On Natural and Unnatural Deserts

[[Dear Sister Laurel, in your own life when you refer to "the desert" you are not referring to a geographical place then are you? I understand that Thomas Merton wrote about the unnatural solitudes of the slums. You have referred to that here several times. Did Thomas Merton also mean the desert of chronic illness? Is this a valid extrapolation from the Desert Fathers' and Mothers' flight to the physical or geographical desert? Shouldn't hermits be living in physical wildernesses like these hermits or like John the Baptist, Elijah, and others?]]

No, you are correct that I am not ordinarily referring to a geographical place when I speak of deserts though I must say that the geographical places we call deserts are wonderful symbols or paradigms of the internal realities associated with desert spirituality. Further, while I don't think Thomas Merton was referring to the desert of chronic illness with his comment about city slums, neither do I think he was necessarily excluding it. I am not sure he considered it directly. Merton's concern was the isolation brought about by poverty and the harsh landscape poverty created in terms of human potential, the need for distraction, and the yearning for meaning and a sense that one's life was of some real worth or value. He was concerned with contemporary environments which lead to boredom and futility (as well as enhancing our fear of these) and he was concerned with situating the hermit's life and witness in a central place where the terrors of desert existence defined in terms of these specific contemporary realities could be effectively dealt with. Chronic illness is one of those "desert experiences" which calls out in all of the ways any desert experience does. I don't recall Merton addressing this directly but I have no doubt he would have included it in his reference to the unnatural solitudes associated with urban slums and other settings as well had he considered it at all.

Your question about a valid extrapolation asks if it is alright to understand desert in this non-geographical way. This objection is one that some hermits today make regarding those of us who live in urban areas and not in a physical wilderness. There is some validity to their objection because the physical silence and external solitude of the physical desert is so very different from the relative solitude of an urban hermitage. When one visits the desert both the physical silence and external solitude are palpable realities. There is a depth to them which one can almost touch and taste and smell. They press on one's skin and call to one's heart seeking a response, an answering embrace of sorts. They constitute a living presence which is undisputed and awesome in and of itself. Further, these interlocking pieces of desert wilderness form a reality which only seems to deepen in the face of the odd noise, movement, or other distraction --- a characteristic which makes it not only awesome but terrifying to us. I can completely understand the objection of hermits who contend the unnatural solitudes of an urban area are discontinuous with the awesome natural solitudes of the desert. Still, I cannot completely agree with them, especially when they begin to argue urban hermits are not real hermits, or the unnatural solitudes of urban life and chronic illness, for instance are not real solitudes.

Because I have written about the nature of wilderness in the Scriptures I am going to refer you to one of those posts Hermits are desert Dwellers with the request that you check it and others under the label "desert spirituality".  In these posts I have pointed out that the real importance of the desert is as a place of meeting between a person whose poverty is writ large and the God whose merciful love transforms that poverty into the richness of adopted Sonship and Daughterhood. It is the place where one does battle with the demons of one's own heart and the world as well, the place where one consolidates the truth of one's identity in and for Love-in-Act --- or loses it entirely, whether in death or the various absurdities and insanities associated with human isolation.  If this understanding of wilderness or desert is the heart of the Scriptural understanding, and I have no doubt that it is, then geographical setting, while not unimportant, is not critical to our definition of "desert dweller". More important by far is the potential for meeting God created by an intense and profound experience of human poverty and impotence.

So, my answer to your last question is no, not necessarily. While physical solitude can help get us in touch with a sense of our smallness and need for God there are other situations and contexts which are every bit as huge and intransigent, every bit as humbling and existentially challenging, every bit as much authentic "deserts" as those the desert Fathers and Mothers fled to in order to really live an authentic  and edifying Christian life. In every case the stories of hermits' lives remind us that an external situation can allow and call for a response to the God who brings life out of death and meaning out of absurdity, but of itself it does not make one a hermit. Sometimes human poverty remains merely that. Sometimes the proffered grace of God remains unaccepted, unembraced, and rendered powerless to transform or make fruitful. Sometimes the desert crushes the would-be hermit and instead of an eremite we get a personally desiccated casualty of human weakness and the desert's inexorable power. Again, it is the heart of the notion of the eremite that they be desert flowers blooming in the midst of life's harshest realities through the grace of God. Wherever this happens we have authentic hermits and authentic desert spirituality.

I hope this is helpful.

Follow up: On Living Alone and Hermit Surveys

[[Dear Sister, thank you for answering my question on living alone and whether that makes one a hermit. How does "desert dwelling" relate to what you have said in the past about the difference between silence AND solitude and living the silence OF solitude? They are linked aren't they? I also have a different question. How would it impact your life to hear the results of a survey about "Who is the real hermit?" with answers to questions about what people think hermits are like, how they dress, eat, recreate, what they read, how they pray, what characteristics most mark them, etc? I read about two persons doing surveys. One was this type. The other seems to ask for responses from hermits themselves. Have you seen them? Why would a hermit participate in such surveys?]] (redacted)

You are most welcome regarding my answer to your question on the distinction between living alone and being a hermit. I think this particular question is really important today as Bishops and other chancery personnel try to discern whether someone in their diocese is called to be a hermit or not. One of the things I try always to stress is that at least before being admitted to temporary vows the persons they are evaluating must have made the transition from being a lone person to one who is a hermit in an essential sense and is therefore living the silence of solitude as the heart, context, and goal of their lives. Otherwise we have more or less pious folks perhaps living some degree of silence and solitude in various ways but who are not really hermits in any fundamental sense.

