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Monastic life

13 November 2023

8 min read

There’s much more to ‘monk mode’ than productivity hacks

In the heart of London Lianne Howard-Dace spent a year trying to live a simpler, slower life with others.

Lianne Howard-Dace

Lianne Howard-Dace is a writer and trainer, with a background in church and community fundraising.

A group of young people wearing white habits stand and laugh with each other.

Community of St Anselm members and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

CoSA.

Six years ago, I stood in white, full of nervous excitement, in front of a priest to make a vow. But it was a prayer robe, not a dress, and the priest happened to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. I was not getting married but joining a religious community.

The Community of St Anselm (CoSA) was founded by Archbishop Justin Welby in 2015, and I was amongst the third cohort of young Christians, aged 20-35, committing to spending a year together. Some of my fellow community members came from across the globe, entirely stepping away from their everyday lives. They spent the year living in Lambeth Palace, devoting their time to prayer, study and service. Others, like me, remained in our homes and jobs, whilst also trying to reorientate our lives around those three worthy pastimes.

By committing to a pattern of living, giving up on the idea that I was in control and limiting my choices I found much liberation.

In my experience, much of life - and the Christian faith in particular - is counter-intuitive. It would be a logical hypothesis to suppose that restricting your life in this way – agreeing to reorientate towards living by a set of rules and to fall into a structured way of being – would be stifling. And yet, like thousands before me, I found the complete opposite to be true.

Our culture upholds choice; we are told that the ability to choose is the ultimate expression of freedom. And whilst this may be true with big choices – where to live, who to live with, what work to do - our brains don’t cope as well with a lot of day-to-day options as we might be led to believe. In a 2000 experiment, psychologists observed that a supermarket display with 24 different types of jam generated a lot of interest but not many sales. In contrast, a display with just six different types of jam meant people were nearly ten times more likely to go on to make a purchase. If, like me, you’re prone to spending inordinate amounts of time deciding what to have for dinner, I’m sure you can relate.

Monks and nuns have understood this human tendency to get overwhelmed and expend energy on small decisions - suffering from what we now call decision fatigue - for many centuries. Whilst we may find the idea of a rigid schedule and a limited menu and wardrobe austere, not having to make those decisions every day can free up mental energy for other things. It’s the same reason why some tech entrepreneurs espouse the idea of wearing the same black turtleneck or grey t-shirt every day.

Whilst my own experience of religious life was not as extreme as those who make a life-long vow, I did find that in committing to a pattern of living, giving up on the idea that I was in control and limiting my choices I found much liberation. The chatter in my mind quietened a little. I became more comfortable in my own skin. I felt more and more like my truest self.

Attempting Cal Newport’s monk mode productivity hack by turning off our digital devices for the morning - or listening to a podcast from former Hindu monk, Jay Shetty - is as close to encountering monasticism as many of us get. CoSA draws on wisdom from several saints who themselves founded religious communities: St Benedict, St Francis and St Ignatius of Loyola. Whilst trying to emulate their way of life wasn’t always easy, I seized the opportunity to go deeper and threw myself into the intensity of the year.

As a teenager I was always late to morning tutorial, despite being able to see my secondary school from my house. During my time in the community, I struggled to shake this habit and would usually be rushing to Lambeth Palace each Monday evening, arriving after those who had travelled from as far as Oxford, Poole and Canterbury, despite only working 10 minutes down the road.

Those evenings were spent eating, talking and praying together and quickly became the highlight of each week for me. A time to put aside the day-to-day stresses and just try to be present with the other members of the community. We finished each gathering by praying compline, or night prayer, in the crypt at Lambeth Palace. In Celtic Christianity there is a concept of ‘thin spaces’, places where the boundary between heaven and earth seems a little more permeable. The cool, silver-lit crypt at Lambeth is one of those places for me; it seems to crackle with sacred potential.

We also took three retreats in an Abbey during the year, near a stretch of wild Cornish coastline. Precious time away from the bustle of the city. Away from the demands of life admin and meetings and untameable inboxes. The strapline - for want of a better word – of the Community of St Anselm is “A year in God’s time”, and I think that actually sums it up pretty well. We spent a year trying to live a simpler, slower life. A life marked by prayerfulness and the sufficiency of God, rather than the bigger, better, hustle culture pressures of modern living.

