An Urban Monk’s Manifesto
Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
I sort of hate how much I love Star Wars. I’m sorry to all my fellow diehards who enjoyed the last film but… it stunk.
While I enjoyed the humor, the acting, and the visuals, the writing was so flat and so rushed. The Emperor returning was dumb, and their retconning The Last Jedi was a complete lack of creative “cajones.” I loved The Last Jedi, and a lot of people hated it, but ignoring its threads made things altogether mediocre.
The reason I brought up Disney’s mixed Star Wars trilogy is that I love the concept of the Force. In all three eras, I appreciate how the physical power of the strongest characters is rooted in a deeply spiritual source.
The unfairly maligned episode VIII wonderfully explores its mystical qualities. When first introducing Rey to the force, Luke asks her what she thinks it is. In wonderful transparency she replies “it’s a power the Jedi have that lets them control people and... make things float.”
For her, this is true. In the previous movie, her dormant powers awaken and she does cause a weaker mind to release her from captivity by speaking her desire to him and it then becoming reality. She also seemingly “willed” a lightsaber to herself by ‘making it float.’ And when Kylo Ren first utters the word force, Rey somehow grasps its significance if not it’s full extent.
This may be far fetched of a metaphor, but I think the same can be said for a new Christian when they first hear a story about Jesus. His allure is powerful. Something about this Jewish guy from thousands of years ago evokes a potent response from many God-sensitive (as opposed to force sensitive) people. All of the major religions recognize Him, at the very least, as an incredibly wise teacher.
But what does Star Wars, the force, Jesus, and new believers have to do with being an urban monk? Further, what in the world do I mean by “urban monk?” And why does this monk need a manifesto?
Christianity is a lot of different things for a lot of different people.
It varies according to geography, socioeconomics, race, gender, and a plethora of other variables.
Some people have had a mainly good experience with it. Their church is healthy, their friends all believe the same things they do, and God is always on their side about political issues.
Other people have gotten pretty burned by it. Their church was toxic, their friends believe wildly different things than they do, and God has always seemed distant at best and outright smiteful at worst.
I think the biggest stumbling block for modern people to accept Christ is the church’s emphasis on their specific brand of religious conformity. In other words, people think they can’t follow Christ because they can’t stomach all of what a given church teaches.
This was me for years. In many ways, it still is.
And it’s why I’ve pondered at times, only occasionally in a serious manner, joining a monastery and getting off the grid.
But wait… aren’t monks REALLY forced to conform to a specific kind of spirituality? Pray in specific ways? Wear weird robes? Be silent and away from people for hours at a time everyday?
To be fair, that last bit sounds heavenly. Pun intended. People drain the crap out of this super introverted yet highly relational soul.
At first glance, the other aspects of being a monk aren’t that appealing to me. I don’t really like being told to do anything. I’ve struggled following prayer guidelines. I detest dress codes of any kind. Although I generally do well in interviews, it’s my mildly slovenly (yet always casually “cool”) sense of style that probably hinders me the most.
The biggest denominator, however, about all of these things is that no one is telling me what to think. Or how to believe. Or what I might do to become a good ole Christian boy.
They are external patterns of conformity, not internal. And the only internal conformity I desire is that of becoming more like Christ and, therefore, becoming more like myself.
The loathing of The Last Jedi still breaks my outcast heart. My own pastor, the incessantly nerdy man I connect with on so many levels well beyond Jesus stuff, drank all of the Reddit neck beard haterade.
(For clarification, my pastor doesn’t have a neck beard. He’s very stylish actually and not in an annoying way)
Mid sermon, using Star Wars as an illustration (doesn’t another guy do that too?), he quoted Mark Hamill’s now notorious words upon first reading the treatment of Luke Skywalker.
I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character.
What people omit, even my insanely intelligent Bible teacher, is the second part of the quote.
I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character. Now, having said that, I have gotten it off my chest, and my job now is to take what you’ve created and do my best to realize your vision.
Now, all of the angry Redditors and aggressive Youtubers have gone at length to deconstruct Rian Johnson’s vision for Luke. Often citing Return of the Jedi (and being unable to remove their extensive knowledge of lore now considered Legends about Luke), they can’t fathom grumpy Luke. Disenfranchised Luke. Deeply saddened Luke.
I freaking relished Luke’s ornery evolution. It made absolute sense that after the Skywalker cycle might again be tarnished by unspeakable evil, he might, for a split second, think that Ben might need to die so thousands of others wouldn’t. Further, that after that blunder led to a self-fulfilling prophecy of yet another tyrannical Skywalker, he would go to an island way off the galactic grid, to the very beginning where the first Jedi Temple was built, for some sort of solace.
This sort of rich disillusionment is what I felt for years about Christianity.
I absolutely shouldn’t have come across any “Rey” style new believers while I was in that frustrated place. I would’ve told them the church was corrupt like Luke told Rey the Jedi were corrupt. I would’ve pointed out that Christians were the ones that elected 45 like how the Jedi allowed Palpatine to rise to power.
(Yes, I compared 45 to the Emperor. I’m getting tired of beating around the bush about my impassioned resistance to evangelical support of a remarkably not like Christ man)
I’ve been where Luke was. I chose religious isolation. I retreated to an emotional island.
I had been that Christian guy who did all the church things and prayed all the right prayers.
Yet I felt empty. It didn’t work. And I cut off my connection to God in the same way Luke closed himself off from the force.
