Reading the Signs of the Times. One does not live in a vacuum. Community is a life-giving necessity. From the very time we are born, we are thrust into a community. Once experienced, we continue to seek it.
Community is a longing of the heart.
We seek it with, and through, and along with our fellow monastics. It is only in a committed community that one is truly free to really be oneself. This necessity called community is possible both inside and outside the monastic enclosure. As an Oblate who lives a three hour drive from the monastery where I am affiliated, one of the things I need to do is re-vision how I have community with my fellow monastics. Theoretical information certainly has its place and worth, but the way one learns most about being a monastic is by living with other monastics, in day to day life.