Recently I read a very interesting article which compared the insights from psychologist, James Hillman, with the insights from the Christian desert fathers and mothers. I know the latter group fairly well and, admittedly, know little about Hillman’s work. I have read only a bit of his stuff. I know him more secondarily though writers on spirituality, such as Thomas Moore. So I am going to take what the author of the article I read, Nathan Garcia, as a true assessment of Hillman’s work. The desert folks I know much better---I have read and occasionally taught their work.
The desert monks were indeed the first monks of the Christian tradition. Their beginnings are in the very late third century and take up the next two centuries---the fourth and fifth. Literally, they left their homes, families and real world to withdraw to the Egyptian and Syrian deserts in a quest to find God and to imitate the life of Jesus. They felt like they needed to get away in order to deal with themselves honestly and transparently. And of course, they discovered that in so dealing with themselves, they also were brought into the deal with God. It was a radical move and venture. Maybe that is why I always find them appealing and appalling!
A major focus for Garcia’s study is the soul. He is interested in how James Hillman wants to understand the human soul and then, compare this to the way the desert fathers and mothers did it. I am intrigued by this discussion because I think our culture has almost nothing to do with the soul. We don’t know what it is (even if we think we “have” a soul). And we surely don’t know how to live soulfully. Perhaps the subcultures in our American world, i.e. the African American and Hispanic know much more than those of us from the majority representing population.
The intriguing thing about Hillman is the fact that he was uninterested in religion. In fact, as Garcia puts it, Hillman thought religion was a problem and we should avoid it. This is rooted in his understanding of the soul. For Hillman the soul has to do with images, imagination, dreams and the like. These give us access to the collective unconscious, as Hillman believes. And this unconscious is the source of what we call soul. To quote Hillman via Garcia, “Soul is the realm of the bottomless unconscious and the archetypes…” (151) He uses the image of peaks and valleys. He tells us the soul represents the valleys---it is “where the soul dwells.” Clearly, Hillman does not think the soul is a “thing.” Neither do I.
While I would like to share more from Hillman, this piece is more about the desert people, because they help me figure out what discovering and developing my soul looks like. I am certain I am not going to the desert, but I can still do some of the “desert work,” which is really “soul work.” However, it is daunting, as I am reminded, when Garcia rightly notes, “The desert was a battlefield for the desert monks.” (159) It is in the desert where the confronted the demons---the powers, temptations, etc. of their lives. In the contemporary language of Thomas Merton and others, it was in the desert where they dealt with their false self in their quest to find their true self. I want to be on that quest, too.
It was in the desert, they learned about the soul---they were students of the soul. And through them, we also can learn about our soul. In this sense they are teachers of the soul. What do they teach us? The first thing they teach is we, too, will have to confront our demons. We have our own temptations and powers that lure us away from our soul life. In many ways I know I have sold out to my culture---commercial and superficial as it is. I suspect many of us are not quite living life the way we say we want to live it. We have bad habits---most of them are legal and “normal,” such as social media and all the other ways we may do things that tantalize, but ultimately, waste our lives. The desert monks teach us about self-control and courage. They help us see the importance of prayer---of actually doing prayer and being in prayer. I am always drawn to the importance of hospitality as a major theme. This makes much sense in a world where we still discount and dismiss other people---sometimes whole groups of other people. Humility is a key theme of the desert monks. This is an important lesson for all of us who in some ways are privileged.
They have much to say about love, patience and so many other key themes of soulful living. I am reminded of my friend, Illia Delio, who tells us that God is love and we are meant to be love and to do love. This is what obedience would look like in our world. This means learning to live non-judgmentally, while recognizing judgments will need to be made. All this takes time and it takes focused time.
I understand why the early men and women withdrew from society and went to the desert. They had to get out of the middle of it, so to speak, and go to the boundary---to the edge. Inevitably, our culture forms us into the people it needs to buy the things, spend the time and all that we do with our lives. If we want to be soulful, we will need to be formed in a different way. This does require a different kind of space and time.
We probably don’t have to go literally to the desert. But we will have to make a place and time to do it, says our teachers of the soul.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
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