Blessed Be
Joel
Robert J. Wicks. Crossing the Desert: Learning to let go
see clearly and live simply. Norte Dame:
Sorin Books, 2007. 186 pages.
Quotes on the dedication page:
Smooth seas do not make skillful
sailors ~ African Proverb
Where are the great and wise [persons]
who do not merely talk about the meaning of life and the world but really
possess it? ~ Carl Jung
“Only after the desert has done its work in us can an angel
come to strengthen us. Crossing the Desert
tells us why we need the desert in our lives and what kid of angels only the
desert can bring. This is Robert Wicks at his best: wonderfully sane, balanced,
accessible, witty, and challenging. Mysticism for those who are frightened of
that term.” says Ronald Rolheiser (the author of The Holy Longing) on the back cover. For those of you familiar with The
Holy Longing that should be a review
enough. But I’ll continue.
Wicks has divided his book into three sections: an
introductory chapter on the desert; a subsection (Part One) on embracing the
freedom of humility; and a subsection (Part Two) on letting go. He remains
personal and anticdotical throughout the book referring to his own experiences
on his own spiritual journey, as well as his years as a therapist. I wished he
would have included more stories from the desert fathers (abbas) and mothers
(ammas), but one can find these in other sources. Wick’s purpose, it seems to
me, it rather to encourage others to embark upon their own journeys of faith.
During the fourth century CE there were a group of folks who
left the trappings of the Roman Empire and its civilization for the desert, in
order to more fully seek God and become themselves. I appreciate how Wicks
points out that the abbas and ammas were after ordinariness – the ordinary –
rather than trying to become or chase after extraordinariness or becoming
someone special. There is a sense in which these individuals found the
“trappings of civilization” to be just that, trappings. Money, fame, success,
possessions, etc. do not define who an individual is. These people of the
desert stove to strip away their false selves and become more their ordinary selves.
Wicks stresses that these people have something to teach us about becoming more
ourselves, and letting go of our own falsehoods. It is of note that the stories
coming out of the desert are highly practical in nature, rather than treatises
on how to pray. At the same time, the stories are very often full of humility
and compassion, as the following illustrates:
A few of the brothers
came to see Abba Poemen.
They said to him,
“Tell us what to do when we see brothers dozing during prayer. Should we pinch
them to help them stay awake?”
The
elder said to them, “Actually what I would do if I saw a brother sleeping is to
put his head on my knees and let him rest” (27).
At the same time, I appreciate how Wicks stresses that we do
not need to leave our lives and head into the desert ourselves, even though the
this “is about the journey that all of us are called to take – especially when we feel lost, under great stress, or during
times of desolation” (15).
Part One: To Embrace the Freedom that Humility Offers
(Chapters 2 – 5)
In this section Wicks reflects upon seeking those things
that are essential, how humility and entitlement are opposites of one another,
how our friends can give us insights into ourselves (especially prophets,
cheerleaders, teaser/harassers, and wise companions/soul friends), and the
importance of becoming grateful. The following is a sampling:
“The difference between true passionate intent that leads to
action and mere fantasy that results in inaction is a distinction that all
major religions make when addressing the topics of letting go or the freedom
and peace that true spiritual practice can bring” (40).
In speaking of the three psycho-spiritual gates: passion,
knowledge and humility, Wicks has this to say about passion. “It [passion] is
not dimmed by failure because passion is not based on success. Instead it is
fired by a spiritual sense of awe for what life can be when it is touched by
courage, openness, and gratitude for all we have been given” (43-44). And when
speaking about knowledge: “To keep a healthy perspective in life we need to
have both the psychological and spiritual wisdom that the different world
religions offer us. Such wisdom helps one to differentiate between unnecessary
suffering on the one hand, and the kind of pain that must be faced rather than
defended against or avoided on the other. Good knowledge, like healthy food, is
necessary for living. Consequently living by the principles of self-care and
maintaining a healthy perspective are two things we can naturally seek each
day. We need this knowledge” (45). And about humility: Humility “is the ability
to fully appreciate our innate gifts and our current ‘growing edges’ in ways
that enable us to learn, act, and flow with our lives as never before” (45).
“With humility, knowledge is transformed into wisdom” (46). “Humility is an essential ingredient in life because it provides a kenosis, an emptying of the self – the very desert spirit of
letting go about which this book is written” (47-8).
Obstacles to humility:
“And, certainly among the obstacles to living humbly and
simply that they [our wise companions] guide us through, there is no greater
one than a conscious sense of entitlement or the unconscious parallel danger of
‘repressed gratefulness’” (63).
