the monastery revisited
Last night on BBC2 they showed The Monastery Revisited - where the 6 guys went back to Worth Abbey 15 months after being there for 40 days to see how their lives had been impacted by the experience.


Once again it was fascinating viewing. All had been affected one way or another. I was struck by a number of things: Firstly how incredibly wrapped up in ourselves we all are! It's all about ME, my life, my future, my vocation, my happiness, my fulfillment, my spiritual journey, me me me! Combined with this was how unbelievably proud we are, which makes us unreal, erects masks and walls to keep others out, and makes us say a bunch of absolute rubbish at times.

I felt Tony (recovering alcho) was the only one who was completely open and honest with himself and others and as a result he probably gained the most from the experience. I suspect he was like this because he had literally been broken as a person so he had moved beyond play acting to the realities of life as a flawed vessel.

I felt the 'born again' ex paramilitary Gary was driven by a constant need to make amends for his past life which made him seem unreal to me.

Nick the guy who is now training to be a vicar was a classic case of being educated beyond his intellect (that's a polite way of saying he had his head stuck way up his own ---!)

Two comments stuck with me; the first was the Abbot's who observed how the experience had clearly shown the vital part that being in community plays in the spiritual journey; without that community aspect each had got slightly lost after their time at Worth. So much so that all but 1 had returned since their first stay, and Tony returned monthly to visit.

Then there was Tony's experience of visiting a number of churches in search of something to sustain him outside the Abbey.

"I’ve been to a few churches around town and they just annoy the **** out of me because they’re so fake, and the people look so lost, and the people on the stage just look so plastic and so charming and so seductive, and I just think ‘I don’t believe in these people’. These people are not an expression of faith. So, I’d much rather just slip into a church and sit there for 10 minutes and have a bit of quiet time, or pray at home. I dont feel that you necessarily have to turn up at a certain place at a certain time dressed in a certain way to express your faith and live out your faith. I think there’s other ways of doing it."

Says it all really.

posted by alexander @ 10:15 AM    0 comments

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