Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance

Book excerpt: “The wholeness of the life we seek is one that we are seldom able to envision in advance. It takes a shape that only the desert knows.” Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance: From Ancient Monks to Mountain Refugees is a passionate exploration of the theme of wilderness in the spiritual life. These three lectures by accomplished storyteller and theologian Belden Lane are inspirational in a way that lectures rarely are. Lane urges us to think courageously about the place of wilderness in Christian life. He contemplates the radical lives of the fourth-century Desert Fathers and Mothers, as well as the courageous example of sixteenth-century Anabaptists. He speaks of the ways in which wilderness can relate to the practice of a counter-cultural spirituality today, and he asks: Can desert and mountain gift us with a language to understand the experiences in our lives when we are taken to the edge, finding ourselves isolated and alone, both spiritually and culturally? “The wilderness is a place of suffering, out on the edge. It is a place of letting go, a place for dying, and yet also a place for coming alive. The desert is where things fall apart and where things may come together for us in an unanticipated way.”