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<\/a>The word \u201cdesert\u201d conjures up images such as sparse life, hunger and thirst, heat and cold, temptation and testing, and failure and triumph.\u00a0 Metaphorically, life is a kind of desert experience wherein encounters with both godly and diabolical reality constantly occur and offer opportunities for spiritual growth and purification.<\/p>\nIn the 4th<\/sup> century C.E., early Christian Fathers fled to the deserts of Egypt and Syria to learn how to trust God alone. Merton reflects:<\/p>\n What the Desert Fathers sought when they believed they could find \u2018paradise\u2019 in the desert was the lost innocence, the emptiness and purity of heart which belonged to Adam and Eve in Eden.\u00a0 Evidently they could not have expected to find beautiful trees and gardens in the waterless desert, burned by the sun.\u00a0 Obviously they did not expect to find a place, among the fiery rocks and caves, where they could recline at ease in shady groves, by cool running water.\u00a0 What they sought was paradise within themselves, or rather above and beyond themselves.\u00a0 They sought paradise in the recovery of that \u2018unity\u2019 which had been shattered by the \u2018knowledge of good and evil.\u2019[1]<\/a><\/p>\n In the desert wilderness, the hermit Fathers wrestled with their inner demons.\u00a0 They responded to God\u2019s grace to unmask their false, self-centered selves in order to find their true identity in Christ, their Divine Lover.<\/p>\n The life of the early Desert Fathers required inner stamina, psychological and spiritual maturity, and the renunciation of their ego-selves. \u00a0According to Merton, the sayings and stories of these men stress that the desert experience requires an experienced guide; simplicity of life; the integration of contemplation and labor; unreserved commitment to gospel living; and a radical willingness to strike out into the unknown.<\/p>\n For Merton, rather than being an experience of alienation and isolation, the desert experience is a school of compassion.\u00a0 In the inner ground of one\u2019s desert being, one embraces one\u2019s true self and, consequently, profoundly identifies and empathizes with others in their struggles and sufferings. Regarding this, Merton reflects:<\/p>\n What is my new desert?\u00a0 The name of it is compassion.\u00a0 There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion.\u00a0 It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily.\u00a0 It shall become a pool; it shall bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy.\u00a0 It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water and the poor possess all things. [2]<\/a><\/p>\n One does not need to make his or her way to a particular place to experience the essence of the desert experience.\u00a0 Merton stresses that the world one inhabits, with all its issues and complexities, is the locale wherein one encounters\u00a0 God and wages battle with evil forces within and without oneself. \u00a0Merton encourages contemporary spiritual seekers to embrace the desert in their lives and, in so doing, journey along the pathway that leads to shedding their false ego-selves in order to discover their true, compassionate selves in God!<\/p>\n Sr. Marilyn Sunderman, RSM, Ph.D.<\/strong>, is professor of theology and chair of the on-campus undergraduate theology program at Saint Joseph\u2019s College<\/a>.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite<\/em>, (New York: New Directions, 1968) 117.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and Writer, <\/em>Ed.\u00a0 Jonathan Montaldo (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995) 463.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The desert is a recurrent theme in the writings of Thomas Merton. Interesting is the fact that Merton probably saw a real desert in his life only when he visited the Benedictine monastery of Christ in the Desert in Chama … Continue reading