Editor's Note

October 3, 2024

We seem to find in this week’s The Current a striking example affirming the “Galloping Time” treated in Daniel Sargent’s talk, republished from the Portsmouth Bulletin of Winter 1974. A curious coincidence of time arises when we realize that the Dom Luke Childs lecture we also report on this week was given by Paul Speer of the class of 1974. This presents the coincidence that Dr. Speer was a himself student at the School and we assume present in the audience when Daniel Sargent gave his talk, in September of 1973. Our Archives meet our present day! This intertwining of past and present should not surprise – we have, after all, also included a homily that firmly links our present experience to the religious life of ancient Israel, telescoping back well more than three millennia to discover prophets arising in the midst of Israel’s community life. Moses makes the plea that “all the people of God” should so speak prophetically – then and now, Abbot Michael proposes. And the demons of Mark’s Gospel, he suggests, still insinuate themselves into our lives in many ways, putting their own will over that of God. The beat goes on: our present continues to encounter our past and time seems to gallop, across reunions and generations and over the ages.

Pax,
Blake Billings

September 25, 2024

Abbot Matthew’s discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s theme of being “condemned to meaning” caught my eye, as it seems to have caught the ear of parents when it was first delivered in the early 1970’s, and it seems an appropriate way to kick off our “Voices of the Monastery” series. My own philosophical training came largely in Europe, amidst an intellectual culture impacted greatly by phenomenology and existentialism. I was familiar with Sartre’s discussion of our being “condemned to freedom” – apparently a lot of condemnation in the air amongst the French existentialists. Discovering Abbot Matthew’s text was for me a bit of a refresher, not only for ideas of Merleau-Ponty, but of the impression made on me as a student here in the 1970’s by the monastic community. Having arrived at the School a cynical and sophomoric Fourth Former, the thoughtful, prayerful, and humble intellectualism I discovered amongst the monks here left an impression. The whole God question, the entire notion of religious experience, moved into new territory. Fr. Gregory’s thoughtful homily in this issue, on the opening of God’s grace, provides evidence that such a culture of the intellect remains in place here. And even as we uncover old altars or re-cover liturgical chairs, we seem to rediscover physical and liturgical links to our previous incarnations and a continuity in our religious life. Let us hope that, in all of this, we continue to discern that meaningful voice who speaks to us not of condemnation but of salvation.

Pax,
Blake Billings