Swimming to Escape

Somewhere around 200-300 AD spiritual seekers started moving from the civilized areas into the desert regions as a way of responding to what God was doing in their lives.  As they appear on the pages of history, they collectively bear the name of Desert Fathers.  Anthony was one of the first to lead the way.  Thomas Merton, an author of our day, wrote in his book, "The Wisdom of the Desert Father,"  "In those days men had become keenly conscious of the strictly individual character of ‘salvation.’ Society — which meant pagan society, limited by the horizons and prospects of life ‘in this world’ — was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which each single individual man had to swim for his life."     

The image of society being a "shipwreck from which each...had to swim for his life"  is a powerful and thought provoking image.  We are likely to think that these ancient seekers of God went to the desert as a way of being able to focus on their spiritual lives without any distractions when they were actually went to escape what seemed the have the potential to destroy them. Theirs was indeed a different view of the culture in which they lived before their escape to the desert.    

Not too many of us can escape as did these Desert Fathers, and most likely, few of us have any desire to go somewhere and live in a primitive self sustaining way the rest of our days.  Even though going to the desert may not be in our future, the Desert Fathers remind us of the power culture can have over us.  Many of them went to the desert when Christianity became legitimized instead of persecuted.  Being a Christian became easier and in some ways more dangerous.  Not much has changed since those days.  We may not be swimming for our lives, but it would do us well to be aware of the powerful influences which can corrode even the strongest faith.