Renowned for wisdom

How an ordinary person awakens to life as prayer.  Continued from yesterday . . .

Several hours southwest of Alexandria, on the eastern edge of the Libyan Desert, a narrow road descends into a basin made fertile by millennia of hard labor. The Wadi Natroun, known from the sayings of the desert fathers and mothers as Scete, is home to a handful of primitive monasteries. My destination was the Monastery of St. Macarius, inhabited in one form or another for some sixteen hundred years. “Find them,” I’d heard the Light say so many months earlier.

Aside from St. Anthony the Great, there is no soul more renowned for wisdom than St. Macarius the Great, the one who first inhabited this part of the desert. Over the centuries, it was to Macarius and those who cultivated a holy life in this desert that archbishops and emperors, senators and scientists, the wealthy and the poor all made pilgrimage, seeking a word to sustain them, convert them, heal them, transform them. Some found what they were looking for, others did not.

If I were to find wisdom, I wagered that there wasn’t a place on earth more capable of helping me than this one.

More tomorrow . . .

The land was killing me

How an ordinary person awakens to life as prayer.  Continued from yesterday . . .

Mahmoud negotiated his Toyota minivan through Alexandria’s crowded streets and chaotic traffic, defying the laws and gravity and physics, deftly carrying Mohammed and me past one near collision after another. Safely outside the city, the desert stretched out endless before me. But I’d come out of the frying pan, only to enter the fire.

An Egyptian Christian had hired Mahmoud and Mohammed to drive me into the desert and to the site of the most ancient of Christian monasteries. I had nothing to fear from them; they were earnest and devout Muslims and if I were an infidel to them, you’d never have known it. Nevertheless, the thought crossed my mind more than once that, as an American whose government seemed to be on a crusade against Islam, I was a sitting duck in this land. I had brief visions of ending up on the evening news—blindfolded and made to spout anti-American slogans. Hours passed. I alternated between panic and prayer. The desert shimmered, heat rising from its ancient sands. I knew where I was paying them to take me, but I had no idea if the two were actually driving me there. My panic turned to raw fear. Egypt, as it had done for so many others desperate or crazy enough to follow God here, was already killing me.

More tomorrow . . .

Alexandria, Egypt

How an ordinary person awakens to life as prayer.  Continued from yesterday . . .

Two Muslim drivers picked me up early one spring morning at the Windsor Palace Hotel, crammed in among the once regal waterfront buildings along Alexandria’s bustling Corniche. On this northern coast of Egypt, Alexander the Great had mapped out one of the ancient world’s most important ports, linking Europe to Africa, and beyond, to the mysteries of Asia. Here, Cleopatra once entertained Marc Antony in her palace, and the great rabbi, Philo, once taught the Hebrew Scriptures. Here, too, Jesus may have played in the streets after fleeing the wrath of Herod with his parents, Joseph and Mary. Clement, Origen, and Athanasius taught the faith and formed vibrant and courageous disciples in the early years of Christianity.

Egypt. Land of the Pharaohs. Egypt. Land of slavery, death, and the desperate pursuit of life. Egypt. Land of exodus. I wondered what this land might hold for me.

More tomorrow . . .

Setting out to become wise

How an ordinary person awakens to life as prayer.  Continued from yesterday . . .

As I looked out beyond the tiny part of the world I was feverishly trying to manage, I saw a world entering a season that was shaping up to be, by all accounts, a period of extreme testing. Around me I saw no shortage of leaders willing and eager to champion great visions and projects and plans—skilled politicians, scientists, activists, and managers, even religious leaders, with plans to guard us from suffering and build for us a future. But there were few I would call wise, few who could be called “great souls.” And those who were, were strange to the eye, formed more by an ancient and durable tradition than by the vicissitudes of a world in transition. They were not enamored with the popular and intoxicated by the latest trend. They were not dazzling experts, effective and efficient by modern standards. In fact, they seemed unmoved by such things. It’s not that they were ignorant of the world around them. On the contrary, they seemed to be the best observers of the world, deeply immersed in ordinary life. They were simply anchored firmly in an alternative reality. And when they spoke, theirs was a voice of wisdom that came from the edge—that is, they spoke for God and lived a life of hope from the margins of society.

“Find them,” the Light whispered. “Learn from them.”

So, granted a sabbatical by my congregation, and given the freedom by my generous family who knew how badly I needed it, I turned my back on what had become of me and set out to become wise.

From my ebook, Returning to the Center: Living Prayer in a Distracting World---The Spiritual Memoir of a Twenty-First Century Christian.  Download it here free.

More tomorrow . . .

Those who are truly great

As an introduction to how one ordinary person can awaken to life as prayer, here's the first in a short series of posts excerpted from my little book, Returning to the Center: Living Prayer in a Distracting World---The Spiritual Memoir of a Twenty-First Century Christian.  Download it free here.

I knew from history that those who were truly great did not set out to be great. We remember few who built great buildings or managed great projects or discovered great things. Those who stand tallest in our collective memories were great souls. I also knew the truth made clear at every funeral I’ve ever done: few are remembered for the things they thought mattered, the hours they spent at work, the ambitions that drove them, even the money and possessions they acquired. Those who are remembered well are those whose lives bring us hope and show us love—those who are generous of spirit, those who are wise.

More tomorrow . . .