Seeking God. Esther de Waal
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THE NEW EDITION OF SEEKING GOD
‘I speak to you, whoever you may be.’ That small phrase from the Rule of St Benedict is wonderfully accurate, for the Rule is undoubtedly one of the great spiritual classics – never outmoded, always new, possessing ‘a dynamism capable of inspiring the lives of those who in every age approach it prayerfully and with receptivity’. Those words are taken from a recent translation of the Rule by an Anglican Benedictine women’s community, one of a number of similar publications. It is not without significance that since then another translation has appeared, this time from Abbot Patrick Barry, the former abbot of Ampleforth, the largest Roman catholic community for men in this country. The Rule, he says in his preface, is intended not only for men and women living in Benedictine communities and for the lay oblates associated with them, but for many ordinary lay people ‘who have found spiritual inspiration in the Rule which helps them to be faithful in their personal vocations as Christians’.
That great Benedictine scholar Dom David Knowles was fond of quoting a quaint medieval saying about the Rule: ‘A lamb can bathe in it without drowning, while an elephant can swim in it.’ Fr Lawrence Freeman, the Benedictine now chiefly associated with promoting the work of John Main in the practice of meditation, has called the Rule ‘the most decisive document for Christian living after the Bible’. It remains a text that those who have discovered it come back to time and time again, like some spring or source which is constantly fresh. The longer that we stay with it the more it reveals its depths. It speaks to us all at whatever point in our lives we may be, and at whatever stage of spiritual journey.
It is therefore not so very surprising to find that although it is now more than ten years since I first wrote this very simple introduction to the Rule, new publishers have decided to re-issue it. For what is apparent is that great numbers of people, many of them lay people like myself with family and work commitments and with many involvements which keep them busy, and those who are discovering in retirement how to live with a new freedom, are today turning to the monastic tradition. The main reason for this is, I believe, quite simply that here they find what they know they need: practical help in making the ordinary and the everyday a way to God.
The writer of the short text of the Rule – for it is no more than nine thousand words – was never himself a priest. This comes as something of a shock to many people who have become used to associating the monastic vocation with the priesthood, and forget that this was largely a historical development. But in St Benedict himself we have a layman writing a guide for his household, his extended family of brothers in their busy shared life with all its familiar demands: preparing food, looking after guests, earning a living, caring for property and land, educating children, tending the sick. His concern was to help them to impose on this busy life such a structure and order (both external and interior) that they could make prayer the one essential priority, the central focus of everything else. There was here no separation of prayer and life. Everything flowed from one centre, that contemplative centre which so many people today recognize is what they themselves are also looking for – and which, sadly, the institutional church with all its many organizations, its talk and busyness, often seems unable to provide.
St Benedict lived between 480 and 540, so the Rule comes from those earliest times of the undivided church of the fifth and sixth centuries. It therefore pre-dates those unhappy divisions which occurred at the Reformation and instead speaks of what is common, universal and foundational to all Christians.
The essential dynamic that underlies the monastic tradition is in the end simply a matter of letting our life be shaped by the Gospel. St Benedict directs us to the Gospel, to the Word, to the love of Christ, and that is something that we can all claim, and to which we can all turn. Here all the splits, political divisions and party lines are transcended and instead we are pointed to the kingdom. In times when the flames of ecumenical endeavour seem to be burning low and in which there is so much polarization within the mainstream churches, perhaps we need more than ever to hear the prophetic voice of St Benedict.
‘Listen’ – that is how the Rule opens. It establishes the key to what St Benedict is asking: that we listen to one another and listen to God. ‘Listen with the ear of the heart’ he will say later. This is total listening, with sensitivity and openness; he looked for it in his followers then and would expect it of all of us today. The hospitality of a Benedictine monastery is proverbial, but we should not forget that this hospitality is not only the welcome of the open door, but also of the open heart and the open mind.
At the Reformation when so many of the great Benedictine monastic houses became Anglican cathedrals, much of the Benedictine ethos fell upon the shoulders of the Anglican church. Its prayer book, The Book of Common Prayer, devised by Thomas Cranmer, was his skilful shortening of the monastic offices into morning and evening prayer which could be easily used by laity and clergy alike, with the saying of the psalms and the reading of scripture as the essence of worship, just as it had been for the monks. The chapter meeting of the clergy took its name from the daily meeting in the chapter house of the monastic community. But as well as these more outward manifestations there was the essential Anglican emphasis on moderation and balance, the distinguishing mark of the Anglican approach just as it has been of the Benedictine. This is of course the via media, which is not dull mediocrity, or the easy and safe holding of the middle ground, but rather a tension that is dynamic. It means recognizing that truth may be expressed in different, even divergent ways and that the dialectic or dialogue that results allows two streams to feed one another and brings about the sort of interaction that produces openness and growth. It means above all a refusal to be polarized, and perhaps there has been no time in history when this has been more urgently needed than today.
For any of us, individually and personally, and also in our relationships (family, friends, work place, parish), the Rule can prove a support and guide. For St Benedict is showing us a journey. For him life in Christ means going through a succession of opening doors, not a life that is ever static or safe. The vow of conversatio morum is translated as the challenge to continual, ongoing conversion, being open to the new, saying ‘Yes’ to following Christ’s call, to discipleship wherever that may lead. This will inevitably be costly, and amongst St Benedict’s favourite words are perseverance, steadfastness and patience, which amount to a commitment to holding on against the odds. Here another Benedictine vow comes into play. St Benedict is the master of paradox and if he tells us to move on all the time, he also tells us to stand still. Stability means staying still, standing firm, not necessarily in any geographic sense but in the more fundamental sense of the interior holding firm, refusing to run away, recognizing that we are in this for the long haul and that we will stick it out to the end. When so much of the spirituality on offer today seems to hold out the prospect of self-fulfilment and progress (which I sometimes feel in my more cynical moments is the response to the demands of a consumer market), the tough-minded realistic honesty of St Benedict is refreshing. But there is a third vow, that of obedience. This used to present me with difficulties until I realised that it came from the word ob-audiens: to listen intently, and is a commitment to listen to the voice of God, to hear his voice and to follow it – so that we are led along the path of God’s will rather than our own, and that the chief point of reference in my life will always be the presence of God, to whom I listen and say ‘Yes’, not from fear but from that love which St Benedict presents to us as the essential distinguishing mark of the Christian. Am I daily becoming a more loving person? That, in the end, is his question. What he wants for us is that we run the way to God, our hearts over-flowing with love. This is love that is not lukewarm or half-hearted, but fervens: fervent, burning. For St Benedict, epitome of balance and moderation, is also passionate! We should never underestimate the urgency and enthusiasm with which he addresses us. I have found him to be a guide and support, but also prophetic and challenging. While he is gentle and understanding of human frailty he also expects much of each one of us, simply because he believes in our unique and God-given humanity and wishes us to live our lives to their fullest.
For over fifteen hundred years the Rule has been a source and spring to which men and women have come for guidance, support, inspiration, challenge, comfort and dis-comfort. It has helped both those living under monastic vows and those living outside the cloister in all the mess and muddle of ordinary, busy lives in the world. My hope is that Seeking God will serve as