Meet Abbot Christopher Jamison

 

 

 

 

 

The Monastery was compelling television tracing the journey - often the struggle - of five men as they experienced monastic life for 40 days and nights at the Benedictine Abbey at Worth in Sussex.

 

The Monastery was an instant success attracting a viewing audience of three million people, 40,000 visits to the Worth Abbey website, and hundreds of requests from people wishing to make a retreat at Worth. Worth's Abbot Christopher Jamison who anchored the series, became an instant 'star', due in no small part to his sensitivity to the men, his natural warmth, his sure belief that the monastic tradition had much to offer contemporary society and his articulate expression of this belief.

 

Of course, I didn't know Christopher at all, so I was delighted to spend some 'up close and personal' time with him in an hour-long interview during the time of World Youth Day.

 

The gift that the screening of The Monastery had been for the Worth Abbey community, Christopher said, was the great affirmation of monastic life. All the community had to do during the six weeks of filming, was to 'be monastic and if we are monastic, this is a great gift to the church and society'.

 

Christopher Jamison doesn't believe that his monastery is part of the post Vatican II church.

 

'There is clearly a sea change going on, in which the post Vatican II church is no longer the church we live in. We now live in the post, post Vatican II church.'

 

What the culture most needs from religious or monastics living in this post, post Vatican II church are monastic values themselves. 'It does not need more people doing social work from monasteries.'

 

'And the monastic values you would particularly highlight?' I ask.

 

He answers with conviction: 'The interior life expressed and lived out communally.'

 

Christopher believes that the balance between the inner and communal life is the key to finding happiness. Finding Happiness is the title of his forthcoming book which follows hot on the heels of his best-seller, Finding Sanctuary, which in turn grew out of the intense public interest in The Monastery.

 

The biggest source of unhappiness in our world, he says, is spiritual apathy, known in the monastic tradition as acedia.

 

'The culture in general is spiritually apathetic.'

 

I point out that our age has been characterised as one hungry for spirituality - shelves in bookstores and sites on the web attest to this. Christopher concurs but believes that some, not all, of the material on offer is trivial.

 

And then there are 'many of the happiness books - of which there is no end  - which present bogus systems for finding happiness' - bogus because they maintain that happiness can be achieved without struggle.

 

The monastic tradition, since the time of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, knows that the interior life is a place of struggle.

 

'Our culture is prepared to hear that it is a struggle to become a world champion sportsman, but not to develop the interior life.'

 

Christopher's core monastic value of the interior life expressed and lived out communally reminds me of the section of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan Statement of Directions which says, 'We commit ourselves to live in deeper communion with God and one another.' This statement, Christopher affirms, is 'the heart of the business.'

 

I press him. 'What practical wisdom could you give to a group of Good Samaritans who want to live in deeper communion with God and with one another?'

 

Christopher begins by stating that we need a framework, a program and explains with a parallel image.

 

'In Alcoholics Anonymous, you have to go through the Twelve Steps and you have to turn up to 100 meetings on 100 days. You have to be deeply obedient to the meetings, to the steps, and that is the best cure we have for the greatest demon in our culture which is alcohol.'

 

I am arrested by the two words 'deeply obedient'.

 

He continues. 'I think the challenge for Good Samaritan sisters is to find out now what is the right program for them in the post, post Vatican II church for the third millennium. And I think it will be a program which is not as formal as the pre-Vatican II program, but probably not as informal as the post Vatican II one.'

 

Aligned with this becoming deeply obedient to a personal and communal program, Christopher explores the notion of re-symbolising religious life. 'If you look at the neo conservative trend, it is clearly a craving for symbols, and many of the people who are craving something are young people.'

 

However, this craving for symbols can lead to the ransacking of a previous culture. Christopher uses the potent image of John Lennon ransacking his grandparents' attic and finding an old pair of granny glasses and a World War I trench-coat, both of which soon became trendy. Similarly, newer movements can recruit people into habits which belong to a former era.

 

But might not there be other symbols for the programs which religious adopt? Christopher was not prepared to say what these 'other symbols' might be. 'I think that work is yet to be done,' he said.

 

And still I press Christopher. 'What might be some elements of this program?'

 

He offers three. 'The first element would be common prayer with its emphasis on beauty.

 

'The second element would be accessing, deeply, our own interior life, as a paradigm of our global situation.'

 

Accessing one's own interior life will lead a person to confront the inner demon of greed, he says. With the wisdom, and at times even the language of an ancient monastic tradition, Christopher wants to reframe the whole justice and climate change debate.

 

'So what I'm wanting to do is find a way of reframing that debate so that it is not lost, but moving it on and connecting it more intimately with the monastic life of the brothers and sisters so that we recognise that we have to work on our own greed, the greed of our communities, the greed of our local culture, and the issues to do with climate change.

 

'From there we have a platform to say to people, the monastic tradition has a lot to tell you about how to contain your greed. If we do not, as a society, learn to contain our greed, we will destroy our planet.'

 

Acedia, which he sees as the fundamental flaw in our culture, allows greed to go unchecked. So to live in deeper communion with God, he says, requires us not to be spiritually apathetic, but to do our own inner work to recognise our own demons, and not simply blame others for the ills and injustices of the world.

 

Christopher's third element for a program for religious living in the post, post Vatican II church is 'undoubtedly something sacramental which for some religious women there is a real challenge'.

 

He believes that the sacraments are a beautiful way of engaging with the gospel and the riches of the Catholic Christian tradition.

 

'The sacraments sum up all I've been saying about re-symbolising.'

 

Christopher quickly goes on to add that the question of the sacraments it a 'hot' topic in monastic circles. 'What is and isn't the sacramental dimension of the Rule [of Benedict] in the monastic tradition is a big discussion to be had. We readily say that there is no discussion of sacraments in the rule but actually, the notion that somehow that is the absolute of  the monastic tradition is of course the discussion. Benedict assumed that it was there. So we have to do some homework behind Benedict.'

 

I am interested in Christopher Jamison's proposed program but am surprised that there is no mention of lectio divina.

 

'Well, I've taken that for granted as being already there. I suppose if you ask what at the two pillars for monastics going forward, I'd say lectio and conversatio.

 

'And your understanding of conversatio?' I ask.

 

'I think the renewed understanding acquired in the last 50 years is key. From being conversatio morum we've now discovered that St Benedict meant conversatio and by conversatio he means living together.'

 

I am curious. 'Is that what he means specifically, living together?'

 

'Yes. And that's what is so crucial out of which we get the word conversation.'

 

I am still curious: 'I thought it meant more, that it meant the whole way of life which of course includes living together.'

 

'Yes, it does mean the whole way of life but it means the whole monastic way of life. In many ways conversatio is Benedict's translation of Koinonia. It's the living together. But it is the living together of monks or nuns. I think that if you take lectio and conversation you've got the two poles up beautifully.'

 

As our interview draws to a close Christopher tells me that he has been invited to be part of Operation Noah, the British and Irish churches' PR campaign on climate change.

 

'I'm quite worried about it,' he confesses, 'trying to find that language which does not come across as sanctimonious, preachy, but which touches the real concern for people and at the same time, moves them to a new place where they can start to find the spiritual resources to address that.'

 

I find Abbot Christopher Jamison neither sanctimonious nor preachy.

 

He has touched my real concerns. He has reminded me of some of the spiritual resources that can form a program for living as a Good Samaritan in a post, post Vatican II church. The resources are lectio, conversation, common prayer, beauty, accessing my own interior life (including my demons), community and the sacraments.

 

The goal? In the Abbot's words it is the interior life expressed and lived out communally, and in ours, to live in deeper communion with God and one another.