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The City is my Monastery: A contemporary rule of life
Richard Carter swapped a life of simplicity with an Anglican religious order in the Solomon Islands for parish ministry in one of London's busiest churches, St Martin-in-the-Fields.Seeing a need for monastic values in the centre of the city, he founded the Nazareth Community. Its members gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace and to learn to live openly and generously with all.Part story, part spiritual meditation, The City is My Monastery offers spiritual wisdom for daily life rooted in the Nazareth Community’s seven guiding Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sharing, Sabbath Time and Staying.
- GenresSpiritualityPoetry
324 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 30, 2019
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March 26, 2021
Summary: A monk moves to the heart of London and forms a community sharing a rule of life and offers a reflective account organized around that rule.
Richard Carter was a monk with the Melanesian Brotherhood in the Solomon Islands, a simple ordered life where he encountered God. Then he answered a call to serve a congregation in the heart of London, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. After a time, he lost a sense of the nearness of God amid the busyness of parish life. After a discernment retreat in Dorset, his conclusion was not to return to the monastic life but that God was saying “the city is your monastery.” So he returned to St. Martin’s with this conviction:
“I needed to discover the simple disciplines that can enable a community to grow: an obedience, a listening, a life-giving rule of life. I discerned that the way forward was to write down a ‘rule of life’ for a community living in the midst of the city. This was the community, at that stage yet to be formed, which now has become known as the Nazareth Community.”
RICHARD CARTER, P. XXV.
This book is about the creation of that rule, the formation of that community, and the life that followed. Carter organizes the book around the rule which has these seven elements:
With silence — to behold
With service — to accept
With sacrament — to gather
With scripture — to ihspire
With sharing — to enrich
With sabbath — to restore
Staying with — to live
The community began with forty-eight members with more to follow. Each is given a cross from made from timber from a wrecked boat on the island of Lampedusa, and becomes a part through a liturgy of commitment.
The book takes each of the elements of rule and devotes a chapter, not so much a description of “how to” as a narrative of the rule in life, written both in free verse and prose and black and white illustrations. We learn about the members of this community including the homeless who sleep on the church steps and the realities of sharing when an all-season sleeping bag bought for camping becomes the sleeping roll of a homeless man.
Here is an example of one of the poems, from the chapter on silence that I particularly liked:
Into the silent world
Into the space beyond the clutter
Into the depths of your heart
As though lowering a bucket to draw fresh water
Like the discovery of the well crystal-clear below the ground
Or becoming the wellspring.
Or like oxygen in the blood of your body This life flowing through your limbs
Like walking into to a shower of light
The warmth replenishing you through the pores of your skin
Like being unwound Like being healed
Like being loved
At the very centre of your existence.
Along the way, his own narrative intrudes as a hospitalization leads to a new appreciation of sabbath and prayer. He acknowledges his own need for community and direction, sharing about his twenty year relationship with Fr. Simon Holden, the last retreat they led together, and his last visit, two weeks before Fr. Holden’s death of leukemia. Among his last words, he expresses this longing, “I want to disappear into God’s love. I want the me to become us.”
This is a beautifully written book that makes the case that it is possible for a city, and a parish in the midst of the city, to be a monastery–a community ordered by a common rule and bound together by the love of Christ. If this is what it means for a city to be one’s monastery, I can’t help but finding myself hoping more people hear this call.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Richard Carter was a monk with the Melanesian Brotherhood in the Solomon Islands, a simple ordered life where he encountered God. Then he answered a call to serve a congregation in the heart of London, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. After a time, he lost a sense of the nearness of God amid the busyness of parish life. After a discernment retreat in Dorset, his conclusion was not to return to the monastic life but that God was saying “the city is your monastery.” So he returned to St. Martin’s with this conviction:
“I needed to discover the simple disciplines that can enable a community to grow: an obedience, a listening, a life-giving rule of life. I discerned that the way forward was to write down a ‘rule of life’ for a community living in the midst of the city. This was the community, at that stage yet to be formed, which now has become known as the Nazareth Community.”
