"To Know What Was In Your Heart" - God

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." (W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming)

I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said, "We are far too easily pleased." A compelling thought in its own right and yet I find myself thrust in a different direction today. On the opposite spectrum of all this is the idea that one is never satisfied. It is never enough or it is not good enough, these are the mantras of our day. The desert fathers seemed to know none of this. They found contentment in an ocean of contemplation, or so it seems. How ironic in light of the desert which we know or for that matter the desert of Israel's wilderness journey.

"He gave you manna to eat" (Deut. 8.3). Have we not all tasted of the monotony of manna? How we come to hate it and long for something more only to find out that 'more' is not exactly what you were wandering for. That's the problem with desert journeys, you encounter things you never dreamed of. Too often we think we own the desert and we are at its center. A center which we cannot hold together. Like grasping sand, you always end up with less than what you anticipated. I have come to the conclusion that no one owns the desert (with the exception of God of course). Ours is to learn to live there, no... that is a subtle sin. Ours is to learn that "man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Deut. 8.3). Ours is to learn to depend upon him in the desert, he must become our centre. WHB Sola Gracia