You are correct that this is very closely related to the distinction between simply living alone and living as a desert dweller. The common element in both distinctions is "the silence of solitude." This is one of the reasons I have tried to make it clear that the silence of solitude is the defining element of the eremitical life and its actual charism (gift quality) to the Church and rest of the world. In a sense I would be comfortable saying that "desert dweller" and "one who lives the silence OF solitude" are synonyms --- no matter where the latter happens. We can see this when we reflect on the fact that one who perhaps takes a brief trip into the desert and meets (some) silence and solitude there has not yet become a desert dweller nor one who lives (or has even truly experienced) the silence of solitude. I think it is even possible to say that a person who moves to the desert for an extended time but whose home is sealed against the desert conditions and who simply remain shut in that home themselves along with every modern convenience and distraction is not yet a "desert dweller" either.

Regarding your second question, how would such a survey affect me? In the first case, not at all. That is, it would not change how I dress, eat, live my life, style myself (Sister, etc) or behave. I am who I am and there is no need to pretend otherwise, nor to try to hide that from people. My life is an essentially hidden one, but it is also a public vocation with obligations and with a foundational requirement of transparency (not to be mistaken for infringement of privacy!!). If the concern of the first survey you mentioned is defeating stereotypes or correcting popular expectations, for instance, then letting people meet me and understand I AM a hermit is a better solution than anything I know. One does not deal effectively with stereotypes and inaccuracies with pretense. Instead one makes the truth known and thereby dispels common misconceptions. I might say that one affect of the survey could be to strengthen me in my resolve to make this vocation better known and understood. It could also give me some additional clues to what people think about hermits, but otherwise I would say it would not affect me or the living of my life at all.

In the second case which draws on the experience of hermits themselves, yes, I have seen the survey, and in fact was interviewed for a couple of hours by the author and researcher last year. He traveled here to CA and met with me here at the hermitage as well as visiting a couple of other eremitical houses in No CA. The experience was quite fine. It was good to be able to talk about this vocation with someone researching all kinds of experiences of solitude and the effect of several variables on the eremitical experience. That interview left me with questions I still ponder, or which come back to me from time to time in a way which is helpful.

It is always helpful to articulate one's experience --- if not for the person asking the questions, then certainly for oneself. Recently I did an interview for an article on eremitical life. It was interesting to read the draft version and see what presuppositions or assumptions I make in trying to explain this vocation -- especially if someone claims to have read my blog. My own unclarity or silence on several really fundamental issues were alarming because without these one is describing a parody of the diocesan eremitical life. Fortunately the author wanted accuracy and was very willing to allow me to contact him with anything I thought would be helpful. I have yet to see the finished draft, but I am hoping I was able to clarify my omissions! At least I know that I learned from doing this interview, just as I learn things whenever I write or answer questions about the eremitical life. And with regard to the second survey mentioned above, I look forward to reading the results because these involve conversations with people truly living solitude in conscious and reflective ways. These kinds of things are always helpful to me and have the potential to challenge me in the living of my vocation in ways popular expectations do not.

Thus, I do think surveys can be interesting and valuable sources of information --- especially if they are well done and accurately demonstrate what people believe to be true about hermits. Stereotypes are dangerous, particularly if they are held by people who are seeking to be hermits or those who participate in discerning eremitical vocations. The basic problem here is that hermits' lives are of tremendous value in a society which is intolerant of silence and touts individualism or narcissism rather than an individuality which is properly situated as a dimension of community. They are equally valuable for people who are trapped in situations which isolate or demean and require a way to redeem these because they suggest creative possibilities. But stereotypes --- which remain far too prevalent, do not serve in this way. Instead they tend to reinforce all of these elements: individualism, narcissism, isolation, etc. Surveys can help us be aware of and even understand such misconceptions; for chanceries or others dealing with eremitical vocations (or potential vocations) these may assist in recognizing when such things are driving an individual's desire to be a hermit or a diocese's admission to profession.

Hermits: Not Merely People who Live Alone but Desert Dwellers

Dear Sister, recently I read a hermit who claimed the word hermit meant one who lived alone. They said, [[The very word hermit is a label that means "solitary" in Old French, late Latin, and Greek. So perhaps the first hermit was simply someone who lived alone in a time when all other people lived together in family units, and a single person living by themselves would be unusual enough to have a word coined to describe the phenomena. Then others began to live like that first hermit, alone, or in whatever other ways that first hermit appeared, acted, and was for what purpose of being.]] Is this correct? Is it how the Church uses the word hermit? Thank you.

