The Desert, Water, and Prayer

In my studies as a novice for the Benedictine Oblates I receive monthly lessons to read with questions to reflect on. There was one in the first 4-5 months that gave a little history of hermits and monks in the Christian tradition. It was interesting to read, but one particular part stuck out.

I learned in my reading that the first Christian hermits went out into the desert to battle evil spirits and to encounter the devil. In early Christian times the desert was thought of as the place where the devil lived. These hermits were not trying to escape the evils of the world (as if often thought, even today, of people who join a cloistered monastery or convent), but to pray for the world to be rid of evil spirits. They were doing the battles against evil so that others didn't have to.

It was a noble thing which took much perseverance and, let's face it, a lot of guts!

Eventually, hermits gathered followers and they were no longer as alone as they would have wanted. Thus monasteries started forming and we had the beginnings of Christian monks living in community.

[I am qualifying "monks" because the idea of monks is even more ancient than Christianity. I do not know the history of Buddhist monks or any other religious monks, I'm only speaking of monks in Christian terms.]

Yesterday I was thinking about this a lot. I decided for Lent this year to participate in the Lenten Photo Challenge hosted by Catholic Sistas. I am not a photographer and I am not super creative in the visual arts. So this has truly been a challenge for me. Tuesday's word was "desert." I was at a total loss, but I kept thinking about the early hermits and why they sought out the desert as the place to live their lives for God.

After dinner, a thought struck me as I was trying to guzzle down more water. Water!! Yes, the exact opposite of the desert is water.

As it turns out, I am currently in Denver, CO for a week-long conference. I learned, just before coming here, that due to the altitude, it is very important to drink lots of water. Altitude sickness is a real thing. So I bought some six packs of water at a local convenience store and will likely be getting more in another day or two.

I reflected on this tonight and thought about the need the body has for water, not just here in the Mile High City, but also in places like the desert. It occurred to me that water is necessary for the physical body in the desert, so the hermits of the early Church needed water just as much as they needed God. They needed to not only strengthen their spirit through prayer and a relationship with God, but they also needed water for their physical strength.

So, yes, I took a picture of water for today's desert theme, but it still works. For me, I see water as a symbol of life and you cannot survive in the desert without it. In the same way, we cannot survive spiritually without prayer, which leads us to a more intimate relationship with God.

Without water we would die physically, without prayer we would die spiritually. So drink up and don't forget to hydrate as well.

7 Quick Takes Friday, Vol. 56: Double Posting Today, Lenten Mission, Kiddisms, Praying, and More

~1~

Rarely do I write a 7 Quick Takes post on a Friday when I also have a post going up over at Catholic Sistas. But apparently I decided that this week was going to be crazy week. So read this post, but please go check out today's post at Catholic Sistas as well: Uniting Our Lenten Sacrifices with Christ Crucified.

~2~

Earlier this week was our parish's Lenten Mission. I used to always go to these, all three nights even. But since having kids they have gotten harder to attend. Sometimes I've gone alone, sometimes Hubby goes, sometimes we go together and put the kids in the nursery, or sometimes we skip it altogether. This year we went on Sunday night and put the older boys in the nursery and kept the baby with us. The boys don't care for the nursery. We almost never use it on Sundays, so it is just special talks like this when we use it. Usually they scream and cry and the volunteers have to pry them off of us, but they always end up having a good time.

This time, we tried to bring them over to the train table to help get them interested in something. They were interested, but not enough to forget about us. They were keeping a close eye on us and not getting too close to the train table. Then I pointed out the two play kitchens. That did it! Off they went with no thought at all of us. I grabbed Hubby's arm and said, "Let's go!" and we were out of there.

No screaming, no hanging off of us. And all for a play kitchen. Not the trains. Go figure!

~3~

The first night of the Lenten Mission was very good! One of my favorite priests, Fr. Frank, was the speaker on the first night. I spent a lot of time walking around with the baby, but I was still mostly listening. I did step out during the first half to change a diaper and kind of missed the point of what was being discussed (I checked with Hubby later and it was a run-down of evangelization in the early Church) but the second half of the talk was excellent!!

