Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I live alongside a monastic community. (Yes, there are nuns and monks in the Episcopal Church!) What a unique and amazing experience. I could never have planned for something like this…it just emerged in grace-filled ways over the last 18 months.

At a recent “house meeting,” when the weekly schedule and business of the community are discussed, a question about one member’s work project suddenly evolved into bigger questions about the community’s life and purpose:

“Who are we? What is our unique gift to contribute to the church and the world? What are the traditions we’re clinging to, and what are the ones we want to bring forth from the past into our future?”

One sister suggested that the questions of who they are as an Episcopal or monastic community needed to go even deeper. “The essential question,” she posed, “is how are we to be Christians in this day and age?”

It was a moving conversation, engaging our hearts and minds. And it went far beyond the precipitating question. We entered a holy conversation…holy wrestling with the “the big questions” of purpose and vocation.

The sisters have answered these questions numerous times over the years. There was nothing particularly at stake in that day’s house meeting. No agenda item to be settled immediately.

But isn’t it moments like these – when we take the time to ask “who are we called to be?” or “what is our unique way of being?” – when everything is at stake? Our identity with the Divine, with one another, and with all creation emerges in these very moments. They are like mustard seeds: holding the potential for future life. The claims and hopes planted in small moments like these eventually become the vision we live into (whether we realize it or not).

I pray that your next meeting diverts from the agenda into a holy conversation about the big questions. You never know what may emerge.