Esther de Waal's Seeking God will appear as a godsend to those interested in encouraging and deepening the Protestant rediscovery of monasticism that has taken place over the past few years. It is an appreciation and exposition of the Rule of St. Benedict undertaken, in the spirit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from the middle of existence.

One of the great strengths of the book is the connection it forges between the way in which “the pattern of the day was established by the opus Dei, the work of God, the purpose of the monastic life” and “the mingling of the enclosed life with the life outside the walls.” The Protestant rediscovery of monasticism is intrinsically connected with a recovery of spirituality, a renewal of the Church that is also a transformation of the world. De Waal successfully describes an Order that is not a retreat into the cloister. Whether St. Benedict foresaw the mingling or not, his rule became a vehicle by which that mingling took on profound political as well as spiritual significance.

In an age that must concern itself with the politics of spirituality as well as the spirituality of politics, this has revolutionary potential. It is no retreat, no conforming to the world; it is a forming, a transforming. “The Rule,” de Waal says, “continually points beyond itself to Christ . . . ”; and, in the pointing, it becomes a catalyst by which Christ informs the world. Christians whose ecclesiology, ethics, and politics have been profoundly influenced by spiritual guides who forsook the monastery need to hear this: this Order is evangelical, not legalistic. “Christ is the beginning, the way and the end.” This is practical material for those interested in ethics as formation.

It should probably not surprise us that a Rule composed by one convinced of the presence of God and God's work in the midst of a crumbling world should appear relevant in our time. The contemporary concern with spirituality is itself a struggle for wholeness in the midst of fragmentation. Benedict's great insight is that the wholeness is there, even in the midst of fragmentation, because God is there. De Waal communicates this insight effectively in her careful development of an image of all our action taking place in God's presence. St. Benedict, she tells us, hopes that our whole lives will become “prayer in action.” (How appropriate that Benedict's Rule, in de Waal's hands, looks like Augustine's Confessions in action!) This image is most clear in the treatment of the Benedictine vows: obedience, stability, and conversion. Those vows recognize that, as creatures called by God, we exist in the creative tension between stability and change. Nothing could be more dependable than God; and it is precisely that dependability that makes flexibility possible. The point, to borrow an image from Kierkegaard, is to “be like the bird who, feeling the bough give way beneath her feet, is not afraid, because she knows she has wings to fly.”

At a time when the ground seems particularly shaky, this book is a reminder that we have wings--and a good picture of a forerunner who gave practical advice on using them.