Inner Liberation
Writer Stephen Copeland recounts how the stories of the desert fathers and mothers have inspired modern Christians to take contemplative practice more seriously:
The ancient path of the desert mystics invites us to disrupt the patterns of ego and empire through the courageous pursuit of inner liberation. Throughout Christian history, mystics and spiritual seekers have led radical movements of departure, leaving behind the ways of the world for the desert in search of union with God….
One thread woven through such movements is the search for inner liberation and the cultivation of this freedom through contemplative spiritual practices. The search itself (and the practices that help to heighten one’s awareness of their oneness with God) interrupts patterns of the heart and mind formed in the ways of the world, like the tantalizing forces of greed and power. Desert contemplation helps us to see things as they are, unclouded by what Thomas Merton called “unreality.” [1]
Twentieth-century authors like Merton and Henri Nouwen helped to reclaim the importance of this desert form of Christianity, forging a path for laypeople to experience the transforming way of contemplation, which had long been reserved for monastics and religious. Richard Rohr writes about why this ancient tradition still matters: “It is a unique window into how Jesus was first understood, before the church became an imperial, highly organized, competitive religion.” [2]
Practicing “letting go” in contemplation allowed the desert mystics—and allows us—to access our spiritual selves:
A core principle of the desert—and something worth considering while cultivating our own inner freedom—was the notion of apatheia. Author Laura Swan explains: “Apatheia is purity of heart. The ammas [desert mothers] teach us to intentionally let go of all that keeps us from the single-minded pursuit of God: feelings and thoughts that bind us, cravings and addictions that diminish our sense of worth, and attachments to self-imposed perfectionism. Apatheia is nourished by simplicity grounded in abundance of the soul.” [3]
Such letting go can feel like emptiness. It can feel disorienting, crazy, nonlinear—terrifying even—as if we are like the desert fathers and mothers, leaving behind the comforts of the city for the vast emptiness of the desert. This powerful metaphor invites the disruption of our own unhealthy patterns, as we interrupt the ways that we are being controlled (sometimes unconsciously) by the ways of the world and our false selves to make room for something deeper to be born within us: For aspects of the true self to be discovered. For our awareness of the divine within us to grow. For love to expand. For the same spiritual truths that arose in the desert centuries before to dwell and deepen within our souls.
References:
[1] Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 3.
[2] Richard Rohr, “Desert Christianity and the Eastern Fathers of the Church,” The Mendicant 5, no. 2 (March 2015): 6.
[3] Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women (Paulist Press, 2001), 25.
Stephen Copeland, “The Way of the Desert,” the Mendicant 15, no. 4 (2025), 4.
Image credit and inspiration: Dan Grinwis, untitled (detail), 2017, photo, Namibia, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. By stepping freely into the desert, the seeker claims their own capacity to think and become whole in a vast place of transformation beyond the structures of any system.
Story from Our Community:
I’m so appreciative of the reflections from us “ordinary” folk. Claire M. wrote, “Life doesn’t change so much as the experience of it intensifies—joy, beauty, and brilliance, along with sadness, anxiety, compassion.” At 72, I have just completed a long journey with a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. I found my attention to “ordinary” life intensified: a beautiful sunrise, my cat at rest in a beam of sunlight, dining in the evening with candlelight and music, talking with my beloved husband. Ordinary time is, indeed, sacred. I am deeply grateful.
—Lea M.