desert

Reviewing your day and prayer experience to identify interruptions by the various “troubling thoughts” is not easy work. We can understand, on an intellectual level, the desert wisdom that thoughts are illusory and transient–that they don’t define us. However, sometimes it can be difficult to “feel” that truth after a long day at work or a destabilizing life event. Of course, prayer can and will help. If not silence, then direct petition to God for comfort and strength can often move us into a more objective mental space....

“It is an old saying that extremes meet,” writes John Cassian in The Conferences. Cassian was a disciple of Evagrius, and is credited with introducing the West to the wisdom of the desert. This maxim refers to the Aristotelian idea that virtue is found in the middle; existing at either end of a spectrum can ultimately become harmful. As followers of the “via media,” Episcopalians ought to be familiar with this notion....

The most often reported thought this week is pride. This is not necessarily surprising, as pride is traditionally considered to be the root of the eight thoughts. On the surface, pride is associated with self-confidence, self-reliance, self-control, self-assuredness–a lot of “self” related qualities. These are admirable traits, generally speaking, but pride becomes a stumbling block when “self” becomes “self-ish,” and we forget that real strength comes not from us but from God....