This article was written for the January 2024 Chronicle newsletter for Christ Church Eureka.
2023 is a significant year for me as I celebrate my 40th birthday, my 5-year anniversary at Christ Church Eureka, and begin my 10th year as an Episcopal priest. I was ordained to the priesthood in early January on the Eve of the Feast of St. Aelred of Rievaulx, a medieval Cistercian monk whose wisdom I often reflect upon during this time of the year. Aelred is best known for his book titled Spiritual Friendship in which he describes the quality of goodwill that is necessary for healthy friendships. To have goodwill towards someone, according to Aelred, is to wish for their ultimate good. Assuming everyone seeks their own personal good and wellbing, Aelred feels that an important way that we love our neighbors as ourselves is to wish for their ultimate good and wellbeing. This Christian teaching reminds me of a Buddhist practice I learned in Marin County called Metta meditation. Metta is Pali for “goodwill” and the practice involves sitting quietly and sending love to the self and others by simply saying, “May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be at peace.” These phrases are directed towards those who are easy for us to love and towards those who might drive us nuts, thus awakening compassion. I find that when these phrases are directed to the self, they help cultivate a healthy self-love, which is crucial for all relationships. I also find that when this practice is experienced as a group, it creates a powerful energy of benevolent kindness and warmth, an opportunity to marinate in the collective metta.[1]
This year, during the summer, I will be taking a three-month sabbatical, a practice that is based on the concept of “Sabbath” from the Hebrew Scriptures.[2] I will be sharing more about this at our Annual Meeting and in the months to come. St. Aelred also uses this same ancient concept of Sabbath in explaining the natural progression of love and goodwill we are called to have for ourselves, our neighbors, and God. According to the Hebrew Scriptures, the Sabbath is to be observed not only on the seventh day of each week, but also on the last year of a seven-year span and the last year of a fifty-year span (after seven-times-seven years). By interpreting the Sabbath commandments in the light of Christ’s teaching to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, Aelred develops what he calls the “Sabbaths of Love.” He says, “Let love of self be our first Sabbath, love of neighbor the second, and love of God the Sabbath of Sabbaths.”[3] Aelred’s association of love with the Sabbath invites us to find rest and refreshment in our shared practice of compassion and goodwill and metta.
My New Year’s resolution for this personally significant year is to marinate more in metta by offering these three simple phrases more frequently to myself, my friends, and even to those who people who frustrate me: “May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be at peace.” Imagine saying that to someone who just cut you off in traffic! One of my wishes for 2023 is for us all to try offering these goodwill intentions more often so that we might contribute to a much-needed increase of peace on earth and goodwill to the entire human family. So, to you who are reading these words right now, may you be happy, may you be safe and may you be at peace; and metta force be with you this year!
[1] On Saturday January 14, I will be co-leading an online retreat for the Associates and Friends of the Community of the Transfiguration on St. Aelred and Spiritual Friendship which will include a metta meditation. You are welcome to participate. Learn more here: https://deforestlondon.wordpress.com/spiritual-friendship/
[2] The year 2023 happens to reduce to the sabbath number seven: 2 + 0 + 2 + 3 = 7.
[3] St. Aelred of Rievaulx, Mirror of Charity 3:1-5. He elaborates on the expanding stages of love for neighbor, which he correlates with the six years preceding the Sabbath year. According to Aelred, we first love our blood relatives (which correlates with year one), then our special friends (year two), then our colleagues and companions (year three), our fellow Christians (year four), non-Christians (year five), enemies (year six).
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 