The Monastic Cell: A Place of Conscious Contact
Friday of the Second Week of Lent – March 6, 2015
Abba Antony said, “Fish, if they linger on dry land, die: even so monks that linger outside their cell or live with people of the world fall away from their vow of quiet. As a fish must return to the sea, so must we to our cell: otherwise through lingering outside, we might forget the watch within.“
[Helen Waddell, The Desert Fathers, p. 91.]
I find it helpful to have a consistent place where I can be alone with God. I’m certainly aware of God’s presence with me always and everywhere, but to have one place dedicated to my connection to God helps ground me. It is my own “cell” in the monastic sense.
My “cell”, the place to which I return day after day to be alone with God, is an old, beat-up chair in my home study. If you saw the chair, you wouldn’t give me $5 for it. It has been around since the mid-1980’s. It was an early furniture purchase in the first little Northeast Texas town I served as pastor after seminary. We bought two of the same chair, different colors . . . and the twin to my chair has gone on to “chair heaven” many years ago (after being passed between my two children, who each decided they wanted no part of it!).
But it’s MY chair. And to me it is more than a chair. It symbolizes the day-to-day connection I have with God. I’ve laughed often in that chair and I’ve cried plenty in that chair. I’ve shaken my fist at God in that chair and I’ve asked, “Why, why, why??” in that chair. Somehow, that chair has for me the power of a mountain vista, or a gently rolling stream, or a beach sunset. This ratty rocker in many ways is my cell.
Perhaps you have that kind of place. What is your cell?
If you don’t have a cell, perhaps this Lent would be a time to begin, to find a place that would be yours, if only for a few minutes each day. Perhaps over time it would become the place to which you return again and again and again. It may come to symbolize your conscious contact with God.
Abba Antony said, “Fish, if they linger on dry land, die: even so monks that linger outside their cell or live with people of the world fall away from their vow of quiet. As a fish must return to the sea, so must we to our cell: otherwise through lingering outside, we might forget the watch within.“
[Helen Waddell, The Desert Fathers, p. 91.]
I find it helpful to have a consistent place where I can be alone with God. I’m certainly aware of God’s presence with me always and everywhere, but to have one place dedicated to my connection to God helps ground me. It is my own “cell” in the monastic sense.
My “cell”, the place to which I return day after day to be alone with God, is an old, beat-up chair in my home study. If you saw the chair, you wouldn’t give me $5 for it. It has been around since the mid-1980’s. It was an early furniture purchase in the first little Northeast Texas town I served as pastor after seminary. We bought two of the same chair, different colors . . . and the twin to my chair has gone on to “chair heaven” many years ago (after being passed between my two children, who each decided they wanted no part of it!).
But it’s MY chair. And to me it is more than a chair. It symbolizes the day-to-day connection I have with God. I’ve laughed often in that chair and I’ve cried plenty in that chair. I’ve shaken my fist at God in that chair and I’ve asked, “Why, why, why??” in that chair. Somehow, that chair has for me the power of a mountain vista, or a gently rolling stream, or a beach sunset. This ratty rocker in many ways is my cell.
Perhaps you have that kind of place. What is your cell?
If you don’t have a cell, perhaps this Lent would be a time to begin, to find a place that would be yours, if only for a few minutes each day. Perhaps over time it would become the place to which you return again and again and again. It may come to symbolize your conscious contact with God.
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