RICHARD CARTER, P. XXV.
This book is about the creation of that rule, the formation of that community, and the life that followed. Carter organizes the book around the rule which has these seven elements:
With silence — to behold
With service — to accept
With sacrament — to gather
With scripture — to ihspire
With sharing — to enrich
With sabbath — to restore
Staying with — to live
The community began with forty-eight members with more to follow. Each is given a cross from made from timber from a wrecked boat on the island of Lampedusa, and becomes a part through a liturgy of commitment.
The book takes each of the elements of rule and devotes a chapter, not so much a description of “how to” as a narrative of the rule in life, written both in free verse and prose and black and white illustrations. We learn about the members of this community including the homeless who sleep on the church steps and the realities of sharing when an all-season sleeping bag bought for camping becomes the sleeping roll of a homeless man.
Here is an example of one of the poems, from the chapter on silence that I particularly liked:
Into the silent world
Into the space beyond the clutter
Into the depths of your heart
As though lowering a bucket to draw fresh water
Like the discovery of the well crystal-clear below the ground
Or becoming the wellspring.
Or like oxygen in the blood of your body This life flowing through your limbs
Like walking into to a shower of light
The warmth replenishing you through the pores of your skin
Like being unwound Like being healed
Like being loved
At the very centre of your existence.
Along the way, his own narrative intrudes as a hospitalization leads to a new appreciation of sabbath and prayer. He acknowledges his own need for community and direction, sharing about his twenty year relationship with Fr. Simon Holden, the last retreat they led together, and his last visit, two weeks before Fr. Holden’s death of leukemia. Among his last words, he expresses this longing, “I want to disappear into God’s love. I want the me to become us.”
This is a beautifully written book that makes the case that it is possible for a city, and a parish in the midst of the city, to be a monastery–a community ordered by a common rule and bound together by the love of Christ. If this is what it means for a city to be one’s monastery, I can’t help but finding myself hoping more people hear this call.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
January 23, 2021
First read this with our church book group and all found it an excellent if not easy to read book. Some found it difficult because of the particular contemplative spirituality it stems from, which runs counter to certain "activist" mindsets and yet it is perhaps such contemplative spirituality that is needed to sustain truly transformative social engagement in today's fast paced world. Others thought that it deserved a longer gestation than a relatively quick read and that is definitely true. This is not a straightforward story of the establishment of the Nazareth Community associated with St Martin's in the Fields in London, nor is it a "how to" guidebook. It is rather a compendium of poetic reflections, stories, principles, and simple artwork grouped around some of the core ethics of the community. As such it should change how we think about the city, the church and the intersection of the two. Historically many have thought of monasteries as places of escape from the world... they are not. They are primarily places of encounter with God and historically have been a spiritual resource for subsequent social engagement. Likewise, increasingly the city has been seen as a place to flee, both for the economically upwardly mobile, leading to TV programmes like "Escape to the Country" and the church, where it has been more "escape to the suburbs". There is a slight reversal of both trends recently but that isn't always matched by an appreciation of the indigenous people and culture of the city... and indeed an appreciation of the ability to encounter God in Christ there. My second more leisurely reading of this book has deepened my appreciation of it, and I hope, deepened my appreciation of God present in the city, especially in my own city which for the past year has been increasingly blighted by economic decline and the effects of the repeated covid lockdowns which have left rough sleepers as the main marker of sustained human presence in the city centre. And where human beings are, there is Christ, even if he is, in the words of Mother Theresa, in his most distressing disguise.
September 4, 2021
What can I say to provide a review that does justice to this book?
It is a book beyond 5 stars.
It is a book that is, as suggested in its pages, prayer as it is read.
It is thus, more than a book, it is a companion in the journey of faith and living as Christ Himself wishes us to live with God, with ourselves, with one another, and with creation.
It is a book that I will now read again...and again and again return to poetry and prose and prayers which thread throughout.
It is a book beyond 5 stars.
