Athanasia (Anastasia) Logacheva, The Cave Dweller

February 12 marks the repose of the cave-dweller Anasthasia Logacheva (1875).

The peasant Anastasia Logacheva (1809-1875), blessed by St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833), to become a hermit, had to wait seventeen years looking after her parents before following her vocation; at length her fame as an ascetic and spiritual mother led to her appointment as Abbess of a monastery in the newly evangelised Altai region.

“The fame of Fr. Seraphim’s ascetical life reached her and when she was seventeen she went to the elder. Having never seen her before, he knew her desire to live as a recluse and said, “What you are thinking about, what you desire, the Queen of Heaven blesses, but the time has not come yet.” A few years later she returned to Seraphim, who told her to go to Kiev to venerate the holy relics there. She complied and while on the pilgrimage she learned to read and write amazingly quickly. At age twenty-three she went again to Fr. Seraphim, who now blessed her intention to live a solitary life, telling her to settle where there was the fragrance of burning incense and giving her permission to wear chains for the mortification of the flesh.

Anastasia went back to the spot in the forest where she had first dug her cave, nine miles distant from her home village, where there was indeed the odor of burning incense, and she took up the solitary life. To avoid attention, she visited relatives in her village only at night, returning to her cave after only a few hours. In the forest she practiced her feats of asceticism. In the manner of Seraphim, she fasted for forty days while remaining unmoving on a rock, and she was seen standing on an anthill, covered with ants and mosquitoes, with blood pouring from her body. She also had to endure demonic temptations and torments of “visions and frightful spectacles,” as she saw animals threatening to eat her, her cabin engulfed in flames, people coming to tear apart her poor building. However, also like Seraphim, she actually lived comfortably with the wild animals of the forest and even ordered bears away from her garden.

Despite her efforts to remain inconspicuous, her renown spread and great numbers of visitors came to her as an eldress for spiritual counsel and advice on how to pray. Others attempted to live with her in the forest but usually they found the life too severe. One man who was thinking of taking up the solitary life asked her about it. She answered, “It is just as difficult to live in solitude as it is to sit peacefully naked on an anthill,” which ended his ambitions.

During this time her intense prayer was observed by those around her, as tears would stream down her face and she would be so deeply absorbed in her prayers that she was oblivious to those around her. Later in her life, shining rays were seen radiating from her face as she prayed. Anastasia was also gifted with foreknowledge of events and would even have fresh berries waiting for guests intending to make surprise visits to her.

The number of women who wanted to join her compelled her to go to the authorities for permission to establish a women’s community in the forest. Disastrously, the authorities not only refused her permission because “she is often not in her right mind” but they also ordered her to leave her cells, which they then demolished. She was officially attached to the nearby Ardatov Protection Convent but she returned to her home village and dug another cell in which she placed a coffin so that she could, in the monastic tradition, contemplate death constantly. To avoid being disturbed, she announced to all that she was going on a pilgrimage and then closed her window, locked her door from the inside and stayed in the cell “as though in the desert.”

Anastasia went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and when she returned after nine months, again the authorities intervened, destroying her cell and ordering her to the Ardatov Convent, a hardship for a recluse accustomed to living alone. Her cellmate was a difficult novice who obstructed her prayers, leading Anastasia to pray for deliverance from the girl. An angry Archangel Michael appeared to her, fiery sword in hand, demanding, “Is this the way people pray to the God of love and peace?” Anastasia repented and continued to enjoy the favor of heaven, and the Virgin Mary again appeared to her, “standing in the air in a prayerful stance, with Her arms out stretched.”

In 1863 Anastasia’s fortunes changed again when she was named to be the superior of the newly established convent of St. Nicholas in the Siberian diocese of Tomsk with the bishop himself tonsuring her under her new name of Athanasia. She remained there for the remaining eleven years of her life, living simply and providing counsel for her nuns, who would leave her presence flying away “as on wings, so light it would be on the soul.”

After her death in 1875, her grave became a pilgrimage site as many were healed of illnesses by drinking the earth from her grave mixed with water.”

Steven Fanning “Mystics of the Christian Tradition”, London: Routledge 2001: pp.56-57

See also;

Aleksandr Priklonskīĭ; Thaisia Simonsson; and Sophia Leland “Blessed Athanasia: Disciple of St. Seraphim

Fr. Alexander Priklonsky “Blessed Athanasia & The Desert Ideal” Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1993.

Brenda Meehan “Holy Women of Russia. Lives of Five Orthodox Women Offer Spiritual Guidance for Today”, San Francisco: Harper 1993

The Fast of Ninevah

February 10, 11 and 12 2014 is the Fast of Ninevah.

“Fast of Nineveh also known as the Fast of Ba’utha (Classical Syriac: ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝܐ Baʻūṯá d-Ninwáyé, literally “Rogation of the Ninevites”), is a three day fast commemorating the repentance of the Ninevites at the hands of prophet Jonah according to the bible. The fast is observed for three days starting Monday three weeks before Ash Wednesday. The fast originated in Syriac Christian tradition and then spread to other oriental orthodox traditions, including the Coptic and Armenian Churches.

This is one of the most strictly observed fasts in the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church tradition. This fast lasts for three days beginning on the Monday, the third week before the beginning of the Great Lent. The origin of this fast was to commemorate a miraculous cessation of plague which broke out in the region of Beth Garmai. When struck with disaster, the faithful of the place gathered in the Church to pray and began to do great acts of penance and the plague ceased suddenly. To remember this great mercy of Lord, this fast came to be observed annually. Since it is observed for three days, it is commonly known as Moonnunoimbu (three days fast) in the Malankara (Indian) Orthodox Church. It is also known as the fast of Jonah since it commemorates the conversion of Nineveh through the preaching of prophet Jonah. It is time for the penitential practice for the whole Church and the Church does her penance and prayers like that of Jonah in the belly of the big fish and that of the Ninevites.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_of_Nineveh

In the 9th century, Pope Abraam, the 62nd Pope of Alexandria, one of three Syrian Popes in the history of the Coptic church, agreed for the Coptic Church to participate in the Fast of Nineveh, if the Syria Church would participate in the fast the Week of Hercules (the week before Lent.) The Copts agreed due to the piety of this great Pope.

It is also of note that Pope Abraam was on the Patriarchal Seat during the time of the Miracle of the Muqatam Mountain, in which the church fasted three days to be spared from annihilation, if they could not move the mountain. The Lord accepted the fast of the people, the mountains were moved with their prayers, and the people of Egypt were spared. It was agreed that the Copts would observe this three-day fast fifteen days prior to the Great Lent following the strict dietary rules of the Great Lent.
http://www.stmarkdc.org/the-fast-of-ninevah-jonahs-fast

The Nineveh fast which was once particular only to the Assyrian region is now observed by all the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Except for the Armenian Church, which fasts for 5 days, all the other Oriental churches maintains a three day period. It is believed that Afraham Ibn Zura, a Coptic Patriarch of Syrian descent, was the one who introduced the Nineveh fast to the Coptic Orthodox Church. It is this same Afraham Ibn Zura better known as Abraham the Syrian whom the Caliph asked to move the Mokattam Mountain.
http://www.malankaraworld.com/library/Seasonal/Seasonal_nineveh-lent-traditions.htm

For the Coptic music and rites for the Fast, see http://www.copticheritage.org/rites/08_fast_and_feast_of_nineveh

The Desert Experiment

“In the fourth century, an intensive experiment in Christian living began to flourish in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. It was something new in Christian experience, uniting the ancient forms of monastic life with the Gospel. In Egypt the movement was soon so popular that both the civil authorities and the monks themselves became anxious: the officials of the Empire because so many were following a way of life that excluded both military service and the payment of taxes, and the monks because the number of interested tourists threatened their solitude.

