Category: Essays
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What do habits have to do with stewardship?
Even though I’ve already written some on habits, there is, unsurprisingly, more to say. Like most Americans alive today, I have never lived in a culture where having one outfit is the norm. I remember being a child and reading 19th century books in which young girls—they always were girls books, a childhood obsession of…
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Sufficient Grace: Praying with the Calling of Sickness
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What’s up with Habits?
The habits are the most visible sign of what we’re up to. Adopting these raises very real questions about what it means to be marked as visibly religious in the world. What activities that seemed anonymous and invisible will suddenly become visible? Does dressing in this way make our work easier or more difficult? How…
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What is the Novitiate?
“The novitiate is a period of testing.” -Book of Occasional Services, 388. The novitiate is a time of discernment, learning, and testing before the serious decision to make religious vows. In some ways, it is not unlike an engagement for those who are to be married, or the period of candidacy for those who are…
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What’s in a name?
We took Haven Religious as our name when we came together in the Fall of 2021. That is the name under which we incorporated in 2023. While slightly influenced by the fact that Marta was in seminary in New Haven at the time we chose the name, we also wanted to find a word that…
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Religious Life
Our life in community springs first and foremost from the contemporary world, from its pressures, problems, cultures, and ways, and from how we respond to those. Our particular response is based on ancient traditions of vowed religious life and the generations of monks, nuns, friars, sisters, hermits, and others who have lived a way of…