Some words have more than one meaning. Take 'Consolation', for instance. In its most common use, it can mean the sweet ministrations of empathy given in a difficult moment. To a comtemplative, however, - that is, someone who works to develop their spiritual life through meditation and/or study - it means something quite different. It means achieving and maintaining life in the presence of God. Consolation = Connection and fellowship with God.
The Desert Fathers, early Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks, lived in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria starting around the 3rd century AD. They left the cities to seek a life of deep solitude, unceasing prayer, and spiritual combat. Sound like fun? Well, maybe not. But they discovered something many of us actively seek when we take Christ at His word that He wants to give us Peace.
"My peace I give to you. My peace I leave with you." (John 14:27) We say it all the time, don't we? We wish it for one another. We pray for it.
But Peace costs something.
I was reading an article in America magazine recently about a young woman who hung up a fulfilling career to have children and raise them at home and was trying to manage the transition, perform her daily tasks, and maintain a relationship to God. Not surprisingly, she found this difficult because her new life held none of the intellectual challenge of the old. Oh, it held challenges, all right, but rather than complex problem solving and quick, tangible results, it held day after day of repetitive tasks done mostly in isolation.
It was tough for awhile until she understood that her life resembled that of the desert fathers, who did not seek worldly success but chose instead a life of solitude, of repetitive and mundane tasks, and those tasks became essential to their paths to God.
Are they boring? Yes. Who likes changing diaper after diaper, or washing dishes meal after meal without visible end? But it's the daily tasks that offer the brainspace for prayer. It's in the mundane that stillness is available and peace can be found.
Want peace? This is where it can be found: in regular, intentional separation from the world; in inner quiet; in repetitive manual labor. You already know it's not found in the busyness of packed schedules or in our retreat into entertainment and devices or in homes overloaded with stuff and the shopping that gets them that way.
When folks recommend meditation and quiet times, this is the reason. They are looking for peace. And in this confusing and hectic world, even at the price, it is worth it.
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