CowPi Journal

Have you heard of this “desert” thing that some people write about in relation to faith and religion? I have read several authors of weblogs and books write about the “desert”. What do they mean by the “desert”?

I am not exactly sure, but it seems that many writers are making a Biblical reference. Jesus, after being baptized by John the Baptist, journeyed into the desert for forty days. While in the desert, He was alone, isolated, and tempted by Satan. Afterwards, Jesus began His ministry. For many, the desert becomes a place to test oneself in the harshest of environments, as if it symbolizes a method of purification.

Other writers are referring to the desert as a reference to the Desert Fathers. These were a group of Christian men (and some women), starting about the 6th century, who removed themselves from society and physically moved into the desert to find communion with God. Their isolation and detachment from society helped them to push their spirituality as far as possible. And when some of them reached a certain level, they returned to society to teach others about what they had learned.

Still other writers, it seems, refer to the desert in regards to their spirituality. They become lost or confused. Their old ideas about God do not seem to work anymore. Their stream of spirituality has dried up. Their path seems lost in the dust, their destination uncertain. No comfort can be found. They are restless. They are searching.

Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, describes this third type of desert:

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In an earlier entry, I mentioned something about having doubts. Doubts are funny things. You are never sure about them. (Sorry, pun intended.) But seriously, it is the fact that you are unsure that makes things challenging. I don’t know about you, but my mind craves certainty.

I have reached a point in my life where I can see two levels of doubt concerning God. The first is the one most people grapple with, that is, is there a God? And if so, does He interact with this world?

To resolve this issue of doubt, the only thing I can say is that it takes a “leap of faith.” I know that sounds like a copout. Somehow, you must step outside of yourself for a moment, step outside of your doubt, skepticism, intellectualism, emotions, and simply believe. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. It is something that you cannot do by yourself. No matter how much you try to force yourself, you will not be able just to believe. It takes God to help you. He has to call you. He calls everyone. The trick though, is knowing when He is calling you. Most of the time, I believe, most people do not hear Him because His call is lost among all the noise of the world. And if you do happen to hear His call, you still might not be ready if the “soil” of your heart is not ready. (If you are still waiting for this moment to happen, it will. Just ask Him. It will not happen over night. It may take years, as in my case, but it will happen if you are listening with an open heart.)

All of this reminds me of a scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. During the climax of the movie, Indiana Jones is following his father’s notebook through the cave to the Holy Grail. He comes to a giant chasm with no way across. He looks in the notebook and it says that one must take a “leap of faith.” Indy looks again at the chasm and chagrins. It is too far across to jump, too far to use his whip, too far to use anything that he may possess. Only a “leap of faith” will get him across. He stands helpless at the edge of the chasm. He looks back down through the cave he just came. He knows that he cannot go back. He stands up at the edge of the chasm, hesitates just a second to take a deep breath to steel his nerves, then takes a step forward into nothingness. By a simple act of faith, the will to believe, he steps outside of all of his doubts and skepticism. He steps out onto a hidden bridge across the chasm of doubt. That is what it means to take a “leap of faith.”

It is hard to take the “leap of faith.” The mind wants certainty. The mind wants to know. The mind wants to evaluate the pros and cons, to estimate the risks and benefits, and to make a connections between the facts. But none of these exist for the mind to get a hold of. To take a “leap of faith,” the rational mind must give up what it is most comfortable doing. The mind has to take a step into nothingness in order to believe.

Now, once the theological doubt about God has been settled and you believe in God (called faith), there enters a second level of doubt. No, not about God, but about yourself. This type of doubt is much harder to describe. It too is also about stepping out into nothingness. Thomas Merton had this to say about this type of doubt in New Seeds for Contemplation:

In a certain sense we may say that there are still “doubts,” if by that we mean not that we hesitate to accept the truth of revealed doctrine, but that we feel the weakness and instability of our spirit in the presence of the awful mystery of God. This is not so much an objective doubt as a subjective sense of our own helplessness which is perfectly compatible with true faith. Indeed, as we grow in faith we also tend to grow in this sense of helplessness, so that a man who believes much may, at the same time, in this proper sense, seem to “doubt” more than ever before. This is no indication of theological doubt at all, but merely the perfectly normal awareness of the natural insecurity and of the anguish that comes with it.

The very obscurity of faith is an argument of its perfection. It is darkness to our minds because it so far transcends their weakness. The more perfect faith is, the darker it becomes. The closer we get to God, the less is our faith diluted with the half-light of created images and concepts. Our certainty increases with this obscurity, yet not without anguish and even material doubt, because we do not find it easy to subsist in a void in which our natural powers have nothing of their own to rely on. And it is in the deepest darkness that we most fully possess God on earth, because it is then that our minds are most truly liberated from the weak, created lights that are darkness in comparison to Him; it is then that we are filled with His infinite Light which seems pure darkness to our reason.

Both types of doubts, the theological doubt in the existence of God and the personal sense of helplessness, are hidden bridges to God. It takes God’s help and a “leap of faith” to cross over both chasms of doubt.

My 16 year-old daughter I were leaving the church parking lot this morning when we spotted one of her childhood friends light up a cigarette in the back of her mom’s car. My daughter turned to me and asked with a hint of moral superiority if I just saw that. I replied, “The vices of the parents are past on to their children.”

Then I wondered out loud what vices I have past on to my children?

In my previous entry, I mentioned something about knowing that my faith had nothing to do with my feelings. Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, wrote the following about faith:

First of all, faith is not an emotion, not a feeling. It is not a blind subconscious urge toward something vaguely supernatural. It is not simply an elemental need in man’s spirit. It is not a feeling that God exists. It is not a conviction that one is somehow saved or “justified” for no special reason except that one happens to feel that way. It is not something entirely interior and subjective, with no reference to any external motive. It is not just “soul force.” It is not something that bubbles up out of the recesses of your soul and fills you with an indefinable “sense” that everything is all right. It is not something so purely yours that its content is incommunicable. It is not some personal myth of your own that you cannot share with anymore else, and the objective validity of which does not matter either to you or God or anybody else.

But also it is not an opinion. It is not a conviction based on rational analysis. It is not the fruit of scientific evidence. You can only believe what you do not know. As soon as you know it, you no longer believe it, at least not in the same way as you know it.

So much for what faith is not. Now for what it is:

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