Last week, I came across a podcast interview with the writer and psychotherapist Francis Weller (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/65-emptiness-grief-francis-weller/id1643318607?i=1000638574215). I had known of his work before, and had already read his beautiful and rich book: ‘The Wild Edge of Sorrow.’ However, it was great to be reminded again of some his wonderful musings on the nature of what it means to be a human being living in community with other human beings.
Photo Credit: Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash
In the podcast, Weller referenced something he called ‘the third body’ or ‘the space between us.’ In Weller's work, this ‘third body’ concept seems to refer to the relational field that emerges when people come together intentionally - it's neither just you nor just me, but rather the sacred space that emerges between and encompasses both. It's similar to what the great Jewish philosopher and mystic Martin Buber called the ‘I-Thou’ relationship. The indigenous roots of this concept often appear in teachings about the sacred nature of council circles, where the centre of the circle is understood as a living presence that holds the collective wisdom and experience of the group.
As I listened to the podcast, and reflected on this idea, I was reminded of
possible parallels with it in some of the writings about the Benedictine
tradition. For example, Esther de Waal (in ‘Seeking God: The Way of St.
Benedict’) writes "the community exists to be a place of mutual support,
mutual service, and mutual healing. It is the laboratory where we learn to love
our neighbour as ourselves... The community becomes the workshop where
this daily ascesis of encounter with reality is practiced."
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Joan Chittister, OSB (in ‘The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century’) also suggests that "the daily rhythm of common prayer, common meals, common work creates a
texture of belonging that becomes the firm ground of human community... It is
in doing ordinary things together, day after day after day, that we come to
know one another's hearts."
Both these writers - and they are just two examples among many - with their stress on "mutuality", "a laboratory where we learn to love", and the knowing "of one another’s hearts", seem to be pointing to this "space between us" which Weller is addressing in his own work.
Photo Credit: Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash
My reflections on this theme have also encompassed some of my experience of being a member of the Lay Community of St. Benedict. In conversation, prayer, and work, both online and in person, it seems to me that the Lay Community is trying to foster something of this intentional relationality that underlies this concept of ‘the space between us’. In our prayer together especially, as we offer our needs, and the needs of the world, I sometimes
sense that living, sacred, divine presence arising in the in between of our lives gathered together – a transcending of our separateness, no longer just me, or just you.
If this is so - and I sense that it is - I wonder what we might do more or be more to foster and enrich these experiences: of mutuality, love and knowing each other’s hearts. In his writings, Weller, especially, focuses on the area of grief, and in his book ‘The Wild Edge of Sorrow’, he writes: "What I have come to know is that grief requires witness. It requires that others see our condition and sit with us in the uncertainty of loss... The village carries what the individual cannot bear alone".
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I am struck by that last phrase, struck because I wonder what individuals in our community are bearing alone - grief, anger, pain, that we together might witness, sit with, bear with? Our witnessing might be in our praying for them, our sitting in silence with them, our touch of them on the shoulder or the hand. How might we also create new rituals whereby we can together offer to God the rich tapestries of our lives: both the joys and the sorrows?
In his book ‘A Listening Heart’ David Steindl-Rast, OSB writes "the monastery is not primarily a place but a web of relationships focused on what matters most. Together we create and maintain a space where the sacred dimension of life can be explored and celebrated." I believe that we, the Lay Community of St. Benedict’ are such ‘a web of relationships’, part of the body of Christ in the world, and it is my hope, my prayer, that our circle might continue to grow and expand as we offer the depths and richness of the whole of our humanity to one another and to God in love.
Mark Kenny
2024
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