The Bridge of the Desert Fathers between Christ and the World

Reading the Desert Fathers brings one into ancient orthodox thinking that expands the mind into areas not explored within , say, and evangelical Protestant box which is my background. While going out to meet the Desert fathers in the Desert one has to go on a spiritual pilgrimage from our current way of thinking into a land that looks different from the way we think think of what Christian looks like in the 21st Century.

Think of the word North American Christianity on a Sunday morning. Generally something with a steeple comes to mind , pews, maybe a stain glass window. Depending on your tradition you are going to have either a lot of worship music or a lot of liturgy. If your really lucky you get both but rarely. Folks are over all well dressed, well fed, drive to church in a comfortable vehicle and seem to like to get together for fellowship dinners and coffee. There is a lot of chatting, if your in a high energy worship music church there is not a lot of quiet, and there are either a lot of Bibles in the pews, Bibles in hand or scripture in a prayer book or missal. There might be an offering for the poor, or a food bank donation , or a missions project. Maybe the church encourages people to be involved in social justice. Church is a few hours on Sunday, maybe some volunteer hours through the week and that is if you are really being good. Your trying that's what is important.

   The we have the Desert Fathers. They live way out in the wilderness , often in a cave or small one or two room dwelling, later monasteries but these were still very spartan. You eat a bit of dry bread, a few dates and some oil when you decide its a good day to eat. Fasting is how you bring your body into submission and your spirit follows course. You deprive yourself of sleep . You pray for hours at a time. You have memorized and internalized large sections of scripture which are few and far between. Sometimes you live in a community where you see each other on Sunday. Sometimes you may not see another face for years . The weather is brutal, your bath  may be a periodic desert rain, you have rags for clothes and harsh temptations test your mind and sap your spiritual strength. Strange things haunt your dreams. Bandits come and take away what little you have , visitors come and intrude on your privacy,and the work of your hands may be weaving the same mat over and over again. Markets to sell your wares may  be a long ways away, medical assistance even further. You have to rely on daily miracles to stay alive. This is the Desert Father of the third and fourth century. Pilgrims came to them across burning deserts for a simple word, a word full of life and the Holy Spirit. These men who had left all their goods behind and gave away to the poor the little they had left in search for a holiness and intimacy with God they felt only could be found in silence, poverty, fasting and coming out from the world.

        The contrast between what the average Christian type is today and the dramatic asceticism of the Desert Fathers is so sharp it is easy to think that perhaps one has no relation to the other. Before dismissing them it might be a good idea to ask a few interior questions. For safety margins on our theological quest let us take with us the boundaries of the Creed of the Church.Which Creed.?Which Bible, which books and  letters are going in the Bible which will stay out. How will we decide on the nature of Christ . What wording will we use to describe the Holy Spirit in relation to the other members of the Trinity. Who is in charge. Being a Heretic was something that bounced back and forth in the councils of the church for sometime. One day you weren't one day you were. Being on the wrong side could cost you your life or you reputation. It was a good time to find a quiet cave in the backside of the desert and stay there for seventy five years. What we now consider written in stone wasn't yet. People became tired of the ecclesiastical city life and wanted to live a simple life in a close relationship with Christ.The desert provided this. It provided the promise of a deep intimacy with God within the silence. The desert Fathers were able to share this assimilation of their wisdom in sayings taken by pilgrims like Cassian back to their parts of the known world and influence the foundation of monastic practice.
and the Christian world.

             To step into the world of the Desert Fathers one has to step into what we now think of an Orthodox Way of thinking. Eternity is present. Angels, Demons, wild beasts becoming friends, miracles that were common place events and the ever present onslaught of temptation balance against the desire for God. The monks influence Orthodox thought today where the current monks of the desert in St. Anthony's monastery still see him appear from time to time on the high towers of their walls . Their ideas of how we deal with sin and how we battle forces of darkness still is reflected in penance and fasts in the Church.