The first Christian monks tried every kind of experiment with the way they lived and prayed, but there were three main forms of monastic life: in Lower Egypt there were hermits who lived alone; in Upper Egypt there were monks and nuns living in communities; and in Nitria and Scetis there were those who lived solitary lives but in groups of three or four, often as disciples of a master. For the most part they were simple men, peasants from the villages by the Nile, though a few, like Arsenius and Evagrius, were well educated. Visitors who were impressed and moved by the life of the monks imitated their way of life as far as they could, and also provided a literature that explained and analyzed this way of life for those outside it. However, the primary written accounts of the monks of Egypt are not these, but records of their words and actions by their close disciples.

Often, the first thing that struck those who heard about the Desert Fathers was the negative aspect of their lives. They were people who did without: not much sleep, no baths, poor food, little company, ragged clothes, hard work, no leisure, absolutely no sex, and even, in some places, no church either – a dramatic contrast of immediate interest to those who lived out the Gospel differently.

But to read their own writings is to form a rather different opinion. The literature produced among the monks themselves is not very sophisticated; it comes from the desert, from the place where the amenities of civilization were at their lowest point anyway, where there was nothing to mark a contrast in lifestyles; and the emphasis is less on what was lacking and more on what was present. The outsider saw the negations; disciples who encountered the monks through their own words and actions found indeed great austerity and poverty, but it was neither unbelievable nor complicated. These were simple, practical men, not given either to mysticism or to theology, living by the Word of God, the love of the brethren and of all creation, waiting for the coming of the Kingdom with eager expectation, using each moment as a step in their pilgrimage of the heart towards Christ.

It was because of this positive desire for the Kingdom of heaven which came to dominate their whole lives that they went without things: they kept silence, for instance, not because of a proud and austere preference for aloneness but because they were learning to listen to something more interesting than the talk of men, that is, the Word of God. These men were rebels, the ones who broke the rules of the world which say that property and goods are essential for life, that the one who accepts the direction of another is not free, that no one can be fully human without sex and domesticity. Their name itself, anchorite, means rule-breaker, the one who does not fulfill his public duties. In the solitude of the desert they found themselves able to live in a way that was hard but simple, as children of God.

The literature they have left behind is full of a good, perceptive wisdom, from a clear, unassuming angle. They did not write much; most of them remained illiterate; but they asked each other for a “word”, that is, to say something in which they would recognize the Word of God, which gives life to the soul. It is not a literature of words that analyze and sort out personal worries or solve theological problems; nor is it a mystical literature concerned to present prayers and praise to God in a direct line of vision; rather, it is oblique, unformed, occasional, like sunlight glancing off a rare oasis in the sands.

These life-giving “words” were collected and eventually written down by disciples of the first monks, and grouped together in various ways, sometimes under the names of the monks with whom they were connected sometimes under headings which were themes of special interest, such as “solitude and stability”, “obedience”, or “warfare that lust arouses in us”. Mixed in with these sayings were short stories about the actions of the monks, since what they did was often as revealing as what they said. These collections of “apophthegmata” were not meant as a dead archaism, full of nostalgia for a lost past, but as a direct transmission of practical wisdom and experience for the use of the reader. Thus it is as part of tradition that this small selection has been made from some of the famous collections of desert material, most of which have been translated and published in full elsewhere. They are placed in pairs, so that a “word” faces a story and illustrates its central, though not its only meaning. Each saying-and-story pair has been given a heading; these are arranged in two series, the first part relating to the commandment to love one’s neighbour, the second to the commandment to love God.

This material first appeared among uneducated laymen; it is not “churchy” or specifically religious. It has its roots in that life in Christ which is common to all the baptized, some of whom lived this out as monks, others who did not. There is common a universal appeal in these sayings, in spite of much which is at first strange. I have not tried to eliminate all the strangeness of the material, but to present a very small part of it as it is, in the belief that the words and deeds of these men can still make the fountain of life spring up in the arid deserts of lives in the twentieth century as they did in the fourth. “Fear not this goodness”, said abba Antony, “as a thing impossible, nor the pursuit of it as something alien, set a great way off; it hangs on our own choice. For the sake of Greek learning, men go overseas. But the City of God has its foundations in every seat of human habitation. The kingdom of God is within. The goodness that is in us asks only the human mind.””

From Benedicta Ward’s Introduction to “Paradise of the Desert Fathers”, known in the Coptic Church as “bustan al-rohbaan” (The Monks’ Garden): http://www.coptic.net/articles/paradiseofdesertfathers.txt

How To Be Alone

Sara Maitland “How To Be Alone” [Macmillan; Main Market Ed. edition January 2, 2014]

“Learn how to enjoy solitude and find happiness without others. Our fast-paced society does not approve of solitude; being alone is literally anti-social and some even find it sinister. Why is this so when autonomy, personal freedom and individualism are more highly prized than ever before? Sara Maitland answers this question by exploring changing attitudes throughout history. Offering experiments and strategies for overturning our fear of solitude, she to helps us to practise it without anxiety and encourages us to see the benefits of spending time by ourselves, By indulging in the experience of being alone, we can be inspired to find our own rewards and ultimately lead more enriched, fuller lives.”
http://www.panmacmillan.com/book/saramaitland/howtobealone.

“From the outside, solitude and loneliness look a lot alike. Both are characterized by solitariness. But all resemblance ends at the surface. Loneliness is a negative state, marked by a sense of isolation. One feels that something is missing. It is possible to be with people and still feel lonely—perhaps the most bitter form of loneliness.
Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely. It is a positive and constructive state of engagement with oneself. Solitude is desirable, a state of being alone where you provide yourself wonderful and sufficient company.”
Hara Estroff Marano, http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/what-is-solitude

“I live alone. I have lived alone for more than 20 years now. I do not just mean that I am single – I live in what might seem to many people to be “isolation” rather than simply “solitude”. My home is in a region of Scotland with one of the lowest population densities in Europe, and I live in one of the emptiest parts of it: the average population density of the UK is 674 people per sq mile (246 per sq km). In my valley, we have (on average) more than three sq miles each. The nearest shop is 10 miles away, and the nearest supermarket more than 20. There is no mobile-phone connection and very little through-traffic uses the single-track road that runs a quarter of a mile below my house. On occasion, I do not see another person all day. I love it.

But there is a problem, a serious cultural problem, about solitude. Being alone in our present society raises an important question about identity and wellbeing. In the first place, and rather urgently, the question needs to be asked. And then – possibly, tentatively, over a longer period of time – we need to try to answer it.

The question itself is a little slippery but it looks something like this: how have we arrived, in the relatively prosperous developed world at least, at a cultural moment that values autonomy, personal freedom, fulfilment and human rights, and, above all, individualism, more highly than ever before, while at the same time those who are autonomous, free and self-fulfilling are terrified of being alone with themselves?

We apparently believe that we own our bodies and should be allowed to do with them more or less anything we choose, from euthanasia to a boob job, but we do not want to be on our own with these precious possessions. We live in a society that sees high self-esteem as a proof of wellbeing, but we do not want to be intimate with this admirable and desirable person.

We see moral and social conventions as inhibitions on our personal freedoms, and yet we are frightened of anyone who goes away from the crowd and develops “eccentric” habits.
We believe that everyone has a singular personal “voice” and is, moreover, unquestionably creative, but we treat with dark suspicion anyone who uses one of the most clearly established methods of developing that creativity – solitude. We think we are unique, special and deserving of happiness, but we are terrified of being alone.

