Living With Contradiction. Esther de Waal

Living with the Contradictions

       ‘run while you have the light of life’ Prol 13

      The Rule of St Benedict addresses itself to us, each of us, just as we are. St Benedict understands human nature, its strengths and weaknesses, limitations and potential. He respects the mystery that each person is, and the result of this is that the thrust of the Rule is never towards dictating, rather it is towards the inner disposition of the heart. This is an approach which follows from his firm understanding that each of us is a highly complex being, and that allowance must be made for this.

      When a novice enters the monastic community and lays the vows on the altar, the prayer is always Suscipe me, accept me, O Lord. These are wonderful words that I too can come back to, time and again, as a prayer for myself: accept me, O Lord, just as I am, in my frailty, my inadequacy, my contradictions, my confusion. Accept me in my complexity, with all those discordant currents that pull me in so many directions. Accept all of this, and help me so to live with what I am that what I am may become my way to God. Accept the tensions and help me to hold them together, so that I may learn to live fully, freely, wholly, not torn apart but finding that balance and harmony that will allow me to discover my point of inner equilibrium.

      I suspect it is true of all of us that the older we grow the more urgent it becomes that we learn to live with these discords within ourselves, and live with them in such a way that we are neither fragmented nor exhausted; not succumbing to lassitude or depression but rather learning how to hold tensions together and let them become powers for good, powers to liberate and affirm us, powers to release the energy to allow us to run the way to God that is St Benedict's concern in the prologue to the Rule: “Run while you have the light of life…Run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.”

      What I have gained from the written text of the Rule has been made more vivid and immediate for me by the way in which the themes addressed by the Rule are reflected in Benedictine monastic buildings themselves. Living for ten years under the shadow of Canterbury cathedral has furnished me with images that have slowly worked themselves into my subconscious, have fed me and sustained me and above all coloured my understanding of the Rule and of the life to which it gives rise. Two images in particular seem illuminating. In the crypt, built in the twelfth century when St Anselm was abbot and archbishop, the massive romanesque pillars bear amazing carved capitals. The four sides of one show a succession of scenes: on the first, a carefree jester throws a fish into a bowl as he perches on another's head; on the second, a lion, an amiable creature with a curling tail, smiles an innocent, warm smile. On the third side the mood changes: here we find strange, devouring creatures that feel like elemental forces at work attempting to swallow or destroy one another. Finally, on the fourth side there is a double-headed monster combining male and female features. Here is the contradiction between the light and the dark, the masculine and the feminine, the life-enhancing and the life-destroying. This portrayal was put here, in this holy place, by men who were not afraid to carve what they knew and present it to God in the heart of their monastic crypt. I find here a very simple message that we all need to hear: being committed to God is not about being nice. It is about being real.

      The second image comes from the vault of the nave, built towards the end of the Middle Ages. Stand beneath that triumph of late Gothic building and you find pillar and arch, rib and vault, all brought together in one great harmonious unity, each separate and individual part linked both with the other elements and with the whole. Here is the Pauline analogy of the body of Christ spelt out in stone. Here is a statement in the structure of the church itself of that common life experienced by the medieval Benedictine community and well described in a sermon by one of its thirteenth-century abbots “Being many we are one body, members of one another. And one spirit gives life to our whole body through the members and parts, and brings about a mutual peace…”

      But to discover the secret of this harmonious unity, this peace and concord, one has to climb the hidden stairways and explore the space between the stone vaults and the roofs above. Here is thrust and counter-thrust. Here is never-ending conflict. The high vaults strive to push the walls outwards; the flying buttresses strive to push them inwards. Here are columns, arches, walls all locked in unceasing combat. This great cathedral is maintained, and has been maintained for centuries, through the interplay and interdependence of contradictory forces, the unremitting pull of opposites.

      The keystone is firm at the point of equilibrium.

      The boss is still at the heart of the tensions.

      If there is a single reason why the Benedictine way of life has remained dynamic across the centuries, I suspect it is because the Rule carries within itself this same ability to hold together opposing forces, conflicting tensions. I believe that the Rule is able to feed the divergent streams within each of us because it is itself made up of divergent streams. It is precisely here that its fecundity lies, as does also that of my own humanity; the riches of my own make-up depend upon allowing these streams to work dynamically within me.

      Living in a cave at Subiaco, St Benedict knew the solitary life of a hermit for many years before founding his community of monks at Monte Cassino. Here is something profoundly important for all of us. Unless and until I first learn to respect my own solitude, revere my own identity, recognize the mystery that I myself am, I cannot respect that same solitude in others, revere their own identity, and recognize them for the mystery that they are. The harmonious interaction of any individual, as of any community, demands a strong affirmation of both principles. If one is weak the other will dominate; if both are weak the result will be inaction rather than interaction. Just as in any community there will be both sorts of people, the solitary and the communal, so also each one lives a common life and yet also requires time apart, some form of withdrawal. It is the recognition and affirmation of both which allows me fully to realize the extent to which I am separate and alone, and yet also profoundly connected to others in brotherhood and sisterhood.

      The holding together of body, mind and spirit is one of the most basic of the tensions in the Benedictine way of life. The Rule tells us that we are made up of these three elements, that we go to God – and also achieve our own full humanity – through recognizing and respecting the role of each element. This balanced way of living was something written into the daily and hourly routine (horarium) of the monastery; time for work, for study, and above all time for prayer. It promotes rhythm and balance, a pattern of alternating activity, for which I am deeply grateful because it challenges me to become a full person and a whole person. I must learn to respect the whole of myself. If each of these elements is accepted, honoured and enjoyed, each can become a way of reaching God as well as of becoming the integrated human being God is calling me to be.

      But then I encounter another contradiction. The Benedictine vow of stability calls me to stand still, to stand firmly planted not on any plot of ground (which is likely to be impossible) but within myself, not running away from who I am. Yet in the vow of conversatio morum (which literally translated means “conversion of manners” or “conversion of life”) I am presented with the necessity of living open to continual conversion, ready to grow and change and move on. On the one hand I find that I must stay still; on the other, that I need continually to change. As I try actually to live in this way I find that here I encounter a fundamental tension that I know I can never expect to escape or evade, but one which answers a deep need in me, so that simultaneously I stand firm and yet also I move on.

      In the Prologue St Benedict makes it clear that he has unshaken confidence in my use of my natural gifts and free will to serve God: my particular gifts are the actual medium through which God acts on me.