This article was written for the January 2024 Chronicle newsletter for Christ Church Eureka.
This January, I begin my seventh year at Christ Church (Jan 28), and I also celebrate the 10-year anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood (Jan 11). Since I was ordained on the Eve of the Feast Day of St. Aelred of Rievaulx (pronounced “Ale-red” of “Ree-voh”), I often reflect on this saint as I look back over the last year and look towards the future. Aelred is the author of the classic Christian text Spiritual Friendship and I’ve written about him in at least two previous Chronicle articles (May 2020, Jan 2023). As I was reviewing my January 2023 Chronicle article on St. Aelred, I noticed that the last 2 and a half sentences accidentally got cut off. For all of you who have been waiting in suspense all year for the dramatic conclusion of that article to be finally revealed, today is your lucky day! (:
In the final paragraph of last January’s article, I wrote, “My New Year’s resolution for this personally significant year [2023] is to marinate more in metta [compassionate goodwill] by offering these simple phrases more frequently to myself, my friends, and even to those 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…”
Ironically, that’s where my article got cut off, right after the word “cut.” Although this half sentence still makes some sense, I certainly hope that none of you ever face the possibility of someone cutting you! Here’s how the article should have concluded: “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!”
These words bear repeating not only because they were not printed at all last year, but also because they are just as pertinent in the year 2024 as they were in 2023. May you indeed be happy, safe, and at peace this year; and may you also marinate in metta by offering these words of blessing to everyone in your life, especially as we approach another consequential and inevitably divisive presidential election this November.
Along with Aelred’s invitations to marinate more in metta, the medieval Cistercian saint also inspires me to make a few other resolutions for this year:
First, I hope to finally finish and perhaps publish my distillation of his book Spiritual Friendship, which I began working on back in 2021. In this way, I hope to share Aelred’s timeless wisdom on friendship with a wider audience, including all of you.
Second, I hope to offer opportunities for Christ Church Eurekans to experience Forest Therapy Walks along with plenty of Sacred Saunters this year. I have come to associate Aelred with Forest Therapy, partly because I completed my Forest Therapy Guide training in Aelred’s old stomping grounds: Yorkshire. The day after my training, I rented a car and drove a couple hours through the Yorkshire countryside to visit the abbey ruins of Rievaulx, where Aelred served as abbot in the twelfth century. I think Aelred would have approved of Forest Therapy since he wrote that whenever we have trouble finding Jesus at traditional holy sites, we should look for him “in the fields and the woods.”[1]
Finally, Aelred has invited me to re-frame aspects of our ministry as well as our plans for this year within the context of friendship. Aelred has helped me to understand and appreciate the spiritual significance of friendship to such an extent that I’m honestly inclined to modify our parish’s three primary values from “worship, discipleship, and fellowship” to “worship, discipleship, and friendship.” Although a priest’s relationship to his or her congregants is unique, I refuse to accept the idea that a priest cannot be friends with his or her congregants. Obviously, there are important boundaries to be honored (as in all relationships), but it’s been a joy to grow in friendship with you all over these last six years. Also, in preparing for the Betty Chinn Book Signing Event on February 10th, I realized that the element that I especially want to honor and celebrate is the friendship between Karen Price and Betty Chinn. And in May, when we host the editor of the forthcoming book Thomas Merton in California, I hope you all get to experience him as a bright spiritual friend, which is what he has been to me over the last 15 years.
C. S. Lewis compared lovers to friends when he wrote, “We picture lovers face to face but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead.”[2] Whenever we gather to glorify God and follow Jesus Christ, we are walking as companions, side by side with our eyes looking ahead and, in so doing, we are strengthening the bonds of friendship between us. I invite you to make the resolution this year to grow in friendship by coming to Holy Eucharist every Sunday (and if you’re feeling sick, to watch online) and to also, perhaps, in the spirit of St. Aelred, bring a friend!
[1] Aelred of Rievaulx, “On Jesus at the Age of Twelve” in Treatises & Pastoral Prayer (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 22.
[2] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960), 98.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 