Desert Spirituality:
Roland Faber, Mary Earle, and the Desert Mothers
The world’s best hope is that we learn to live with respect and care for one another and the larger community of life. The need is for us to cultivate communities, in rural and urban settings, that are creative, compassionate, participatory, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind.
Such communities are the building blocks of what open and relational (process) philosophers and theologians call an Ecological Civilization. This kind of civilization is not merely environmental. It is humane as well. People enjoy the bonds of local community; live with respect for other communities; and know that they are small but included in a larger Earth Community. That larger community includes hills and rivers, plants and animals, oceans and deserts.
What might spirituality look like in such a civilization? It will move beyond binaries of humanity and nature. People will find God in other people and in the desert, knowing that deserts have integrity in their own right and are also mentors for spiritual growth. May this page inspire you to make your own way into that desert which, fraught with danger and solitude, solitariness and stillness, offers an oasis of abundant life.
Such communities are the building blocks of what open and relational (process) philosophers and theologians call an Ecological Civilization. This kind of civilization is not merely environmental. It is humane as well. People enjoy the bonds of local community; live with respect for other communities; and know that they are small but included in a larger Earth Community. That larger community includes hills and rivers, plants and animals, oceans and deserts.
What might spirituality look like in such a civilization? It will move beyond binaries of humanity and nature. People will find God in other people and in the desert, knowing that deserts have integrity in their own right and are also mentors for spiritual growth. May this page inspire you to make your own way into that desert which, fraught with danger and solitude, solitariness and stillness, offers an oasis of abundant life.