Paradox
by Esther de Waal “The key is paradox”. I am standing outside Thomas Merton’s hermitage, talking to his great friend and fellow Cistercian monk Br Patrick Hart. I tell him that I have just started to read the Rule of St Benedict, and this is his response – words that I recall with gratitude, and now more than ever before . I watch the growing polarisation in politics, in society, in the church. A phrase that I read in a recent copy of The Tablet speaks of “the solidified iciness of certainty”. We are losing the sense of paradox and this is dangerous.
At the very end of this short document – which he modestly calls his “ little Rule for beginners” – St Benedict gives us advice on further reading. He points me on the one hand to the desert eremitical tradition, to the solitary and ascetic, with its emphasis on silence and withdrawal, but then on the other hand he points to the coenobitic tradition which shows me the role of community and brotherly and sisterly love. He is telling me to be open to two different streams or sources. Both are good, life-giving and both have a role to play in my life. He is showing me how to initiate a dialogue, a conversation, in which both are needed, and by flowing together will promote growth and avoid extremism. Here I am given the example of two things held in balance, in tension. When I apply this to my own interior self I see the importance of nurturing my solitary self, the ability to live with myself alone before God, but equally the role of living in love with my brothers and sisters.
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