Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace, and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” The old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

The “advantage” of constant illness, if one can use such a term when in the midst of physical and mental anguish of body and soul, is that one is impelled to face the demon of “accidie” (existential restlessness) every day of one’s life.  The Desert experience meets one such as myself squarely in the heart and mind and forces me to face my absolute need and dependence upon God for my daily sustenance, without the ego satisfaction of personal self-accomplishment or the ego’s sense of personal autonomy getting in the way.

Therefore, if I want to  take this Wisdom saying to heart today, I must stop seeing my life as a “doing” or “enduring” of this and that act or trial  “for” God and allow my heart to “become” a place of continual Abiding…a flame that continually shoots forth from the spark that God has chosen to ignite in my soul.  There can no longer be a time when God and I are separate, or that false sense of emptiness would return.  Rather, a true emptiness (of the ego’s sense of selfhood) is what makes ready the ground within for God to come and dwell …and remain.

God’s Blessings and Peace to All,

+a Disciple of Jesus (HHC)