pat loughery

Continuing the series of digging into Kurt Neilson’s book, Urban Iona.

In Chapter 5, Neilson writes about his experience as a Catholic anda former member of the Claretian missionary order.

As I sought community, the ideal of a common project of life, a common vision, and living it out day to day together with others spoke to me deeply. Monastic prayer, based on regular recitation of the Psalms, appealed ever since I discovered the Psalms at an early age and was thrilled by their raw, direct speech, peeling away artifice and seeking nothing less than direct converse betwen real people and a living God. And the tension between “inner” and “outer,” lofty goal and nitty-gritty day-to-day living, the shattering immediacy of an imminent God and the sardonic realism of “We’re in this for the long haul” appealed to me deeply.

Many years later, I came to myself and realize that thought I don’t live in a cloister [Pat’s note: Neilson left the Claretian order and by this point was a married, Episcopalian priest], I don’t wear a robe with cowl and cincture, I have found my monasticism. My chapel is my parish church. My cell is my body, or my bedroom as I rub sleep from my eyes and struggle to focus on Psalms and readings before helping with feeding and launching the kids. My cloister is the world and my life, lived quite strictly between home and church, my two communities. […] The cloister would be a vacation by contrast, at least until I caught up on sleep and uiet.

But I wouldn’t take the cloister back. Here is where I have learned and am learning to be human. Marriage and family life and the path of my existence has been graced, has been my salvation.

Here, Neilson hits me between the eyes. I could write the same things; I am attracted to the values and practices of the monastic life though my monastery is my family, and God has graced it. As much as I think about the other path, I know this is the best one for me. And for those I am called to walk alongside.