Learning a Song of Yes and Amen are
Below you will find information about the vacancy “serving hermit” at monastery Jan XVII Laboratory. First, the job description, followed by a profile of the “ideal” candidate, followed by further explanation of position and organization.
Sounds tough, “serving hermit”? Perhaps “explorer surplace” would also be a good title….
- About the position
Practicing unification
Love. Acceptance, consideration and encouragement. Redemption, forgiveness and peace: our deepest depths offer us nothing else, nothing else our environment asks of us.
Would you like to learn to balance at the intersection of what life offers and demands? To be allowed to learn to move inwardly as unconditionally as outwardly?
You can. As “serving hermit” at monastery laboratory John XVII.
In short, in this post you can learn to practice the art of unification. Going to learn to fall together with the meaning that Life has in you, has in store for you and wants to bring to light through you. Learning to embody ever more purely the Song of Yes and Amen that you essentially are.
The journey that awaits you to do so has these characteristics:
- you practice allowing yourself more and more space for your not-knowing. Using Liber methodology as a guide and against the background of John XVII’s Judeo-Christian roots in general and the Rule of Benedict in particular;
- You collaborate with management and operation of Transitium ZeeVELD;
- you predominantly reside perpetually and solitarily in Sea Field;
But even if you are a hermit, you are not alone. In ZeeVELD already lives a hermit who will gladly be your colleague and fellow explorer: Thomas van Kleef. You can always fall back on him, should you for a moment not know how to balance these so diverse activities in practice and with each other. He understands in advance that you are not embarking on an achievement journey, but rather a learning journey, with all the trial and error that comes with it. Which, by the way, is no less true for him than for you. It is also conceivable that in time you will succeed Thomas in directing and further developing Jan XVII.
Full-time/part-time
The position is available full-time and part-time.
- Profile: about the ideal candidate (m/f/x)
- You have studied Liber methodology.
- You are a sheep with five legs. Adventurer and homebody, entrepreneur and service provider, innovator and traditionalist, people person and loner at the same time.
- Earlier you showed that you are a stable personality. Someone who can be built upon. Able to function independently. Diligent, service-oriented, socially adept and communicatively strong. Successful within own field.
- You are socially engaged with an active interest in consciousness development, spirituality and mysticism. Contemplative monastic life may have attracted you before, but you did not recognize yourself sufficiently in the existing forms.
- That you go through life alone you have come to recognize as the form of life that suits you best.
- You are ready for the next step in your career; for something completely new. And you understand, “the parable of the pearl, it refers to me.
- More on the feature
The incongruous combined
The feature involves what at first glance may seem a completely incomprehensible combination of abstract and concrete, vertical and horizontal, celestial and earthly work. The point of this: to learn to reconcile these apparent opposites. To allow, instead of an either-or existence, an and-and life to develop. In which contemplation, stillness, meditation or prayer are not reserved for separate places or times, but become your fundamental attitude.
What you will do…
Here you will get an idea of possible practical work that awaits you. Not to scare you, but to convey that you will, of course, have plenty of time for repentance, meditation or study, but will still have to put in quite a few hours a day.
Park or digest
The meaning of your practical work is twofold. First, it happens! Something comes out of your hands, you make an actual contribution to society. Equally important, it provides the exercise material for your inner development. Because over time, almost everything you get to do will present you with the same choice: that between parking or digesting. Having to answer the same kind of email again, having to deal with a problem once already solved, having to have a similar conversation again: even with the lack of distractions that characterize your life, your work will not infrequently irritate you. Anger. Rebellious, sad, depressed. “Was I put in this world for this? And always your first inclination will be: to shift your focus then. Looking for a place to park your demons.
In the exercise then of learning to make a different choice lies the essence of your work. Which consists of(Liber!) breaking down the perhaps already begun within you “parking movement” and transforming it into the mere presence for what is stirring within you. Not going on a journey to the cause of your injuries, but staying home for them without resistance; “kissing” them, “digesting” your pain.
Your work is not a monk’s work because it is elevated or spiritual in itself, but because it allows you to activate “the monk in yourself.
... and what you will notdo
Your commitment as a “servant hermit”: to descend into the deepest depths of your existence. But just as no one who puts his shovel in the ground elsewhere is digging deep, so too is anyone who seeks fulfillment in ever-changing experiences in ever-changing places. Therefore, especially if you are going into the position of “serving hermit” full time, your work will also consist of winding down residence and pursuits outside the home. And that too will present you with that same choice over and over again. To park or digest what this brings to you.
Pay for work
Spicy as all this can be, equally rewarding and satisfying is rare. Stealthily you uncover a paradise. Your environment blossoms, but so do you. Not because you are perfect, or everything and everyone around you would be ready, finished, but because you can become increasingly comfortable reconciling yourself with every limitation, every “no,” or “up to here and no further” that comes your way.
That apple on the tree? It may become easier and easier for you to let those hang quietly.
- About the organization
Monastery laboratory Jan XVII
“That all may be one.
Life, what’s it all about? Being human, what does it mean? An ‘I’ what is that? And if you already have an answer to those questions, how do you know it’s right?
Those who are honest acknowledge, ‘to the most important questions in my life I don’t know the answer. Actually, I don’t know more than I do’. Then to base its existence on that recognition. On the apparent ‘mystery’ that carries us.
Little by little you might then begin to discover that your essence lies in that inner stillness dimension that we experience in our best moments as pure, unconditional love. And in welcoming and embodying it.
At Monastery Laboratory Jan XVII, we make this journey of discovery our work and our life. In the form of a search for a contemporary contemplative monastic life. Read more about John XVII here.
- Other information
Term ofoffice
The stakes are that candidate and John XVII, as if it were a marriage, make a permanent commitment. Whether this is desirable and feasible will have to be seen over a period of three to five years.
Selection Process
The extent to which you meet the profile is the most important selection criterion. If additional information and initial contacts give rise to further mutual acquaintance, we invite you to spend three days at ZeeVELD and walk with Thomas. If that turns out well, a three-week stay could follow. If we then still want to continue with each other, we will make the final decision in another subsequent three-month stay.
Reward
By way of material reward, John XVII provides board, lodging and pocket money. The sum of these is converted to equal the minimum wage.
Reading material
If you begin to get interested, be sure to read: The Rule of Benedict, Chapter 58, 1 through 4. A man forewarned…
Applications
In your application, make it especially clear why you think you and this position are a good fit. Attach a resume and include three references that can tell us more about your employment history. You can send your application to: board Jan XVII Foundation, for the attention of the secretary, Ms. Eveline Philipse, info@jan17.nl.
