The Seven Transparent Days: Account of Creation and Experience of Faith Meditation by Silja Walter, O.S.B. (review)

Reviewed by: The Seven Transparent Days: Account of Creation and Experience of Faith Meditation by Silja Walter, O.S.B. Andrea Westkamp O.S.B. The Seven Transparent Days: Account of Creation and Experience of Faith Meditation by Silja Walter, O.S.B., trans. Donata Schoeller and Mary A. Duquaine (Chicago, IL: Ayasofya Press, 2016. Pp 112. Paperback, $34.95. ISBN 978-1-94451-000-8). How do you put into words your story of call, the awakening of your awareness to God's presence and the way you change and are transformed? This book review is a thoughtful addition to the article by Harry Hagan, O.S.B., on Silja Walter's Fahr poems as presented in the September 2023 issue of ABR. The Swiss Benedictine nun who passed away in 2011 has been a companion on my own spiritual journey since I was in my early teens. Silja's hymn texts were part of our singing in the parish when I was growing up in Germany. Her poems helped me to find language to describe my own experience of call to religious life. [End Page 238] Her only work to appear in English so far has been The Seven Transparent Days. By moving through the seven days of creation, she is describing her own creation as moving ever deeper into her personal experience of God. As she looks at her experience of the first day/first personal encounter with God, who created light and is the Light, she says, "There, I experienced that the inner Light is someone . . . Now I saw the meaning of belief: to experience and accept God as reality. That is: being in the Light" (p. 27). Each day of creation, each movement of her deepening journey, flows into verses of the Apostles' Creed, her confessing her faith within the church community. With the fifth day, her journey connects her with the church ever more as she professes, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of Saints." These lines from the Creed are followed by her insight, "It is the adoration of the Father through the Son, the actual work of the Holy Spirit in the faith community, to which I belong, ever since I see where this is ultimately leading me" (p. 80). Finally, as she moves into the seventh day, she recognizes that this day connects her with the resurrection. And here he stands Easter And he saysdo not be afraidand breathesinto my face Such a onenever again forgetswho she iswhat she's called Nevermorelost andNewlyborn-in-the-Holy-SpiritChild of God New Creation (p.101) [End Page 239] The translators of this book showed great sensitivity to the poetic sharing of Silja Walter. Translating lyric is a daunting process as one peels away layer upon layer of the metaphors, joins the cadence of the verses and labors to preserve the beauty of the words. Silja Walter comes from the Word, in the Genesis story, in the Creed. She lets it permeate her like the light. Her musings are augmented with her own oil pastel drawings. They are not part of the original German publication. Silja's drawings are colorful. Each one is associated with a day of creation. The movement of God creating the world is captured in them, just as Silja's own movement into the depth of her own creation is captured in her poems. She summarizes her experience, All seventransparent daysthrough which we seeyour lightlikeness and verdicthave remained with usso that webelieveand loveand love (p. 106) This book takes the reader into reflecting on one's own spiritual journey and profession of faith. It is a book meant for reflection, of sitting with bible-creed-poetry-free verse that Silja Walters is stringing through seven chapters. This is a treasure to be savored, word by word. A wonderful book for a time of retreat. And as one sits with it, maybe another story of creation, of coming into one's faith, could be written! [End Page 240] Andrea Westkamp O.S.B. Saint Benedict Monastery, Bristow, VA...