One of the desert fathers said: If
a trial comes upon you in the place where you live, do not leave that
place... Wherever you go, you will find
that what you are running from is there ahead of you. So stay until the trial is over...
It is reinforced by another desert
story: There was a brother who had a
rather turbulent temperament. He often
became angry. So he said to himself,
"I will go and live on my own. I
shall live in peace and my passions will be soothed." He lived in a cave. One day when he had filled his jug with
water, he put it on the ground and it tipped over. So he picked it up and filled it again -- and
it tipped over. He filled it a third
time, put it down, and over it went. He
grabbed the jug and smashed it. Then he
realised that he had been tricked by the devil.
He said, "Since I have been defeated, even in solitude, I'd better
go back to the monastery. Conflict is to
be met everywhere, but so is patience and so is the help of God." So he got up and went back.
One of
the greatest spiritual secrets is as prosaic as it could possibly be. If we keep wanting to try something else, in
order to get rid of acedia, the noonday demon, we are probably out of luck. My life is boring, or unhappy, or troublesome,
or worrying – so I will go and live in Australia, or I will move to another
house, or I will get out more, or I will change my partner, or I will have a
course of Botox or a tummy tuck or some tattoos... I will spend some money. I will try another church, take
multi-vitamins, hire a life coach... Any
or all of these things may be good to do.
But the
ego is remaining supreme and unchallenged, in control. I cringe these days when yet another person tells us
about their dream, this shining light on their horizon. You must have a dream and be somehow
realising your dream. When Martin Luther
King had a dream, it was about reality and the way things were. It was about others, not himself. Our first task is to be present in the
present moment, not living in a dream.
The reality, the present, for better or for worse, is where God is. Contemplative spirituality is a process of
being present, being attentive, being true and being real, bearing pain as well
as pleasure, hearing more than the noise of my own ego and all its feelings and
demands. Our prayer is just that, a
matter of being present and real, to God, and to all the reality of the
present.
One
desert brother was told by an elder, Go, sit in your cell, and give your
body in pledge to the walls. It is
almost a ferocious metaphor of refusing to live in fantasy and dreamland, or
anywhere else but the present and how it is.
Then see what happens. Breathe
deeply, be still, shut down your own noise, pay attention as God is paying
attention... Life then begins to open,
attitudes start to shift and change, a way forward opens up, one step in front
of the other.
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