Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict by Esther de Waal

A contemporary spiritual classic

In the mid 1970s Esther de Waal, a historian by background, moved with her family to a house in Canterbury which had been part of the medieval monastic community. Her interest in the Benedictine tradition was kindled here and in 1984 her book, Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict, which has become a contemporary spiritual classic, was published.

In this book Esther de Waal delves into a short sixth century document known as the Rule of St Benedict and gives practical insights into how we may make the ordinary and the everyday a way to God.
St Benedict (480 – 540A.D.) was born seventy years after the fall of Rome into a world that looked to be rapidly descending into chaos:

And then on this scene there appeared the man who built an ark to survive the rising storm, an ark not made with hands, into which by two and two human eternal values might enter, to be kept until the water assuaged, an ark moreover which lasted not only for one troubled century but for fifteen…
The builder of that ark is essentially known to us through his handiwork, the Rule.

Seeking God is a very rich book. Even though it’s only 144 pages long, it took me about six months to finish it. I first heard of this book when I read Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s book, For the Family’s Sake, some years ago. When I re-read Macaulay’s book more recently, my interest was really piqued, and I decided to try and find a copy.
St Benedict was a thoroughly practical man who taught his followers how to find a balance of body, mind and spirit while still engaging in everyday activities and rubbing shoulders with people they might not naturally choose to live alongside with. Esther de Waal has written an engaging introduction that helps the reader, whatever their circumstances, to capture the spirit behind his ideas and put them into practice.
Monastic life often conjures up visions of monks or nuns escaping from the world by cloistering themselves in a place removed from everyday life and associations in a cocooned existence, but this was definitely not what St Benedict had in mind. His ideas may be translated into our modern times by anyone, in any situation, who wants to say “Yes” to the call of Christ.

One of the most helpful ideas for me in this book was that of stability and change.

Stability is a matter of commitment to situations and to persons. Stability is achieved through perseverance, through holding on even under great strain, without weakening or trying to escape. It involves endurance, a virtue we do not often talk about today…
Accepting change is the counterpoise to stability.

The one constant in my own life of being a wife and a mother of a large family has been that of change. Just when I thought I had a good routine or had everything worked out I’d have to rethink things. A child grows and matures, another child is added to the family, a husband changes jobs, we have to move house, a parent dies, my children graduate, they marry and leave home.

Life seen as a journey, an ascent, a pilgrimage, a road, is an idea as old as humanity. One of the earliest titles for Christians at the time of Acts was ‘the people of the way’…
But we cannot think of life as a journey without accepting that it must involve change and growth.

The relentless demands of minding young children or the frustrations of our circumstances can cause us to think, ‘If only…’ De Waal calls this ‘an insidious little phrase,’ and explains that this kind of daydreaming traps us into meeting the ‘enclosures’ of life with the grudging minimum of effort that never allows us to become creative in dealing with them.
But accepting the monotonous & making it work for us, not against us, is part of this stability. Artists, for example, are limited by their tools and supplies, but when an artist accepts the inevitable it becomes the vehicle of his creativity.

…at the heart of stability is the certitude that God is everywhere, that we have no need to seek God elsewhere, that if I can’t find God here I shan’t find Him anywhere, because the kingdom of God begins within us.

On the inevitable changes and separations that we go through as individuals: the weaning of a baby, puberty, adolescence, leaving school, inability to find work, change of job, menopause, aging, bereavement etc., de Waal has this to say:

I must try to turn this newly found space in my life to good account and not simply fill it with busyness to cover up the void. I must live in this moment, not looking either forward or back, or to right or left, but realizing that unless I am what I am there cannot be any growth.

I’ve known mothers who have never overcome the fact that their childbearing days are over. They can’t move on from the baby stage and have difficulty mothering their older children. (De Waal’s comparison with Lot’s wife looking back with longing in the Old Testament book of Genesis was a powerful one!) I really miss having a houseful of noise, music, and argumentative teenagers but I now enjoy not having to cook in bulk and I LOVE that I don’t have to give any more driving lessons.

St Benedict also attacks addictions – letting things control me rather than my controlling them. De Waal observes:

If the only way I can write this book is by getting myself a cup of coffee every hour it is not as socially unacceptable as addiction to alcohol or to drugs, but it is still nevertheless a dependency which limits my free will.

Lethargy, grumbling and gossiping are addressed in the Rule. Quoting Sister Joan Chittister, an American Benedictine nun, theologian, author, and speaker, de Waal writes,

If you are not committed to your own adulthood, if you are just coming in and going out, letting others take care of all the ragged edges of our life together, then you will forever see the problem in someone else.

To know if we are committed to our own adulthood we can ask ourselves who was it that we blamed for the last three things that bothered or upset us. 

Attending to the moment is another idea that stood out to me, and I loved these two excerpts that de Waal shared in the last chapter, ‘Praying.’ 

…being attentive to the times of the day: when the birds began to sing, and the deer came out of the morning fog, and the sun came up. The reason why we don’t take time is a feeling that we have to keep moving. This is a real sickness. We live in the fullness of time. Every moment is God’s own good time, His kairos.
(Thomas Merton)

One act is required – and that is all: for this one act pulls everything together and keeps everything in order…This one act is to stand with attention in your heart.
(Theophan the Recluse)

I can understand why this book has been called a spiritual classic. It explores ancient wisdom that speaks to our times because it is Gospel centred and addresses the human condition.
I listened to some podcasts which explore the practicalities of St Benedict’s Rule and found them interesting and a good accompaniment to Esther de Waal’s book. Scroll down the page above to find the link to the podcasts.

*Susan Schaeffer Macaulay devotes a large part of Chapter 10 in her book, For the Family’s Sake, to the Benedictine Way of Life.

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