Green Monasticism


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Monastic Practices


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For three decades, Monastic Practices has been a valued resource for English-speaking aspirants to monastic life. In this revised edition, updated and expanded, Charles Cummings, OCSO, explores the common practices of the monastic life in order to rediscover them as viable means of leading persons to a deeper encounter with God. How do monks and nuns occupy themselves throughout the day? Have they modernized their lifestyle or is it still cluttered with medieval customs? Could any of the monastic practices be of use to those outside the monastery? A certain wisdom is necessary to know how to use such practices and how to give oneself to them until they lead one to God. After long monastic experience, Cummings shows us how the ordinary things we do constitute our path to God. In the art of living life, he argues, we are always beginners, searching for God through our concrete circumstances and actions.




Green Sisters


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Listen to a short interview with Sarah McFarland TaylorHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & CraneIt is perhaps the critical issue of our time: How can we, as human beings, find ethical and sustainable ways to live with one another and with other living beings on this planet? Inviting us into the world of green sisters, this book provides compelling answers from a variety of religious communities. Green sisters are environmentally active Catholic nuns who are working to heal the earth as they cultivate new forms of religious culture. Sarah Taylor approaches this world as an "intimate outsider." Neither Roman Catholic nor member of a religious order, she is a scholar well versed in both ethnography and American religious history who has also spent time shucking garlic and digging vegetable beds with the sisters. With her we encounter sisters in North America who are sod-busting the manicured lawns around their motherhouses to create community-supported organic gardens; building alternative housing structures and hermitages from renewable materials; adopting the "green" technology of composting toilets, solar panels, fluorescent lighting, and hybrid vehicles; and turning their community properties into land trusts with wildlife sanctuaries. Green Sisters gives us a firsthand understanding of the practice and experience of women whose lives bring together Catholicism and ecology, orthodoxy and activism, traditional theology and a passionate mission to save the planet. As green sisters explore ways of living a meaningful religious life in the face of increased cultural diversity and ecological crisis, their story offers hope for the future--and for a deeper understanding of the connections between women, religion, ecology, and culture.




Monastic Ecological Wisdom


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Can early medieval monasteries serve as a model of sustainable development and environmental conservation in today’s world? Inspired by Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Sí and Benedictine communities around the world whose shared monastic values inform ecological practice, Monastic Ecological Wisdom uncovers the hidden story of early Christian and monastic care for the earth. In Monastic Ecological Wisdom, Samuel Torvend shows how it is possible that medieval monastic values and practices could assist in the careful conservation of what we claim is God’s first gift, God’s first gesture of grace: the earth and all that dwells with it. By reflecting on an ecological reading of New Testament texts, the Rule of St. Benedict, and early monastic engagement with the natural world as seen in the life of St. Benedict, such practices can serve thoughtful Christians today who care deeply about living in harmony with the earth and all who call it home.




Monk Dynasty


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Do you need more of "God alone" in your life? Do you need more solitude and silence in the midst of this crazy modern world? Do you need some support from like-minded folks also called to this way of life? If so, you've found the right book!The whimsical title of this little book is "Monk Dynasty" but the content is a serious understanding of monastic history in a way that is informative, fun, and engaging for everyone who reads it.Written by the founder of a new, integrated monastic community who has lived the monastic life for nearly 40 years, the lessons presented, from the past and the present, will help you follow Jesus more completely in the midst of this crazy, modern world.




Domestic Monastery


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What is a monastery? A monastery is a place set apart—a place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God’s. Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. The vocation of monastic men and women is to physically withdraw from the world. But the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation, and provide a desert for reflection. These writings are beautifully presented in a special cloth packaging, hardcover edition. In ten brief and powerful chapters, Fr. Ron explores how the life of the monastery can apply to those who don't live inside the walls of the cloister: Monasticism and Family Life The Domestic Monastery Real Friendship Lessons from the Monastic Cell Ritual for Sustaining Prayer Tensions within Spirituality A Spirituality of Parenting Spirituality and the Seasons of Our Lives The Sacredness of Time Life’s Key Question




Ragbag Theologies


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?It is Denise Ackermann?s work towards the humanity of all which prompted this particular collection of essays in her honour. The idea of honouring Denise with a Festschrift for her 70th birthday was first discussed in 2005 among members of the Cape Town Chapter of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians who met at Denise?s home at the time.? ? Editors




The Spiritual Life


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The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism


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Examinations of the culture - artistic, material, musical - of English monasteries in the six centuries between the Conquest and the Dissolution. The cultural remains of England's abbeys and priories have always attracted scholarly attention but too often they have been studied in isolation, appreciated only for their artistic, codicological or intellectual features and notfor the insights they offer into the patterns of life and thought - the underlying norms, values and mentalité - of the communities of men and women which made them. Indeed, the distinguished monastic historian David Knowles doubted there would ever be sufficient evidence to recover "the mentality of the ordinary cloister monk". These twelve essays challenge this view. They exploit newly catalogued and newly discovered evidence - manuscript books, wall paintings, and even the traces of original monastic music - to recover the cultural dynamics of a cross-section of male and female communities. It is often claimed that over time the cultural traditions of the monasteries were suffocated by secular trends but here it is suggested that many houses remained a major cultural force even on the verge of the Reformation. James G. Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. Contributors: DAVID BELL, ROGER BOWERS, JAMES CLARK, BARRIE COLLETT, MARY ERLER, G. R. EVANS, MIRIAM GILL, JOAN GREATREX, JULIAN HASELDINE, J. D. NORTH, ALAN PIPER, AND R. M. THOMSON.




New Monasticism


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New Monasticism is a growing movement of committed Christians who are recovering the radical discipleship of monasticism and unearthing a fresh expression of Christianity in America. It's not centered in a traditional monastery--many New Monastics are married with children--but instead its members live radically, settling in abandoned sections of society, committing to community, sharing incomes, serving the poor, and practicing spiritual disciplines. New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove offers an insider's perspective into the life of the New Monastics and shows how this movement is dependent on the church for stability, diversity, and structure. A must-read for New Monastics or those considering joining the movement, it will also appeal to pastors, leaders, those interested in the emerging church, and 20- and 30-somethings searching for new ways to be Christian.