It is a book that is, as suggested in its pages, prayer as it is read.
It is thus, more than a book, it is a companion in the journey of faith and living as Christ Himself wishes us to live with God, with ourselves, with one another, and with creation.
It is a book that I will now read again...and again and again return to poetry and prose and prayers which thread throughout.
March 31, 2021
A book like no other
Over the years I have read many religious books but this one sums it up in a be simple but at the same time challenging way. This book will stop with me a long time
Over the years I have read many religious books but this one sums it up in a be simple but at the same time challenging way. This book will stop with me a long time
July 7, 2023
The most influential, gentle and challenging book I have read this year. It is beautifully written and really touched my soul.
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December 12, 2022The City is My Monastery: A Contemporary Rule of Life
By Richard Carter
This year I celebrated St. Martins Day in Germany with several families. It is a tradition where children make paper lanterns and hook them onto sticks to carry through the town on the night of November 11 while singing songs about St. Martin. St. Martin was a Roman soldier in the 4th century who became a Christ-follower and eventually a bishop. He is famous for using his sword to cut his officer’s uniform cloak in half to save a beggar from freezing to death.
In the heart of Great Britain’s London, is St-Martin-in-the-Fields, a beautiful church surrounded by a hurting humanity. In 2017, Richard Carter, a monk for 20 years with the Melanesian Brothers, took a month to pray about the next step in his deepening walk with God. On his return, he reversed a trend begun by St. Anthony, a Desert Father and the first monk, who centuries earlier left the city to establish a monastery away from the bustle and noise. Carter returned declaring, “The City is My Monastery.” Housed in St-Martin-in-the-Fields, he is creating the Nazareth Community, begun in 2018 with 49 members.
The members of the community are not your typical monks. They are a community of “faith and forsaken, wondrous and woolly who gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace and to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace, and to live openly and generously with all.”
As monasteries do, the Nazareth Community has a rule of life. The heart of this book is story and poetry that wraps itself around each of the seven pillars in the rule that Carter developed. But it’s not really about “rule.” Rather, this is an earthy, honest, practical and tangible light to show two things: the way to love God and the way to be with God. Carter says, “I have not written a set of rules. Rather in response to this city and through the gifts this city has given me I have tried to weave a cloak that like St. Martin I can share. For I know I have shared the cloak of many others.”
1. With Silence – With examples and stories, rather than “shoulds” Carter unfolds the prayer practices of the Nazareth Community. Seek in your day a space for solitude and silence, a time to be with God. Develop a simple practice of contemplative prayer. Become aware of your distractions. Seek natural spaces for your prayer. Pray the shape of the day into being. Pray while walking. Pray together and alone. Make a time of creative encounter. Spend time praying for this city. Consider the prayer of examen, the practice of silence and keeping a journal of discoveries.
2. With Service – Remembering that the community is located in a concentration of suffering city-dwellers, homeless, immigrants, those who have fallen through the cracks, community members live service as a lifestyle. Service is recognizing the humanity of your neighbour. It is just turning up. Service is a gift and a discovering of compassion. It is staying with, living the Beatitudes, visiting the prisoner and the prisoner visiting you, hearing the cry, and praying with. Service is costly; it is belonging; it is realizing that we are all part of the body of Christ. Service is both being there at the cross and it is resurrection. It is becoming part of the orchestra of heaven.
3. With Scripture – This is a community who encounters God in Scripture, understanding that Scripture is learning obedience. Scripture is divine reading which seeks communion with God and which allows the Word to do its work. Contemplative reading of Scripture allows us to enter into the Scriptures ourselves, becoming the Scriptures. Scripture is finding a language; it is forgiveness; it is setting free; it is the story of coming home. The Bible study does not end.
4. With Sacrament – For the Nazareth Community, sacrament is communion, is presence, is going out into the world as a bearer of God. Sacrament is beholding transcendence and immanence. Sacrament is transfiguration and becoming part of the body of Christ. The Eucharist is the remembrance of a death but also the beginning of new life. Sacrament is discovering a new truthfulness in which we are all included. It is the center of liturgy.