We went into these new relationships acknowledging that we wouldn’t agree on everything, but actively deciding to love each other anyway.

Only the most disciplined of us can maintain healthy habits, like daily prayer and reflection, on our own. It’s easier to go to the gym with a buddy. The upcoming book club meeting nudges us to keep reading. I think that’s what drew me to join CoSA; I knew I needed mutual accountability and support to sustain the spiritual disciplines I craved in my life.

In the community’s Rule of Life – the guidelines we each agreed to follow during the year – there is a line “We choose on another” and this has had a profound effect on me. The idea that we chose to put our shared life in the community ahead of everything else for that year has shaped me deeply. I have forged some amazing friendships through the community, but before we had even met each other, or learned to like each other, we chose to love each other in all our diversity and difference.

I do find that church is one of the places I am most likely to encounter people who are different to me – particularly intergenerationally – but even in finding a place of worship, there can be a tendency to seek out one that ticks as many of one’s personal preferences as possible. In the weeks leading up to joining the community I had been unsure what to expect. Having not grown up in a Christian family, would I feel left behind? Coming from a less-wordy type of church, would I get lost in the orders of service? Would everyone think I was too socially liberal? Would I find them too conversative?

The act of choosing one another put all of that aside. In stepping out of our everyday lives, we also stepped out of our respective echo chambers. We went into these new relationships acknowledging that we wouldn’t agree on everything, but actively deciding to love each other anyway. It was hard at times, but I came to see that whilst people had come to different conclusions on issues to me, they had done so no less thoughtfully. I came to see that we had much more in common than the things which society would say should separate us.

In smaller ways too, I believe it is possible to choose to love others around us. We can choose to recognise the humanity of the person who is rude to us on the bus.

I usually hate household chores, but some of my fondest memories from the year are chatting in the Lambeth Palace kitchen whilst putting away cutlery or singing together whilst washing up on retreat. By sharing the load, we learned ways to find joy in the smallest of things. And, by getting stuck into the mundane tasks of living and being together, we learned to see the humanity in each other.

It’s no coincidence that those in long-term religious life call each other sister and brother; it’s certainly the best analogy for community life I can think of. As a child I was excited for the arrival of my siblings before I had even met them; I knew that it was my role as big sister to love them unconditionally. I’m not sure, if we weren’t related, whether my path would have crossed with my sister and brother as adults. Yet, they are some of the most important people in my life.

In smaller ways too, I believe it is possible to choose to love others around us. We can choose to recognise the humanity of the person who is rude to us on the bus. We can choose not to assume the worst about someone’s post on social media. We can choose to share a kind word with a colleague, even if we don’t think they’ll ever return the favour. I’m not saying that it’s easy, or that I always manage it myself, but it can be done.

In community, on the days you have doubts about the things you are saying in morning or evening prayer, you know that your fellow members are lifting you up with their words, they are lending you a little of their belief. Learning to be held by others in that way is just one of the many gifts I took from my year in God’s time. I also learned that I do not need to be or do anything in particular to be loved by God or by others. That working out faith and belief with other people can reveal things you never would’ve found alone.

In September, the Archbishop of Canterbury welcomed the ninth cohort of CoSA in a commitment service at Lambeth Palace. Young people from as far away as Sri Lanka, Australia and Zimbabwe made the decision to spend the next year living differently, making time for God and each other in new ways. And I, along with 23 others from around the world, Zoomed into the service and made a new commitment too.

This year, for the first time, there is an opportunity for alumni of CoSA to become members of a dispersed community, the Chapter. Like third order Franciscans or Benedictine oblates, we will attempt to stay linked to the life of our community, alongside our everyday routines. I’m looking forward to being more intentional about re-engaging with the daily rhythms and lessons I learned in my year in community. We will have a less intensive programme of events to help us feel connected and will follow a simplified Rule of Life that focuses on learning from Jesus, seeking reconciliation and unity in the Church, serving with compassion and, of course, choosing one another. I’m excited to see what the year holds.

