Defining Anchorhold
I have an inadequate memory for the exact definition of things. I can feel realities fully, but to describe them with precision does not come naturally to me. I am always having to look things up to find the basic words for what they are. Sometimes I go to Wikipedia for help. I wonder if perhaps I should be ashamed of this need of mine for the internet, but I am simply not smart enough to be squeamish and as it happens more than occasionally there are lines on these pages that explode my understanding of something and start a new path. So, I find myself indebted to this tool. I even feel guilty when they ask for money and one day I will pay up (I hope), even if only for this one gift. For this is what I found one day a long time ago when I looked up ‘anchorhold.’
In addition to being the physical location wherein the anchorite could embark on the journey towards union with God, the anchorhold also provided a spiritual and geographic focus for people from the wider society who came to ask for advice and spiritual guidance. Although set apart from the community at large by stone walls and specific spiritual precepts, the anchorite also lay at the very centre of that same community. The anchorhold has been called a communal 'womb' from which would emerge an idealized sense of a community's own reborn potential, both as Christians and as human subjects.
An anchorhold is a physical location; a place, one can describe it, its material existence matters, its situatedness matters. An anchorhold is a place within which one can journey. Despite it being small and fixed in situ, it is also a place of expansive movement, inner movement, through infinite space, towards God. An anchorhold provides a focus for others, a spiritual focus and a material focus. It is a place to go to, in which a person lives, seeking God and praying with you, and thus you can lean onto the sill and ask the questions on your heart. An anchorite is set apart but her anchorhold is at the centre of the community. An Anchorite is set apart for God, but her anchorhold, the place where she resides, is thus available as a womb, a generative energy for the whole community.
I went to Julian of Norwich and leaned upon the sill of her permanent enclosure; her text Revelations of Divine Love and I asked the questions on my heart. As we talked, I realized I was not only being fed by the content of her Revelations but I was being drawn into the form of her life. I remain hungry and I daily seek to know what it is to come inside one’s own given place and journey towards God and whether strange modern anchorholds exist and whether they can offer something vital to the community in this time.
