Archive, Readings
Desert Fathers 18
This week’s episode is shaped in the form of a Q&A in a dialogue between Jamie Baxter and myself. Here are some of the questions we considered:
I’m having a hard time reconciling Moses’s admonition to “stay in your cell” with a deep sense of feeling called to more. Towards the end of his life, Antony was removed from his cell by his friends. How can we reliably follow Moses’s exhortation without hiding behind it as an excuse for inaction?
Often I feel like the apostles on the boat during the storm with Jesus asleep on the boat. It’s hard not to be affected by the circumstances (storms) that occur in the world. How does one stay present in the world but not too affected by it? How does one keep one’s peace?
You described the fear of God not as anxiety but as “an existential consciousness of reverence.” How would you explain this to someone who has only ever understood fear in terms of punishment or dread?
You can find it in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
Nuns of Abtei Mariendonk keeping the right balance.