Essay

Change

Christmas survival

12 December 2023

7 min read

An Acton nativity and a new crisis at Christmas time

Inspired by a Christmas visit of Jose and Maria, West London churches aiding asylum seekers now expect a wave of evictions, Robert Wright discovers.

Robert Wright

Robert is a journalist at the Financial Times.

clients of a charity queue beside a table of suppliers in a church

Ease clients select groceries.

It was the arrival of a single, memorable couple that prompted churches in East Acton, West London, to recognise their responsibility to care for the growing numbers of asylum seekers being housed in the area, according to Jon Westall. The husband of the pair, who had fled persecution in El Salvador, in central America, was named José (Joseph), according to Westall, a Church of England vicar in the area. José was accompanied by his wife María (Mary), who was, Westall recalls, “heavily pregnant”. The couple arrived at one of the area’s churches for their Christmas services in 2021.

When they came to the church, Westall says, José and María were among 400 people living in a local hostel turned into housing for people awaiting decisions on their requests for refugee status. The status, which allows recipients permanent leave to remain in the UK, is awarded to those that prove they have fled danger or persecution. The couple’s arrival struck local Christians thanks to its clear symbolism, Westall recalls. But it also left them initially unsure what best to do.

Nearly two years on, the church that José and María visited hosts a weekly drop-in for asylum seekers organised by East Acton Support Enterprise, a new charity set up with the backing of a local support group for would-be refugees. Westall, who is a trustee, says that Ease’s volunteers are a “right old mixture” of people of different faiths and none. The group seeks to support the hundreds of people in the Acton and Ealing areas housed in hostels and hotels while awaiting rulings on their asylum applications. Since the summer, it has also been grappling with the effects of new Home Office policies that mean people who succeed in their asylum claims often find themselves evicted from their temporary accommodation with as little as seven days’ notice.

“It’s the whole community. These people are very passionate, very enthusiastic. They listen. They talk.”

The effort in Acton is one of scores across the UK helping refugees that is hosted in a local church and that draws heavily on church volunteers. Westall says that, from church people’s point of view, they became involved in the nascent project because it touched them “quite deeply really” to meet José and María at Christmas. Ease prefers not to publicise the location of its drop-in, to avoid attracting attention from demonstrators against migration.

“Jesus is a refugee,” Westall says. “There were just resonances really.”

One of his clearest recent memories is of being called to help a man from Syria who had just been evicted from accommodation in the nearby west London neighbourhood of Hillingdon, with only five days’ notice.

“He was standing on the street corner in Hillingdon with all his bags, absolutely paralysed with fear, this guy in his mid to late fifties,” Westall recalls.

Sara Nathan, another trustee of Ease, says the drop-in opened at a critical time. She approached the church about using its facilities in January 2022, shortly after José and María’s first visit, after being asked by West London Welcome, another support group, to set up a drop-in in Acton. A new facility was needed to relieve strain West London Welcome’s facility in Hammersmith. Nathan, an active member of West London Synagogue, says the first Ease drop-in session, in February 2022, took place just in time for a surge in demand to help refugees.

“We set up to start and the day we started was the day Putin invaded Ukraine,” she says.

The group has been “running to stand still” ever since, under Lissa Pelham, the group’s co-ordinator, Nathan adds.

“It has been growing considerably,” she says, adding that the group became a stand-alone charity, separate from West London Welcome, in September this year.

One regular attender at the drop-in, Sobhan, an engineer from Afghanistan, says he values the mix of practical help and emotional support on offer. Sobhan – not his real name - was studying in the UK for a master’s degree when Kabul fell to the Taliban. Because his family was closely involved in the previous Afghan government, his life would be in danger if he returned, he says.

He adds that it is “very nice” of Ease to organise the drop-in centre, which offers people staying in local hotels and other refugee accommodation free food, sanitary products and other help. The support supplements the £45 a week living allowance that those awaiting decisions receive from the Home Office.

However, the drop-in is “more than just the help”, Sobhan says.

“It’s the whole community,” he says. “These people are very passionate, very enthusiastic. They listen. They talk.”