Here is basically what I got out of it. Sometimes, trying to follow Jesus is very difficult. It can sometimes feel so hard that we might give up or declare that we are not "good enough" to be able to follow Him in all things. Fr. Frank pointed out that St. Paul tells the people in one of his letters (I forget which one) to follow him. That's right, follow St. Paul. By this he means that while he is following Christ, we can be following Paul, and others may then follow us and so on and so on. What it basically comes down to is that all the saints are available for us to follow behind in our quest to follow Christ. We're not alone in this journey. He used an analogy of being on a hike and hiking on a trail in a single file line. You are in the middle of the line and you can't see where the group is going. You can only see the person (or the backpack) right in front of you. So you have to follow that person. And the person behind you is following you.

I know I fail at following and imitating Christ all the time. Fr. Frank said to find a saint or two and follow them. And if we are following someone who is helping us to be more like Christ than others may then follow us.

~4~

And for a complete change of subject:
Some time ago Hubby taught the boys how to dip their toast into the yoke of a fried egg. They love doing it. And now, every night when we put the boys to bed, as we start heading out of the room, we hear Peter say, "Fried egg? Fried egg?" Every. Single. Night.

Hubby has told me he also asks for a fried egg when he wakes them up in the morning too. This boy loves his fried eggs!!

~5~

Teaching kids to pray is so amusing. Up until now we haven't specifically taught them much in terms of prayer,we mostly demonstrate it for them (which is incredibly important, of course) and we have worked with them on doing the sign of the cross. They are slowly picking things up. Ethan often "prays" with us when we do bedtimes prayers. It sounds like a cross between a drone and a chant. Maybe he'll be a monk one day. Since they have been soaking up the alphabet and counting in both English and Spanish, I decided that maybe now was the time to start teaching them a prayer. My choice was the Hail Mary. For one, they love pointing out "Mama Mary" in pictures or stopping by her statue at our church to say "hi," and secondly, it's a fairly short prayer.

So we got started one morning and I said a few words at a time and had them repeat after me. What I have learned during this process is:

1. Even a short prayer can feel long when you are doing it a few words at a time.
2. It's very easy to forget the words yourself when you chop it up into little bits. No matter how well you know the prayer yourself.
3. When you only do the first half and decide to wait on teaching the second half until another time, you end up inadvertently teaching them that there is applause between the first and second half of the prayer.
4. Two year olds skip words like: of, the, is, a, you, your. So when I say "is the fruit" all that is repeated back to me is "fruit." Or "of your womb" becomes simply "womb."
5. Once they start getting it, one child will think that when you say the first set of words his job is to then say the next set of words.

It's a start and I find it incredibly humorous to do this with the boys. We laugh a lot while learning the Hail Mary. I think Mama Mary probably laughs with us.

~6~

Went to the dentist on Tuesday for my regular 6 month cleaning. After having the dentist check everything out, how pleasant to then hear him say, "Well, it's not any worse." Um ... thanks?

On the plus side, he did say we can wait another 12 months before they do X-rays again. They use the child thingys on me and they still make me gag. I really do have a tiny mouth. And can't they come up with a better way of doing X-rays?

~7~

I'm going to wrap up this post by sharing my pains from last weekend. I woke up in horrific pain on Saturday morning. I've had a "crick" in the neck before, some worse than others, but Saturday morning's was the worst I've ever had. I can still feel some of the effects of it today (Thursday). By Saturday night I was dreading going to sleep because I knew I would wake up in more pain. It dulled a little over the course of the day Saturday, but not nearly enough. Sure enough, I woke up Sunday in a great deal of pain as well. It's been almost a week and I can still feel a little pain when I turn my head to the right, though it is definitely not nearly as bad as it was. I do not remember ever having a neck/back/shoulder issue like that ever in my life. Ever. I hope that was a once in a lifetime thing!

Pleasant note to end on, right? Ha!! I should have used that pain for good, but the idea of "offering it up" never occurs to me until afterwards, never in the moment.

That's it for today's Quick Takes. Don't forget to check out my post at Catholic Sistas today. And, of course, thanks to Jen for hosting 7 Quick Takes!! Go check her out as well.