Do this NOW! Neo-'monastery'-ing as a solution to the crisis

Do this NOW!

Neo-‘monastery’-ing as solution to the crisis

Dear Gentles:

I start with an imperative, and I'll end with one.  Bledsoe: Without the imperative, there is no future.

Here's an example:  Christ the Redeemer should uniquely serve as a monastery of families, draining the swamp of education.  That's a good specialty. 90% of the state budget of Iowa is spent on 'education,' or the remediation of the effects thereof.

[Denominations are like monastic orders]

So, I think it's a good option, the monastery-ing, if done rightly.

How it used to work was that the monastery would be founded 'en eremo,' in a desert. Usually a grant of swamp land, etc.

But there are many deserts. (Detroit is being reclaimed, the old buildings, the vacant land, I read, by squatters).

But this was after the hermits went into the forests.  The deal with the forests (Vermont even) was that it was a natural barrier, impenetrable to the always-raiding tribes.  The forests kept the peace. I'll mention what this was transmuted into later.

This is ERH-ish info.  700 years from the Fall of Rome (which kept the peace) to the Truce of God (which kept the peace).

So, after the hermits came the monks, clearing forests, etc.  This farmable land was share-cropped to the peasants, and the monks became wealthy and authoritative, because they knew the key science of the day, planting times, and other farming wisdom.

But what about the raiding tribes?  Well, the church said (this is grossly simplified): No fighting during Lent.  No fighting, e. g., from Friday night through Monday morning.  No attacking clergy.

Now, was this enforced by oaths, and did these oaths (Berman: Law and Revolution) lead to oaths that made towns?  Something like that.

But you see that the big trend was from 'natural' barriers to raiding of tribes, to 'theological' barriers, erected by a rich and authoritative church, and/or parts thereof.

Can you do this?  In some way?  One thing that Cassiodorus did was preserve the ancient manuscripts.  A rich man, after retiring as Secretary of State of Rome, he founded a monastery for this copying.  He outlived the first generation, at at the age of 90, was teaching spelling to later generations.

One such project would be an EMP-proof iPad or something with essential info.  One fellow has plans for the 50 most needed tools for rebuilding.  Simulations could be put in.  But that's just an example.

The Knights Hospitaller started as a hospital for pilgrims to the Holy Land, graduated to military protection of them, ruled large parts of Europe, led the big fight at Malta vs. the Turks, and is still in existence, after beign a force against piracy in the Mediterranean.

I think that JBJ's patterns in 'Crisis...' indicate that after our Sabbath/Jeremiah Time (they had not rested the land, we do not sufficiently rest in Christ) his pattern of successive emphases--not modalistic or subordinationalistic) of The Father, and The Son, and The Holy Spirit indicates that the 5th and 8th Words are the key.

We can surely get an heptamerous chiasm out of father and mother--genetic, Paul-Timothy, Father Abraham, the church fathers, Words 1,2,3,4 as ‘father and mother’ to 5, history as father, future as father (He drags us from there, He ordains us to do things in the foreordained future), church as mother and GodTrinity as Father, beloved enfeebled and befuddled older ones (James 1:27), etc.. And theft?

                                                          

So, we have all these monastery-ish churches, finding deserts, and making them bloom, and gaining wisdom and authority and wealth, and thus replacing the former ‘peace’-engenderers, with new.

What can your church do in this regard, IF you are serious?

I started out saying that CtR should be a monastery of families (ouch!—but it’s where we are) draining the swamp of education—and there’s much going on there with free online colleges, the Ethiopiand illiterate children who learned to read in 5 months from a tablet, the year of seminary in a $25 thumb-drive for 10,000 African pastors from ThirdMill—but the key will be teaching entrepreneurial and craft and other money-engendering skills! (And we are called and ordained servants of the Word, which word engenders standards of accounts, stores of value, media of exchange, and those much better now than relics and indulgences!)

So, here’s the ending imperative: By 17 January, Feast of St. Anthony, figure out in what type of monastery action your church will specialize.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof—and the deserts we make into fullness.

Love in King Jesus,

New 'new era need new ear' Charlie

PS: I’ll help.