Solitariness is a part of the eremitical life, yes, but the word hermit (eremite) has its origins in the Greek word eremos, which means desert. An eremite (hermit) then is a desert dweller and there is much more involved in truly being a desert dweller than simply being alone. Consider what it means to live in the desert generally, and then in terms of the judeo-Christian heritage. It is in this way we come to understand what a hermit is from the Catholic perspective and how the eremitical life differs from simply being or living alone. After all, many people live alone; does this of itself make them hermits? I would say no.

Deserts and wildernesses are equivalent concepts or realities. They are places where human poverty and weakness are writ very large, where the horizon of human existence is seemingly infinite, and where the ability to be one's own source of life, to secure oneself whether physically, psychologically, or spiritually, simply and clearly doesn't exist. There is no room for delusions in the desert. Delusions kill. We know how fragile, finite, and threatened we are in such a place. In the face of such reality we ask the really huge questions implied by existence but often crowded from our vision by the comforts and distractions with which we live every day: Who am I? Why am I alive at all? How can I continue to live? How can my puny, insignificant existence really be of any meaning in the grand scheme of things? Is my life simply absurd? Should I hold onto life, should I fight for it or let go of it? Why or why not? And if I choose to live, then what is essential to that and how do I find it, supply it, or open myself to it?

These are some of the questions which well up in the wilderness in the absence of distraction and satiety. These are the questions the hermit lives out in one form and another every day of her life. But the hermit, especially the Christian hermit, also lives the answer to these found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For the Christian hermit, the wilderness/desert is also the place where the Jewish refugees from Egypt came to terms with and claimed their identity as God's own, ratified the covenant with their lives, and became Israel, the covenant partner of God. The desert is the context where the prophet John the Baptist was nurtured and called to proclaim a baptism of repentance. It is also the place where he learned clearly who he was and was empowered to proclaim the One he was not. The desert is the place where Jesus was driven by the Spirit of God's love to grapple with his newly divinely-affirmed identity as Son of God and the shape that Sonship would take in this world. Here he struggled with the temptation to misuse the gifts which were his: his power, his authority, his very identity; here he struggled with the temptation to relinquish his complete dependence upon God the Father and act autonomously. It was in the desert that in a special way Jesus claimed his own identity and embraced the values and wisdom of the Kingdom rather than the identity, values and wisdom the world affirmed and offered him.

Similarly, the desert is the place where Paul, following his Damascus experience and his initial acceptance by the primitive Christian Church spent time consolidating the changes in understanding his meeting with Christ occasioned. It was here that Paul reframed his own understanding of Law in light of the Gospel, where he worked out the meaning of Jesus' scandalous death on the cross, where he came to part of an ecclesiology which would move Christianity from being a sect of Judaism to being a universal faith. In short, in Scripture, the desert is the place where we are remade in solitary dialogue with God. It is where we do battle with the demons that dwell in our own hearts and the world around us; it is where we learn to live our own human poverty and weakness because we also live from a grace that enriches and strengthens us; it is where we learn to see our own smallness and insignificance against the infinite horizon of a God who loves us immeasurably and eternally.

More, we do these things not only for ourselves, but for what the Scriptures call the glory of God. What this means is that we do it so that God's presence and nature may be clearly revealed in our world through our lives. That is what it means in the Bible to speak of God being glorified. And of course, we do this so that others might be nourished and inspired by it; we do it so that people may find hope when there seems nothing and no one to hope in, so that people may be nourished and their thirst quenched when the landscape of their lives seems entirely barren. We do it so that the least of the least among us may discover and be affirmed in the infinite value of their lives and so even the most isolated may find that God is with them ready to transfigure isolation into solitude. Eremitical life witnesses to the essential wholeness that we are all called to in God through Christ, no matter our poverty, our weakness, or our brokenness and isolation.

The hermit's life then is not merely about living alone, but rather living alone WITH, FROM, and FOR God, and in a way which is specifically FOR others as well. That is why Canon 603 defines it in part as follows: [[Can 603 §1, Besides institutes of consecrated life, the Church recognizes the life of hermits or anchorites, in which the Church's faithful withdraw further from the world and devote their lives to the praise of God and the salvation of the world through the silence of solitude and through assiduous prayer and penance.]]

There is nothing unusual about people living alone today (nor in the past!). Many do so for unworthy or unavoidable reasons (selfishness, misanthropy, chronic illness, incarceration, bereavement, isolated old age, etc); some of these are --- or may be made --- even relatively pious. But very few have given their lives over to the redemptive dynamics and demands of desert living as epitomized by figures in our history like Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and so forth. For this reason I have to say the person who wrote the passage you cited is inaccurate on the very nature of what a hermit is and is about. This life involves living alone --- especially when one is a diocesan or solitary hermit --- but that is part and parcel of a desert existence which is very much more as well. One must define eremitical life in these (desert) terms or miss the mark completely.

Note: some of this I spoke of relatively recently --- not least in a post for the first week of Lent : Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Driven into the Desert by the "spirit of Sonship". Folks might want to check that out as well. It is also linked to the term "desert spirituality" below.