By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

Did you ever notice how many of God’s greatest prophets spent the better part of their lives wandering around in the wilderness? Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist, were all formed in the harsh desolation of the desert, as well as more modern saints such as the Desert Fathers and St. Ignatius of Loyola. Hundreds of others were formed in these “desert” experiences even though they didn’t involve a landscape made of sand.
“I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart,” God said through the prophet Hosea (Hos 2:16). What makes remoteness so special?
Solitude.
Like it or not, it has always been an indispensable condition for quality contact with God. The reason for this goes far beyond the sand and the sun. In the spiritual life, the “desert” is not really a place — it’s a disposition.
St. Teresa of Avila explained it this way: “‘The Kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17:21). If a soul wishes to speak with its Father and enjoy His company, it does not have to go to heaven. … It needs no wings to go in search of Him but only to find a place where it can be alone and look upon Him present within itself.”
Finding a suitable place to be alone is the most obvious requirement for solitude, but it should go much deeper.
Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen explained in his book, “Divine Intimacy,” “God is within us but He is hidden. If we wish to find Him, we must go forth from all things, according to the affection and will.”
Our problem is that we don’t do this. Father Gabriel writes, “We live too much in the exterior. Too often there is in us a host of inclinations, ideas and strong passions which make us turn to creatures and induce us to give them our hearts, build our hopes on them, and find consolation in thinking about them. We live in this superficial world which absorbs us so completely that it makes us forget the more profound life … where a soul may live in intimate union with its God.”
At least for that time given to God in prayer, we must turn our back on our superficial existence and enter into the desert of eternity — where there is only the soul and its Creator.
“Every activity, no matter how important or urgent … must be suspended at the prescribed time so that all the strength of the soul may be concentrated in the supreme activity of prayer. … If we wish to find God in prayer, we must begin by making this very firm decision of the will to put aside everything — all cares, all preoccupation with human things, and concentrate all the powers on God alone.”
In other words, we must detach ourselves from everything and everyone in our life when we enter prayer. Now we’re getting closer to the real meaning of the “desert,” the “wilderness” into which we must retreat when the time comes for prayer. We must leave behind the trappings of the world, the comforts, the creatures, the sensual gratifications.
The reason why we refer to this disposition as a “desert” is because the wholly spiritual realm feels almost like a wasteland to the unfamiliar. That isn’t the only reason why such a thorough solitude can be so disconcerting to us. The Desert Fathers long ago documented a unique phenomenon that occurs when a person flees the world and is left so entirely alone. Not only do they encounter God with unusual clarity, they also encounter themselves. Without the noise and distraction that normally prevent us from seeing too deeply into ourselves, we suddenly find ourselves standing alone and unadorned, stripped of our defenses and with all our faults exposed.
For most of us, this is the real “rub” when it comes to acquiring a habit of solitude.
Confronting a merciful and loving God is easy compared to having to confront ourselves. We’re afraid of what we might see. Perhaps painful memories will surface, bad habits will have to be confronted, old sins may come back to haunt us. Yes, solitude can be very disconcerting, but it’s also essential if we really want to experience God — and His mercy — in prayer.
Once we let go of our fears and surrender to God in solitude, we will begin to understand the true “desert experience.”
In the book “I Want to See God,” P. Marie-Eugene, O.C.D., explains what happened to those prophets of old when God drew them into the desert. They experienced a “veritable seizure by God,” who separated them from their surroundings, their family, and led them into the desert.
“… Thereafter, he lives on the margin of society. … He has no fixed abode; he goes where the Spirit moves him … for the most part living in solitude. And what does he do? He waits on orders from God, is attentive to His voice; and for that stays constantly in His presence. … This response that springs from faith and complete surrender to God, produces an attitude eminently contemplative. In solitude, marvelous exchanges are established between God and the soul of the prophet . … He surrenders himself more and more. …”
The prophet is constantly surrendered to the movement of the Holy Spirit within and without him. Surrender is his whole occupation. “His utter abandonment will … bring him into the most secret intimacies with God … urge him on to the most daring exterior enterprises; but it will always bring him back … to God who dwells in the desert.”
The utter abandonment of the prophets is something we can strive for, even if we don’t live near the Mojave. We can create the same desert experience by learning how to surrender ourselves to God in prayer. By withdrawing ourselves from all external occupations, we take the Lord’s advice: “When thou shalt pray, enter into the chamber and having shut the door, pray to the Father in secret.”
Too often, we give the time to prayer, but not our hearts. Our hearts are still filled with ourselves, our own plans and worldly concerns. We may have shut the physical door, but our interior door is still wide open to everything but God. It is just as impossible to pray this way as it is to pray while standing in the middle of rush hour traffic. For this reason, Father Gabriel suggests that every time we come to prayer, we make a conscious decision to put all else aside and concentrate on God alone.
This state of inner solitude is a “desert” any of us can find, no matter where we live. We can encounter God in those marvelous secret exchanges that can only take place in the quiet depths of the human heart.

Contact Susan Brinkmann by e-mail: fiat723@aol.com