A PALACE THE DESERT

Abba Germanos asked Abba Moses, “My thoughts often take me, unbidden, to unsavory places. How am I to keep them in control?” Abba Moses answered him, “Our thoughts wander like dogs from place to place, sniffing at things good and bad. We cannot stop this. Like the dog, the mind goes where it is fed. If we feed our minds with things of the Spirit, there they will go. If we meditate on ourselves and our comforts and the delights of the world, there will our minds build a home.”-from The Sayings of the Fathers in Sketis

Holiness is a habit. It grows slowly in us, purposely planted and constantly cultivated.

When I was a child, I was taught how to brush my teeth. Steady strokes up and down clean teeth more thoroughly, but since strokes back and forth are easier, back and forth I stroked. Throughout my early years, I built a dental habit. When one of the adults who had charge of my life occasionally corrected my brushing (as they did), I would comply till they were gone, and then do as I pleased. They didn’t know, as I did, my way was better. But those repeated corrections nestled into my brain, and when I became a man, I put away childish things. I brush my teeth now, not because somebody tells me to, but because I need to take care of my teeth. I'm now a confirmed up and down stroker.

Holiness is a choice, built on an accumulation of habits: daily prayer, weekly worship, regular, frequent reception of the sacraments, the pondering of Scripture; these form some of its essential components. Acts of kindness, the discipline of desire and the struggle with sin are no less necessary. All of us do some of these things now and then. Some of us do all of them occasionally. But when we build these practices into daily habits our spiritual lives blossom. Holiness is taking root.

“An old abba of the desert was asked, ‘How can I find God?’ He answered, ‘Fasting and prayer are necessary, but learn this: many of us know the Scriptures by heart, our mouths smell bad through constant fasting, we recite all the Psalms of David in prayer, but lack that which God seeks: charity and humility. Without these things, all else achieves us nothing.”

Holiness, living our lives in the presence of God, isn’t an accidental achievement but a conscious pursuit. It requires firm dedication and constant practice.

Warren Buffett, whose name you may recognize, speaks about business success in terms which might have come from the desert fathers: “Learn the fundamentals and practice them with ruthless discipline.”

We accept the necessity of discipline in other aspects of life: the athlete trains his body, the pianist masters the keyboard, the cowboy knows the cow. St Paul says, “I discipline myself lest…I become a castaway.”

Abba Germanos asked Abba Moses how to control his wandering thoughts and Moses replied, “We can’t control them, but we can guide them.” We direct our minds where we want our souls to go.

Where does your mind wander? What draws your heart? That’s where your soul is building its home, not just for now, but for forever. Is it the home you want?