Some people are not going to like this but I can be silent no more. The LCG membership list is overblown, encomapssing far too many people. We are not a community, we are ten or so communities under one monastery. The church is ethereal enough, must we also complicate matters by trying to force all 160 members into one community when we don't even know the people who live less that 200 miles from us? It's ludicrous. A lot of time and energy has been wasted on this question of how to make more than a hundred people into one community. The answer is simple: Either we all move in together, or we are daughter communities.
I already know all the people this is going to upset, Jane Endris, Mary Guilbert, probably Bob, too, but I'm sorry. I looked at the pamphlet that came for the September retreat and all I saw was names of people I've never heard of. So I ask, is that a community? No, it's a bunch of people unwilling to admit that we are all united by the charism of Gethsemani, but we are not the same community. We don't even have our meetings in the same ways, or same days.
It's safe to say this here because of my very limited readership. So I've said it. While writing today's rule reflection I was so tempted to refer to our membership as overblown, but that would serve nothing but my own vanity, and to the readership of the rules list I owe more than that. However, I am hereby taking my stand. We are all daughter communities of Gethsemani Abbey, united by the same Charism, but not all one community.
That's all I have to say about that.
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