Feast Day: September 1st
Anybody know the name Bill Penfield? How about David Werder? Both these fine gentlemen, Bill in the 1930s, and David in the 1980s, have the distinction of setting endurance records in the practice of pole sitting. I suspect that name tells you most of what you need to know, but for everyone’s greater knowledge, pole-sitting is the attempt to sit on top of a tall pole for as long as possible to set a record (sometimes also to make a point). Bill sat on a pole in Strawberry Point, Iowa for 51 days in 1930, only coming down when a thunderstorm threatened his life. (Happily, though his effort was curtailed, he did manage to take the crown from the real pioneer of pole-sitting of that era, Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, who had recently defended his own title with a 49-day sit in 1929.)
But those guys have nothing on David Werder, who in November, 1982 climbed up a pole at an appliance center in Clearwater, Washington – he was appalled by the cost of gasoline which had reached 99 cents a gallon – and proceeded to remain on top of that pole for 439 days, 11 hours, and 6 minutes. This meant he spent the entirety of 1983 on top of said pole, though, sad to say, my research indicates that gas only dropped a few cents during that time. I guess he saved plenty of pennies by not driving that whole time…
But neither Bill, or David, can hold a candle to St. Simeon Stylite. That title, “stylite”, actually means he was a pole-sitter of the saintly sort – there was a handful of hermits who endured life on top of pillars for periods of time in the age of the desert fathers, earning for themselves that surname. But Simeon took it to another level. Born in 390, a generation or two after Constantine legalized Christianity around the empire (with worship of Christ quickly becoming the official religion of the empire and gaining huge swaths of the population to the fold), he grew up in the kingdom of Cilicia, in modern day Turkey, and was a shepherd. Around the age of 13 he was listening to (or perhaps reading) the Beatitudes, and was struck to the heart by Our Lord’s words. He left behind his family and occupation and joined a monastery.
Now, we must take a moment to recall that monasteries, in large part, were an attempt to find a way to carry forward the courage and heroism of the martyrs into an age when few places anymore were out to kill Christians. In the early Church, martyrs were considered Christians par excellence, and the stories of their sacrifice and faithfulness, alongside of the Church’s unprecedented concern for the poor and sick and unimportant, was the primary catalyst for all of those conversions to Christ. The hermits and early monks carried the battle that was waged in the arenas and amphitheaters of the empire into their own hearts and minds as they left behind every earthly comfort and followed Christ in the desert. They would endure not the beasts of the coliseum but the relentless temptations of the Evil One.
Before we even get back to Simeon, it’s helpful to recognize what is happening here. These monks left behind the distractions and cares and comforts of the world, and this means they could reach extraordinary depths of prayer and asceticism BUT it also entailed directly engaging the battle for Christ in their mind.
Jesus never said anything about sitting on pillars, but the first words He proclaimed to the world were “repent and believe in the Gospel.” We all love the Gospel I think, but are we willing to do the prerequisite act of repenting? That command, “repent”, literally means “change your mind” [metanoeite], and in their totality. To listen to no voices except the Lord’s, to accept no truth except His, to give no space to any other authority. The rest of the New Testament is relentless on this point: Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Ephesians: 4:22-24: “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Philippians 2:5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”
St. Simon Stylite spent 37 years on his pillar, seeking not acclaim, but solitude; not desiring any earthly accomplishment but precisely to drive from his mind every voice that was not that of Christ. May he intercede for us that we would know how to similarly engage that battle for ourselves!
– Fr. Dominic does not have a pillar to spend his days upon … but he spends a lot of time in the car and would probably have more the mind of Christ if he left some of those hours empty, expecting the Lord to do great things rather than filling them with noise (or complaining about them).