But in the same way the force wasn’t done with Luke and wasn’t done informing his destiny, God will never be done with me or be done guiding my destiny.
This is my manifesto as an urban monk. Why a monk? Why an urban one at that?
Using Star Wars metaphors, if I’m Rey, then Father Thomas Merton is my Luke Skywalker.
He was the monk’s monk. He traveled abroad and lived adjacent to Tibetan monks, maintaining his Christian convictions while learning from Buddhists about Buddhism in order to be a better Christ follower.
This is how I see myself in an intensely post Christian Portland. I am close to and love many people who don’t follow Christ, and one of my goals in this space is to have them teach me how to be a better Christian.
The metaphor isn’t perfect but none of them are. Another reason I love using them.
But I don’t want to live in a monastery. I’m not really a Catholic (but I don’t feel Protestant either). And I have a lot of friends, and I love my job, and I’m excited for grad school. Hence my use of the adjective urban.
Yet I feel like a monk because I am intentionally choosing to adopt monk tendencies. Why is that?
Because Jesus was a monk.
I’ve landed so many planes with “because Jesus was a ________.” If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Amirite?
Like the verse on top says, Jesus withdrew to lonely places and prayed. He proverbially said “I’m out” after long, grueling hours of being the Messiah.
I love that. I respect that God Himself as a human being needed to get away from the crazy world. I need it too.
All my life I’ve had issues with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. For so many years I thought it was all because there was something wrong with me.
Yet now years into therapy, recovery groups, fairly consistent church attendance, extreme obsession with the enneagram, and an absurd amount of Henri Nouwen, Brennan Manning, Madeleine L’engle and my guy Thomas Merton, I’ve realized two things.
First, I’m definitely not the only one who just didn’t cut it in a mainstream, unchallenging, neat and tidy born-again culture. A lot of men and women of faith I deeply respect went against the grain. It wasn’t even due to them being “rebels at heart” either. In fact, that same “I’m just not sure I fit” feeling led many of them to write books and preach sermons which assured millions of people that they weren’t the only one.
Second, our world is seriously broken. Not quite a shocking revelation, but I think we quickly comprehend the faults of the world and how it affects society but we are unlikely to reflect on how it affects us.
This is where Jesus “monkness” is so pragmatic. He knew not only that the poor were consistently slighted under both Roman oppression and under the religious burden of the Pharisees and Sadducees, He also knew that for Him to usher in His Father’s kingdom, He had to remain attached to His Father.
This meant going away from the crowds, from the pressures, from the anxieties of life, into the quiet and desolate place. Once there, He could dwell on remembering His mission, His belovedness, and His attachment to the Father. Yet even then, this wasn’t just a place of comfort and joy. His first encounter with the enemy took place away from all others. His most desperate prayer, which was so taxing it caused Him to sweat blood, was not heard by His sleeping disciples.
Said plainly, many of the most human moments Christ experienced He experienced when He withdrew from a world that worked so hard to dehumanize. This is why He didn’t pray for the world in the Gospel of John; He prayed for those He loved. He prayed for the twelve, and He also prayed for you and for me.
I feel convinced most Last Jedi haters simply didn’t watch the end of the movie. Yes, Rose saving Finn was a little meh, as was their kiss. And I was mildly crushed when the Tie Fighter attack music theme wasn’t given more room to breathe and make me feel like a seven year old boy again screaming “pew pew” as I shot down enemy ships again.
Yet Kylo and Luke’s confrontation was tense. When Kylo first orders all of the vehicles to fire at his estranged, attempted murderer uncle? Hux then asking “you think you got him?” Luke brushing the dust off his shoulders, unharmed?
It’s so epic, and I think so many haters were so flustered about not getting the story they wanted that they ignored the best moments of what they got.
I think this is kind of like what being a monk is like. Withdrawing from society, whether for a few minutes or a few weeks, isn’t quite groundbreaking or earth shattering. We expect dramatic epiphanies or immediate emotional healing. But God doesn’t work this way. God doesn’t want to give you His presence if you only want His presence so that you can feel better.
Put simply, God wants you to know Him in a similar way that He knows you. Reread that last sentence and think of the implications.
The Author of creation, the Alpha and Omega, the Lion and the Lamb knows you from the inside out. He knitted you together in your mother’s womb. You were made fearfully and wonderfully by the being who made all other things.
Therefore, the God who is love wants all of your love. Eternal life is dependent on knowing this relational reality known as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Casual faith won’t cut it. Arbitrary scripture memory isn’t enough. Your positive feelings about God is not the same as knowing God.
He wants it all. The good, the bad, the ugly. The morally pure and the deeply sinful. The places where you trust in His provision in your life and and the places you doubt He cares about at all.
In other words, by being monk-like, going away from all things that demand attention, time, and/or money, and praying earnestly and honestly about everything going on in your life, you will gain a fuller picture and a greater understanding of how Jesus is Jesus.
It’s not that being a monk, urban or otherwise, will make you suddenly sinless. If anything, it will probably reveal just how deep your bent nature goes. Yet it will give God more permission to shape and form you into the son and daughter He already sees you as. If He is the beginning, and is also the end, He has seen our beginning and is excited to bring us our end. We are stuck in the now; He is inviting us into that now and also into the not yet.
From one urban monk to maybe another, I encourage you to get away from this crazy world and to spend copious amounts of time complaining, loving, lamenting, trusting, and “over sharing” with this good and kind God. Paul called Him Abba for a reason. Let’s learn to call Him Abba and to call on Him more too.