The desert community had a path. A candidate presented himself to the overseer and was examined. If he was found fit, he was instructed for a year, keeping his own property, learning the rules, living alongside but not yet within. He was examined again and, if admitted, entered the purity of the many but not yet their drink or their full counsel. A second year passed. A third examination. And only then was he inscribed in the order among his brethren, his property merged with theirs, his voice counted in the assembly, his rank fixed and reviewed each year according to his understanding and his deeds.
The fellowship has no overseer and examines no one. But we have learned from the Essenes that a way of life is entered in stages, that each stage has its own work, and that hurrying is the surest way to fail. This room lays out the fellowship's path for students: how to begin, how the stages unfold, how to continue when the first fervor fades, and where to bring your questions.
The Rooms of This Section
- Begin Here
- For the student who has just arrived. A plan for the first forty days, a reading order for the site, and the one practice to start with. Everything else can wait.
- The Three Circles
- The fellowship's three stages of the way, after the three years of the ancient entry: the Hearers, the Seekers, and the Keepers. What each circle does, what marks the passage from one to the next, and why no one is ever examined.
- For Continuing Students
- For the student who has walked a while and grown tired. On dryness, doubt, plateaus, and the loss of first fervor, and why none of them is a reason to stop. With a twelve-month cycle of themes for the long middle.
- Questions and Answers
- The questions students most often bring, answered as honestly as the fellowship can manage. On history, on belief, on practice, and on the fellowship itself.
- Glossary
- The words of the way, briefly explained, with a search.
- The Reading Room
- The fellowship's booklets, gathered from the pages of this site into courses of reading.
Your Path
A Word Before You Begin
You will be tempted to read everything first and practice afterward. Resist it. The fellowship's experience, and the Essenes' before us, is that the way is learned by walking, and that a student who has kept the Morning Watch for forty days understands the Rule better than one who has read it ten times in bed. Read a little. Do a little. Read a little more. The Lection says that the one who studies and does not practice carries water in a basket. Set the basket down. Pick up the lamp.