We declare that personal freedom and autonomy is both a right and good, but we think anyone who exercises that freedom autonomously is “sad, mad or bad”. Or all three at once…

My mother was widowed shortly after she turned 60. She lived alone for the remaining 25 years of her life. I do not think she was ever reconciled to her single status. She was much loved by a great many, often rather unexpected, people. But I think she felt profoundly lonely after my father died, and she could not bear the fact that I was enjoying solitude. I had abandoned marriage, in her view, and was now happy as a pig in clover. It appalled her – and she launched a part-time but sustained attack on my moral status: I was selfish. It was “selfish” to live on my own and enjoy it.

Interestingly, this is a very old charge. In the fourth century AD, when enthusiastic young Christians were leaving Alexandria in droves to become hermits in the Egyptian desert, their bishop, Basil, infuriated, demanded of one of them: “And whose feet will you wash in the desert?” The implication was that in seeking their own salvation outside the community, they were neither spreading the faith nor ministering to the poor; they were being selfish. This is a theme that has cropped up repeatedly ever since, particularly in the 18th century, but it has a new edge in contemporary society, because we do not have the same high ethic of “civil” or public duty. We are supposed now to seek our own fulfilment, to act on our feelings, to achieve authenticity and personal happiness – but, mysteriously, not to do it on our own.

Today, more than ever, the charge carries both moral judgment and weak logic. I write a monthly column for the “Tablet” (a Catholic weekly magazine) partly about living on my own. One month I wrote about the way a conflict of duties can arise: how “charitable” is the would-be hermit meant to be about the needs and demands of her friends? One might anticipate that a broadly Catholic readership would be more sympathetic to the solitary life because it has such a long (and respected) tradition behind it. But I got some poisonous letters, including one from someone who had never met me, but who nonetheless felt free to send a long vitriolic note that said, among other things: “Given that you are obviously a person without natural affections and a grudging attitude towards others, it is probably good for the rest of us that you should withdraw into your own egocentric and selfish little world; but you should at least be honest about it.”

And yet it is not clear why it is so morally reprehensible to choose to live alone. It is hard to pin down exactly what people mean by the various charges they make, probably because they do not know themselves. For example, the “sad” charge is irrefutable – not because it is true but because it is always based on the assumption that the person announcing that you are, in fact, deeply unhappy has some insider knowledge of your emotional state greater than your own. If you say, “Well, no actually; I am very happy”, the denial is held to prove the case. Recently, someone trying to console me in my misery said, when I assured them I was in fact happy: “You may think you are.” But happiness is a feeling. I do not think it – I feel it. I may, of course, be living in a fool’s paradise and the whole edifice of joy and contentment is going to crash around my ears sometime soon, but at the moment I am either lying or reporting the truth.

The charges of being mad or bad have more arguability. But the first thing to establish is how much solitude the critics of the practice consider “too much”. At what point do we feel that someone is developing into a dangerous lunatic or a wicked sinner? Because clearly there is a difference between someone who prefers to bath alone and someone who goes off to live on an uninhabited island that can only be reached during the spring tides; between someone who tells a friend on the telephone that they think they’ll give tonight’s group get-together a miss because they fancy an evening to themselves, and someone who cancels all social engagements for the next four months in order to stay in alone. If you are writing great books or accomplishing notable feats, we are more likely to admire than criticise your “bravery” and “commitment”…

There are no statistics for this, but my impression is that we do not mind anyone being alone for one-off occasions – particularly if they are demonstrably sociable the rest of the time – or for a distinct and interesting purpose; what seems to bother us are those individuals who make solitude a significant part of their life and their ideal of happiness.
It is all relative anyway. I live a solitary life, but Neil the postman comes most days. The cheerful young farmer who works the sheep on my hill roars by on his quad bike at least three or four days a week, passing with a cheerful wave. I have a phone; I go to church every Sunday. I have friends and children, and sometimes they even come to visit me. Small rural communities are inevitably, oddly, social – I know the names and something of the circumstances of every single person who lives within five miles of me. (There is nothing in the world more sociable than a single-track road with passing places.) And even if I lived in deeper solitude I would live with a web of social dependencies: I read books that are written by people; I buy food that is produced by people and sold to me by people; I flick on the light switch and a constantly maintained grid delivers electricity and my lights come on.

So it is useful to ask oneself how much solitude it takes to tip over into supposed madness or badness; it is certainly useful to ask those who are being critical of anyone who seems to enjoy more aloneness than they themselves feel comfortable with.

In his book Solitude, Philip Koch attempts to break down the accusations into something resembling logical and coherent arguments, so as to challenge them: he suggests that the critics of silence find the desire for it “mad” (or tending towards madness) for various reasons.

Solitude is unnatural. Homo sapiens is genetically and evolutionarily a herd or pack animal. We all have a basic biosocial drive, according to Paul Hamlos in “Solitude and Privacy”: “sharing experience, close contiguity of comradeship and face-to-face co-operative effort have always been a fundamental and vital need of man (sic) … the individual of a gregarious species can never be truly independent and self-sufficient … Natural selection has ensured that as an individual he must have an abiding sense of incompleteness.” People who do not share this “force of phylic cohesion” are obviously either deviant or ill.

Solitude is pathological. Psychology, psychiatry and particularly psychoanalysis are all insistent that personal relationships, ideally both intimate and sexually fulfilled, are necessary to health and happiness. Freud originated this idea and it has been consistently maintained and developed by attachment theorists (such as John Bowlby) and particularly object-relation theorists (such as Melanie Klein) – and is generally held and taught throughout the discipline. (This may also underpin the idea that you are not “really” happy on your own. Since you need other people to be mentally well, then thinking you are happy alone is necessarily deluded.)

Solitude is dangerous (so enjoying it is masochistic). It is physically dangerous because if you have even a minor accident there will be no one to rescue you, and it is psychically dangerous because you have no ordinary reality checks; no one will notice the early warning signs.

These three arguments are based on assumptions that – were they correct for all people at all times – would indeed need to be answered. I personally think (and I’m not alone) that they are not correct in themselves and do not allow for individual difference.
The “moral” arguments, however, at least as Koch defines them, are rather more absurd.

This second group of objections to solitude tend to be exactly the opposite of the first group.

Solitude is self-indulgent. The implication here is that it is hedonistic and egotistical – that somehow life alone is automatically happier, easier, more fun and less nitty-gritty than serious social engagement, and that everyone in the pub is exercising, comparatively at least, noble self-discipline and fortitude, and spending hours a day in the unselfish miserable labour of serving their neighbours’ needs.

Solitude is escapist. People who like being alone are running away from “reality”, refusing to make the effort to “commit” to real life and live instead in a half-dream fantasy world. They should “man up”, get real, get a grip. But if social life is so natural, healthy and joyous as contemporary society insists, why would anyone be “escaping” from it?

Solitude is antisocial. Well, of course it is – that’s the point. This argument is tautological. But “antisocial” is a term that carries implicit rather than explicit moral condemnation; it is clearly a “bad thing” without it being at all clear what it might mean. All this actually says is “solitude is preferring to be alone rather than with others/me [the speaker] and I am hurt”. It is true, but is based on the assumption that being alone is self-evidently a bad thing, and being social is equally self-evidently a good thing.

Solitude evades social responsibility. This implies that all of us have something called a “social responsibility”, without defining what that might be or consist of, but whatever it is, for some unexpressed reason it cannot be done by a person who is – for however much of their time – alone.

