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"The problem is that there are no deserts, only dude ranches"
Thomas Merton
This summer,I re-read Belden Lane's The Solace of Fierce Landscapes. Belden tells the story of desert monasticism, monks who went to the desert to deepen their faith. What they fled, he writes, was not the external world, but the "world they carried inside themselves: an ego centeredness needing constant approval, driven by compulsive behavior, frantic in its effort to attend to a self-image that always required mending."
Our Reformed tradition does not have a monastic component; instead we are challenged to remain in the world but not be 'of the world.' Are we succeeding? John Calvin, our patriarch, warned against the dangers of self-centered personal salvation, the religion de jour. Rather than seeking to assuage our own 'neediness', our quest is to seek 'glory of God.' To find God, we must first ignore our false self (the self from which the monks went to the desert to flee). It isn't about us; it is about yearning and seeking God "in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes."
Join us in worship as we seek the face of God. (this week, I return from my trip to Turkey, "In the Footsteps of Paul." I look forward to seeing you!).
In faith, 
Pastor Tim |
