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SPIRITUALITY AND THE DESERT EXPERIENCE.
The author defines and describes what he calls "the desert experience" along the spiritual path. A helpful book for those experiencing great loss, great loneliness, or other challenges of feeling forsaken and forgotten.
187 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
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September 15, 2014
Found this book on audio when we visited The Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity a little retreat in Utah, very much off the beaten path and totally unknown to us. It was not on our itinerary and we would not have gone here had it not been for a young waitress in Ogden who happened to notice my Miraculous Medal and introduced herself as a fellow Catholic. It was a most unexpected discovery and the detour made the day and added immeasurably to our trip. The abbey is nestled in the prettiest mountain valley at the end of a country road in the most peaceful setting imaginable. I could have spent the rest of our vacation there reading in the bookstore and worshiping with the monks.
This book was an unexpected answer to my recent existential question (re: The Moviegoer). As something not chosen for us, ‘the desert experience’ can happen to people of faith as well as those of no belief. In point of fact, God seems to have a preference for dealing with us in the desert, that is, in places or at times in our lives when we’re experiencing the greatest emptiness, hollowness and feelings of purposelessness. Everything depends on our reaction to these trials, whether or not we reject or accept them, give up on life or strive to look for signs of God’s caring presence even in his apparent absence. To return to my earlier question, the existentialist then, would be someone who either does not look, or for whatever reason, cannot see any evidence for a loving God in his/her world.
Spirituality and the Desert Experience is organized according to five main ‘deserts’—daily routine, loneliness, senselessness, experience in Scripture, and doubt—our reaction and life/death in them.
Drawing on his own monastic experience and beginning with daily routine, Fr. Cummings illustrates the desert tedium of repetitive menial labor. He’s been assigned the mind-numbing task of abbey housekeeper for the past two years. Musing on the possibility of cleaning floors for the rest of his life, he writes: “I tell myself that the emptiness is spiritually useful, and housecleaning is an inevitable necessity, but the monotony of the work does not go away. I would prefer a more self-fulfilling and creative form of emptiness. Thomas Merton's words chide me when he says, ‘We need to be emptied. Otherwise, prayer is only a game. And yet it is pride to want to be stripped and humbled in the grand manner, with thunder and lightning. The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary everyday routine....For the contemplative there is supreme value in the ordinary everyday routine of work, poverty, hardship and monotony that characterize the lives of all the poor, uninteresting and forgotten people of the world.’ I try to live Merton's program and to sink down into the silent rhythm of monastic life: prayer, work, reading.”
This reminds me of a memory my own mother shared with me. Sometime shortly after I was born (the oldest of her four) she recalled standing at the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, looking out the window at diapers hanging on the line and wondering, “Is this going to be the rest of my life?” My mom married straight out of college, became pregnant right away and was a typical 1950’s stay-at-home wife. There are times when life can look like nothing but an endless succession of mundane, hidden, ordinary, tasks—the very things most of us want to shy away from. And yet it is in this very invisibility, and seeming nothingness that God breaks down our pride, the chief obstacle to Love.
Loneliness is part of the human condition. The desert of Loneliness is where we think we are the only ones who are alone. Almost everyone has visited this desert at some time or another and usually we hide this loneliness out of shame, or we try not to think about it for fear it will get worse. Fr. Cummings says the Lonely Hearts Club has more members than it knows what to do with and for all kinds of reasons, often very valid ones, especially major life changes. Also there are certain things which we must do on our own—make decisions, take responsibility and learn to trust. The scariest thing about loneliness is if God is the one the lonely person feels cut off from; this can be perceived as God being angry with us or there being no God. No matter who we believe we are missing, we are actually lonely for God and only he can answer our cry and satisfy our need, which he does in his own time, not ours. We must wait for God to lead us across the desert. The desert land is not our home. The lonely are often looking for the person who can end their loneliness but their search is futile because it is God himself who must lead us across this desert and lead us to his oasis in this place. This isn’t our homeland. As exiles we are not meant to belong here permanently. Simone Weil said, ‘We must be rooted in the absence of place.’
