Desert God

THE DESERT GOD

Today I want to look at a picture of God in Celtic thinking, namely, that of the Desert God.

The Celtic lands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and parts of England in Cornwall, Devon and Northumbria remained basically untouched by the Roman conquest. As a result, the Roman Imperial infrastructure of urban life did not influence the development of the Celtic Church.

In these Celtic lands, life was essentially rural, non-hierarchical and family based. The chief landowners lived in their ringed forts called a 'rath'. These were small self-contained tribal communities. This pattern of life came to be reflected in the development of the Celtic monastic community life.

While some of these monasteries consisted of a few simple huts and cells, others developed into small townships of about 1,000 inhabitants. They consisted of both married and celibate monks and were presided over by an Abbott. The espousal of community values reflected very much their tribal origins where the ties of family kinship were so

strong. This strong sense of community is conveyed by the use of the Welsh word 'Llan' which made the idea of individual ownership quite alien to the Celts.

However, the communal life of the monastery was complemented by the solitary life of the hermitage.

On the top of many of the tall Celtic crosses, you can still see the images of St. Anthony of Egypt and St. Paul of Thebes which reflect their contribution to Celtic spirituality. Both these saints lived the solitary monastic life as hermits in the desert of Egypt in the fifth century.

The Celts recognised their need for solitude and transferred the desert experience of Egypt to the isolated parts of their lands. This is still reflected in the number of places which still bear the name of "Dysant' in Scotland, 'Dysaeeth' or 'Dyser' in Wales or 'Diseart' in Ireland.

The Celtic monks sought out the most barren and remote places of their lands where they could be alone with God. For instance, they found their deserts on islands like Skillig Michael, a rocky promontory twelve miles off the south-west tip of the Kerry coast of Ireland which is still honeycombed with bee hive cells today. Others settled on the island of Bardsey off the Lley peninsula in North Wales, which is inaccessible in winter, and which is still known as the burial place of 20,000 saints.

In these isolated and remote places the Celtic hermits sought to be alone with God without the distraction of communal living. However, it is important to note that this was not an alternative to communal life. Rather it complemented their communal life. Both St. Columba and St. Columbanus are recorded as setting out and returning to solitary places after living a time of extensive and exhaustive missionary activity.

St. Cuthbert once remarked: 'you know I have the salvation of many, and seclusion for myself; the one for the progress of the Lord that is his church; the other for my own desire'.

In other words, there was a strong sense of balance in Celtic spirituality between the communal life of the monastery and the solitary life of the hermitage. Between activity on the one hand and passivity on the other.

This need for solitude in order to facilitate growth in the spiritual life is needed today more than ever. Life often appears as an eternal merry-go-round. There never appear to be enough hours in the day to do all the things that need to be done, let alone find time to be with God. We seem to charge around in ever decreasing circles getting nowhere.

The Celtic tradition reminds all of us of the need to find our own desert where we can be alone with God if we are to maintain some semblance of sanity. All of us need to have our own hermitage where we can escape in order to recharge our batteries.

Such a hermitage can be a physical place such as a church or a room or a place in the country. Alternatively we can all seek to cultivate a hermitage within our hearts into which we can withdraw from the world and be alone with God.

Unfortunately we are not very good at doing this, not because we are afraid of being alone with God, but because we are afraid of being alone with ourselves. We are afraid of our own company.

The psychiatrist Carl Jung tells the story of a clergyman who had been working for fourteen hours a day who came to him suffering from emotional exhaustion. Jung's advice was that he should work only eight hours a day and then go home and spend the evening alone in his study.

The clergyman agreed to follow this advice. He worked only eight hours and then went home to his study. There he played Chopin and read a novel by Hesse. The following day he also worked eight hours and then went home to his study. This time he played Mozart and read Thomas Mann.

On the third day he went back to Jung complaining that he was not feeling any better. "But you do not understand" Jung replied, "I didn't want you with Herman Hesse or Thomas Mann or even Chopin or Mozart. I want you to be alone with yourself".

"But" protested the clergyman, "I cannot think of any worse company". Jung replied, "Yet this is the self you inflict upon other people for 14 hours a day!".

Like that clergyman, you and I are often afraid of solitude in our lives because we cannot face our own company. Rather than face our real selves we prefer to escape by hiding behind our material possessions, our pretentious qualifications and our gregarious social life. These are often designed to impress other people. But, my friends, they do not impress God who sees through all the pretence of life to the inward heart of you and me.

St. Anthony of Egypt recognised this when he said: "He who sits in solitude and is quiet has escaped three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing: yet against one thing shall he continue to battle: that is, his own heart".

And it is that heart which we can only discover in solitude. And therefore solitude is an essential ingredient of the spiritual life. As Cardinal Basil Hume has wisely observed: "We shall never be safe in the market place unless we are at home in the desert".

Celtic spirituality, with its emphasis upon both community life of the monastery and the solitude of the hermitage is therefore as relevant today as it was for the Celts of long ago.

May we learn to cultivate a desert in our own hearts where we can be alone with God and ourselves in the midst of our busy life within the community.