Check out Radiolab’s fascinating piece on the miraculous sixteenth-century creation of a clockwork automaton of a Franciscan.
*Actually, this monk robot is but an “early and very rare example of a self-acting automaton.” Please excuse the hyperbole.
“What St. Benedict had stored St. Francis scattered.”
from English writer G K Chesterton’s “Saint Francis of Assisi” via Grateful to the Dead
Examples of the secular world learning from the world’s ancient contemplative and spiritual traditions abound. Neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, cognitive scientists and cosmologists are learning from inner technologies of meditation and contemplative practice.
But what of the outer, visible, measurable technologies of those traditions? How are we learning from those technologies that fit into what is broadly called monasticism? And how are we impacting them? This blog asks the question:
What can the secular world learn from monasticism?
and
What can the secular world do for monastic traditions?
Some interfaith and secular groups are already learning from monasticism. For example, I live in an ex-Franciscan convent in Labro, Italy with a community of artists called the Art Monastery, where we live together as “artmonks”. We are growing our own monastic order: the International Otherhood of Artmonks.
Why can’t anyone build or be part of an “otherhood”? Any community or movement—whether seculary, interfaith, or of a single spiritual tradition—can choose to benefit from the wide array of monastic technologies that humanity has produced in the past 3000+ years.
This blog is about:
This is for:
Have an idea for an otherhood you want to start?
Monasticize your community’s future. Add a little order to your life. Grow your own Otherhood.
Nathan Rosquist is a writer and composer living as an artmonk at the Art Monastery in Labro, Italy. He has a MBA in Sustainable Community Economic Development from Bainbridge Graduate Intitute.