The City is my Monastery

Richard Carter

Description

Seeing a need for monastic values in busy London life, Richard Carter founded the Nazareth Community. Part story, part spiritual meditation, The City is My Monastery shares the community's values of Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sharing, Sabbath Time and Staying.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Monasticism
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786222152
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

This wonderful book is both recognizable and startlingly new. What we are given here is not simply another book on ‘spirituality’ but a workbook for living in and with meaning, Christian meaning, Jesus-shaped meaning. Wherever we are, here and now is the centre, the ground of the soul, because this here and now is where God has chosen to be and to be with.
The Most Revd Rowan Williams
Precious few are the books that accomplish what this masterfully practical and inspiring book accomplishes. Nor do they do so with such grace, depth and unflinching insight. While this book serves as a practical rule of life to guide the Nazareth Community in the heart of London, it is at the same time a trellis of life where the buds and blossoms of our beseeching find stability in silence, the beauty of the stranger and a door wide open for all who feel they have no place to call home. Those who tread the pathless path of contemplation will be grateful to be in Richard Carter’s debt for the gift of this remarkable book.
Martin Laird OSA, author of An Ocean of Light
Reading The City is my Monastery I felt that I was being invited to walk with Richard Carter in many different places, to pause as he reflected with love and with wonder on the people and events around him, to share his joy or indignation, to understand how to begin to construct a prayerful community that lives fully in the world – and, above all, to see through his eyes that God is in every one of us. This is a book that moved me deeply and will surely strengthen and give heart to many. It is an autobiography of poetry and prayer. A primer on how to build a community of still spirituality in a busy city. Above all, a powerful poetic meditation on meeting God every day on the streets and in the people of London.
Neil MacGregor, founding director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, director of the British Museum 2002–15
The City is my Monastery is beautiful, inspiring, humble and attractive. I think this is the beginning of something special. It is so deeply soaked in loving attention, and that is what makes it so infectious.
The Revd Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields
For those of us who seek to minister from a still centre and nurture our faith in a hectic world this book is a generous gift. The City is My Monastery is rich and moving reading which warmed my spirit and encouraged me to stay.
The Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London
This entrancing book – part lectio, part prayer, part autobiography in fragments – is designed to show all those who are called to a life in deepening union with Christ how they can find their ‘monastery’ wherever they are. In Richard Carter’s case, this has led to the foundation of a new form of religious life at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, amid the immigrants, homeless and desperate who find a refuge there. This is a life-changing book, and needs to be read as it is written – as a prayer.
Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor Emerita, University of Cambridge
Prayer is as natural as breathing. To be human is to pray, yet most of us feel inadequate about our praying. All of us can learn and grow in the company of those who are passionate and experienced teachers of prayer. Richard Carter is such a person – a natural teacher who is deeply committed to a life of prayer. His vocation was nurtured in the UK and grown in the beauty of Pacific islands in the company of a remarkable religious community. Now he has the most extraordinarily fruitful ministry at St Martin-in-the-Fields where the city has become his monastery. He prays with and for all sorts of people to whom he is as attentive as he is to God. This book is a wonderful mix of his inward reflections and an unusually practical guide about how to pray and deepen our love of God, one another and the wonderful creation in which we find ourselves. There are treasures on every page: wisdom gathered, practised and shared. This book is so readable it could be a quick read, but linger and use it slowly over the months and years. This is a guide to life.
The Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury
In the centre of the city, with all its bustle and violence, Richard Carter’s book, simple and filled with poetry, opens up for us a place of peace and community, in which the God whom we falteringly seek is discovered as eagerly rushing towards us.
Father Timothy Radcliffe OP
There is something for everybody in this very readable kaleidoscope of life at its most real, in a flow of poetry, stories and guidance on prayer. By turns funny, touching, heartbreaking, shocking, it stops us in the tracks of our complacency, revealing that even within much of the human suffering that goes on behind the scenes in our society there is still the presence of pure gold: God present in everybody, especially at the heart of the big city, beckoning us to see with new eyes and be changed. This is one of those books that can be a lifetime’s companion, holding before us what we are here for: Life .
Father George Guiver, Community of the Resurrection
A beautiful and inspiring book that invites us to make space in the middle of the city, to make time in the middle of a busy day, to make peace between us across our differences. Richard Carter has written a book not of abstract theory but of lived experience and practice. It will inspire urban and rural dwellers alike, who want to become more deeply still in a distracted and fractious world.
Revd Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s Church, Piccadilly




The City Is My Monastery
A Contemporary Rule of Life
Richard Carter





© Richard Carter 2019
First published in 2019 by the Canterbury Press Norwich
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London EC1Y 0TG, UK
www.canterburypress.co.uk
Canterbury Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd (a registered charity)

Hymns Ancient & Modern® is a registered trademark of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
13A Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich,
Norfolk NR6 5DR, UK
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press.
The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
The original prints, drawings and artwork included in this book are by:
Andrew Carter: https://andrew-carter.net
Helen Ireland: https://helenireland.net
Vicky Howard
Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Permission is acknowledged for use of an extract from: Anonymous, Koestler Voices: New Poetry from Prisons , Koestler Trust, 2017.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 1 78622 213 8
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd







In Memory of Fr Simon Holden CR
the monk who helped me to see that the city was my monastery

And for Ebenezer Okrah and all those who each day show us the way to Nazareth
On 3 October 2013, an unmarked vessel carrying 500 migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Somalia, sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. It is thought that 360 people drowned and 150 were rescued by the Italian Coastguard. Searching for a way to bring comfort, Mr Tuccio, a local carpenter, collected wood from the wrecked boat and made simple crosses for the survivors to wear. The British Museum commissioned Mr Tuccio to make a cross for their collection as a symbol of the beginning of the twenty-first century. Mr Tuccio also sent a Lampedusa Cross to St Martin-in-the-Fields as a sign of our own outreach to refugees, asylum seekers and those with no recourse to public funds. When we began the Nazareth Community, Mr Tuccio made crosses for each of our members as a sign of our community and God’s love revealed to us in the suffering of the cross: a call to be with God and neighbour where we are now.



Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. With Silence
I. Seek in your day a space for solitude and silence – a time to be with God
II. Develop a simple practice of contemplative prayer
III. Become aware of your distractions
IV. Seek natural spaces for your prayer
V. Pray the shape of the day into being
VI. Praying while walking
VII. Praying together and praying alone
VIII. Make a time of creative encounter
IX. Spend time praying for this city
X. Examen
XI. The practice of silence
XII. Keep a notebook, journal or sketchbook of your reflections and discoveries
2. With Service
I. Service is recognizing the humanity of your neighbour
II. Service is just turning up
III. Service is gift
IV. Service is discovering compassion
V. Service is staying with
VI. Service is living the Beatitudes
VII. Service is visiting the prisoner and the prisoner visiting you
VIII. Service is hearing the cry
IX. Service is praying with
X. Service is costly
XI. Service is belonging
XII