Seeking God: What does this Mean?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I wondered what it means in monasticism to say one is "seeking God", I mean it's not like God is actually lost or something! Also one is entering a monastery where one is pretty sure God is present. Why do Benedictines define their lives or, I guess, the purpose of their lives as "seeking God"?]]

LOL! It's a serious question and yes, the phrase is a bit enigmatic isn't it? But you have actually implicitly answered the question in your own lightly poking fun at it. We can imagine someone wandering all over the place in search of God, and of course, we can imagine such a person eventually coming to the monastery to focus and deepen their search precisely because there is good reason to believe God may be found in a privileged way there. But once a search for God is narrowed in this way why would Benedictines define their lives in terms of "seeking God"?

As you say, it is true that God is not lost, but in some ways we and our world certainly are. The person we described earlier is looking for God and is thus simultaneously engaged in seeking her own truest self. She and we are each in search of a life which is meaningful; we are looking for a life that fulfills all the potential we carry (by the grace of God) deep within ourselves, a life that is purposeful and coherent; this is inherently wrapped up with the search for God. We find and embrace our truest selves only to the extent we find and are "found" and embraced by God. To commit to seeking God is to commit to finding, claiming, and thus becoming our truest selves in God; it is to commit to finding our way home to, with, and in God and it is to commit to living this "at-home-ness" wherever we are or go so that our lives are transparent to God's in the same way.

Another way of saying we are seeking God is to say we are seeking the best way possible for us to learn to love, to actually love, and to be loved into wholeness. These goals overlap and are dependent upon one another. Especially we cannot learn to love nor love without being loved; we cannot learn or be empowered to love as exhaustively as we are called to love without allowing ourselves to be loved in an analogous way. For this reason we are called first of all to be those who allow God to be God. Moreover, since God is Love-in-Act, this means allowing God to love us. Cistercian houses are known as "Schools of Love; their Benedictine nature "seeking God" and being a "School of Love" coincide. These two aims are the same.

There are more ways of saying this and other ways of thinking about "seeking God". While, as you say, it is true God is not lost, God is also not obvious to most of us nor can we find God in the way we find the keys we inadvertently left on the table earlier or someone in a game of "hide and seek". We have to understand that this commitment to seeking God is a commitment to allow God to be personally present to us; this in turn means making our very own those ways God is found by and finds us! We will travel all those pathways ordinarily supporting and guiding such a journey and make our own such things as lectio, Scripture study, prayer, journaling, community life, intellectual and physical work, liturgy, silence, solitude, ministry, time outdoors and with nature, etc --- all the privileged ways God speaks Godself to and is heard by human beings. We make these regular, familiar, and beloved parts of our everyday lives and (perhaps too) others which are special to us: music, art, writing, etc.

Gradually we learn to open ourselves to the extraordinary God of the ordinary so that we might walk through our days with the eyes and ears of our minds, hearts, and bodies wide open to the presence of God. We do all we can to cultivate this kind of openness and attentiveness, this kind of obedience to God and to our deepest selves. Remember that the very first line of the Rule is the imperative that we "hearken" or "listen" ("Ausculta!"); this focus on obedience is the key to any search for God; it is also the source and ground of the monastic value of stability, and so, to the Benedictine way of life. After all, obedience is also the way we will allow God to claim us as God's own while stability affirms our trust in the presence of God in all of what we consider "ordinary" reality, but certainly that God exists right here and right now. With each choice we make to hearken and embrace God in this way we also allow God to create the persons we are called to be.

Thanks for the good questions. I hope this is helpful.

Seeking in Solitude: New Monograph on Eremitical Life

There is a new book out focusing on selected forms of Roman Catholic eremitical life which are contributing to the development of eremitical life today. Among these Bernadette McNary-Zak treats Camaldolese, American Carthusian, Cistercian, and Diocesan or canon 603 eremitical life.

While Seeking in Solitude is essentially concerned with documenting important dimensions of the resurgence of the phenomenon of eremitical life since Vatican II and the Revised Code of Canon Law, it does an especially fine job of dealing with the ecclesial dynamic of the eremitical vocation generally and distinguishing eremitical solitude from mere isolation, as well as treating the triple good or triple advantage of the Camaldolese charism. From my own perspective the single significant limitation of the book is the choice of the Hermits of Bethlehem (Paterson) as a typical expression of c 603 life. At the very least it seems to me that McNary-Zak should have noted that this is actually an exceptional case; while lauras which do not rise to the level of religious communities are possible and are assuredly one way of protecting both solitude and communion, canon 603 is meant to protect, nurture, and govern solitary eremitical life; thus it is unfortunate that solitary diocesan hermits were not also treated in a way which balanced the picture given.

One of the later topics covered in the book which may be new to some is that of eremitical space and the conscious structuring of that sacred space which is so central to contemplative life. In this I think McNary-Zak's otherwise intriguing analysis could have benefited from references to urban hermits (whose creative contributions in this regard she, unfortunately, largely passes over in silence); even so this is an important discussion with far reaching implications for contemporary culture and spirituality for which readers will be grateful. Readers of this blog will also find much that is familiar in the book, especially with regard to the way in which the dialectic of freedom and ecclesial responsibility/expectations as well as the synthesis of the ancient and the contemporary are negotiated and faithfully embodied in the life of the Roman Catholic hermit today. I definitely recommend it.