Now, clearly, even here, there are some interesting discussions to be had. What exactly do personal relationships provide that nothing else can offer? Could, for example, Anthony Storr be right about creative work offering compensatory alternative or even better gratification? Or a sense of meaningfulness? Could some people’s peaceful, happy solitude function as an antidote, or even a balance, to the frenetic social activity of others? What, exactly, is our social responsibility in a society in which most people feel powerless? How does multiculturalism work in terms of individuals as opposed to groups? Why do other people’s claims to be happy in a different way from oneself provoke so much anxiety – and why is that anxiety so commonly expressed as judgment and condemnation, rather than genuine concern? How does a society choose which issues it allows itself to be judgmental about, if it has no clear idea of the ultimate good? And, above all, why are these conversations not happening? I believe it is because of fear. Fear paralyses creativity, stultifies the imagination, reduces problem-solving ability, damages health, depletes energy, saps intelligence and destroys hope. And, also, it does not feel good.

Fear muddles things up; it is difficult to think clearly when you are scared. When we are frightened, we tend to project this on to other people, often as anger: anyone who seems different starts to feel threatening. And one problem with this is that these projections “stick”. If you tell people enough times that they are unhappy, incomplete, possibly insane and definitely selfish, there is bound to come a cold, grey morning when they wake up with the beginning of a nasty cold and wonder if they are lonely rather than simply “alone”. There is a contemporary phenomenon which adds to the problem: the mass media make money out of fear…

It is evident that a great many people, for many different reasons, throughout history and across cultures, have sought out solitude to the extent that Garbo did, and after experiencing that lifestyle for a while continue to uphold their choice, even when they have perfectly good opportunities to live more social lives. On average, they do not turn into schizoid serial killers, predatory paedophiles or evil monomaniacs. Some of them, in fact, turn into great artists, creative thinkers and saints – however, not everyone who likes to be alone is a genius, and not all geniuses like to be alone. Why do we have such a problem with being alone?”
Extract from Sara Maitland, The Guardian, Saturday 11 January 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/11/why-society-problem-being-alone

“How did you come to live the solitary life? Was it a sudden decision or did it evolve gradually?
I didn’t seek solitude, it sought me. It evolved gradually after my marriage broke down. I found myself living on my own in a small country village. At first I was miserable and cross. It took me between six months and a year before I noticed that I had become phenomenally happy. And this was about being alone – not about being away from my husband. I found out, for instance, how much I liked being in my garden. My subconscious was cleverer than my conscious in choosing to live alone. The discovery about solitude was a surprise in waiting.
Yet isn’t writing a book such as How to Be Alone a way of communicating with others, of not being alone?
It is. Anthony Storr [author of “Solitude: A Return to the Self”] is right about companionship through writing and creative work.

In my book about silence [“A Book of Silence”, 2008] I conclude that complete silence and writing are incompatible.

How would you distinguish between solitude and loneliness?
Solitude is a description of a fact: you are on your own. Loneliness is a negative emotional response to it. People think they will be lonely and that is the problem – the expectation is also now a cultural assumption.
If someone has not chosen to be alone, is bereaved or divorced, do you think they can make solitude feel like a choice?
It is possible. That has been my autobiography. They need more knowledge about it, to read about the lives of solitaries who have enjoyed it, to take it on, see what is good in it. Since I wrote about silence, many bereaved people have written asking: how do I do it? The largest groups of people living alone are women over 65 and separated men in their 40s. A lot of solitude is not chosen. It may come to any of us.
Do you ever feel lonely?
Very seldom because I have good friends and there are telephones and Skype. But broadband was down for a week over Christmas. I couldn’t Skype the kids and did find myself asking: why didn’t I go to my brother who had warmly invited me?
So what was Christmas like on your own in rural Galloway?
It was bliss. On Christmas Eve the tiny village five miles away has a nativity play. Young adults come home, it’s a very happy event. On the day itself I drank a little bit more than I should have done sitting in front of my fire. I had a long walk. It was lovely…
How much do you use the internet and social media?
Social media not at all. But when broadband went I realised how excessively I use it. Without it, I read more. I’m making a big patchwork quilt. I did more that week than in the past three months. It made me realise I have got to get this online thing under control. When I first came here I had it switched off three days a week but that has slipped.
You seem to lead a non-materialistic life. What three things would you most hate to lose from your shepherd’s cottage?
Last Christmas my son gave me a dragon hoodie – bright green with pink spikes. I’d be sad to lose it. I’d hate to lose photos of my children. And I’d be seriously sad to lose Zoe, my border collie. I took her on because she got out of control in an urban community. She was seeking a wilder, freer life.
Yet in the book you suggest it’s cheating on the solitary life to have a dog when you walk…?
The pure soul probably doesn’t have a dog. I have a dog but no television.
You mention having suffered depression earlier in your life – was this related to lack of solitude?
That is a correct reading, although I would not use it diagnostically. I’m deeply fond of my family but they put a high value on extroversion. I come from an enormous family and have spent a lot of time pretending I wasn’t introverted.
Yet deciding whether one is extrovert or introvert is not straightforward?
Everyone has a differing need for solitude. I feel we haven’t created space for children to find out what they need. I’ve never heard of being sent to your room as a reward. In my childhood – I had a happy home – being alone was thought weird. I’d like people to be offered solitude as an ordinary thing….
How does love fit into the solitary life?
How much loving are people doing if they’re socialising 24/7? And if the loving is only to be loved, what is unselfish about that? The fact you’re on your own does not mean you are not loving.

Extracts from “Sara Maitland: ‘My subconscious was cleverer than my conscious in choosing to live alone’” Interview by Kate Kellaway, The Observer, Sunday 2 February 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/feb/02/sara-maitland-how-to-be-alone-interview

Sara Maitland is a British writer and feminist. She is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the Somerset Maugham Award-winning “Daughters of Jerusalem” and several non-fiction books about religion. Born in 1950, she studied at Oxford University and lives in Galloway. For Sara Maitland, see http://www.saramaitland.com/home.html and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Maitland

For the School of Life series see http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/howtobealone/

Aegyptius Heremita

Aegyptius Heremita/L’Hermite d’Egypte (Egyptian Hermit) in Omnium fere gentium nostraeque aetatis nationum (woodcut no. 19).

“Jacobi Sluperii (Jacobus Sluperius) was a Flemish scholar and poet from the Netherlands who lived in the sixteenth century (1532 – 1602 AD). It appears that his father (who also carries the same name) was killed by the Calvinists, and Jacobi himself was later persecuted by them. He was ordained priest in 1560 at a church in the parish of Beusichem, town in the Dutch province of Gelderland. He wrote Latin poetry and produced many literary works, including Omnium fere gentium nostraeque aetatis nationum, habitus et effigies, et in eosdem epigrammata (Almost all the nations of our age; their conditions and images; and described in poems).This book, which has recently been digitalised by MDZ, was published originally in 1572 in Antwerp.
The book contains 135 woodcuts of various men and women of different nationalities, including a Cyclops and a Sea Bishop! It appears that the woodcuts were made by a Flemish artist, Antonius Bosch, called Sylvius. For each woodcut we find an attached Latin poem by Jacobus Sluperius and a French poem by François Descerpz.
The first nation that the book enlists is the Egyptian; and it includes four images: Aegyptius/L’Egyptien (Egyptian); Aegyptia Mulier/L’Egyptienne (Egyptian woman); Aegyptius Heremita/L’Hermite d’Egypte (Egyptian hermit); and Aegyptius Sacerdos/Le Prestre d’Egypte (Egyptian priest).”

