Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance

Download or read book Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance written by Belden Lane and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The wholeness of the life we seek is one that we are seldom able to envision in advance. It takes a shape that only the desert knows.” Desert Spirituality and Cultural Resistance: From Ancient Monks to Mountain Refugees is a passionate exploration of the theme of wilderness in the spiritual life. These three lectures by accomplished storyteller and theologian Belden Lane are inspirational in a way that lectures rarely are. Lane urges us to think courageously about the place of wilderness in Christian life. He contemplates the radical lives of the fourth-century Desert Fathers and Mothers, as well as the courageous example of sixteenth-century Anabaptists. He speaks of the ways in which wilderness can relate to the practice of a counter-cultural spirituality today, and he asks: Can desert and mountain gift us with a language to understand the experiences in our lives when we are taken to the edge, finding ourselves isolated and alone, both spiritually and culturally? “The wilderness is a place of suffering, out on the edge. It is a place of letting go, a place for dying, and yet also a place for coming alive. The desert is where things fall apart and where things may come together for us in an unanticipated way.”