Practices: Study

In my earlier post I noted that the practice of study was part and parcel of what I do anyway, so seemed to fall in naturally with my life as a hermit.  Let me explain.

Just at the moment I am poised to travel to McGill University in Montreal at the beginning of December when I will defend my doctoral dissertation.  I've spent the last several years reading and researching methods of interpreting early Christian documents known as hagiographies -- the life-stories of saints.  I came to this study via a master's program in Celtic Christianity, which itself was a real eye-opener.  Most of the romantic half-history I thought I knew about Celts and Christianity in Ireland and related regions turned out not to be true, and the early Irish Christians turned out not to be quite the ecological proto-feminists I'd heard they were.  

But what I did find was a treasure trove of witnesses to God's transformative work in human lives! Saints who were born to nearly-barren mothers, saints who came into the world with no named parents and became spiritual parents to many, saints whose dedication to justice demanded that they leave their sanctuaries to challenge kings and liberate serfs.  Samson, Cuthbert and Brigit turned out to have stories that resonated with biblical parables and non-biblical folktales alike.  What were these stories?  And who were these people?

After six years of study, I have concluded (at least for the moment) that the stories aren't really about them.  We do not know Cuthbert better for having read his Life as recorded by a member of his community at Lindisfarne.  But if we have read attentively, we will know more about ourselves, and more about God.  And perhaps we will begin to see the ways in which God's love and mercy intersect with our humanity, which I suspect (and argue in my dissertation) is the "concerned knowledge," the purpose behind the composition of the story in the first place.

Study as a discipline?  Without it, we would only have our personal projections and preferences to tell us who God is and how God acts in the world.  With it, with a disciplined approach to Scripture and other sacred texts, as well as other religious traditions from the full range of God's people, we can begin to glimpse the truth and the vastness and the Oneness of the Divine.  Oh, yes, study is an essential joy of the spiritual life.