And What of Those Who Cannot Withdraw as C 603 Requires?

 [[Hi Sister, I wondered what you suggest for those who cannot withdraw as hermits do? Can they live desert vocations?]]

Though sitting in my inbox for some time, this is a timely question because I heard from someone this week who struggles with it himself, and I am still reflecting on our conversations. There is a piece of wisdom from the Desert Abbas and Ammas that is instructive here. It also ties into the posts I have been putting up regarding chronic illness and disability as desert experiences, and sometimes as specifically eremitical (hermit) desert experiences.  John Chryssavgis says it this way in In the Heart of the Desert. He is explaining that the desert is as much a way as it is an actual place:

It is clear in the understanding of these elders that one does not have to move to the geographical location of the wilderness to find God. Yet if you do not have to go to the desert, you do have to go through the desert. The Desert Fathers and Mothers always speak from their experience of the desert, even if they do not come out of that desert. The desert is a necessary stage on the spiritual journey. To avoid it would be harmful. To dress it up or conceal it may be tempting: but it also proves destructive on the spiritual path. . . .If we go through this experience involuntarily, then it can be both overwhelming and crushing. If, however we accept to undergo this [desert] experience voluntarily, then it can prove both constructive and liberating. p. 36

One point of my posts on chronic illness and disability as vocational paths is to stress that these are truly desert experiences where one meets one's true self and the true God. This is true whether the person can ever withdraw in the way hermits do. The core of anachoresis, or withdrawal from the world, is not necessarily the physical withdrawal into a literal desert, but withdrawal from the values which distort us and make encounters with, and commitment to, the true God and true self impossible. The opposite of withdrawal from the world is not engagement with others (which authentic hermits do not necessarily give up), but falling into idolatry!! This was true with Israel, and it was true of Jesus' time in the desert. It was equally true of the Desert Abbas and Ammas. As Chryssavgis also notes:

 Living in the desert does not mean living without people; it means living for God. Antony and the other desert dwellers never forgot this. They never sought to cut off their connections to other people instantly. They sought rather to refine these relationships increasingly. Of course, the desert was, on a deeper level, always more than simply a place. It was a way. And it was not the desert [as place] that made the Desert Fathers and Mothers, any more than it was the lion that made the martyrs. (Ibid, p35, while quoting B Ward, The wisdom of the Desert Fathers)

For those who cannot find a way to physically withdraw in significant ways, as, for instance, c 603 requires, their very inability becomes one of those limitations that represent a desert experience. Some of us with chronic illness and/or disabilities either could not enter religious communities or could not stay, despite our sense of having a religious vocation. Today, some of those with apparent calls to eremitical life must work and remain involved in active ministry in ways that prevent them from becoming consecrated hermits. Both groups of people have been asked to accept these limitations as desert experiences that lead them to embrace both their true selves and the true God. In this way, both groups of people are called to live out the very heart of the Desert Way, whether by physically withdrawing or not. Neither is better than the other. As one saying of the Desert Abbas and Ammas reminds us:

It was revealed to Abba Antony in his desert [place] that there was someone who was his equal in the city. He was a Doctor by profession. Whatever he had beyond his needs, he could give to the poor; and every day he sang hymns with the angels. (Antony, 24)

By the way, when I write here about authentic and inauthentic hermits, I hope it is clear that it is those who live out the Desert Way wherever that occurs, that instruct us on authenticity. For some who call themselves hermits as they shut themselves off from others out of self-righteousness or misanthropy, a mistaken notion of what stricter separation from the world actually means and entails, etc., they are creating idols of certain forms of withdrawal and inadequate notions of eremitical solitude. (Remember that solitude (and the silence of solitude) may mean or imply physical aloneness, but it also means wholeness and personal integration!!) As John Chryssavgis also writes:

The physical setting of the desert is a symbol, a powerful reminder of a spiritual space that is within us all. In the United States, the grand desert of Arizona can assist us in recalling that inner space where we yearn for God. In Australia, the frightening outback can also guide us in our search for that heavenly "dreamtime." In Egypt, the sandy dunes of the desert resembled the unending search of these abbas and ammas for "abundant life" (John 10:10) and "a living spring of water" (John 4:14).