I gave this reflection as part of a recent Clergy Chapter meeting, referencing some of my MA studies.
We returned to our house on the Farm at Christmas 2021. I was done. 18 months of lockdown had taken a toll, but I had arrived at the start of COVID already feeling at an end of something and knew it was time to move on.
So, January 2022 would find me walking - mostly on the farm, but walking - usually, going over moments from my previous 19 years in Parish ministry where I thought I had failed. If only I’d said this, if only I’d done that. In some ways I felt a bit like I was in the wilderness. Being a Parish Priest had been part of me for two decades. Even though I knew I had needed to stop, it still felt the loss - loss of a sense of meaning and loss of a sense of who I am. With hindsight, I realise I had thought I could out-organise and out-energise any obstacle and this was me reaching the end of myself with more of a crash than should have been the case. I suppose you could say I was in the wilderness.
But in Lent, surely, wilderness has to take on an altogether more positive meaning. Despite the reality that a wilderness experience is uncomfortable, disorienting and dislocating, throughout my MA studies, I keep going back to the 4th C theologian and desert monastic Evagrius. He was at the Council of Constantinople in 381, having been made a deacon by Basil the Great, but he seems to have had some sort of liaison with the wife of a powerful man in the city, and so Evagrius had to flee. He relocated to Jerusalem and stayed at a monastery under the leadership of Melania the Great. By all accounts he was a bit of a pain in the cassock! Bragging about his achievements in Constantinople and showing off his fine clothes until he seems to have had some sort of breakdown (mental or physical is unclear). Melania ministered to him and, eventually, he confessed his affair and was restored to health. He then moved to the Egyptian desert and wrote one of the first handbooks on prayer, as well as becoming the sort of humble and wise counsel sought out by people from near and far. But this lifestyle in the desert was not in the confines of an established monastery. Rather, an extended network of like-minded hardy sorts who met weekly, but probably spent most of their time alone, in prayer and doing the hard work of surviving. Living in the wilderness as a lifestyle choice
In Lent we find Jesus propelled by the Spirit into the wilderness immediately after his baptism, and being tempted, and the way this story is written in the Gospels is a clear re-enactment of the Exodus journey through the wilderness. I want to offer three ideas about the wilderness for our reflection this Lent.
Firstly, for the Israelites, the long journey across the desert was a time of discovery. Deut 8:2 says
“Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments”.
The theologian Ulrich Mauser argues we translate this text slightly incorrectly. The Hebrew is unclear about who comes to know the results of the testing. Is it God - who presumably knows the hearts of the people already? Or is it in fact the people themselves - that through their testing and repeated failings they are able to know their own hearts more clearly?
The stripping away that takes place as part of entering the wilderness should lead to us knowing ourselves more fully and accurately - warts and all. Wilderness strips away any pretensions.
Secondly, for Jesus the wilderness is thought of as a place of temptation. Mark 1:12-13
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
The Gospel writers relate Jesus responding to the temptations by going back into Scripture, but we need to remind ourselves that in order for those things to have been temptations for Jesus - the choice being offered had to be really tempting. Clever short-cuts to achieve some of what he was called to do, but to do so without any of the pain and heartache of the Cross. And the three listed strike to the heart of who Jesus was.
Henri Nouwen describes the three temptations in a way that challenges us as ministers. He says that the temptations subtly played towards
“the need to be relevant, the need to be significant, the need to be powerful.”
Jesus needed to dig into the Old Testament to be able to verbalise the clarity of his purpose and, through this, to be clear about what he was resisting. The temptations Jesus resisted in the wilderness teach us that we can only find the clarity of our vocation through the same process of allowing the wilderness to strip away, and then to discern through Scripture the subtle ways our heart would lead us too readily back to comfort. This allows us to be more clear about our ministries and ourselves, as we pay attention to ourselves and what is going on within and immediately around us. Later in the Gospels Jesus repeatedly returns to the wilderness not to be tempted, but to find the space to be close to God in prayer.
And thirdly, for Evagrius the wilderness was the place where he actually found his home. He was to spend the rest of his life there, and for him the stripping away was fundamental in his learning about stillness , attention, and withdrawal. Each of these values is quite profound.
Last May, partly to explore some ideas about solitude for my MA, I walked the West Highland Way. As I walked alone I had a lot of time to seek stillness, despite the activity, but I soon realised what the Desert Mothers and Fathers taught about stillness - it is not about getting away from the noise, but about discovering and dealing with the sources of the noise within us. I recall walking along the A82 at the mouth of Glencoe. This is the main A road into Fort William, and there is quite a bit of traffic. After a distance, the path turns right, away from the road and ascends the mountainside. The noise of cars decreases, but so the noise within me seemed all the louder; thoughts, irritations etc.
And attention is needed in the wilderness. My longest day was 19 miles across Rannoch Moor - a bleak and empty landscape in the drizzle of the day I walked there, so my attention was on the steady tread of my feet, how my legs were doing, was there any sign of a blister, did I need to stop for some water or a bit of food? Attention paid along the way was important to protect myself for the whole journey. Walking made me aware of the need for attention on just what was in close proximity around me. I could enjoy the landscape and the hills in the distance, but my focus only had to be just the next couple of steps.
Withdrawal for me meant intentionally careful about what I carried in my pack. Waterproofs and camera gear, snacks and water, and a first aid kit were a given, just the things that were important for that day. I didn’t think I would so relish being out on the moor with my backpack and in my waterproofs, cocooned against the drizzle! Withdrawal like this helps us establish clear boundaries around ourselves - that which is rightly and comfortably our outer perimeter
With hindsight I am really glad of my wilderness time two years ago and then my MA studies since which have allowed me to find a meaningful shape to that, and, indeed, a desire to find myself in the wilderness more regularly.
May we each be blessed with a wilderness experience which teaches us. Whether that is to know our weaknesses better, or to recognise where we minister to meet our own false needs
to find stillness
to pay attention
to withdraw
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