Go to the Desert
If the prophets did so, and if Jesus did so, we too must go out into the desert from time to time.
It is not a question of transporting oneself there physically. For many of us that could be a luxury. Rather, it implies creating a desert space in one's own life. And to create a desert means to seek solitude, to withdraw from men and things, one of the undisputed principles of mental health.
To create a desert means learning to be self-sufficient, learning to remain undisturbed with one's own thoughts, one's own prayer, one's own destiny.
It means shutting oneself up in one's room, remaining alone in an empty church, setting up a small oratory for oneself in an attic or at the end of a passage in which to localize one's personal contact with God, to draw breath, to recover one's inner peace. It means occasionally devoting a whole day to prayer, it means going off into the loneliness of the mountains, or getting up alone in the night to pray.
When all is said and done, creating a desert means nothing more than obeying God. Because there is a commandment -- arguably the most forgotten of all, especially by the "committed," by militants, by priests -- and even bishops -- which requires us to interupt our work, to put aside our daily tasks and seek the refreshing stillness of contemplation.
—Carlo Carretto, from In Search of the Beyond
It is not a question of transporting oneself there physically. For many of us that could be a luxury. Rather, it implies creating a desert space in one's own life. And to create a desert means to seek solitude, to withdraw from men and things, one of the undisputed principles of mental health.
To create a desert means learning to be self-sufficient, learning to remain undisturbed with one's own thoughts, one's own prayer, one's own destiny.
It means shutting oneself up in one's room, remaining alone in an empty church, setting up a small oratory for oneself in an attic or at the end of a passage in which to localize one's personal contact with God, to draw breath, to recover one's inner peace. It means occasionally devoting a whole day to prayer, it means going off into the loneliness of the mountains, or getting up alone in the night to pray.
When all is said and done, creating a desert means nothing more than obeying God. Because there is a commandment -- arguably the most forgotten of all, especially by the "committed," by militants, by priests -- and even bishops -- which requires us to interupt our work, to put aside our daily tasks and seek the refreshing stillness of contemplation.
—Carlo Carretto, from In Search of the Beyond
posted by Gary O'Connor at 11:52 AM
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