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‘we descend by exaltation and ascend by humility’ 7.7

“A harvester of grain, borrowing from others and making one bundle out of many that had gone before.” This ninth-century description of St Benedict draws a nice picture of a man open to different streams of thought.

At the very end of the Rule comes an unobtrusive small sentence which is in fact extremely illuminating. St Benedict cites for further reading, after what he claims is his own modest Rule, St Basil on the one hand and the desert fathers on the other. Now these two sources are very different in emphasis. St Basil is writing out of the experience of community living, the desert fathers out of the experience of hermit life. The former is more humane, aware of the relations between the brothers, the latter more ascetic, aware of the need for silence and solitude. In composing his Rule it is clear that St Benedict was writing in the context of the two monastic traditions into which he entered. Thus it is possible to read his text and to see its fundamental concern as the making of community; or equally to find its main interest as a life for training in silence and asceticism. Perhaps it is more valuable to make out a case for both, to recognize that St Benedict's insight was to put these two streams together and let them stimulate one another. By giving mutual respect and full acceptance to both he provides a milieu in which both kinds of monks, with their respective attractions, could live together, help one another, and, by being different, enrich one another.

In drawing from both streams he is setting up a dialogue that allows them to interact in a way that will produce growth. He avoids extremism, he is open to differing, even divergent, aspects of the truth. Differences will not be solved by pretending that they do not exist, or that only one orientation is legitimate. It is rather a question of setting limits to each so that neither takes off in its own direction to the practical destruction of the other. The result is not confusion but a holding together of polarities that leads to vitality. Here is the secret of the dynamism that the Rule can bring to the life of a community, as also to the life of an individual. The result has been that the Benedictine tradition, operating from this base, has adapted itself to new situations and has responded to new challenges throughout its history. And what is true of how it has shaped a monastic institution is also, I believe, true of how – if we are prepared to allow it – it will shape each of us as individuals.

This polarity, this holding together of opposites, this living with contradictions, presents us not with a closed system but with a series of open doors. This is, I suspect, the way most of us actually experience our lives. We find that we have to make room for divergent forces within us, and that there is not necessarily any resolution of the tension between them. I find it immensely liberating and encouraging to be told that this is the way things are, and that the way things are is good. St Benedict here is at his most creative and his most realistic. He describes a way of life which is immediately familiar, because it is precisely the way in which I myself live. In holding on to this polarity I must not deny the truth of either, for the two poles are not mutually antagonistic. On the contrary, each makes the other possible. St Benedict is a master of paradox.

We are all people of paradox. Each of us knows only too well the conflicting claims

of child and adult

of male and female

of animus and anima

of heart and head.

Living with paradox may well not always be easy or comfortable. It is not something for the lazy, the complacent, the fanatical. It does however point us the way to truth and life. For as we learn to live with paradox we have to admit that two realities may be equally true; we may be asked to hold together contrasting forces. The closer we come to saying something worthwhile, the more likely it is that paradox will be the only way to express it. “The mind will never apprehend the truth of paradox. Only the heart can do that.”

But if paradox speaks to my human condition it is also a vehicle for expressing truths about

a God who becomes a man

a victor who rides on a donkey in his hour of triumph

a saviour who is executed like some common thief

a king whose kingdom is not here but to come

a God who tells me that “when I am weak then I am strong”

a God whose promise is that “in losing my life I shall find it”.

Here is a God who proclaims the ultimate paradox of life through death, a paradox which can only be lived, it cannot be explained; it can be celebrated, it cannot easily be discussed. For in the cross we are presented with the ultimate paradox. As Parker Palmer has written.

The cross calls us to recognize that the heart of human experience is neither consistency nor chaos, but contradiction. In our century we have been beguiled by the claim of consistency, by the theory that history is moving toward the resolution of all problems, by the false hope that comes from groundless optimism that all works together for good. And then, when this claim has been discredited by tragic events, we have been assaulted by theories of chaos, by prophets of despair who claim that everything can be reduced to the random play of forces beyond all control, of events which lack inherent meaning.

But the cross symbolizes that beyond naive hope and beyond meaningless despair lies a structure of dynamic contradictions in which our lives are caught.

The Christ on the Cross is the ultimate contradiction, holding together the vertical, pointing towards the Father, and the horizontal arms stretched out to the world. This is the Christ towards whom St Benedict is pointing

Christ present with an eternal Yes

Bringing light out of darkness

Bringing life out of death.

But of course I also know that I can only too easily experience the wrong sort of contradiction in my life. I can be pulled in two directions at once so that I am fragmented and disoriented. I then become a battlefield in which contrary forces tug me first in one direction and then in another. This is the divided heart of which the psalmist speaks. This is the house divided against itself which cannot stand. This is the paralysed self which appears when the inner and the outer fail to correspond. Instead I need to try to find some degree of equilibrium and unity within myself which will allow these contradictory forces to work together, which will enable the tensions to become life-giving.

Perhaps another way of expressing this would be to say that what I am looking for is some sort of balance in my life—a balance “so delicate, so risky, so creative”, as Maria Boulding puts it, that she likens it to a bird in flight, a dancer in motion. One of the favourite words in the Rule is “run”. St Benedict tells me to run to Christ. If I stop for a moment and consider what is being asked of me here, and what is involved in the act of running, I think of how when I run I place first one foot and then the other on the ground, that I let go of my balance for a second and then immediately recover it again. It is risky, this matter of running. By daring to lose my balance I keep it.

Or another way of thinking about this might be to reflect on the rhythmic alternation which governs the whole of life. Throughout the Rule we are made aware of the conflicting demands of body, mind and spirit, and of the need to pay attention to their contrasting claims. There must be time to work, time to study and time to pray. There must be time to pray in solitude and time to pray with others. There must be time to be alone and time to be in community. There is a daily, weekly, yearly pattern of life in the monastery. Life is inextricably bound up in the alternation of day and night, of the changing seasons, of the ebb and flow of the seasons, of the changing shape of the liturgical year. This way of life brings us into touch with the rhythm inherent in all things, in the holding together of the contradiction of growth and decline, of light and dark, of dying and rising again.

Here is something profoundly important for my own humanity. To paraphrase what Parker Palmer has written in The Promise of Paradox, if I am to live wholly and fully and freely then I must accept that I am in the contradictions and that the contradictions are in me, and that all is held together by a “hidden wholeness”. When I became aware of my relatedness to all of life, to the dark and to the light, to death and to life, then I can walk freely in the certainty that the ultimate contradiction of the Cross is also the promise of fullness of life.

If I make a list of the paradoxes in my life, in particular concentrating on the light and dark, I may then be better able to see where I am lacking in balance.