Involvement in Ease has made her more aware of the real nature of the problems facing people awaiting asylum decisions and more anxious to do something about them.

The complexity of the challenges facing Ease is clear at a drop-in session when Pelham holds her weekly briefing for the 20 volunteers present to help around 100 clients. Pelham starts by asking volunteers to ensure anyone new attending the drop-in is resident in Ealing. The checks are necessary because supplies are limited and there is a risk that asylum seekers travelling from other boroughs will take what is on offer and leave none for the people most dependent on Ease.

Pelham goes on to impress on volunteers the rules about evictions from asylum accommodation. The warning is necessary because a Home Office drive to clear the hotels housing many of the tens of thousands of people awaiting asylum rulings has prompted a cut in the notice given to successful applicants – those granted leave to settle in the UK - to leave the place they have been housed.

Successful applicants used to have 28 days from the issuing of their residence permit to leave the accommodation – already a demanding timeline given the need to secure a bank account, deposit for rent and means of paying the rent. Since August this year, however, they have been given only seven days from the issuing of the decision. Because the decision is issued by letter to people living in often crowded and chaotic hotels, if applicants receive their letters late or not at all, as with the Syrian man that Westall helped, the notice period can be shorter or non-existent.

The change of policy is likely to affect many of the drop-in centre’s clients because as many as 68 per cent of initial decisions on asylum claims in 2022 decided that the person had a genuine claim to asylum. A substantial further proportion are likely to win the status on appeal – around half of completed appeals were successful in some recent years.

Pelham reminds the volunteers that at times of freezing weather landlords are obliged to give tenants an extra three days’ notice of eviction. She also reminds volunteers that there should be no evictions over the Christmas period, between December 23 and January 2.

However, there is a resigned recognition that some landlords will ignore the rules. Nathan has brought to the drop-in session a compact tent to hand out to anyone with no better option. A group of 10 Eritrean refugees have been sleeping under a nearby road flyover, she says. She has also been working to house evicted refugees through Refugees at Home, a charity that places refugees in volunteers’ homes. Nathan herself helped to establish Refugees at Home in 2016 and says new volunteers have come forward as a result of the surge in evictions.

Pelham asks volunteers to ensure the details of any clients reduced to sleeping on the streets are recorded.

“It keeps getting worse,” Pelham tells them. “It really feels that way.”

The difficult circumstances and challenging policy background do not noticeably damp the atmosphere at the drop-in, however. In front of a side altar in the church, one would-be refugee uses a borrowed guitar to serenade those present with a string of classic songs such as Elvis Presley’s Baby, 'Let’s Play House'. Some attendees attend an art therapy session, while others work at their English.

One Christian volunteer, Charlotte Aldridge, says involvement in Ease has made her more aware of the real nature of the problems facing people awaiting asylum decisions and more anxious to do something about them.

“I suppose from a Christian point of view, I feel it puts the gospel into practice,” Aldridge says. “It’s nice to be part of a positive project that’s doing something practical to help people in the area.”

“They’re in the UK now. If a British person is nice to them then understands them, that’s a very relieving thing mentally.”

Westall acknowledges that asylum-seekers’ problems are a matter of acute political controversy. There are people among the attendees at the drop-in who made clandestine crossings to the UK by means such as small boats to lodge their asylum claims.

The vicar insists the asylum-seekers he meets have not come to the UK just in search of a better life but have genuinely fled trauma and situations that would prompt anyone to flee. He reports few complaints from local people about the church’s work.

“There aren’t many people who stop me and say they shouldn’t be here,” Westall says, adding that the congregation of the church that hosts the drop-in has been “very supportive”.

Sobhan, who has just received refugee status and is looking for work, says it is a “great thing” that Ease offers companionship to refugees living in the area.

“They’re in the UK now,” he says of the refugees. “If a British person is nice to them then understands them, that’s a very relieving thing mentally.”

Westall, meanwhile, along with his wife, is a godparent to José and María’s baby. The family are now living elsewhere in the UK.

The vicar says, however, that the meeting with the couple provided a window for local Christians onto a world they had not known at all.

“I’ve learned a huge amount from the people I’ve met and the people I’m getting to know,” he says.