LIFE AT TAIZÉ

It is possible that from the other blog entries about Taizé that one could get the impression that life at Taizé is perfect. This is not the case. Like life everywhere, life in community at Taizé is filled with challenges.

For example, there are many rules at Taizé. For someone who has never been before, you learn the rules as you go along… sometimes by breaking them. Many of the rules center around worship (which makes sense because everything centers around worship at Taizé). Silence is, of course, very important to worship at Taizé and I will simply say that having a 16 month old child (who have a tendency to be loud from time to time, especially when they are sleeping) and trying to live out the life of prayer at Taizé is challenging.

Or, for another example, take the conversation I had with a young woman who is a "permanent" (which simply means she stays longer than a week at Taizé and does various work like taking care of our children during worship). This young woman spoke of how it is nice since the "permanent" staff have nicer living quarters and receive a little nicer food, but then in the next breath she said, "but it is like the church in general, men have more opportunities than women." She said that while she stays in a dormitory room with about six other women, the men who serve similarly as "permanents" have their own private room.

Of course, lest we judge too quickly, it is good to remember that it is often easier to see the injustices in other communities before we see the injustices in our own community. I think Jesus had something about a speck in your neighbor's eye and a log in your own.

One of the themes of Brother Matthew's talks about the story of Joseph (a story of reconciliation and forgiveness among brothers) revolve around the issues of trust, authority and responsibility. In particular, Brother Matthew suggests that authority exercised in trust builds responsibility. If you don't understand this, don't worry, we've been studying it for a week and are still figuring it out.

When someone asked Brother Matthew to speak more about this idea of how we are called to live out relationships where authority exercised in trust builds responsibility he said something very interesting. He said that many people think that the most difficult challenge of being a brother at Taizé is that you can not have children (the brothers take a vow of chastity) or that you can not have the latest i-Whatever piece of technology (the brothers take a vow of poverty), but neither of these challenges compare to accepting the authority of another over you.

Living in community at Taizé and other places is (and has always been) good practice for living the life of faith. It is not easy, but as one of the refrains in the story of Joseph reminds us, "God is with Joseph" and with us too, even in challenging times.