Before we begin

Observe the instructions below as you enter through the door

  • ·Laptop closed, every device off
  • ·Phones away, screens dark, headphones out
  • ·Let the room be quiet for the next few minutes

The work will still be here. Let us start somewhere else.

Who she was

Amma Syncletica

of Alexandria · c. 270 – c. 350

Amma Syncletica
Contemporary icon. The scroll in her hands reads “light the divine fire within yourself” — her own words, the saying we come back to next week.
  • Born to a wealthy Alexandrian family, and well educated.
  • When her parents died she sold everything and gave it away.
  • She moved with her blind sister to a tomb outside the city. Other women followed her there, and she became their teacher.
  • Twenty-seven of her sayings survive in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, more than any other woman in that collection.
  • Though a hermit herself, she taught moderation: the asceticism was never the point.

Today she is the one who says you can be alone with God in a crowded room.

The practice

Solitude

hands on your lap · feet on the floor · a slow breath

Solitude is not a place. It is something you can carry into a room full of people.

  • ·Close your eyes and listen to the room
  • ·Let each sound go past without following it
  • ·Now let the room recede, and be alone with God inside it

Spiritual Disciplines Handbook · Adele Ahlberg Calhoun · Part 3 · Relinquish the False Self

breathe

“It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind
while living in a crowd.”

Amma Syncletica · Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Syncletica 19

Amen.

Open your laptops. Let’s begin.