Book Review: A Path Through the Desert: 40 Sayings of the Desert Fathers, by Anselm Grun (St. Paul’s U.K. 2003).

The ‘apophthegmata patrum’ (‘sayings of the fathers’) comprise one of the greatest sources of wisdom about God and humans in church history. Since Antony and other desert fathers (and mothers) ventured into the desert from about 270 A.D. a whole genre of ‘desert spirituality’ has enriched sincere seekers-after-God. From 1,000 of these ‘sayings’ Grun has selected 20 from various monks, then another 20 from one of them – Evagrius Ponticus. We are encouraged to be ‘confronted’ by this wisdom, not to argue with it. We journey with these holy people into the dark and complex abysses of the soul, but experience there the grace of God and a serenity which is difficult to find ‘in the rush and roar of life’.

These monks suggest that finding God is like fishing: we wait in the boat for the waters to become calm, then we can see into the depths where the fish are. So we ‘wait’ for God, and observe what stirs within us (the exercise of ‘watchfulness’). Then we take whatever experiences we find there, and hold them out to a loving and forgiving God.

Why is the solitude of the desert a good place to do this? There are many reasons – fewer distractions, absence of ‘tasks’ with which we identify (‘I have a task, but I am not my task; I have a problem, but I am not my problem’) and the experience of God in God’s raw creation.

The aim: unceasing prayer (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:17), inner prayer (mostly without words: ceaseless activity or multiplying words are distractions from real prayer), prayer ‘as between friends’ (as Teresa of Avila later expressed it), prayer as ‘ruminatio’, ruminating, ‘chewing the cud’ (as with the ‘Jesus Prayer’: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!’)

Here’s a sample, to sit with and welcome prayerfully:

* Do nothing without prayer, and you will not regret anything

* ‘What should I do about my soul, because it is insensitive and does not fear God?’ Abba Paesius said to him, ‘Go and join a man who fears God, and live near him; he will teach you, too, to fear God’

* ‘Father, how do you manage to carry on, deprived of the consolation of books?’ ‘My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God’

* Happy the one who views the welfare and progress of others with as much joy as if it were his own.

These monks are realistic. Yes, they too got depressed and were tempted to sin. They encourage us to use the Psalms which express both our sadness and our hope in God. But don’t incessantly ‘fight your passions’ or be obsessed with your sins. Rather, we find healing by ‘returning to my centre, to the inner place of silence in which God lives in me… Here we find that our passions will become like friends who remind us that we belong to the earth. Only those who accept their humanity and earthiness can experience heaven opening above them in contemplation’ (p.68). Prayer, they remind us, is the most genuine therapy for the soul.

And what of ‘unanswered’ prayer? Prayer is essentially about becoming one with God, ‘partaking in the divine nature’, and thus we carry our powerlessness before God, exploring the mystery of his will and surrendering to him.

I have just spent a month-and-a-half reading one saying and Grun’s excellent commentary on it each day. I would encourage anyone to do likewise.

Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.org.au/index.htm