Desert of Your Own Being

Desert of our being. That is what George Maloney calls that place deep inside ourselves, where we meet God. To quote: But he [God] can only be met in the desert of your own being, in the depths where you encounter the dread of loss. So few of us have the courage or the discipline to cut ourselves off from all the attachments by which we define ourselves, to go out into the desert and be at the mercy of the unknown. (Journey Into Mystical Prayer, 8)

According to Maloney, then, the journey "down" begins with surrender. It's a concept not often talked about these days, with the need for consciousness, awareness of God, purity of intention, etc. Maloney is in fact telling us there are many things in our lives that simply don't make sense. They can become road blocks toward our progress toward the descent, or we can surrender to the fact that we cannot understand them, and so continue forward. I like his term mercy of the unknown. It begs for trust. It begs to believe in a being bigger and more capable than yourself. And it begs for surrender.

Role of Angels

Today is the Feast of Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. Archangels as we call them. All three are mentioned in scripture, and all three are popular.

Angels remind us of the "other" life that is out there, the spiritual life with battles to be won and journeys to be made. In times past, much was made of angels. We hear less about them now, though they have been popularized in literature and pop culture. What can angels really do for us?

I think the greatest role of angels is to remind us of the spiritual life we have, but oft forget. They are also someone to talk to, privately, someone who won't spill the beans or break your confidence. They are someone we can ask to protect us, to guide us, to lend a helping hand. Angels, though unseen, or no less real, if we take the time to development a friendship with them. And as this friendship grows, it is amazing the wonderful things that can happen to you in life, things only an angel would do.

And its always good to remember the verse from the psalm 91 (good to read the whole psalm!): For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, That you do not strike your foot against a stone.

Can we ask for anything better?

Modern Desert Abbas and Ammas

So, last evening I stood at my window and looked out at the evening sky and wondered about some of the teachings of the Abbas and Ammas of the desert. They certainly mirrored the spirituality of their times, especially an extraordinary hatred of the flesh. Yet, we now know such hatred is counter both to good spirituality and to stable mental health. And I wondered, should we not be producing new Abbas and Ammas of the desert with a spirituality resonate with present theological thought? Should not we become the new Abbas and Ammas of the desert?

For what is a desert but a land devoid of refreshment. And there are many kinds of deserts in our lives. Each of us, I am sure, have spent time in a desert of soul, or desert of work, or desert of spirit. During those times, our thoughts become rich because they proceed from the very depths of our souls. These thoughts should be written down and shared.

Who do you know who is a real desert Abba or Amma?

Beauty in the Soul

Nature's beauty is awesome, especially around this time of year, when the trees turn color, and the forest becomes various hues of gold, red and orange. The color is so stunning we often forget it is a sign of dying.

One of my favorite photos is of a stormy sea crashing on the rocks. I remember staring at this picture and admiring the awesome spray of the water against the rocks when suddenly I realized the very thing I was admiring would be a terrible thing to experience: the stormy sea. Sea faring vessels avoid this as much as possible. Beach goers, at least sane ones, would not dare venture into such a surf. And yet, there is beauty in the sight.

Often we do not see the beauty of our own soul when we are being transformed by such cycles. We feel the pain, or struggle with the fear, or doggedly move forward when we want to lay low. But such incidents do bring out our inner beauty, our faith, our strong soul. Even though we cannot see the beauty of it, it would be good to remind ourselves that there is beauty in the struggle and the pain. And that it is there for all to see.

Looking in the Mirror

Yesterday I attended a one day retreat. The topic was the Holy Cross and how to make the best use out of the suffering we endure in our lives. The talk was very good. But in the conversation after the talk, there were some of the group who turned the conversation to weak priests, the devil and his spread over the earth, and holy water (or lack of it) in the church during lent. I found myself trying to pull the conversation back to the topic, of how we witness as Christians by our actions, our attitudes, and especially the way to deal with suffering. But my attempt seemed a lost cause.

This got me thinking. How easy it is to bypass our role as Christians by looking at others, their roles, and their failures. And this brings me to believe that we often concentrate on others failures, or perceived failures because it takes the attention off of our own relationship with God and where we are in that relationship.

May this be a sign of our inability to accept our own failures and weaknesses? Why would we want to take a beautiful talk about suffering and turn it into a rant against others? What happened to accepting the cross when it comes into our lives?

Let's face it. All failures humiliate. But failure is nothing more than our struggle here on earth. We are, after all, made up of spirit and flesh. To fail is human. But we have our spirit to lift us up. And, even more importantly, we must guard against making our failures bigger than they are. We didn't keep a particular resolution. So what? Try again. Don't give that failure an importance it doesn't deserve. That will only paralyze you. Because if you do, well, looking for others who failures are bigger than yours will just come naturally. When we do that, we have turned from looking into the mirror of God to worrying about others. And that is the biggest failure of all.

Entering the Desert Place

In his book Discovering the Hidden Reality: A Journey Into Christian Mystical Prayer, George Maloney writes: Our culture feeds us with the idea that we can do anything that we set our minds to do. In the time of St. Augustine, this concept was called "Pelagianism."

Maloney goes on to explain how such a concept keeps us always busy about "doing" things, so that silence, especially the silence needed for mystical prayer, is foreign to us. It goes so far he says, as to making even prayer an object where we are either getting something or doing something for God. And that is so not mystical prayer!

Mystical prayer is a gazing at God so as to learn his goodness. It doesn't so much ask God for gifts or plan great deeds for God. It consists more of an attention to God, an awareness of his abiding presence, of a mind set to think more in the light of his goodness than on accomplishments.

Maloney writes further: There is a subtle type of pharisaism that uses God as a static object who will flood us with consolations and a feeling of a good conscience. What we fail to see is that we have gradually lost the willingness to take the wild risks of Moses and the Israelites as they followed God for forty years in the dry and threatening desert.

Here I am reminded of the scripture verse that says, For God sends rain, and causes his sun to shine upon the just and the unjust. Such is the an attitude of one in union with God, were one doesn't use what is happening to us in the here and now to judge how much we love God or he us. It is an important part of our journey, to realize that life goes forward in a very organic way, with both rain and sunshine, and that it is our awareness of God, not his gifts, that is paramount. 

The very difficulty of such type of prayer explains why mystical prayer had fallen out of favor. But recent  interest must be accompanied by a realistic approach to this form of union with God. Otherwise, we shall give up at the desert's edge, without even entering upon the long journey.

Favorite Scripture Verse

We all develop a favorite Scripture verse. Mine used to be Ps. 27 "The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom should I fear?"  I was young then, and life was as yet untried.

Later, another verse spoke to me, this time from Ps. 18 "I love you Lord, you are my strength."  By then life had indeed become heavy, and I looked to the Lord for help.

My favorite scripture verse of late has been from 1 Samuel 3, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." It is time for another change, and as always, I feel the need for the Lord to guide.

Favorite verses come from where we are in life. Which is good, because scripture should speak to the inner most depths of our soul. When we find a verse that mirrors our own sentiments, we should hold on to that verse. It can become a souce of comfort, strength, and just hope.