The Desert Fathers found their strength in their time with God in their saturated lives of Prayer. This is where they did battle. They battled from inside their place of prayer . They were so inside the Presence of God that it was their wall and high tower, their refuge. They built periodically prayer towers . ladders up to prayer caves in the Syrian desert, high towers in the Celtic monastic villages such as Glendough reflected the monastic desire to find places removed and physical places of prayer , solitude and protection. These reflected their spiritual ladders, and refuge which was already built and hidden in Christ.  Scripture and the Eucharist when they could come together was as source of strength and power for the Desert Fathers in their battle. The Fathers became known for their apparent ability to sometimes defy the rules of nature in their ability to pray for long hours standing without sleep, little food and sometimes even go places that were far away , without apparently leaving such as an Abbot who did business in far of Alexandria without apparently leaving the monastery. Such events appear in saints of other periods over Church History and have the same marks of being able to be present in one place while influencing the events or appearing in another location.,
The Desert Fathers were extremely modest about their abilities won in prayer and often tried to cover anything unusual as an understandable event.

          These influences carried down into the monastic practices of the Benedictines, Cistercians and Carmelties in their rules and influence  hermitages of the present day. The core message of the Desert Fathers beyond their extreme eremitical practice was a consistent practice of the practice of poverty. The Life of Anthony tells of his hearing the word of Christ to the rich young man to sell all he has, give it to the poor and follow Christ. This is a core feature in the Rule of St. Benedict and the life of the Desert Fathers. This poverty held that not even a pen would be kept without the permission of the Abbot . The desert Fathers seemed to compete to see who could have less not who could have more. They were able to live with a mat, perhaps a hand woven piece of clothes , and the most basic forms of shelter. Yet still from this they practiced hospitality and gave of what they had in gracious hospitality. The challenge to live with less and simplify our lives rings loudly from the heritage of the Desert.

             Yet with all these gifts of grace I found myself sitting with the Desert Fathers asking them for a word for my current life. Beyond the importance of what the Desert Fathers had left in their legacy to Cistercians and thus to Lay Cistercians and contemplatives this focus on the poor touches the world I work in even more. The monks of the Desert pulled their desire to fillow Christ in his love for the poor from the Gospels. I understood poor in the face of the homeless , the street engaged and single parent moms standing in line at the foodbank. I knew I had come to the desert for  a reason and I knew the Fathers had one last thing to say to me before I left them and went on to another page in History. The current government in British Columbia is in
serious cutback to agencies and services to those who serve the poor and marginalized. Shelters, Womens's, Transition Houses and Services for the Disabled are directly affected. It is true that we do not really understand something until it affects us.

I came home a few days ago with a lay off notice for my job of seventeen years, along with all the staff in that particular home. Forty five group homes had been closed that year, fifty more the next, parents of disabled adults and children were marching in the streets. The wait list to get into programs for a family was 2600 people long. In this mindset I came and sat infront of my stack of Desert Fathers books, Thomas Mertons talks to the Novices , their influence on Pre - Benedictine Monasticism , the Wisdom of the Desert, Seeking God by Esther de Waal and and lines of similar books on library shelves. If I now had come to join the spiritual view of the coming with a listening heart to really hear a word from these saints. They who stand with the communion of saints in the presence of God could they beyond the books and the stories give me a Word. There was silence. Long painful silence. No voice from the past. It was hard not to be skeptical.
 
I had forgotten the rule of the Desert. You have to wait for the Word. Sitting on a city bus in the quiet early on a Sunday morning after a long night a word came " You can use this to enter into the suffering of those you are with". Without this feeling of being displaced you would not understand , Be an advocate...the Disabled are the Poor. The Disabled are the Poor. All the Gospels of Christ healing the lame, restoring the blind, curing the leper, rose up and hit me like a living word spoken directly to my heart. This was the bridge between my life and the Lives of the Fathers. The healing call of the Gospel of Christ to Broken people. The Disabled are the Poor. A simple word to light the direction of my life in time of  desert. A voice calling from the wilderness. The word of the Gospel has not changed over time. It still speaks to our hearts in our times of needed direction.