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SEEKING GOD

ESTHER DE WAAL, a historian by training with a particular interest in landscape and architecture, grew up in a Shropshire country vicarage. In the mid 1970s she moved with her husband and four sons to a house in Canterbury that had been part of the medieval monastic community. This led to her interest in the Benedictine tradition and to the writing in 1984 of Seeking God, which has since been widely read and published in many translations throughout the world. Living With Contradiction which offers further reflections on the Rule of St Benedict was first published in 1989 and is also available from the Canterbury Press. A Life-Giving Way, a reflective commentary on the Rule for lay people, published by Geoffrey Chapman, followed and her latest book is The Way of Simplicity: The Cistercian Tradition, published by Darton Longman & Todd in 1998.

Her interest in Celtic spirituality has been encouraged by a return to the Welsh border country where she grew up. She has edited selections from the Carmina Gaedelica in Celtic Vision and, with A. M. Allchin, in Threshold of Light: Prayers and Praises in the Celtic Tradition; and she has written a new introduction to Helen Waddell’s Beasts and Saints (all published by Darton Longman & Todd). Her major Celtic work is The Celtic Way of Prayer, published by Hodder & Stoughton.

In addition to writing she gives lectures and conducts retreats. A Seven-Day Journey with Thomas Merton (Eagle) is her guide for those who want to make a retreat at home. The Benedictine Experience which she initiated in Canterbury in the mid-1980s, allows people of all denominations to follow together for a week the Benedictine rhythm of prayer, study and work. She has been given an honorary D.Litt from St John’s Collegeville, USA, for her contribution to Benedictine studies and ecumenical endeavour, and received the Templeton UK award in 1991 for her work in making the way of St Benedict accessible to lay men and women.