When do I get to just ...?

The desert and the city.

I finished a silent retreat, I have advice for everyone but myself! In the book Poustinia (Russian for desert), author Catherine de Hueck Doherty tells us that the poustinik (hermit) who goes into the desert and returns must speak the word of God to the rest of us. Also the poustinik must interiorize the poustinia and live in it always, even when around other people. The poustinik meets God in the desert. Sometimes, also, he battles the devil. The poustinik imitates Christ in his ministry to the world; Christ in some sense came to all of creation through the temptations in the desert. These words cut me. I’m no poustinik but I wish I was.

I don’t know how to live my life between contemplation and the need to Get Things Done. I don’t want to do stuff, I just want to be. I don’t have the American habit of judging myself by productivity. I’ve always been lazy. I tell people all the time that the only thing I really want to do is sit in a hammock by a lake and read and take naps. They nod and say “oh that’s wonderful.” And then get mad at me when I actually mean it.

The desert came to me in my hermitage. Love in the form of the scripture gave itself to me and I am grateful. I left and am now back home. There is a kitchen and a bathroom to clean and I am letting down my housemates by not doing my chores. I am starting a business and my attention is now pulled taught between two different jobs. There’s always more life admin to do. More calendar events to schedule, more items to tick off the checklist, more books to read, more people to meet. The desert is within me but I don’t think I can love it except when I’m there. It’s more like a reminder of what I don’t possess than a hope that keeps my feet underneath me.

Prayer is the fundamental act of being a creature. I believe it. I think I’ve experienced it. Prayer makes us human. Reaching out to God with our being. Perhaps it is through words, but it could also be becoming aware for a moment of reality. Falling through the mundane into some heavenly realm while still being a part of Earth. It’s easy to seek it out and miss it entirely. There was no lightning on my silent retreat, no rushing wind. I want to take great care not to sentimentalize or oversell it. But just having a room in which to pray. This did much to ease my anxious mind.

This is the moment where I will betray how deeply American I am: I do not know how to go to the desert without being a consumer. Of course, I went to a non-profit retreat center. A retreat center. ACK. Why do I have so little imagination? Doesn’t the true hermit just go out into desert and trust in our Lord to provide? Do I really believe in God? Do I really have a heart of poverty? (Silly question, I very obviously do not.)

There are obligations one has to family, neighbor, nation. I don’t really care for them to be honest. But I’m not sure I have the call (or maybe courage? Does it make a difference?) to leave them either. Actually I know for a fact I shouldn’t leave them. How do I find God in the place to which I’ve been called, when it seems so easy to find him elsewhere? Oh Christ, let my heart be smaller and emptier.