[Magdalen] From an old friend, Albion Land, a sort of general letter to those who remember him

[Jay Weigel]

And I. It almost sounds like being an anchorite except not beng enclosed.

On Sunday, September 4, 2016, Marilyn Cepeda <mcepeda514 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I will as well.....
>
> On Sunday, September 4, 2016, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>>
> wrote:
>
> > I do remember Albion and I will lift him up in prayer.
> >
> > Marion, a pilgrim
> >
> >
> > On 9/4/2016 2:51 PM, Sibyl Smirl wrote:
> >
> >> 10:07am
> >> hi sib. i've just started sharing this today. if you're still in touch
> >> with the crowd over at anglicans online, do feel free to share with
> anyone
> >> who might remember me and possibly be interested.
> >> At the beginning of July, six months into retirement, I began a new way
> >> of life, one that I had many times thought about doing but never had the
> >> opportunity to act on.
> >>
> >> This ‘letter’ is an exercise to help me discern what it is I am doing
> and
> >> to get a sense of where I am being led. I am thinking out loud and
> sharing
> >> my thoughts with you and with other special people in my life.
> >>
> >> It is a spiritual exercise, a specifically Christian one. Some of you
> are
> >> nominal, or even practicing, Christians, and will probably understand
> what
> >> I am doing; if you are ‘Catholic’ Christians, that is Orthodox, Roman or
> >> Anglican, you almost certainly will.
> >>
> >> But others of you are agnostics, or even atheists. You may have
> >> difficulty understanding, or even respecting, what I am doing. I simply
> ask
> >> you to bear with me.
> >>
> >> If you are of the praying sort, I ask your prayers for guidance; if you
> >> are not, I will be equally grateful for your kind thoughts, which
> >> themselves are a sort of prayer.
> >>
> >> I have begun to live the life of what I call, for the lack of a better
> >> term, that of a semi-hermit, or contemplative. I say semi, because I am
> not
> >> completely withdrawing from the world but only partially.
> >>
> >> My daily life is structured around formal monastic prayer, built on the
> >> Liturgy of Hours (http://www.orthodox.seasidehosting.st) and lectio
> >> divina (spiritual reading). I leave home during the daytime only for
> >> absolute necessities (shopping, doctor’s appointments, dog walking,
> etc.)
> >> but allow time in the evening for a glass or three of wine with
> friends, or
> >> even dinner.
> >>
> >> It is a peaceful, tranquil way of life that I find myself drawn more and
> >> more into as I live it. And as the days pass, I find myself less and
> less
> >> interested in going out at all. (That carries with it potentially
> dangerous
> >> spiritual consequences, and I particularly ask your prayers for my
> clarity
> >> of mind and the virtue of discernment).
> >>
> >> As I said at the beginning, I am trying to understand where this is
> >> leading, if anywhere. I am not doing it on my own, but under the
> guidance
> >> of my spiritual father in Cyprus and of priests here in Spain.
> >>
> >> In the end, assuming I persevere and don’t throw in the towel, I might
> >> simply keep things as they are, aside from a bit of fine-tuning.
> >>
> >> However, I might go one, or even two, steps further.
> >>
> >> A first step would be to take vows as an idiorrythmic monk. Idiorrythmic
> >> in my case simply means someone who lives separately, holds property,
> >> supports himself and may or may not have a formal association with a
> >> monastery. The vows would be of simplicity (as opposed to poverty),
> >> chastity and obedience (either to my spiritual father or to the abbot
> of a
> >> monastery).
> >>
> >> Among other things, that would entail an even fuller cycle of daily and
> >> weekly prayer, adopting a vegetarian diet and fasting more frequently.
> It
> >> might also involve my taking on some sort of public ministry in the
> Church.
> >>
> >> While I think there is a possibility that I might eventually choose to
> go
> >> that route, it is much less likely that I would seek to go a final step
> and
> >> enter a monastery. Aside from what I consider to be a lack of workable
> >> choices, I wonder if, at my age, I would be able to adapt to the way of
> >> life in a community – starting the day at 3 or 4 in the morning and
> >> spending it under total regimentation.
> >>
> >> However, I am giving thought to it, and am even discussing it with a
> >> senior member of the brotherhood of Holy Trinity monastery in
> Jordanville,
> >> New York, (http://www.jordanville.org), where even someone of my age
> >> would be welcome assuming my health is up to it.
> >>
> >> So for now, I am undergoing a period of reflection. That began in
> >> Catalonia at the end of June after I was invited to meet Archpriest Joan
> >> Garcia, the vicar general of the Iglesia Ortodoxa Española, and to
> attend a
> >> liturgy to commemorate the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. It was to
> him
> >> that I expressed my thoughts about embarking on this new life, and it
> is he
> >> who has taken a lead in helping me to focus myself.
> >>
> >> The Iglesia Ortodoxa Española (http://www.iglesiaortodoxa.es) is an
> >> autoctonous church in Spain but, for reasons of a historical anomaly, is
> >> under the authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
> >>
> >> At the beginning of October, the parish in Barcelona will celebrate its
> >> patronal festival, that of the Protection of the Mother of God, and
> will be
> >> visited by the bishop for Western Europe, Monsignor Luka. I plan to
> attend
> >> the festivities, during which time I will have a meeting with the
> bishop to
> >> discuss my vocation, including the possibility of being made a lector
> >> (reader) in the Church.
> >>
> >> A few weeks later, I will head for Cyprus on ‘holiday’ and hope to spend
> >> a few days on retreat at Machairas monastery (
> >> https://orthodoxwiki.org/Machairas_Monastery_(Cyprus)), to which I have
> >> had a close attachment since becoming Orthodox in 2009.
> >>
> >> After all that, I hope to have a clearer and stronger sense of what I am
> >> doing, particularly whether it is something that will prove to be
> lasting.
> >> Afterwards, and assuming that I do feel a continuing commitment, we will
> >> see where this might take us.
> >>
> >> You may have noticed that I have talked almost exclusively about the
> what
> >> but said virtually nothing about the why. That is not a simple question
> to
> >> answer; I’m not even sure I fully know why.
> >>
> >> At the heart of it is a profound awareness, as I begin to approach the
> >> end of my life, of my own sinfulness and of a desire to live in closer
> >> union with God.
> >>
> >> Some of you know, and others not, that the monastic life has always had
> a
> >> pull on me. As young man of about 20 I gave serious thought to entering
> >> that world, but decided not to because I wanted one day to have a
> family.
> >>
> >> Over the years since, the fascination has continued. While still an
> >> Anglican and studying to become a reader in the Church of England, I
> became
> >> an oblate of Elmore Abbey, a Benedictine community. During those, and
> >> subsequent years, I also became a regular summer visitor at another
> >> Benedictine house, at Santo Domingo de Silos, in Spain.
> >>
> >> Since entering Orthodoxy, I have visited or even stayed at Machairas on
> a
> >> number of occasions and was also blessed to spend a few days in Ayion
> Oros
> >> (Mount Athos).
> >>
> >> After settling in to my new home in Spain over this past winter and
> >> spring, I began to give thought to ‘what to do with the rest of my
> life’,
> >> and the idea of a fuller life of prayer presented itself to me a as a
> >> logical extension to a long-followed rule of life that was far less
> >> encompassing and demanding.
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >>
> >
>
> --
> Marilyn (Owens, Palmero) Cepeda
>