JACOBI SLUPERII (JACOBUS SLUPERIUS) AND HIS COPTIC HERMIT AND COPTIC PRIEST – A CHANGE IN COPTIC COSTUME IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The whole digitalised book can be found at http://www.digital-collections.de/index.html?c=autoren_index&l=en&ab=Sluperius%2C+Jacobus

Anacoreti nel Deserto

Pietro Annigoni (1910-1988) – “Anacoreti nel Deserto” [“Anchorites in the Desert”] (Private Collection)

Annigoni was born in Milan. He studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, taking classes in painting, sculpture and engraving. Basing his style on the Italian old masters he studied their techniques, learning the art of ‘oil tempera’ under the Russian painter, Nikolai Lokoff. Initially Annigoni’s success was limited to Italy where his sharply evocative landscapes were very popular. In 1947 along with Gregory Sciltian, the brothers Antonio and Xavier Bueno, and others, he signed the manifesto of the ‘Modern Realist Painters’, coming out in open opposition to abstract art. Alone among the signatories Annigoni remained true, both aesthetically and ethically to the doctrines of the manifesto.

Self-portrait of Pietro Annigoni painted in 1946, size 45 x 35.5 cm in Tempera grassa su tela.

Annigoni remained a prominent artistic personality until his death in Florence in 1988, his paintings a powerful evocation of the great Renaissance tradition.

see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Annigoni
https://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=191
http://www.annigoni.info/ (in Italian)

Alone in the Desert?

In October 346, Alexandria was abuzz with word of Archbishop Athanasius’s return from six years of exile.

In that city, his Arian opponents were in retreat, and his followers were aflame with heightened zeal for their faith. Wives and husbands heeded Paul’s advice (1 Cor. 7:5) to refrain from sexual relations and turn instead to prayer. Fathers persuaded children to renounce the world, and children encouraged parents in their asceticism. Young women who had looked forward to marriage chose instead to remain virgins for Christ, and young men followed the example of others and became monks. The laity’s zeal had found embodiment in the renunciation of the world. By the middle of the fourth century, asceticism was in the air and spreading, especially in Egypt. But what exactly did this life entail? And why were so many suddenly attracted to it?

Renunciation of the world, an orientation so at odds with our modern culture, had in fact nourished the growth of Christianity from the start, and by 346, persons who wished to embark on an ascetic life had many exemplars from which to choose. Within cities, Christian philosophers and teachers learned from the ascetic lifestyles of their non-Christian counterparts. As young people had in the past pursued wisdom by going to the philosopher Antoninus, who according to an ancient account, “despised his body and freed himself from its pleasures,” so now Christian youth sought out Christian ascetics under whom they might learn the new Christian philosophy.

In Alexandria, the theologian Origen (who lived in the early third century) had taught new converts about Christianity and amazed them with his renunciations, including sleeping on the floor, going barefoot, extreme fasting, and abstaining completely from wine.

In fourth-century Leontopolis (in the Egyptian delta), one Hieracas formed an ascetic association of single persons who came together for study and worship. These Christians rejected traditional marriage and advocated instead a form of ascetic companionship, in which the partners renounced sexual activity.

More traditional Christian leaders, however, abhorred the practice. Athanasius, for example, wrote letters to virgins warning them that to live celibately with a man was to pour fuel on the flame of passion. “For does a person tie up a fire in his bosom and not burn his clothes? Or does a man walk on a fire’s burning coals and not burn his feet?” Still, Athanasius encouraged young women to become “brides of Christ” within their parents’ home or in a house of virgins. Male ascetics too lived in the cities in their parents’ homes, alone (this is called “anchoritic” monasticism), or in small ascetic houses.

By 325, a more elaborate form of village asceticism had also emerged. In Upper Egypt, Pachomius brought ascetics together within a walled community to practice a common life under a shared rule (“cenobitic” monasticism).

Priests and deacons in Alexandria sent ascetically minded youth up river to join the Pachomian community. Within the cities, towns, and villages of Egypt, ascetic Christians had become so commonplace that the author of the Historia Monachorum en Aegypto (a late-fourth-century travel journal) ventured to suggest that monks and virgins almost outnumbered the secular inhabitants in the town of Oxyrhynchus (on the Nile, about 100 miles south of modern Cairo). “The city,” he asserted, “was so full of monasteries that its walls resounded with the monks’ voices.” Gradually, the withdrawal from the world evident in these lifestyles, practiced often in the towns and villages of Egypt, became separate spatially as more and more ascetics withdrew into the desert. When Antony embarked on the ascetic life around A.D. 271, he first apprenticed himself with an old ascetic in a neighboring village.

From there he moved into deserted tombs located some distance from the village, and then even farther away to a deserted fortress across the river. He eventually established a monastery at the inner mountain by the Red Sea.

Amoun, a contemporary of Antony, lived in an ascetic marriage in the Delta for 18 years before he withdrew alone (about 330) to Nitria, at the edge of the western desert beside the village of Pernoudj.

By 338 so many ascetics had joined Amoun in Nitria that he withdrew six miles further into the desert to a place that became known as the Cells (Kellia). Here the monks lived in a colony of isolated cells (called “semi-anchoritic” monasticism), each located out of earshot of its nearest neighbor. Initially cells must have been small, though archaeological excavations reveal that in later times some came to include a courtyard, a vestibule, an oratory, two bedrooms (one for the ascetic and one for his disciple), an office, a kitchen, and a latrine.

In this setting, less advanced monks practiced the ascetic life under the tutelage of a more experienced master. Thus when a novice asked Abba Paisios what he should do to fear God, he was told, “Go, and join a man who fears God, and live near him; he will teach you, too, to fear God.”

In spite of the severe demands, communal asceticism proved increasingly attractive through the fourth century. Palladius reported that eventually 600 monks lived at the Cells and that they had their own church and priest. Even further into the desert beyond the Cells lay Scetis, which had been founded at about the same time by Macarius the Egyptian.

Distant enough to satisfy the desire for solitude, yet close enough to meet transportation and economic needs, it became famous and attracted many ascetics.

Palladius, who visited Egypt toward the end of the fourth century, reported 2,000 monks living in the monasteries around Alexandria and 5,000 in Nitria. (The population of Alexandria has been estimated at about 180,000 in the fourth century.) In Athanasius’s famous words, “The desert was made a city by monks who left their own people and enrolled for citizenship in heaven.”

The sayings and stories of these desert ascetics are filled with accounts of amazing trials and extraordinary feats. One hears of monks who walked on hot coals or scorpions or asps with their bare feet, of others whose unshaven hair alone served as their clothes, and still others who grazed with the antelope for food. Some monks wore chains and let their hair grow long, much to the dismay of others. Women shaved their heads and passed as male ascetics, their ruse discovered only in their death.

Onnophrius withdrew so far into the desert that Paphnutius had to walk over eight days and receive miraculous aid to reach him.

Abba Bessarion avoided sleep for 14 days and nights by standing upright in the midst of thorn bushes, and Eulogius often fasted an entire week, eating only bread and salt. Pachomius bound ashes against his loins so that they ate away at him, and another monk’s body became so irritated through his ascetic practices that he was infested with vermin. A solitary, or hermit, in lower Egypt avoided the temptation of a woman by shutting himself in his cell and dousing the flame of lust by thrusting his fingers one by one into the flame of his lamp.

Fantastic tales such as these, however, only tell part of the story. While the tales emphasize the remoteness of the desert, most early ascetics dwelled near towns and villages or within relatively easy reach of them. Contact among monks was frequent, and the necessities of life required at least minimal contact with the world. The monks’ handiwork required markets, and food and other necessities required an income.

John the Dwarf wove baskets that a camel driver picked up from his cell in Scetis, and Isidore went to the local market to sell his goods.

