Residence Life: Living in Community

• Koinonia - Summer 2011 Issue
• Apr 26, 2011
• David Ketter

Matins. Lauds. Prime. Terce. Sext. None. Vespers. Compline. Those words mean little to most contemporary ears.  In a world that is all but stripped of traditional liturgy, the  hours  of  prayer  may  as  well  be  consigned  to  lexicons  and  encyclopedias  for students of  religious history. For many years, however, these words were the lifeblood of communities of monasteries and abbeys  throughout  Europe.  Men and women  in simple attire, carrying through life in a disciplined fashion — observing prayers, worship, community meals,  times of silence and reflection, and fulfilling obligations of service and learning. But they’ve lost their significance in a technological, caffeine-fueled society on the run. Or have they? Think about it this way... 

Classes. Lunch. Work. Assignments. Socializing. Dinner. Floor activities. Sleep. These words,  like  the hours  of  prayer,  are  the  lifeblood of  the college experience as  it  is lived in campus residence halls all around the United States. Students get up, get ready, head to  classes,  eat  meals,  work  on  their  assignments, spend time with friends, do  whatever “community-building” plans their RA has organized, and eventually sleep. It’s a simple routine that engages students from the outset of the day into the wee hours of the night. It’s also easy enough to drone through it without any serious attention. 

Christians who work with college students are often in a position to encourage academic faithfulness, wisdom and discernment in friendships, and good spiritual practices. Where our efforts can often be missed, however, is in  their residence halls and with the people they share space with. Thoughtful engagement with the college experience needs to begin with one’s life in the residence hall and submitting it to Jesus. 

I’ve found that it is helpful to think of this with the monastic system in mind. Sure, the simplicity, vows of poverty and chastity, and the like are far from the priorities of most college students. At the same time, living in rooms (cells), attending to a daily routine of tasks

(classes, homework, eating, sleeping) in a community of people going through the same experience makes the residential  experience  more  like  monasticism  than  not.  And, particularly, when we’ve looked at residence life in view of what  it can become, the strength

of that similarity only increases. Consider the vision that Thomas Merton, in Contemplation in a World of Action (1999) as cited in Weiss (1999), presents for the monastic community:

[Monastic community] has been from the beginning, a grace of communion in shared quest and a participated light. It is then a charism of special love and of mutual aid in  the attainment of a difficult end, in the living of a hazardous and austere life.... Monastic work, obedience, poverty, chastity  are  all  in  some  way  colored  and  tempered  by  the  communal charism of brotherhood in pilgrimage and in hope. (p. 52) 

For Merton, the communal aspect of monasticism and its expressions of fellowship and brotherhood are the very reason it is a means of grace, a way to know God and to grow spiritually. Even the purported sanctity of poverty, submission, and chastity are, from Merton’s perspective, strengthened and given purpose and direction in the context of a community of brothers. Although it is a rare group of college students who will commit to poverty, there remains that the essential ingredients for achieving a vision are present in residence halls.

Merton suggests a “shared quest” as the first aspect. As opposed to a shared destination or shared goal, a quest acknowledges the good of the journey and an appropriate attention to the process. A destination for students would be something like the position of their dreams. A goal might simply be to graduate, to settle down, or to live comfortably. But if students take on the quest, what are they getting into? At the risk of sounding cliché, questing students are pursuing God and, in the process, discovering His calling on their lives. 

The second aspect Merton highlights is the charism that those in the community experience through the community. Charism, at its most basic meaning, is the ability that God  has conferred on the individual or community to achieve God’s Kingdom purposes. For questing students, life in the residence hall presents the opportunity to be equipped and matured in such a way that they are able to fulfill their calling and  serve  the people around them, both in  the campus they presently inhabit and the places  they will go out to in the future. 

“Living a hazardous and austere life” is the final aspect in Mertonʼs summary of the monastic life. Life in the hall leaves a lot to chance. First year students rarely know what their roommates are like, who will live on their floors and in their buildings, how their RAs and RDs and other student leaders and college staff and faculty will relate to them. Even as students progress through their college experience, some of those questions remain unanswered until they are faced with the reality. But it is a simplicity of life, a refusal to clutter one’s life with too many things, too many people, and too many activities, that allow the questing student to engage that “hazardous” reality in a way that contributes to the community. That is where students learn what it is to be a part of the Church as it introduces the Kingdom of God to the broken world around it.

Of course, producing that sort of environment in residence halls will be the challenge. How can student development staffs serve their students to put them on this quest? It will not come easily from an institutional initiative and every class year on every college campus has its own set of circumstances and challenges to encouraging such a movement. But here are some guiding principles that will, hopefully, be of service: 

• Keep it Gospel-focused. It’s easy to be caught up in a theological fad or follow a preacher/teacher that’s trending with students, but if we anchor our actions in the Gospel, it will transcend the trends and lay a  foundation for a lifelong walk with Jesus.
• Emphasize the importance of strong relationships within the hall.  The tendency is for college communities to form based on campus activities and academic programs. While those connections are important and beneficial to students, the value of communities within their residence halls cannot be overstated.
• Encourage community by being a part of it, not programming it. Programs can be fun or dull for students. They have the power to engage or to alienate, and sometimes both. But at the end of the day, programs may still feel artificial to most students. The better we are able to encourage these communities organically, the longer they will maintain themselves and  reproduce without institutional force.
• Pray, study, and adapt. All of us, as the people of God, recognize that apart from prayer, the Holy Spirit will not move and lives will not be changed, at least in the areas for which we are responsible. We have a responsibility and joy to be seeking the Lord in prayer and asking him to bless our work and change students with it (and in spite of it). As we carry out that work, we need to be humble enough to study what is happening, what others are doing, and adapting as the occasion calls for it.

My prayers are with you as you seek to build communities of grace in the residence halls of your campus. Know that the Gospel is going forward and the Kingdom is advancing as you work together with your students to submit all of life to Jesus.

David Ketter serves as the Graduate Assistant for Crossroads, Geneva College’s Center for Off Campus Studies, located in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

References 

Feiss, Hugh. (1999). Essential monastic wisdom. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins.

Merton, Thomas. (1999). Contemplation in a world of action. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press.

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