The Beginning of Your Desert
The Scorpions of Distraction
I kneel at the tomb of Charles de Foucauld, deafened by the howling wind and blinded by the flying sand. Someone tugs at my sleeve. I turn my head. One of the local children. 'Come. I show you scorpion. You see scorpion? I have scorpion. Come. You have money?'
Charles de Foucauld, no doubt, would have chuckled at the scene. After all, he had allowed himself to be disturbed by God and men. His journeys had invariably taken him away from his destinations. For this reason he had always felt at the centre of the world. Even in the middle of the Sahara.
I often think of that boy at the tomb of Brother Charles. I think of that little incident especially when it is hard to find ideal conditions for prayer. Well, I had not found them in the desert either. You had to put up with the sun, the sand, the wind, the thirst, the flies, the fatigue. No, the desert is not a protected place for prayer.
But there does exist a determination of the desert, a tenacious commitment to solitude, an obstinacy of waiting, a resistance to delays, an eagerness for grace.
If there are no ideal conditions for prayer, you have to come to terms with the actual conditions, the concrete circumstances, wherever you are. The desert is not offered to you like a prayer mat. You have to find it yourself and hold on to it every moment of your life.
I was, in retrospect, fortunate at the tomb of Charles de Foucauld as there was only one boy to disturb me then. Now I must cope with a large number of people whose excuses are more valid than a scorpion. None the less, I must preserve my desert here.
The crowded bus, the long queue, the railway platform, the traffic jam, the neighbours' television sets, the heavy-footed people on the floor above you, the person who still keeps getting the wrong number on your phone. These are the real conditions of your desert. Do not allow yourself to be irritated. Do not try to escape. Do not postpone your prayer. Kneel down. Enter that disturbed solitude. Let your silence be spoilt by those sounds. It is the beginning of your desert. ~Alessandro Pronto, Meditations On The Sand, pages 98-99.
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