Benedictine

a contemplative vision for daily life

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

I live in a complex, consumer society, which exploits both people and the earth itself. St Benedict would tell me that I can live simply and with respect and reverence, for people, for material things, for the environment. I can live with concern, responsibility, stewardship.

I live in a highly competitive and individualistic society, and one that is constantly mobile and changing. I can refuse to live under pressure like that. I can try to be stable, not only in my innermost self, but in my relations to those around me, and in my continuous search for God.

I live in a world of injustice and exploitation, where people are denied the right to live with honour and dignity, a world divided by race, colour, class. I can refuse to live by divisions like this, for I try to find the face of Christ in all I see.

I live in a world in which the churches are split and torn apart. The Rule of St Benedict comes from the undivided Church of the past, and it points me on to the undivided Church of the future, and I must try to play my part in helping that search for unity to grow in my own lifetime, while still remaining faithful to my own tradition.

I live in a world of battering noise, insistent media claims for attention, and endless words of confrontation, constant talk and ceaseless chatter. I can try instead to become a listening person, listening to those around me, and listening above all to God.

I live in a world that is angry, fear-ridden, distracted. I can try instead to carry a heart of stillness, an awareness of God’s presence and his gaze upon me. So that I hold on to the contemplative vision even in the midst of the most busy and active daily life.

     Esther de Waal, Living With Contradiction

A victim of the fear tactics of the world

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

If I am appreciated for what I do, what I achieve, I am not in fact unique since someone else can do the same, and probably do it better than I. When my estimation and value of myself depends on what I can produce with my hands or with my mind, then in Henri Nouwen’s words I have allowed myself to become “a victim of the fear tactics of the world”. This is the self that so often leads me into activity to prove my value. But if productivity becomes my main way of overcoming self-doubt I lay myself open to rejection and criticism, and so to inner anxiety or depression. I am constantly checking myself and my achievements. So my productivity really only reveals how much I am driven by fear of not being up to standard and by an insatiable desire to justify myself. It is only when I am loved not for what I do but for who I am that I can become myself, unique and irreplaceable.

Esther de Waal, from Living With Contradiction: an introduction to Benedictine spirituality