Whew, what a relief, I think.
Saturday, April 28th, 2007Back to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers [Benedicta Ward, trans, Cistercian Publications, 1975]. Today’s reading comes from Abba Ammonas. Ammonas was a disciple of Abba Anthony and later became a Bishop.
What caught me about this reading was those hard days: the moments and seasons in life when it seems like everything comes only through struggle.
Some brethren found life difficult where they were living. Wanting to leave, they came to find Abba Ammonas. He was out on the river. Seeing them walking along the bank of the river, he asked the sailors to put him ashore. Then he called the brethren, saying to them, ‘I am Ammonas, to whose dwelling you are wanting to go.’ Having comforted their hearts, he sent them back whence the had come, for this difficulty did not arise from sickness of soul, but simply from natural annoyance. [Ammonas #5, p. 26]
I found this a strangely comforting saying. One of the things that has been real frustrating with my moments of spiritual growth and my wrestling with depression is the sense that the struggle is a sign that something has to be wrong with me. If the life of the Spirit is supposed to be full of peace and joy then the absence should be a symptom that I am not walking in the Spirit. I think that might be the struggle with those brethren in the story. Life is difficult, something has to be wrong with us, since it is all of us it must be the place, let us leave. I’ve exercised that logic before.
Yet, what Ammonas reminds them and me is that life sometimes is simply hard. We experience seasons of the spirit just like the world around us. Sometimes there is easy spring and dying fall. Sometimes our days are as warming as the height of summer and as isolating as the deepest snowstorm. I wonder if much of the time I chose frustration and failure when I was just living one of those naturally annoying days. They come, they will go. We wait them out and trust the presence of God’s Spirit until the Son shines again.