Horrific tragedy is another desert for many people. Fr. Cummings called this the desert of senselessness. Here, we question the value of trying to maintain our values and beliefs, when meaninglessness and lack of control undermine, confuse and confound us. Soon we feel trapped in absurdity. Often death seems an appealing alternative. We can try to understand, but usually we have to surrender our need to make sense in the desert of senseless along with others. The desert stands stubbornly refusing to cooperate with my plans and ability to manipulate it. Life is as it is and not as I would wish it to be. The question then becomes, can I live with it? Can I live with myself and others? The creative patience and endurance advocated here is not to be confused with stoicism. Surrendering the need to control and allowing things to unfold as they need to is the way to pass through the desert of senselessness. If I try to fight the desert I may die there, but if I choose courage and life I may become seasoned and purified and find sense in the mystery of life.
In the desert of Scripture the author traces God’s relationship with his chosen people through their many desert experiences, both those physically located in a desert locale and those which represent spiritual deserts. These were times remembered with shame and nostalgia when God punished his people and yet also led them with tenderness and care. God heard their cry and rescued them; there was a great sense of community, but also one of faithlessness, ingratitude and learning from their vast and terrible desert experience. God also fed, tested, and chastised them. He formed them into a people who knew him, giving a covenant and teaching them how to depend on him; he did not forsake them. In Jesus, there are innumerable additional examples of desert culminating in his seeming total desertion on the Cross by everyone, including God the Father. But as Christians we’re supposed to see this as a hopeful, not as a hopeless, sign—a God willing to become like us and suffer with and for us. We are not abandoned at all. And Jesus on the Cross is our proof.
In the concluding chapters, father further explores our options for accepting or rejecting the desert experiences of our lives. In many respects this book reminded me of Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer, if not in style at least in concept.
The author’s reading on the audio version was rather flat and monotone which is most likely attributable to his monastic environment. After the initial adjustment, it isn’t noticeable.
This book was an unexpected answer to my recent existential question (re: The Moviegoer). As something not chosen for us, ‘the desert experience’ can happen to people of faith as well as those of no belief. In point of fact, God seems to have a preference for dealing with us in the desert, that is, in places or at times in our lives when we’re experiencing the greatest emptiness, hollowness and feelings of purposelessness. Everything depends on our reaction to these trials, whether or not we reject or accept them, give up on life or strive to look for signs of God’s caring presence even in his apparent absence. To return to my earlier question, the existentialist then, would be someone who either does not look, or for whatever reason, cannot see any evidence for a loving God in his/her world.
Spirituality and the Desert Experience is organized according to five main ‘deserts’—daily routine, loneliness, senselessness, experience in Scripture, and doubt—our reaction and life/death in them.
Drawing on his own monastic experience and beginning with daily routine, Fr. Cummings illustrates the desert tedium of repetitive menial labor. He’s been assigned the mind-numbing task of abbey housekeeper for the past two years. Musing on the possibility of cleaning floors for the rest of his life, he writes: “I tell myself that the emptiness is spiritually useful, and housecleaning is an inevitable necessity, but the monotony of the work does not go away. I would prefer a more self-fulfilling and creative form of emptiness. Thomas Merton's words chide me when he says, ‘We need to be emptied. Otherwise, prayer is only a game. And yet it is pride to want to be stripped and humbled in the grand manner, with thunder and lightning. The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary everyday routine....For the contemplative there is supreme value in the ordinary everyday routine of work, poverty, hardship and monotony that characterize the lives of all the poor, uninteresting and forgotten people of the world.’ I try to live Merton's program and to sink down into the silent rhythm of monastic life: prayer, work, reading.”
This reminds me of a memory my own mother shared with me. Sometime shortly after I was born (the oldest of her four) she recalled standing at the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, looking out the window at diapers hanging on the line and wondering, “Is this going to be the rest of my life?” My mom married straight out of college, became pregnant right away and was a typical 1950’s stay-at-home wife. There are times when life can look like nothing but an endless succession of mundane, hidden, ordinary, tasks—the very things most of us want to shy away from. And yet it is in this very invisibility, and seeming nothingness that God breaks down our pride, the chief obstacle to Love.