“Humility and a sense of entitlement are bad bedfellows. If
it is true that the meek shall inherit the earth, the entitled shall certainly
contest their inheritance!
“How
did life become this way for so many of us? What happened to gratefulness,
appreciation of the simple things in life, and a clear recognition that in the
end all is gift? When did artificial
needs become so powerfully consuming? Suggest to someone today that they can be
happy with less and they think you are being absurd. …
“Ever
sense the so called self-actualization movement of the 1960’s, people have been
taught that what they really must do to be truly happy is to step forward and
get what is rightfully theirs. They must be willing to take the necessary risks
to get what they deserve out of life. I think this is the wrong risk for most
people to take much of the time. To do so means that we spend most of our
waking time constantly chasing and claiming rather than enjoying the life set
before us. I believe that a more appropriate and powerful question that we
should ask ourselves today is, ‘Am I taking enough risks to fully enjoy what I already have?’
“Of
course, the question is countercultural. It is tied more to a spirit of
humility than a sense of entitlement. The consumer society we live in tries to
keep us off balance. It urges us to be continuously in search of those things
and people that are rightfully ours, and to believe that they will in the end,
make us whole” (65ff).
What a question! “Am I taking enough risks to fully enjoy
what I already have?”
And of course I can’t help but wonder that this spirit of
entitlement is why the USA and the world are in the economic
recession/depression that we are in.
Part Two: Letting Go (Chapters 6 – 9)
These section is about learning to become a desert
apprentice by asking four desert questions (1. What am I filled with now? 2.
What prevents me from letting go? 3. How do I empty myself? 4. What will
satisfy me, but leave me open for more? Or to put it another way, What do I do
once the room is swept clean? or In essence, what paradoxically will satisfy me
but still leave me spiritually open, empty and free?);* learning to feed your
soul, what to look for in a mentor, and taking the steps to inner freedom. Again, I’ll leave you with a sampling
of what caught my fancy:
As Wicks explores his topics, he also quotes from others.
When asking the question of “What am I filled with now?”,
Wicks relates the following story as told by Alan Jones. Soul Making: The
Desert Way of Spirituality. San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1985. 146:
It is said that during an uprising in India late in the last century when British service families had to be evacuated, the road was strewn with such things as stuffed owls and Victorian bric-a-brac. I have no idea what the late twentieth century equivalent of a stuffed owl is, but no doubt our path will be just as littered with “necessities.” We will have to learn to travel light (84).
When speaking about the tradition of the desert ammas and
abbas, but also about the spiritual practice of seeing clearly – and the need
for mentors and others on the way – Wicks quotes from Columba Stewart:
It is obvious that the sayings of the
desert fathers touch modern people in ways that other ancient Christian
writings do not. This is not because they are pithy, humorous, or bizarre,
although they are sometimes all of these things. What sets the apophthegmata apart from so much of patristic literature is that
they speak from and to experience rather than text or theory; they are
practical rather than intellectual. The sayings and the stories on which they
are set do not try to pursue a topic as far as may be done, to run a concept to
ground and examine it, or to construct an argument. The sayings open up rather
than exhaust, suggest rather than describe. Like parables, they are explosive,
and where the bits land after the explosion is different each time the stories
are told or read. The significance of this quality runs deeper than matters of
literary genre: it was not a studied preference for gnomic statements rather
than treatises which gave rise to these sayings. The very form of the apophthegmata arose from and leads back into the heart of the
desert quest. These monks staked everything on the effort to destroy illusion
and deception. Their various disciplines were intended to help them cut through
the noise of lives hooked on the deceptions, materialism, and games that have
characterized human beings since the Fall. The desert itself gave them a
landscape which mirrored what they sought for their own hearts: an uncluttered
view through clean air” (125-126).**
And one last quote from a reference he uses of Parker Palmer. Let Your Life Speak. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000, 2, 3.
When it is clear – if I have eyes to see – that the life I am living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me … I [start] to understand that it is indeed possible to live a life other than one’s own. … I had simply found a “noble” way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart.
“In the desert, this point was made more simply: If you want
to find rest here and hereafter say on every occasion, “Who am I?” and don’t
judge anyone else. In this complex world with so many demands and insecurities,
only those who have a sense of simplicity, single-heartedness, and knowledge of
who they are will have a spontaneous, transparent heart which will allow them
to flow with life rather than drift with
it” (163–4).
_________
* Chapter Six: pp. 84, 90, 101, and105.
** Wicks quotes
Columba Stewart. “Radical Honesty about the Self: The Practice of the Desert
Fathers,” Sobermost 12 (1990): 25.
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