This is just about relevant to the preceding posts. The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a talk on Benedictine holiness today at Trinity Church on Wall Street entitled 'God's Workshop'. The text is here, but you should also be able to access the webcast from the home page. It's worth reading, partly because Rowan Williams is cleric du jour for a lot of people, but also because there seems to be a widespread feeling that there is a lot that the postmodern church could learn from monasticism.

A couple of reasons for this hunch suggest themselves. One is that the monastic disciplines are rule-based rather than personality-driven - they provide an escape from, or at least an alternative to, modern leader-centred ministry. Another is that we are, many of us, acutely aware of our lack of spiritual depth - a lot of techniques, yes, and some facility with spiritual gifts, but not a lot of depth. Perhaps Fred's paradox arises partly from seeing pastoral care as curative, therapeutic, rather than as a community-based journey into spiritual depth and maturity. I'm sure we need to mend the damage that has been done to people, but real healing may come from developing an alternative way of being that in itself both restores the soul and offers a credible and useful spiritual resource for contemporary society.