COP 27, meeting in Egypt, has again reminded us that we are in the midst of a profound ecological crisis. But as Douglas E. Christie’s book The Blue Sapphire of the Mind – Notes for a Contemplative Ecology shows, we can learn much from the desert spirituality of the 3rd and 4th centuries - which developed in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Syria - in facing the crisis. The Christians – the ammas and abbas - who sought refuge in the desert at this time hoped to become “healers” of the world, and to “re-inhabit paradise”, by nurturing and living out of simple awareness and compassion. Janet Galos and Judith Keller reflect on a thought-provoking and wide-ranging book, and how the wisdom of the desert tradition can be applied today.
In many ways, the time of the exodus to the desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE has similarities to our own. It was a time of crisis – economic, social and political. The Roman Empire was in decay and many people were on the move. Christie speculates that then, as now, people sought a resolution to the crisis through a spiritual transformation – a move away from the material world, towards a “holistic” way of living which honours both the self and all the wonders of the natural world.
This is the major theme that runs throughout the book: the importance of contemplative traditions in re-shaping our ways of thinking about, and living in, the natural world. But why is a contemplative ecology so important in these times? He answers this with a significant double insight: so that our spiritual practice will be much enriched, and our ecological understanding will be given added depth and meaning.
Beginning his reflection on the spiritual journey with what we might call “Awakening”, “the blue sapphire of the mind” refers to Exodus 21:10. When Moses led the Elders up Mt Sinai, “They saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness …” The blue sapphire of the mind then images “that condition of graced and encompassing awareness of being immersed in the All”.
For the Ammas and Abbas of the desert, ascent of the mountain became a symbol of the spiritual journey, which paradoxically involved not only ascent but also descent - into renunciation and loss. Importantly, Christie notes that those who sought refuge in the desert were not world-deniers. They hoped, through their own transformation, to become “healers” of the world. Ultimately the goal of their spiritual journey was to “reinhabit paradise” - by living out of simple awareness and compassion. Can such an elusive goal be available to us today?
The real work for the initiate in the Desert began with Penthos – compunction, or “the gift of tears”. The desert teachers knew that only through sorrow or regret could the soul be opened to sustained inner change. Christie brings this important element of desert spirituality into our own experience. He finds that we live in a world of “collective amnesia”, of denial and evasion. Our grief is repressed, along with the possibility of change and regeneration.
Having accepted the need for change through “the gift of tears”, most people on the spiritual journey, most of the time, would find themselves at the stage (classically) of Illumination. This is where for Christie, we can attend to Topos: Living deeply in Place; Prosoche: Practicing Attention; Logos: Sensing Divine Presence; Eros: Love, Intimacy and Desire. These chapters are important, as it is in everyday living that wisdom from the desert can offer plentiful opportunities for spiritual growth.
Asked by a brother about how to behave in the place where he lives, Abba Poemen replies, “Have the mentality of an exile in the place where you live, do not desire to be listened to and you will have peace”. For Christie, this has something to do with embracing humility/relinquishing ego, considering the needs of others, inner freedom, and most importantly, finding the place of stillness and peace where God can be found - hesychia. For us there is a deep lesson about the importance of living in harmony with all creation.
Next, he offers some useful advice from the desert tradition on practising the crucial Art of Attention (Prosoche): live in the present moment, pay attention to what matters most, practise spiritual exercises, detachment, meditation on Psalms, and pay attention to the beauty and harmony of the natural world through theoria physike or “natural contemplation”. The particular benefit of this latter, long-neglected practice, emphasises that everything can be seen as part of a whole, in contrast to the modern mindset of “reductive dualisms”.
Christie notes that in the early Christian centuries, there was a much broader understanding of Logos, the Word: the “generative utterance” that creates and sustains the universe. He proposes that this Word can also be known through the living world’s expressive power, and its literary, poetic and artistic expressions. BUT the capacity for the world to express its voice (due to habitat loss and species extinction), and our capacity to hear (due to a cacophony of noise), is being eroded. He asks: can the retrieval of the fullest Christian sense of the Word help us - to learn to listen, to fully inhabit the world which is, at its deepest level, “an expression, a voice, a song”?
In this quest, hesychia, or stillness and silence, is both an end and a means to this end: it is a practice where one arrives at a sense of God alive in everything. When Abbot Antony returned from his years of solitude, he was known as “a living embodiment of the Word”. It is by living in this Word, that one can “truly come to inhabit and cherish the living world”. Paradoxically, this way of knowing can only come by way of unknowing.
Eros is about exchange, intimacy and reciprocity. Here Christie finds the contemplative tradition has much to offer contemporary ecological dialogue, since they share a common vision: the call to “radical relationality”, understanding the human as part of a community of being. Contemplative prayer, like transitional zones in nature, takes us to the threshold of evolutionary growth and change. Following Gregory of Nyssa, Christie proposes that Eros is both grounded in and enabled by love: Growing in love, the soul recognises its kinship with God, and awakens to awareness of kinship with all. This is a transformation which affects the whole community. However, our deeper relationship with the “Other” calls for the healing of our distorted (grasping, acquisitive) practices of Eros.
Inevitably, the gospel of hope and renewal will confront the realities of disease, despair and death. What can be our response? For Christie, the Isenheim Altarpiece, commissioned in 1512 by the Hospital Monks of St Antony, illustrates a most profound expression of kenosis – self-emptying. It portrays Christ on the Cross with sores, and St Antony wrestling with his demons. Thus they are shown to be participating in the suffering of the local victims of plague and terrible skin disease. In our times, Christie admires Merton who, in a similar vein, opened himself to the darkness by consciously making his contemplative practice a “sustained gesture of solidarity” with the suffering world. It seems our way forward lies not in avoiding, but engaging with, the darkness.
Redemption is no longer simply a personal matter: we are but a part of a whole struggling reality. But how can renewal come? In response to this question, we are asked to remember three things: Transfiguration: through Christ the cosmos has been created anew. Everything is in fact paradise, as it is filled with the presence of God; Identity: we experience ourselves as separated or alienated from God and the world, so our challenge is to live more deeply into Christ; and lastly, to remember that all this bounteous gift comes to us through Grace.
In the final chapter, Telos: Practising Paradise, Christie reminds us that paradise is both a future and a present reality; yet to be fulfilled, but breaking through continuously in the present moment. For us, as for the heroes of the desert, “The blue sapphire of the mind is a pure, luminous space unencumbered by anxiety and fear, pulsing with love. A kind of paradise.”
This article is based on material presented to the World Community for Christian Meditation Australia National Retreat Day held online on 22 October 2022.
Janet Galos is a retired disability educator, with post-graduate degrees in Education and Theology (Christian Spirituality). She has been a meditator with the WCCM in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, since 2008. Her passion now lies in bringing together various elements of the Christian tradition which will shape a vibrant 21st century spirituality: one that is both in tune with modern cultural and scientific understandings and inspired and energised by the contemplative way.
Judith Keller has a background in spirituality and the Arts. She is an Eco-Contemplative allured to listening to what Earth is asking of us at this time of change and transformation. She facilitates a weekly online sacred space for Eco-Spiritual activists drawn to the practice of stillness and silence.