Review: How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job: An Invitation to Oblate Life

How to Be a Monastic and Not Leave Your Day Job: An Invitation to Oblate Life by Benet Tvedten
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is, perhaps, hardly a surprise to find in my book list, given the many, many Benedictine books that I've read over the last ten years. And the fact that this is about oblates, just reinforces the pattern. Really, what this book is a manual for oblates of Benedictine monasteries- meant to explain what being an oblate is like, what Benedictine value are and how one an become an oblate. Given the success of oblate recruitment in the last two generations, it is a much needed volume.

As a manual, it has all the things one would expect. A good outline of Benedictine values and practices, of course, as well as plenty of good examples of the oblate life. For someone like me, who isn't especially likely to formalize a commitment like this, it is still a helpful book for learning from the Benedictine tradition. The whole point of oblate life is to adapt the Rule of Benedict to one's life and that can still be done even when one lives away from a monastery.

So, I'd still say this is worth reading for anyone interested in the Benedictine tradition as a way to learn how to apply the Rule to one's life.

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Review: Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been slow in discovering Kate Bowler, I have to admit and, honestly, I have no excuse. Because my wife has been reading her books for years and i just haven't come around to picking them up. In fact, it took a few of her videos on her new book on Joy to catch my attention. On video, she's funny and sharp and, honestly, wise. Her writing is no less insightful.

In this book, Bowler tells the story of her bout with serious cancer, which almost was fatal, but which has gone into remission. It is also a reflection on the American pre-occupation with self-help and what that does to those who are suffering and those who are grieving. Her study of the prosperity gospel is part of this, but her recognition of the tendency for North Americans to try to find a reason for suffering is one that extends well out of that milieu.

Bowler's point is that we have to recognize that those things that we try to assure ourselves of, that our suffering will mean something , don't just collapse as soon as we face suffering beyond our control, but it is positively harmful for those who are trying to cling to it. But that doesn't mean nihilism or fatalism, but rather it pushes back to God for hope and, even joy. I find it striking that Bowler's description of being in the midst of the cancer and the treatments, not sure if she'd live or die in the coming months, but yet being borne up with a strong sense being borne up by other people's prayers and God's compassion is striking and evocative. And almost completely impossible to replicate. It is grappling with both those realities- imminent death and inexplicable consolation- which drives this book.

This book leaves us in a complicated place without the easy answers to suffering that we'd all love to have, but also consoled as well that God can be there too, alongside. It's a good reminder, but not an easy one.

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Review: The Abbey Up the Hill: A Year in the Life of a Monastic Day Tripper

The Abbey Up the Hill: A Year in the Life of a Monastic Day Tripper by Carol Bonomo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ran into this browsing around Google Play and was happy to run into it. Years back, I read Carol Bonomo's book on humility, which is both more profound and funnier than one expects a book on that subject to be. Bonomo's blend of curmudgin, Benedictine oblate and honest observer is refreshing and very much places her in the tradition of Kathleen Norris, which is high praise coming from me.

This book follows Bonomo on a years long question to visit the monastery in San Diego which she was recently made an oblate in (or is it to?) once or twice a month. We watch her as she copes with her own sense of being an outsider and her growing connections with her spiritual advisor and with other members of the monastic and oblate community. Her sensitive prose follows her struggles in feeling like she belonged and is definitely relatable.

I really enjoyed this book, both for its honesty and for its comittement to Benedictine values. It is well worth reading.

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Review: The Eye of the Storm: Living Spiritually in the Real World

The Eye of the Storm: Living Spiritually in the Real World by Kenneth Leech
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started reading this because my rector of my church had mentioned Kenneth Leech and it is actually tricky to find his books these days, so this was in the church library. Published in the 90s, it is an Anglo-Catholic take on how to leave in a complicated and confusing world- one that has surprising resonances to the 2020s. Leach saw the problems of social justice and Christian Nationalism from a British standpoint and is surprisingly prescient about their implications.

Leech's main focus is to articulate a Anglo-Catholic vision of how to deal with an unjust world. He comes from a traditional of Anglo-Catholic British churches in very working class areas, mingling, at least, socialism with catholic theology. His insights are worth looking today as an alternative to a well meaning, but out of touch progressivism which characterizes much of the Anglican church as well as the conservative merging with the political right wing.

This book is definitely worth reading, even despite it's occasionally dated referencing. It offers another way of seeing the Christian life and one that needs to be considered,

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