Why Not All In?
Fire In The Desert
Buckle up! I ran into an image the other day that blew my mind. It may blow yours too. You may find yourself resisting the image at first, a bit too mystical perhaps, a little overblown, but stay with me. The question posed in the image is this: No matter where you are on your spiritual journey, is it possible to go so much deeper?
We turn to Abbot Joseph, one of the Desert Fathers, way back in the third century, to get his take on this question:
Abbot Lot went to see Abbot Joseph and said: ‘Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of bad thoughts: now what more should I do?’ The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like lamps of fire. He said: ‘Why not become all flame?’”
Wow! Why not go all the way? You’re working hard to keep your spiritual practices in order, and that’s good. You’re trying to maintain good thoughts and decent behavior, and that’s good too. You’re trying to pay attention to the needs of others, and that’s most certainly part of what faith is all about. But maybe all of this is just getting you ready for the next step.
How about lighting a fire? Why don’t you just become all flame? Why not be all in?
The Desert Fathers can sound a little extreme at times. We’re talking the third century, out in the deserts of Egypt, to which they have separated themselves from a disintegrating and sometimes persecuting Rome. Their spiritual practices of prayer and contemplation, solitude and silence, could be pretty exacting. Some of these monks were devoted hermits. The towering figure among them, St. Anthony, much admired by Henri Nouwen, by the way, spent twenty years in solitude, becoming all flame, we suppose, before he became a renowned pastor with so much wisdom to share.
Shouldn’t we just keep our poise, stay cool, fit in, don’t get too worked up about this faith thing? Maybe just let the currents of our culture wash over us, just relax, even as they challenge the presuppositions of our faith daily. Most of your neighbors are likely secular, so what’s the need to bring up faith at all? Why stir the pot? Besides, you’ve got your doubts. Doubting is what respectable people do these days.
But Father Joseph will have none of this. He pushes us to go deeper. I am reminded of a similar call from that mysterious book of Revelation: “I know what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were either cold or hot! Because you are neither one nor the other, but just lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Staying cool, poised, not getting too worked up about faith, allowing doubts to take the front seat? Not much room in this passage, or from Father Joseph, for going half way. You’ve got to be all in or nothing at all.
So I’ve been thinking what it might mean to become all flame? To begin with, as the twentieth century priest-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said, “someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, [we] will have discovered fire.” Love kindles fire, that’s what the Desert Fathers believed too.
But love requires humility, surrender, self-sacrifice. That’s the hard part for us in our day. We need nothing less than transformation from who we naturally imagine ourselves to be. The key for our desert dwellers is that transformation happens in prayer, the practice of prayer, regularly, daily, taking time for solitude and silence even in busy lives and a crazy world. This is where God will enter into our little spaces. This is where we will be swept up by overpowering grace, sweeping away all our doubt and self-focus and purported self-sufficiency. This is where God stoops down—and we are set on fire!
I have seen this happen. I’ve noticed it in moments of silent surrender, as God kindles a fire of love and gratitude and self-abandonment. I have seen it too in those radiant people who know how to reach out to others, in small ways that bring love to others in need, lighting little flames all over the place.
Why not become all flame? Yes, I’ve been asking myself, why not go all in?