Stability, Perseverance, and the Rootlessness of American Life
When Gregory the Great ascended to the seat of the papacy in AD 590, he gazed out upon a Roman Empire that was but a pale shadow of the triumphant empire that had confidently stood astride the world of Antiquity. In his despair he cried out:
I ask, what is there now in this world to please us? Everywhere we see sights of mourning and hear the groans of men. Cities are ruined, towns are desolate, fields lie waste; the land hath become a wilderness. No husbandman is left in the fields; scarce a citizen remains in the cities; and even these scant remnants of humanity live under daily and unceasing plagues-plagues of divine justice which have no end, because the guilty actions themselves are not yet amended thereby. Some we see led into captivity, others maimed, others slain; what therefore, my brethren, do we see of pleasure in this life? Nay, if we yet love such a world as this, it is not joys but wounds that we love.[1]
His plaintive cry expressed a forlorn longing for a Greco-Roman world of stability, law, and civilization that had been irrevocably lost. But even as he stared in despair at the wreckage of the classical world, a nascent monastic movement was beginning to send out monks, known as peregrinatti, who would serve not only to re-evangelize an increasingly barbarian Western Europe, but also re-civilize it. As Cardinal Newman pointed out:
[The monks] found the world, physical and social, in ruins, and [their] mission was to restore it… but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work was done, it was not known to be doing. It was a restoration rather than a visitation, correction or conversion. The new work which [they] helped to create was a growth rather than a structure. Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one who contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on, but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning and a city.[2]
One of the chief figures in the broader monastic movement was Benedict of Nursia. Born in AD 480 and distressed by the decadence he saw in Rome and many of the churches of his day, Benedict eventually founded a monastic community. More importantly, he developed a rule to govern that community: a rule that would ultimately be adopted by successive generations of monasteries and go on to form the foundation of the monastic movement in the West. As Richard Dawson points out, the rule’s:
Conception of the monastic life [was] essentially social and co-operative—a discipline of the common life…[that] in an age of insecurity and disorder and barbarism…embodied an ideal of spiritual order and disciplined moral activity which made the monastery an oasis of peace in [a] world of war.[3]
Among the many vows required of individuals who joined a particular monastic community was a vow to what Benedict referred to as “stability:” namely, the promise to remain as part of the same community, and in the same place, for the rest of their life. Benedict recognized that change, both personal and cultural, takes time.
Such a commitment to place and setting down life-long roots strikes many of us as something completely foreign. Modern American life over the past several generations has been increasingly characterized by a growing rootlessness: a lack of connection to place, family, or community. The very phrase we most often use to predict one’s success in life, “they’ll go far,” assumes that one’s success will be in direct correlation to how far they travel from their hometown.
In some ways, our situation resembles that of Gregory’s: Our country is currently experiencing deep cultural rifts, and being rocked by intense political crosscurrents. We’ve seldom been so divided. What this means is that we may be facing a generations-long task of preaching the Gospel, working to repair our fraying social fabric, and re-building a sense of community at a local and national level. God may be calling us to plant the seeds under which our grandchildren will sit.
That’s why at Cambridge House, we’re not looking for the quick fix. Instead, we remember the example set by Benedict and his followers. We believe that by patiently sowing into the lives of students, doing the difficult spade work of whole-life discipleship, and gleaning from the great works of the historic Christian tradition, God eventually, through our efforts, in the years ahead, will bring forth fruit for eternal life…