You know, I have never been a particularly political person. At the same time, I am a prayerful person whose "job" it is to stand in the place where the cries and yearning of humanity meet the love and endless mercy of God in Christ. I recognize that the longer I live in this "place", that is, the more deeply established and the larger my heart becomes as compassion grows in me, the more political I become. It is a quiet politicization. Because of complaints about hermits (and Popes!) who are too political, I have reread recent articles here on this blog, and I don't hear anything strident or unseemly, especially for a hermit. But a growing capacity to hold "the world" together with God's great love? Yes, that is what I see happening. And I have to praise God for it because it is all God's doing here.
God has brought me to this place, and God has done so, so that He might dwell in this place as well. He has willed to be Emmanuel, God-With-Us, and as I understand my vocation, I am confronted with the immense paradox that I remain in the desert precisely so that God might be made more real in the space and time of this fragile, thirsting, and clamoring world. This is the paradox I began to see when I recognized that "stricter separation from the world" called for freedom from enmeshment, not an atemporal life without regard for others, but a profoundly engaged life where eternity meets finitude and transforms it entirely. This life begins first of all with engagement with God, and then, because God willed to be Emmanuel, it became engaged (mainly in prayer) with others and the state of this world. And, in ways I had not expected, that has made me political. Or rather, that has made me deeply concerned for the sake of this world, profoundly touched by the pain and terror that is currently rampant, and distressed by the needless chaos set loose by the current "leaders" of the US government. In short, I have PROTESTED at "No Kings" protests, voted whenever the opportunity has arisen, and prayed for the continued coming of God's Kingdom, God's new KINdom where all are welcome and of equal value!
The desert Fathers and Mothers mainly lived in the near desert, the desert that interfaced with "the city". They lived on the margins, in a liminal space. Their lives were given over to God, and at the same time, it was given over to God
in protest of the way the Church had apparently "sold out" to the State and become domesticated. The desert Abbas and Ammas went into the desert to PROTEST what they perceived as a betrayal of radical Christianity, a betrayal of the Church's ability and obligation to do as Jesus had done, and speak Truth to power. (Pilate's question on that fateful Friday, "What is truth?" is the critical one.) Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdoms of this world put him to death. Yet God vindicated Jesus and raised him from the dead to new life. The Desert Abbas and Ammas were concerned with sharing in that new life as fully and faithfully as possible. They were called to be
ecclesia, the congregation or assembly of called-out ones. And they responded by moving into the physical and cultural margins of their society, not in complete disengagement (though, yes, some moved into the deep desert in almost total reclusion), but in a way that allowed them to witness to the great faithfulness of God evident in the resurrection of Jesus, while joyfully witnessing simultaneously to human obedience, faithfulness, and hope.
To summarize this move to the desert, it was a
protest movement, and a living out of a new KINdom in God in response to Jesus' own proclamation and risen presence. These men and women wanted to be Church, and they wanted to be themselves and
rise as truly as possible to the humility that authentic humanity in the Incarnate One implied. What became clear to me as I looked over what God has been doing with my life, were the similarities between it and the desert Fathers and Mothers, especially in terms of protest, radically living the truth, being men and women of deep prayer living on the margins and yet, deeply engaged in compassion and solidarity with and on behalf of the Church and the larger world. This was essentially an ecclesial vocation calling the Church to be what the Church was meant to be! I was also reminded of some things Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam has said:
In fact, the hermit must not cherish the spirit of separation; he must be open to the social aspects of life. He understands perfectly that it is the Church as community that rests by the Lord's feet and listens to his voice. . . Hence the Hellenistic idea of contemplation, monos pros monon (alone with the Alone), dating back to the Neoplatonic School, is essentially alien to the Christian Hermit. . . .the hermit's individual reception and interpretation of the Word of God is always rooted in the whole Church's experience of faith. . .and that bears its fullest fruit in the liturgical community. Wencel, Cornelius, The Eremitic Life, Encountering God in Silence and Solitude, (pp 151-152, Emphasis added)
and again,
It might seem that the grace of an eremitic vocation should have cut the person off from any form of communal life and from the problems of this world. But the many examples of the great hermits reveal that any authentic spiritual experience, which in its very nature is the culmination of love, lead to an attitude of ministry. Catholic Mysticism has never meant contemplating one's own self. Ibid, p 174
or here:
The seclusion and solitude that constitute the eremitic life do not aim at negating the fundamental dynamism of human existence, with its entering into dialogue and relationships. . . .The only way to learn anything important about oneself is to look at another person's face with love and attention. As mentioned before, the hermit's solitude can never be a sign of withdrawal and isolation from the world and its affairs. The hermit, since he wants to serve other people, must arrive at a profound understanding of his own nature and his relation to God and the world. That is why solitude is not a barrier, but it is rather an element that encourages openness toward others. Ibid. (p. 200)
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Cultivating ignorance about the affairs of the world or pretending to a kind of studied ignorance of what others write and say in this regard is not eremitical. It is not even human, and it is assuredly not Christian. In my own eremitic life, I am bound by a vow of obedience --- a vow to be attentive and responsive to God in all of the ways and places God comes to me. I am also bound by a vow of chastity in celibacy --- a vow to love God, of course, but also to "cherish all that is cherished by God". Sometimes, like the Desert Abbas and Ammas, that means standing shoulder to shoulder (so to speak) with others carrying "NO KINGS" signs and protesting the deeply false, loveless, and uncaring administration that wants to make a Messiah and King of a profoundly flawed (read genocidal!!) and malignantly narcissistic President.
This is where God has brought me. It is where God asks me to stand in the milieu of prayer and the freedom of my hermitage --- and particularly in light of the clarity of vision afforded by a long eremitical tradition of prophetic presence. Enmeshment in this world? No!! Compassionate Engagement with it for God's sake and the sake of all that God cherishes? Absolutely!! And yet, given the seriousness of the situation in our country and world, I am more than a bit overwhelmed by where God has brought me in this life with him. Who would ever have guessed that when I petitioned to be consecrated as a hermit, I was asking to be made part of a profound and centuries-old PROTEST movement that was also (of course!!), profoundly timely, challenging, and consoling (read prophetic)!?!
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