Esias worked in the local harvest, and Lucius purchased his food with money earned plaiting ropes. Poemen interceded on a villager’s behalf with a local magistrate, and in a letter, one writer appeals to the hermit John to obtain his release from military service. The “remoteness” of the desert was, in fact, not that remote. In the stories, it serves as a description of the monks’ “otherness.”

Yet even the near desert proved a difficult abode. If monks fled the city to avoid its temptations, they found in the desert the home of the demons. If they sought in the desert a place to avoid contact with the opposite sex, they found the desires and images of the flesh ever present in their minds. Theirs became a psychological battle, and ascetic techniques were aimed to conquer the mind as well as the body. Work and fasting became essential tools. Solitude and silence curtailed careless chatter. Hands busy weaving mats kept the mind occupied.

A carefully controlled diet helped. Monks recognized, along with medical writers of the day, that certain foods lowered one’s sexual drive. Wine, meat, and rich foods, which had the opposite effect, were of course avoided. Jerome, citing the physician Galen, states that “bodies of young men … and women glow with innate warmth” and that “all food is harmful which tends to increase that heat.” He advised them, “Drink only water … avoid all hot dishes. … With vegetables also avoid anything that creates wind or lies heavy on the stomach. … Nothing is so good for young Christians as a diet of herbs. … By cold food the heat of the body should be tempered.” Monastic diets varied, but bread, lentils, and vegetables were among the staples.

Scripture served as the ultimate guidebook for these men and women. They read it carefully and committed large portions of it to memory. Antony paid such close attention when he heard the Scriptures read that his memory served him in place of books. Pachomian monks memorized large portions of Scripture, especially the Psalms, and meditated upon them. In an ancient rock-cut tomb used by a monk as a cell, the owner painted the first line of each Psalm on the wall to aid him in his recitation of the entire text. The memorized text was then embodied in the ascetic’s life.

The tales of the desert monks are replete with examples of such “lived” Scripture. When Abba Macarius returned to his cell one day, he found a man stealing his belongings. He reacted calmly and helped the thief load his donkey with the objects from his cell. As the man departed, Macarius recited the words from Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Sarapion loved his copy of one of the Gospels and read it often. Yet he sold it and gave to the poor, following its advice to “sell what you have and give to the poor.” Theodore refused a visit from his mother, citing Matthew 10:37: “He who loves his father or his mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

The radical Christians who responded to the ascetic call embarked on a path of personal change. They sought to embody the teachings of Scripture, to live as angels on earth by imitating Elijah, Christ, and the ascetic heroes about whom they heard. As angels were not bound by family and belongings, they sought to free themselves of such encumbrances. As angels were passionless, they sought to control the passions. As angels were asexual, they sought to overcome sexuality.

Late fourth-century monk and spiritual writer John Cassian wrote, “To pray ‘thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ is to pray that men be like angels, that as angels fulfill God’s will in heaven, men may fulfill his will, instead of their own, on earth.”

Ascetic practices tore down the old self as defined by “the world” and fashioned a new self defined in terms of radical Christian spirituality. Arsenius, a man of senatorial rank who served as tutor to the Roman princes Arcadius and Honorius, prayed to God to lead him in the way of salvation. “And a voice came saying to him, ‘Arsenius, flee from men and you will be saved.’ ” Arsenius renounced his rank and wealth and became a monk in Scetis.

When later a relative, a senator, left him a large inheritance, he returned it saying, “I was dead [to the world] long before this senator who has just died.” Arsenius had become a new man in Christ. His transformation is described more mystically in reports that “a brother came to Arsenius’s cell at Scetis, and waiting outside the door, he saw the man entirely like a flame” (symbolizing the monk’s ascetic perfection). Heaven and earth met in the successful ascetic.

The stories and sayings of the desert monks served as spiritual guidebooks for those who would embark on an ascetic life. Novices in the ascetic life strove to imitate the great ascetic heroes of the past. The sayings and stories, however, served not only future monks, but other Christians as well. Stories like that of Macarius related above, after all, convey their moral within an idealized story. The reader need not help a thief plunder his home in order to recognize in Marcarius’s detachment a challenge to his own attachment to the things of the world.”

From James E. Goehring “Alone in the Desert? Why thousands of early Christians took up the monastic way.” October 1, 1999 James Goehring is professor of religion and chair of the department of classics, philosophy, and religion at Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is author of “Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism” (Trinity Press International, 1999).

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1999/issue64/64h020.html

Bahitawi, The Hermits of Ethiopia

“The bahtawi are an independent class of hermits who represent the anchoritic tradition – modern successors of St John the Baptist rebuking all including the emperor himself without fear or favour. As Shimei reviled King David, so the bahtawi have been know to hurl abuse at all and sundry including the emperor. Some live completely separately from society, unseen by all, their bones occasionally discovered after their deaths in the remotest of places. Others lived in trees (dendrites) or small holes in the ground. Often they live on leaves and bitter roots and reduce sleep to an absolute minimum. (One who had found his way to New York was taken to a mental institution after being found praying half-naked in the snow!).Those living in wilderness zones on the edge of the empire had the effect of
expanding the empire because they invariably attracted followers.”
http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/ethiopian-orthodoxy.html

“Though it has long since disappeared in the West, the eremitical life is still widespread in Ethiopia. The cenobitical monks and indeed the ordinary people regard the hermitage as Man’s highest abode on earth, and often monks seem fearful at the possibility of God calling them to it. In almost every monastery there are a number of monks – perhaps one tenth of the total-who confine themselves to their cells. They are described as ” the monks who never see the sun.” They have no responsibilities within the community and do not attend the daily common prayers. Food is brought to their huts each day by a single monk permanently designated to the task, and the hermit only emerges for the Mass in church on Sundays and feast days. Usually their cells are within the monastery compound, though sometimes they are a short distance away: at Debre Damo, for instance, hermits can be seen in apparently inaccessible caves in the sheer cliff beneath the monastery.

Other monks or lay people can visit them (if they can reach their cell), and even today many of the rulers of Ethiopia, including the Emperor himself, frequently seek the advice of these hermits on both spiritual and temporal matters.

Besides these monastic hermits, there are countless holy men (ba’atawi) living in remote forests and caves throughout Ethiopia. These men have totally rejected human contact, and if they ever visit a church they “come by night, crawling through the undergrowth so as not to be seen.” as an admiring priest described it. They live only on the wild fruits and herbs which Nature provides. A few of these holy men are ordained monks who have left their communities, but mostly they are lay people – as another monk put it, ” God has called them to holiness from nothing, as Christ called Peter and Paul.””

The monastic community of Ethiopia

“Several characteristics of the bahitawis of Ethiopia are contained in these stories as recounted in the Meshafe Senkesar, the Book of Saints of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church:

• Bahitawis are called to their lives as renunciates directly by God in visions. A bahitawi may be, but doesn’t necessarily have to be, a monk in one of the Ethiopian orders. Even today, men and sometimes women disappear from their workplaces or homes suddenly, leaving the world behind them.

• They usually wear dreadlocks – long, matted hair – and do not cut their fingernails. This is done as a sign that they do not care for their bodies, but only for the spirit. Bahitawis are Nazarites as described in the Bible in Numbers chapter 6. Many bahitawis never leave their caves, and as a consequence their bodies are wasted and very thin.

• They perform various, sometimes radical austerities. All bahitawis are monks. Most eat very little, often only a handful of chickpeas soaked in water or a handful of roasted wheat or barley per day. Some don’t eat anything at all for years, but live on the spirit alone. Some take vows of silence, others never sleep, but spend their nights in prayers, prostrations or meditation. Some stand upright for years, others sit in one spot without moving.