5. With Sharing – Unashamed to show that the are Christian, the community decided to always begin their meals with prayer like this one. Lord God, in a world where many are hungry, we thank you for the food we share. In a world where many are lonely, we thank you for our fellowship. In a world where so many live in fear and mistrust, we thank you for the example of unity and peace. In a world where many do not know the love of God, we thank you for that love which is ours today and which we share. In the Holy Name of our God we pray. Amen. At the same time, they are a community that respects people of all faiths and those of none and give them space and opportunity if they want to honour the traditions of their own faith.
They share the Church, the blessing, the journey, baptism. Sharing is encountering that which we do not own. Sharing is discovering the community of the dispossessed. And they share the dance. They share their spiritual journey with a guide. They share home.
6. With Sabbath – Sabbath is a gift of time; it is realizing the mystery and miracle of life. Sabbath is discovering sacred space, is coming and seeing, is forgiveness, is presence, is tasting the gifts of God. Sabbath time means living in the kingdom of God now. Sabbath is hospitality and thanksgiving.
7. Staying With - “As you begin to grow, you will begin to see yourself ofr what you are. You will be humbled by this and grateful. For here lies a greater freedom. You will see your moods, and your deceptions, and the changing weather of your feelings, and the games you play – but you will not be deceived or the victim. And you will see your goodness without pride – like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. You will see the life beyond self. The life beyond your preoccupations and beyond the anxieties that fee fear. A truth. A life radiant and beautiful. A life made by God. A life of blessing which invites you to become blessing too.”
Staying With is steadfastness, staying with the seasons, with truth, with suffering, faithful in death, staying with love. It is abiding.
8. When the Me Becomes Us – The final chapter contains, as do all the chapters, story. This is the story of a death of Simon. When Richard and Simon spoke about going home, Richard asked, “What is home?” Simen replied, “Home – is making a space for God in yourself for other people.”
The blessing to close a gathering: Beloved go gently, go simply, go joyfully, fo humbly, and may the Spirit of God be with you. Amen.
By Richard Carter
This year I celebrated St. Martins Day in Germany with several families. It is a tradition where children make paper lanterns and hook them onto sticks to carry through the town on the night of November 11 while singing songs about St. Martin. St. Martin was a Roman soldier in the 4th century who became a Christ-follower and eventually a bishop. He is famous for using his sword to cut his officer’s uniform cloak in half to save a beggar from freezing to death.
In the heart of Great Britain’s London, is St-Martin-in-the-Fields, a beautiful church surrounded by a hurting humanity. In 2017, Richard Carter, a monk for 20 years with the Melanesian Brothers, took a month to pray about the next step in his deepening walk with God. On his return, he reversed a trend begun by St. Anthony, a Desert Father and the first monk, who centuries earlier left the city to establish a monastery away from the bustle and noise. Carter returned declaring, “The City is My Monastery.” Housed in St-Martin-in-the-Fields, he is creating the Nazareth Community, begun in 2018 with 49 members.
The members of the community are not your typical monks. They are a community of “faith and forsaken, wondrous and woolly who gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace and to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace, and to live openly and generously with all.”
As monasteries do, the Nazareth Community has a rule of life. The heart of this book is story and poetry that wraps itself around each of the seven pillars in the rule that Carter developed. But it’s not really about “rule.” Rather, this is an earthy, honest, practical and tangible light to show two things: the way to love God and the way to be with God. Carter says, “I have not written a set of rules. Rather in response to this city and through the gifts this city has given me I have tried to weave a cloak that like St. Martin I can share. For I know I have shared the cloak of many others.”
1. With Silence – With examples and stories, rather than “shoulds” Carter unfolds the prayer practices of the Nazareth Community. Seek in your day a space for solitude and silence, a time to be with God. Develop a simple practice of contemplative prayer. Become aware of your distractions. Seek natural spaces for your prayer. Pray the shape of the day into being. Pray while walking. Pray together and alone. Make a time of creative encounter. Spend time praying for this city. Consider the prayer of examen, the practice of silence and keeping a journal of discoveries.
