Raven's Bread

Food for Those in Solitude

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Vol: 6 No: 4  November 2002

Raven's Bread is a quarterly newsletter (FEB-MAY-AUG-NOV) for hermits and those interested in the eremitical life published by Paul and Karen Fredette. The newsletter seeks to affirm and support this way of life. Raven's Bread is a collaborative effort and thus depends on the shared reflections, stories, news, notices, letters, and information from hermits themselves. The Raven's Bread Web page is an abbreviated version of our full printed newsletter, which also includes a Bulletin Board and Reader Forum featuring responses to a quarterly discussion topic.

Please send your written contributions, as well as address changes and subscriptions to:

Raven's Bread
18065 Hwy 209
Hot Springs, NC 28743

The annual subscription to the printed newsletter is $8.00 in USA and $10.00 US currency for foreign subscriptions. (Drafts drawn on US banks are the most convenient form of payment by foreign subscribers.) Any extra donations will be used to subsidize subscriptions for hermits who cannot afford the full cost.

To E-mail Raven's Bread directly click on this link:fredette@nclink.net

Raven's Bread (formerly Marabou) derives its name from the experience of Elijah, the prophet, in 1 Kgs.17: 1-6. A raven, sent by God, nourished him during his months of solitude at the Wadi Cherith (the Cutting Place).

zzzzzzThoughts in Solitudezzzzzz

By: Judy Sigmund MD, Yellow Springs, OH

Several years ago, at a meeting of the Association of Contemplative Sisters, (ACS) I encountered my first hermit. She was tall, strong, confident, and interacted well with the rest of us, not a typical “recluse.” As a future physician, being called to help people with mental illness through my relationships with them, I knew I could never be a hermit. But I experienced an on-going lure to the eremitic life. A member of ACS led me to Raven’s Bread. Other steps followed.

Such a life-journey is slow, for each moment of the process must be seen, reflected upon, then either acted upon or rejected. Oddly, this whole, enormous process of trekking toward God is contained in the present moment, if we will only see it for what it is. This is what I am learning about the life of the solitary. It is the moment to moment paring away of the extraneous, the unnecessary. It is the excruciating process of peeling off the layers of the world to find God like a precious gem at the core of every moment. No, I am still not ready for this. But, I thank Raven’s Bread and Alice, Adele and Bette, three hermits who have reached out to me and have generously reflected upon and responded to my queries about their lives as solitaries.

As a psychiatrist and spiritual being, I have been frustrated regarding spiritual direction. As a therapist, I listen for spiritual themes, questions, and impasses in my patients’ stories and I can often see how these mesh with the psychological and emotional problems they express. But on the two occasions that I have worked with spiritual directors, there has been an overt determination to keep psychotherapy issues separate and out of the discussions. Maybe readers can help me understand this. For me, all domains of my humanness are linked. I don’t find it fruitful to put parts of me “on the shelf” while I talk to my spiritual director.

Although I have stated that I am not a hermit (I fall short too often and have also not yet discerned that I am genuinely called to this life), I reflect on my call to service and wonder if it means I cannot be a solitary. It is possible I could help people as a psychiatrist through my writing. I have recognized that my three decades of journal-keeping, letter-writing and even my professional writing are a form of liturgy for me. I began my life as a spiritual writer when I discovered the existence of God at age 17, when an existential curtain was parted and for a moment I saw eternity and knew that God was behind it all. To keep that moment alive (I thought God might leave me again, and I would go back to my previous spiritual blindness), I began writing about each God-given moment of my life as a way of showing reverence for it all. It’s possible I could still serve the mentally ill through my writing, could stay connected to this needy population yet still limit distractions to my contemplative life.

At this point in time, it is my connection to institutions that most bind me to the world, such as the institution of medicine, and the institutional structure of the seminary where I am a student. As you can see, I am still at the periphery of the eremitic life, peering in, looking for the next step inward towards God.

A Word from Still Wood

Life happens! Even in such a tranquil, well-balanced place as Still Wood! Trees fall - on our gazebo/chapel; septic tanks back up; art exhibit deadlines arrive too soon; family appears en masse on our door step; a book publisher contacts us when least expected; and our beloved cat, Merton, develops bone cancer! And through it all, Grace beyond measure sustains our Raven's Bread ministry via email, regular correspondence and retreat work.

The above is our long-winded apology for the late arrival of this November issue. We know from past correspondence that you look forward to Raven winging in with its quarterly nourishment and we try to meet your expectations. This issue was particularly wonderful to assemble because so many of you responded to our "dilemma" in the August issue of too few reflections offered on the topic of spiritual direction. This time, we received such a windfall of wonderful responses on that topic AND the current discussion question re a hermit's service to the world that we had to edit your contributions a bit to get everything in. We hope you won't mind - the riches are distilled but are all there for you to digest.

Across the valley, the mountains are bejeweled with the richest fall colors we have seen since moving here. Those trees were "stressed" this past summer due to drought and apparently such stress creates the conditions for an exceptionally beautiful fall exhibition. It took a climatologist to teach me that stress can produce anything good! Hopefully, the Lord will use the stresses of our autumn to create a palette of rich colors in our lives also.

Thanksgiving is at hand and we wish to offer our heartfelt gratitude to our Dominican brothers who host the online version of Raven's Bread where so many of our new readers have discovered us. Their generosity these past six years is enormously appreciated.

Thanks also to the dozens of you who have renewed your subscription and even sent that little extra which allows us to send RB to those hermits who cannot afford it. (Please check your address label for your renewal date. Let us know if it's not correct.)

We appreciate your patience with us, your editors, and also with the bulk mail service which slows delivery so drastically. Please, if you have not received your copy of Raven's Bread by the last week of the expected month, let us know and we will gladly send you another copy. Perhaps postal delays can be a "stress" that produces a blaze of glowing patience!

With Grateful love,
Karen & Paul

The 2001 Survey of Raven's Bread Readers

Since last year more than 620 copies of "The Survey" have been mailed to our readership, and we received over 175 responses. It continues to be a truly gratifying experience. The volume of returns stays at a fantastic 25%!!! It says something wonderful about everyone who cooperates in this project, making it truly reflective of what is happening in our own time re solitary lifestyles. We continue to receive requests for Survey Results and back issues containing the summaries we have printed thus far.

The current print issue of RB (November 2002) features the results of the Fifth of Ten Reflection Questions: "Were you a member of a religious congregation in the past? What prompted you to leave? Was your departure related to your attraction to solitude?"

…Sixty-one of of the 158 respondents to our survey are former religious; 45 women, 16 men. It should not be surprising that for many, preparation for a life of solitude and prayer has included a period of time in formal religious life. In some cases, persons entered a religious community seeking to satisfy their attraction to deep prayer only to discover that (ironically) their attraction to solitude turned out to be the very thing that "unfit" them for religious life, even in a cloistered, contemplative group.
(from editor's introduction, pg. 4 of November 2002 Print Issue)