• As their name suggests, bahitawis usually live as hermits in caves, far away from all human contact. What little they eat is brought to them by the faithful who leave the food in a designated place. Bahitawis don’t normally attend mass or other religious functions, but may sneak into a church alone at night.

• The aim of all the austerities, deprivations and prayers it to save sinners from damnation. Bahitawis do not aspire to spiritual heights for themselves, but sacrifice their lives for the benefit of others.

• Bahitawis, both in ancient times and today, are known to perform miracles. They are not attacked by wild animals, may not be visible on a photo taken of them, or remain dry while walking in heavy rain.

Since bahitawis take their authority directly from God and do not need to answer to any abbot or bishop, they are mystics rather than religious practitioners. Even in the west, mystics and prophets such as St. Francis of Assisi have often criticised the church for its love of wealth and secular power. And yet, bahitawis such as Gebre Menfes Kidus are today revered as saints.

The mystic bahitawi is the correction rod that keeps the established church from forgetting all its principles. He preaches in the tradition of Old Testament prophets and is often persecuted like them. During the reign of the current patriarch of Ethiopia, Abuna Paulos, many bahitawis have been imprisoned and even killed for criticising the church’s arrangements with the secular government of Ethiopia. The patriarch argues that bahitawis are hermits and have no business coming to the city to prophesy. They, however, follow God’s direct commandments in their visions undeterred by threats.

Bahitawis are given great respect in Ethiopia due to their austere lifestyle and their mystic calling. Their dreadlocks appearance is understood by the people as part of their spiritual lives which are truly ‘separated unto God’ in the tradition of the Nazarites. The difference between religious practice based on tradition and spiritual mysticism based on direct contact with God is clearly seen even in modern day Ethiopia. Whereas the Ethiopian Orthodox Church follows the worldwide trend to water down its principles in order to please its dwindling congregations, allowing the shortening of the fasts and the eating of fish while fasting as well as permitting women to enter the church in trousers, the bahitawis do not change or compromise.”

http://ourafrikanheritage.com/magazine/archives/31
A useful reference source on Ethiopian Christianity is Poaulos Milkias “Dictionary of Ethiopian Christianity” [University Press of America, Lanham, 2010].

Silence and Solitude

“We are all solitaries even if we do not realize it. It is basic and inevitable to being human, for it fundamentally as an individual that we meet God and it is alone that we die. To be human is to be alone and it is only a state of inner solitude that leads to spiritual maturity and a realization of this actuality. In years gone by, there have been those who went out into the desert places, literally to the demon-possessed wildernesses of Egypt to live as hermits. There is also a metaphorical reality with those who have sought God from wherever their desert may be, perhaps in the quiet of the forest or in the chaos of the city.

To be alone in silence and solitude is to live in poverty and to be empty to all that is important to this world. It is to seek God above all else and also to know one’s sinfulness and finally to be reduced to silence in the presence of the living God. It is to come to a place where prayer and contemplation are no longer measured or realized but life is lived when we are liberated by the silence.

The Desert Fathers have led the way and it is their writings that inspired Thomas Merton in his own pursuit of solitude and silence amidst the busyness of monastic life. It is this long tradition of solitude that our generation is now a part of and it is writings and wisdom of those who have gone before us that can speak into our lives today.

It is in silence and the solitude of the desert places that we might know God and it is where we can know ourselves. It is where we are able to escape the decadence of the world around us and even within the Church itself. It is where we might find emptiness and in doing so, find fullness in Christ. It is from the desert that we might speak prophetically to a society that desperately needs to hear the voice of the solitary…

The Desert Fathers came to the desert in order to be themselves. It is the decadent world around them that divided their wills, their lives and took them away from seeking after the things of God’s Kingdom. For the Fathers, there is no other valid reason for going to the desert and seeking solitude then to forget the world that seeks to divide them. The goal of solitude is purity of heart in which one can see the true state of their own affairs apart from the toxic influence of the culture of the day. The desert is where it becomes readily apparent whether or not one is anchored in, or lost to Christ. The silence is where we are able to listen to the depths of our own being.

However, this solitude and forgetfulness of the world is paradoxically not an exclusion of outside reality but instead a way in which to love it. It is in accepting oneself in poverty and despair that one might truly love because unless one really knows themselves in light of Christ, they have nothing to offer the world.

It is in this state of poverty and solitude that one is able to deal with a sinful heart. This is often in opposition to those who remain in society and who deal instead with the sins of the world around them. To be a solitary means to seek after the redemption of Christ, whether in the deserts of Egypt or the hills and mountains of the USA. In solitude, the incomprehensible uncertainties of life, of one’s own existence are faced instead of ignored. However, this path to redemption through solitude and silence in the desert places has no place for the rebellious that looks at the world around them with condemnation. It is only when the hermit withdraws and is first of all hard on them self, that they might have anything to offer to the world from which they have withdrawn and by which God might be known. Solitude is the means by which we are able to be truly human.

The purpose of knowing one self is not to transcend reality or have some sort of supernatural power over the world around us but it is to know God. The result of knowing one self in the silence and solitude is salvation. Salvation is a state in which God is nearer, not through words or images or the Church but His very presence is unmistakable. The desert Fathers are silent because they want to hear God in the silence……

The hermit in the desert is called to a life of death, poverty and suffering. It is a life of impracticality and uselessness according to the standards of the world. The solitary is inferior on all levels, even the spiritual and yet it is precisely in this state of emptiness and inferiority that the ultimate goal of unity with God is achieved. For when one ceases to strive for the things of this world, to honor the social conventions of society, to be reduced to nothing in the eyes of the world around them and to choose silence and solitude that the point of the hermit’s life is actualized. In poverty so great and deep, one is surrounded by God in a way that the affluent are not. To cease to regard self as poverty stricken is to simply exist in a way that is authentic. In nakedness and hunger, one is a stranger to this world, a wanderer in the desert and yet this is perhaps a more authentic and honest condition of the human soul than to remain in the world and be engaged actively in community. The spirituality of the desert, with its doubts reduces the hermit to silence and it is in this state that God is ever-present despite uncertainty and nothingness.

This emptiness and nothingness that is found in solitary places is not without purpose. To escape into the silence is not selfish but is actually the very opposite in that it is a death of self, a forgetfulness of striving. It is a death of our very person and identity. This death is to die to self and to live for Christ alone. To be a solitary is to be a brother of the martyr. One does not become a solitary in order to heighten self-consciousness or to find pleasure in self but it is the opposite. It is possible to turn our backs on society without hating it and perhaps it is even a greater form of love for it than remaining in it would be. Without this emptiness and death of self found in the silence we are unable to love because we will not possess a self that is deep and realized, empty and without motives or strivings of our own. This is the only gift that we are able to offer someone in love….

It is in this state of emptiness realized in solitude that the Desert Fathers are able to act as prophets to their contemporaries and to the generations that will follow…

Solitude, almost by its very nature offers deeper communication with the self as the countless contradictions within our life can finally be reconciled. It is in silence that we know of something deeper, the presence and self-emptying nature of God. This knowing of God and self, the emptying nature of solitude and the escape from a decadent state is a sign of contradiction to the world. The solitary is like John the Baptist, one crying in the wilderness with a message that few will embrace but that many will reject. The solitary is a prophet who speaks a message that the world does not want to hear because it has nothing in common with the one who is truly alone and not part of this world. But in this act of dying to the world and being rejected by it, the silent solitary perhaps speaks more loudly than any words could. For it is this person who knows the true nature of God, His transcendence, His otherness and a nature that is beyond catchphrase or slogan and that it is why the world hates the solitary for the same reasons they hate God. It is impossible to make this transcendent God into our own image and the solitary is a harsh reminder of this….