2. With Service – Remembering that the community is located in a concentration of suffering city-dwellers, homeless, immigrants, those who have fallen through the cracks, community members live service as a lifestyle. Service is recognizing the humanity of your neighbour. It is just turning up. Service is a gift and a discovering of compassion. It is staying with, living the Beatitudes, visiting the prisoner and the prisoner visiting you, hearing the cry, and praying with. Service is costly; it is belonging; it is realizing that we are all part of the body of Christ. Service is both being there at the cross and it is resurrection. It is becoming part of the orchestra of heaven.
3. With Scripture – This is a community who encounters God in Scripture, understanding that Scripture is learning obedience. Scripture is divine reading which seeks communion with God and which allows the Word to do its work. Contemplative reading of Scripture allows us to enter into the Scriptures ourselves, becoming the Scriptures. Scripture is finding a language; it is forgiveness; it is setting free; it is the story of coming home. The Bible study does not end.
4. With Sacrament – For the Nazareth Community, sacrament is communion, is presence, is going out into the world as a bearer of God. Sacrament is beholding transcendence and immanence. Sacrament is transfiguration and becoming part of the body of Christ. The Eucharist is the remembrance of a death but also the beginning of new life. Sacrament is discovering a new truthfulness in which we are all included. It is the center of liturgy.
5. With Sharing – Unashamed to show that the are Christian, the community decided to always begin their meals with prayer like this one. Lord God, in a world where many are hungry, we thank you for the food we share. In a world where many are lonely, we thank you for our fellowship. In a world where so many live in fear and mistrust, we thank you for the example of unity and peace. In a world where many do not know the love of God, we thank you for that love which is ours today and which we share. In the Holy Name of our God we pray. Amen. At the same time, they are a community that respects people of all faiths and those of none and give them space and opportunity if they want to honour the traditions of their own faith.
They share the Church, the blessing, the journey, baptism. Sharing is encountering that which we do not own. Sharing is discovering the community of the dispossessed. And they share the dance. They share their spiritual journey with a guide. They share home.
6. With Sabbath – Sabbath is a gift of time; it is realizing the mystery and miracle of life. Sabbath is discovering sacred space, is coming and seeing, is forgiveness, is presence, is tasting the gifts of God. Sabbath time means living in the kingdom of God now. Sabbath is hospitality and thanksgiving.
7. Staying With - “As you begin to grow, you will begin to see yourself ofr what you are. You will be humbled by this and grateful. For here lies a greater freedom. You will see your moods, and your deceptions, and the changing weather of your feelings, and the games you play – but you will not be deceived or the victim. And you will see your goodness without pride – like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. You will see the life beyond self. The life beyond your preoccupations and beyond the anxieties that fee fear. A truth. A life radiant and beautiful. A life made by God. A life of blessing which invites you to become blessing too.”
Staying With is steadfastness, staying with the seasons, with truth, with suffering, faithful in death, staying with love. It is abiding.
8. When the Me Becomes Us – The final chapter contains, as do all the chapters, story. This is the story of a death of Simon. When Richard and Simon spoke about going home, Richard asked, “What is home?” Simen replied, “Home – is making a space for God in yourself for other people.”
The blessing to close a gathering: Beloved go gently, go simply, go joyfully, fo humbly, and may the Spirit of God be with you. Amen.
March 22, 2020
I agree with the consensus four star rating. As a member of the Nazareth community and the St Martin's congregation I know Richard, many of the people in his stories; consequently this book feels personal. How well will those who don't know the people and the places connect with this idiosyncratic work?
November 19, 2023
It took me a while to wrap my head around what this book is. But as I laid aside my preconceived ideas that this would be a type of instruction book and just let it be what it is, I found reading it to be transformative. It’s a mix of prose and poetry, more narrative than didactic. The act of reading this book makes time feel slower and helps us see God and people more clearly.
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