There is a little book by Esther de Waal called Living on the Border: Connecting Inner and Outer Worlds (Canterbury Press, 2001). In a short section of the book – "Standing on the Threshold" – she reflects on the image of the Doorkeeper from Chapter 66 of the Rule of St. Benedict. You may remember that a wise old man is to be stationed at the gate of the monastery, one "whose maturity guarantees that he will not wander around". If anyone arrives at the gate, the Doorkeeper calls out "Thanks be to God." He is able to exercise hospitality, and care for the stranger and the poor. Esther de Waal comments that he is someone on the threshold with one foot, as it were, in the monastic enclosure and the other in the world outside. He doesn’t go wandering off. Because of his stability – one foot in the enclosure – he can welcome the stranger. She takes this further to say that from this firm internal centre the external can be greeted and welcomed, however strange and challenging.

The image of the Doorkeeper leads me to reflect that the key, not only to Benedictine hospitality but also to Benedictine life, is stability. Like the Doorkeeper, the Lay Community of St. Benedict can have one foot rooted in the monastic enclosure – in what we have learned of Benedictine spirituality as practised at Worth Abbey or by the extended family of Worth – and one foot in the world outside. Moreover, from this position of stability on the threshold, we should be able to welcome not only the strange and challenging, which is facing us at this time, but also the stranger and the poor at the gate. If the lay Benedictine movement which we hope to become is able to live on the threshold in this way we will have the stability and confidence to express our values – Benedictine values, God's values – in our words and actions in the Church and in the world.

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© Liz Pearce 2003. First printed in Walcabout, the magazine of the Worth Abbey Lay Community. Reproduced with permission. The views represented on this page are the views of the individual contributor, not necessarily the official views of the Lay Community of St. Benedict.