I don’t really know what to write about… as usual. But I’m going to write a post and see what comes up.
Let’s see. Ah. I’ve been thinking a lot about monks and hermits lately. I was talking to a friend of mine a couple days ago. I was telling him how I think I’d really love to be a hermit or monk (he said that he could see me doing that) but that I think God is calling me to something else. He burst out laughing, and I couldn’t figure why. He said I was the only kid who dreams of becoming a hermit.
So I’ve been wondering… did God take delight in the middle ages monks? I mean these guys were some serious Christians. They were always reciting psalms… praying… they basically did everything for God and tried their best to be perfect. Now I got to thinking, the monks are kind of taking themselves completely out of the world. I mean they’re basically saying the world is evil (which it is, but there’s also hope) and then removing themselves. Now I thought we were supposed to minister to the world (which is what I think God is calling me to do… I don’t know in what way). We aren’t supposed to completely cut off all relations with the world, right? Well, when I think of monks, that’s the picture that generally comes to mind.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that monks actually didn’t cut off all relations with the world. They prayed for the world. They helped people, cared for people, sheltered people, labored in community fields… so they weren’t just these guys on top of a mountain with no human contact.
Now hermits… that’s a different story. They were guys on tops of mountains with absolutely no human contact. So… I’m not sure about hermits. I mean it seems like how could these perfect guys (well… almost perfect) NOT be pleasing to God? I dunno. I’m still working on that one.
One thought I came up with is this; how many times does the bible tell us to minister to the world? And how many times does it spend telling us the rest of the way we are to behave? Aren’t we to be constatntly praying, and not partaking in any of the worlds evil… um… products maybe? and memorizing the entire Bible… Everyone always stresses on ministering to other people, but it seems that the Bible emphasizes ‘me’ much more than ‘them’.
Okay, okay, I know ministering to other people is a huge part of the Christian life, I’m just trying to make excuses for the hermits. Oh well.
Just a sidenote…. If anyone has any questions or (I don’t know why these two always seem to go together… maybe they should like make a compound word out of them…) comments while reading any of my posts, I’d be more than happy to answer them. Just post a comment (and everyone knows blog writers love comments [er... at least this one does]).