The Way of the Desert
We Conspire is a series from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the growing Christian contemplative movement. Sign up for the monthly email series and receive a free invitation to practice each month.
What does it mean to seek freedom—not just outwardly, but within? In August’s “We Conspire” series, explore how the ancient path of the desert mystics invites us to disrupt the patterns of ego and empire through the courageous pursuit of inner liberation.
How does our environment affect the journey of inner freedom? For many early Christians, the answer was the desert. Throughout Christian history, mystics and spiritual seekers have led radical movements of departure, leaving behind the ways of the world in search of union with God. This is seen in the third-century movement of desert fathers and mothers who left cities—the ways of empire and the centers of power and commerce—in search of silence and solitude, and a new way of life. Their longing to depend completely on God gave rise to monasticism. This same spirit continued in the Middle Ages through eremitic movements—groups of people who lived in simplicity and solitude—and, as Thomas Merton explained in his article “Franciscan Eremiticism,” led to the birth of movements like Franciscanism. [1]
One of the threads through almost all these 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) interrupt patterns of the heart and mind formed in the ways of the world, like the tantalizing forces of greed and power. Desert contemplation helps people to see things as they are, unclouded by what Merton calls “unreality.” [2]
The desert tradition a unique window into how Jesus was first understood, before the church became an imperial, highly organized, competitive religion.
—Richard Rohr
In the CAC’s fall 2025 “ONEING” issue [forthcoming], author Rachel Wheeler offers insight into why the early desert fathers and mothers chose to leave society behind: “Why did they experience Empire as inhospitable? For one reason, the Roman Empire was a site of injustice and conflict: between men and women, lower and upper classes, political insiders and outsiders, ethnic majorities and minorities. For another, Christianity was seen by many as having been coopted by Empire when it became the official state religion. As such, its association with the powerful and wealthy was inconsistent with how many desert mothers and fathers believed they ought to live out their Christian calling.” [3]
Twentieth century authors like Thomas 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. Franciscan friar 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.” [4] As Merton wrote in “Thoughts in Solitude,” “The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created as supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them.” [5]
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.
—Laura Swan
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.” [6]
This issue of “We Conspire” shares the story of Paul Engler and his development of 12 Steps for Everyone, a program that uses the 12 Steps of Recovery as a desert-like tool for interrupting patterns of the ego, false self, and shadow. Rev. Seifu SeiFu Anil Singh-Molares invites readers to consider how contemplation and spiritual direction can work together to grow in our experience of inner freedom. Both articles inspire the cultivation of inner freedom through the difficult but liberating process of apatheia.
References:
[1] Thomas Merton, “Franciscan Eremitism,” The Cord 16, no. 12 (1966): 356-364.
[2] Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 3.
[3] Rachel Wheeler, “Desert Magic,” ONEING: A Living Tradition 13, no. 2 (2025): 9–10.
[4] Richard Rohr, “Desert Christianity and the Eastern Fathers of the Church,” The Mendicant 5, no. 2 (March 2015): 1. Also see https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-wise-storytellers-2023-02-26/.
[5] Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, 5.
[6] Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women (Paulist Press, 2001), 21–25. Quoted in https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-freedom-of-detachment-2023-04-25/
Reflect with Us
What might you need to release in order to hear more clearly—from God, yourself, or the environment around you? Share your reflection with us.
“We Conspire” is a series from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the growing Christian contemplative movement. Sign up for the monthly email series and receive a free invitation to practice each month.