Loneliness is part of the human condition. The desert of Loneliness is where we think we are the only ones who are alone. Almost everyone has visited this desert at some time or another and usually we hide this loneliness out of shame, or we try not to think about it for fear it will get worse. Fr. Cummings says the Lonely Hearts Club has more members than it knows what to do with and for all kinds of reasons, often very valid ones, especially major life changes. Also there are certain things which we must do on our own—make decisions, take responsibility and learn to trust. The scariest thing about loneliness is if God is the one the lonely person feels cut off from; this can be perceived as God being angry with us or there being no God. No matter who we believe we are missing, we are actually lonely for God and only he can answer our cry and satisfy our need, which he does in his own time, not ours. We must wait for God to lead us across the desert. The desert land is not our home. The lonely are often looking for the person who can end their loneliness but their search is futile because it is God himself who must lead us across this desert and lead us to his oasis in this place. This isn’t our homeland. As exiles we are not meant to belong here permanently. Simone Weil said, ‘We must be rooted in the absence of place.’
Horrific tragedy is another desert for many people. Fr. Cummings called this the desert of senselessness. Here, we question the value of trying to maintain our values and beliefs, when meaninglessness and lack of control undermine, confuse and confound us. Soon we feel trapped in absurdity. Often death seems an appealing alternative. We can try to understand, but usually we have to surrender our need to make sense in the desert of senseless along with others. The desert stands stubbornly refusing to cooperate with my plans and ability to manipulate it. Life is as it is and not as I would wish it to be. The question then becomes, can I live with it? Can I live with myself and others? The creative patience and endurance advocated here is not to be confused with stoicism. Surrendering the need to control and allowing things to unfold as they need to is the way to pass through the desert of senselessness. If I try to fight the desert I may die there, but if I choose courage and life I may become seasoned and purified and find sense in the mystery of life.
In the desert of Scripture the author traces God’s relationship with his chosen people through their many desert experiences, both those physically located in a desert locale and those which represent spiritual deserts. These were times remembered with shame and nostalgia when God punished his people and yet also led them with tenderness and care. God heard their cry and rescued them; there was a great sense of community, but also one of faithlessness, ingratitude and learning from their vast and terrible desert experience. God also fed, tested, and chastised them. He formed them into a people who knew him, giving a covenant and teaching them how to depend on him; he did not forsake them. In Jesus, there are innumerable additional examples of desert culminating in his seeming total desertion on the Cross by everyone, including God the Father. But as Christians we’re supposed to see this as a hopeful, not as a hopeless, sign—a God willing to become like us and suffer with and for us. We are not abandoned at all. And Jesus on the Cross is our proof.
In the concluding chapters, father further explores our options for accepting or rejecting the desert experiences of our lives. In many respects this book reminded me of Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer, if not in style at least in concept.
The author’s reading on the audio version was rather flat and monotone which is most likely attributable to his monastic environment. After the initial adjustment, it isn’t noticeable.
October 9, 2017
This book is about the desert experience: seeking God and finding emptiness, but finding God through the emptiness.
I learned a few things that I can remember.
1. Prayer itself is a move into the desert. If you're wondering why your prayer life is empty, that's because that's the point.
2. Loving God when he's not there (or only present as "the absent God") is the only way to love him in any way commensurate with who he is because then there is no aspect of self-satisfaction in your love. You're not actually loving how God makes you feel, you're just loving God. Similarly, God doesn't make sense in the desert. That allows you to know him (in the "conocer" sense, I guess) closest to how you ought to, not as something you think you understand, but as something that is beyond understanding.
3. Raissa Maritain had an intense spiritual life that it would be interesting to read about, by reading her journal.
I learned a few things that I can remember.
1. Prayer itself is a move into the desert. If you're wondering why your prayer life is empty, that's because that's the point.
2. Loving God when he's not there (or only present as "the absent God") is the only way to love him in any way commensurate with who he is because then there is no aspect of self-satisfaction in your love. You're not actually loving how God makes you feel, you're just loving God. Similarly, God doesn't make sense in the desert. That allows you to know him (in the "conocer" sense, I guess) closest to how you ought to, not as something you think you understand, but as something that is beyond understanding.
3. Raissa Maritain had an intense spiritual life that it would be interesting to read about, by reading her journal.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews