist” societies.

Monasteries are also centres of learning. The life of the mind is not just a good work; it is an exponentially better work than merely feeding the poor at your door, or in your neighbourhood—which they also do--on the old but true saw that, if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; but if you teach him to fish, he never goes hungry. They teach and preach, give meaning, and they preserved civilization itself through the dark ages when the Roman Empire collapsed. They are the one place where an artist can make a living at his or her art. They are responsible for many scientific discoveries and civilizational advances. They were the original libraries, and the original universities.

In this, as a centre of learning and study, the monastery is still a better option than the university. The modern university is plagued with politics and careerism. The university has gone astray without its religious mission. The monastery preserves the necessary detachment and objectivity, and the absence of the profit motive. 

And the downside is—what? As an individual, if the monastery turns out to be abusive or unpleasant—you just pack up and leave. This is why, uniquely, they work as communist societies. Because they are purely voluntary.

Monasteries have shown that they can be self-sustaining. They don’t have to take tax money. They don’t cost the government anything. In fact, their great financial success is why they are now rare. Governments worried about their growing power, and coveted their assets. The same problem encountered by the Knights Templar, and the Jews: the dangers of success.

How can we revive them?

The Causes of Homelessness, and the Solution

 

Friend Xerxes the gauche columnist writes of homelessness, a growing problem in Canada. He puts it down to two causes: poverty, and mental illness. Which latter he regrettably conflates with addiction, as many seem to nowadays.

As I see it, there are five causes of homelessness.

First, mental illness. Due to mental illness, some people are incapable of organizing their lives well enough to manage such necessities. These people are urgently in need of our help. We have foolishly or deliberately shut down the mental institutions, turning the chronically mentally ill out on the street to die. And mental illness is growing by leaps and lunges.

Second, addictions. Addicts, if they get any money, spend it on alcohol or their drug, rather than on necessities. This is not the same group as the mentally ill, and the issue is different. There is not much we can do for them; they have to do it for themselves.

Third, abusive families. Young people trying to escape abuse are often too young and inexperienced to look after themselves; child labour laws and minimum wage laws prevent them from making an honest living. For example, this is the simple and obvious explanation for the “missing and murdered indigenous women.” Or the suicide pacts among native youth. Yet we do nothing for this group; we seem to try to make things worse for them. If they happen to come to the attention of the authorities, the first thing the authorities will do is send them back to their families.

These kids are also vulnerable to child trafficking.

Fourth, economic instability. People can be temporarily caught short by sudden unemployment, illness, bankruptcy, a recent move, and the like. One problem is that you cannot get welfare without a fixed address; but it is likely that you cannot get a fixed address without welfare. This almost seems a deliberate catch-22.

Fifth, voluntarily homeless, an often admirable desire to escape the system and get off the grid. Like the Franciscans, or the sannyasins of India.

The best solution, in all cases, is this: build more monasteries.

Monasteries used to be the haven for the homeless. They served this purpose in Europe, in East Asia, or in the Middle East. And they gave not just a temporary bed and a meal, but a reason for living, and the chance for quiet contemplation required to put your life back together. This is the prime cause of mental illness and addictions and voluntary homelessness, that urge to escape, in the first place: a sense of the meaninglessness of modern life. A collapse in faith. Faith is the cure. 

Children from abusive families, in particular, could once escape to a monastery, and receive not just physical sustenance, but a community, a voluntary family, an education, a trade.

The monasteries were also financially self-sustaining; they generally took no tax dollars. Indeed, they were so successful that they were destroyed across Europe and China by an envious civil authority, to crush a competing centre of power and to confiscate their assets.

There was an attempt to revive something like the Medieval monasteries in the “cults” of the seventies: the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, the Children of God, Scientology and the like. But again, civil authority and social authority came down hard on them. Remember Waco?

It is no doubt true that some such cults were harmful. This is why it is better to have monasteries, that can be overseen by some larger and established authority, rather than individual charismatic leaders. But the cults were fulling a hole left unfilled by the established religions, afraid of crossing the civil authority, and they were better than nothing.

This crushing of the monasteries, then the cults, was a terrible mistake. It was probably also a mistake to close the Indian Residential Schools, which served part of the same purpose, for at least a segment of the population.

Something that might be done, for at least some temporary help, is to buy up the many motels across the country that are now in relative disuse, as vacationing by car has fallen out of fashion. They could be refitted as basic homes: just a bed, a bathroom, a hot plate and a refrigerator. No cost, no questions, but subject to regular drug testing.

And hoe about similarly converting the old abandoned residential schools?