The Desert Fathers escaped into the desert, seeking God and self-understanding, fleeing from the compulsions and conventions of the day and emptying themselves in order that they might be united with God. Their writings live on, prophetically speaking to us today in a society just as consumed with decadence as the world which the Desert Fathers left.

From Jackie Bolen “Silence and Solitude of the Desert Fathers and Thomas Merton”
http://silenceinthedesert.blogspot.com.au/

The Stage of The Desert

“We can only appreciate the mystical dimension of our world and our soul if we go through the stage of the desert, says Orthodox theologian, John Chryssavgis.”I would say that the secret of the desert is learning to lose,” he says.

Author of several books, husband and father of two, Doctor Chryssavgis has recently released “In the Heart of the Desert. The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers.”

Q: Seeking God through silence and prayer like the 4th and 5th century Christian ascetics still has much to teach us now?
Chryssavgis: It is so easy today to consider silence and prayer as something historically outdated or merely as spiritual virtues. In fact, for the life of the early desert fathers and mothers in the fourth and fifth centuries, silence was a way of breathing, a way of going deep. In a world, such as ours, where so much is determined by the immediate and the superficial, the desert elders teach us the importance of slowing down, the need to pay attention and to look more deeply. Silence is letting the world and yourself be what they are. And in that respect, silence is profoundly connected to the living God, “who is who he is.” Silence and prayer mean creating space for those moments in our life where integrity and beauty and justice and righteousness reign. Of course, all this requires toil and tears, labor and love. It is the art of living simply, instead of simply living. It resembles the skill of gardening: you cannot plant unless, first, you cultivate. You cannot expect to sow unless you dig deep. And you certainly cannot expect fruit unless you wait. The search, then, is for what lies beneath the surface. Only in taking time and looking carefully can we realize just how much more there is to our world, our neighbor, and even ourselves than at first we notice or than we could ever imagine.

Q: Is there a secret to live a rich and healthy spiritual life?
Chryssavgis: In some ways, the secret to living a rich and healthy spiritual life may well be the fact that there is no secret. One of the problems along the spiritual way is that most of us seek — or resort to — magical solutions to profound issues. Reading the texts of the early ascetics, I have come to realize that perhaps the most essential lesson learned in life is the lesson of surrender, of letting go. It is a hard lesson, and one that is only reluctantly embraced by most of us. But I am convinced that this life is given to us in order to learn how to lose. We think that the purpose of a good spiritual life is to acquire virtues, or perhaps to lead a solid, productive, dignified, admirable, and even influential lifestyle. In fact, every detail — whether seemingly important or insignificant, whether painful or joyful — in the life of each one of us has but a single purpose, namely to prepare us for the ultimate act of sharing and sacrifice. I would say that the secret of the desert is learning to lose. When you know how to lose, you also know how to love! In some ways, every moment in our life is a gradual refinement so that we are prepared to encounter death, which is the ultimate loss.

Q: What unifies the desert fathers and mothers?
Chryssavgis: If there is one element that unites the desert fathers and mothers, in my mind it is their realism. The unpretentious dimension of their life and experience, of their practice as well as their preaching, is something they share with one another and with all the communion of saints through the centuries. And precisely because they are truthful and down-to-earth, the desert fathers and mothers are not afraid to be who they are. They do not endeavor to present a false image; and they do not accept any picture of themselves that does not reflect who they really are. “Stay in your cell,” they advise us. Because so often we are tempted to move outside, to stray away from who and what we are. Learning to face who and what we are — without any facade, without any make-up, without any false expectations — is one of the hardest and at the same time, one of the finest lessons of the desert. Putting up with ourselves is the first and necessary step of learning to put up with others. And it is the basis for recognizing how all of us — each of us and the entire world alike — are unconditionally embraced and loved by God.

Q: Is there another kind of “desert” nowadays?
Chryssavgis: In our day, the desert is not necessarily to be found in the natural wilderness, although it may certainly be located there for some. The institutional church and the institutional parish have their place; and the natural desert has its place. But there is more to the spiritual life than these could ever provide alone. Alongside the institutional, there must be room for inspiration. The two are not necessarily opposed, but they must work together integrally if the Body of Christ is to function in all its fullness. We need to discern the mystery in life. And we can only appreciate the mystical dimension of our world and our soul if we go through the stage of the desert, if we experience that contemplative dimension of life. Yet the desert today is found in the marginal places of the world and the church, where the prophetic and critical word is spoken in response to the cry of suffering in human beings and in the natural environment. Those who put themselves on the edge of the conventional church or society in order to see clearly what is happening in our world are contemporary desert fathers and mothers.”

http://www.bath-orthodox.org.uk/public/books_chryssavgis.php

The Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis (born 1 April 1958) is an author and theologian who serves as advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch on environmental issues. He is a clergyman of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. In January 2012, he received the title of Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

Select Publications:

• Fire and Light: Aspects of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Light and Life Publications, Minneapolis MN, 1987.
• Ascent to Heaven: The Theology of the Human Person, Holy Cross Press, Boston MA, 1989. [Out of print]
• The World My Church (with Sophie Chryssavgis), David Lovell Publishing, Melbourne, 1990. Reprinted with changes by Holy Cross Press, Boston MA, 1998. Five printings to date.
• Repentance and Confession, Holy Cross Press, Boston MA, 1990. Second Printing 1996. Third printing 1998.
• Love, Sexuality, and Marriage, Holy Cross Press, Boston MA, 1996. Second printing 1998.
• The Way of the Fathers: Exploring the Mind of the Church Fathers, Analecta Vlatadon, Thessalonika, 1998. [Out of print]
• Beyond the Shattered Image: Insights into an Orthodox Ecological World View, Light and Life Books, Minneapolis MN, 1999.
• Soul Mending: The Art of Spiritual Direction, Holy Cross Press, Boston MA, 2000. Second printing 2002.
• In the Footsteps of Christ: the ascetic teaching of Abba Isaiah of Scetis, SLG Press, Oxford UK, 2001. [With P.R.Penkett]
• The Body of Christ: A Place of Welcome for People with Disabilities, Light and Life, Minneapolis MN, 2002.
• Abba Isaiah of Scetis: The Ascetic Discourses, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo MI, 2002. [With P.R.Penkett]
• In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, World Wisdom Books, Bloomington IN, 2003. 2nd revised edition 2008. Also translated into Italian: Bose Publications, Italy 2004.
• Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: Ecological Vision of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Eerdmans Books, Grand Rapids MI, 2003. Revised and updated, 2009.
• Letters from the Desert: A Selection of the Spiritual Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, New York NY, 2003.
• The Way of Tears: A Spirituality of Imperfection, In Greek: Akritas Publications, Athens, 2003.
• The Way of the Fathers: Exploring the Mind of the Church Fathers, Light and Life Books, Minneapolis MN, 2003
• Light through Darkness: Insights into Orthodox Spirituality, Orbis Press: Maryknoll; and Darton Longman and Todd: London, 2004
• John Climacus: from the Egyptian desert to the Sinaite mountain, Ashgate, London, 2004.
• The Reflections of Abba Zosimas: Monk of the Palestinian Desert, SLG Press: Oxford, 2004. Reprinted 2006.
• The Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John, with translation, introduction, notes and complete indices (scriptural, patristic, subject and names). For Catholic University Press, Washington DC, 2 volumes, 2006 and 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chryssavgis