Today has been a strange day. Early in the morning various alarms went off and people started to bash around the chalet preparing to catch an early bus to the airport. I wasn’t due to leave until later as I was driving so I wandered down to wave them off and then, after freezing in the early Alpine morning while they loaded up, wandered back.
The building which had been home to a community of 12 was now empty, and will probably never house that community again. I packed stuff away, emptied bins, checked for things that had been left, and did some last bits of cleaning, and as I wandered around I could still see and hear the various group members with their own different ways of being and doing.
Some time in the car, and now I am in a monastery, with another community, but how different it is. In the first we were friends, we all belonged. We spoke the same language, shared similar humour and were together for a common task. Here I am an outsider. I am foreign, I speak a different language, I am a man and I am in different holy orders.
When I join them in the chapel, which is beautiful by the way (I tried to sneak this photo even though I am not meant to), I have to sit behind a rope at the back and then they all process in and chant in French without announcing readings or Psalms.
The action starts about ten minutes before the service as a very ancient nun in a wheelchair enters and takes about 9 of the 10 minutes to get to her seat. It continues with various of them bobbing around doing this and that. I thought I was a bit of an expert on ecclesiastical procedure, but I sit there fascinated as to what is going to happen next.
It’s good to be here, but it is interesting to reflect again on fellowship. We were designed to be in community, both with God and others. Being an outsider is not a comfortable place to be, but for a while it gives space to reflect, to pray, to read and to write… and perhaps to learn more about what fellowship really is and where it is really rooted.
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