The Holy Fathers of the Desert tell this story:
There were three friends, serious men, who became monks. One of them chose to make peace between men who were at odds, as it is written, 'Blessed are the peace-makers.' The second chose to visit the sick. The third chose to go away to be quiet in solitude. Now the first, toiling among contentions, was not able to settle all quarrels and, overcome with weariness, he went to him who tended the sick, and found him also failing in spirit and unable to carry out his purpose. So the two went away to see him who had withdrawn into the desert, and they told him their troubles. They asked him to tell them how he himself had fared. He was silent for a while, and then poured water into a vessel and said, ''Look at the water,'' and it was murky. After a little while he said again, ''See now, how clear the water has become.''As they looked into the water they saw their own faces, as in a mirror. Then he said to them, ''So it is with anyone who lives in a crowd; because of the turbulence, he does not see his sins: but when he has been quiet, above all in solitude, then he recognizes his own faults.''

I recently came across this story in Sister Benedicta Ward's The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks and I thought it was an interesting corrective to certain movements that are sprouting up in some of the conservative and evangelical Christian circles in which I was raised and with whom I am still very much connected though I have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. For this reason, I share this story and some of my reflections on it.

The sort of Christianity I grew up with had little concern for the well-being of the poor, the widows, the orphans, and others who are rejected and cast aside by our society, both within our borders and without. It was a religion concerned with personal (or, more appropriately, individual salvation) and leading others to heaven by the preaching of a gospel of forgiveness of sins. It was a practically concerned with defining morality so we could avoid premarital sex and criminal activity and with making others aware of what sin was so that they could be called to repentance. It could loosely be characterized as a Christianity that was concerned in this world with a narrow moral vision and with leading people to heaven in the world to come.

In reaction to this many around me, and I myself, are finding themselves drawn towards a Christianity that is concerned with matters of social justice, environmental issues, and a Christian impact on politics that is larger than an opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage. They desire to do things in this world to take care of the world God has created and their fellow man and are suspicious of their parents' Christianity which they characterize as overly spiritual and, in a sense, too heavenly-minded to be of any worldly good.

Now, while I agree with many of my generation of evangelicals in their reacting to the narrowly focused Christianity of our collective upbringing, I think that many have missed the real source of the problem, and this is where I think the Desert Fathers have something to say to us. When I talk with friends of mine who sympathize with the ideas of the Emergent Church or the New Monasticism, I fear that I hear too much of an emphasis on doing and not enough on prayer. Now, this may be an example of simple omission, that is these persons have simply forgotten to speak of the necessity of prayer, but I cannot help fearing that this oversight is really part of the reaction to the past generation of Evangelicalism.

As stated above, many in my generation think that it is an overemphasis on spirituality and the hope for heaven that has led our predecessors to lack concern for social and environmental concerns. I disagree and think that in reality it was a lack of a true spirituality that brought about the Christianity I was brought up in and if this problem is not addressed by the current generation it will merely be perpetuated under a different guise. It was not because our parents and their generation prayed too much, but because they did not pray enough and rightly that they were not concerned for the poor and the world God made because if they had truly prayed, they would have been united with God in such as way as to see His love and concern for all He has made and all mankind They would have come to understand their own vocations in light of this realization, that they were called as stewards of creation and that they were to see Christ in the face of the poor, to hear Him in the cry of the oppressed widows, to hold, touch and clothe Him in the naked orphan, and so on. Since this spirituality was lacking, they were deceived, by their own sinfulness and by political partisanship, to see creation as so many material resources for use in our industrial endeavors and have been fooled into believing that we are all supposed to take care of ourselves and our own (though we must be careful not to overstate things - our parents were not ignorant, greedy, and destructive individuals bent simply on personal gain).

Now, if what we are now reacting against is really a spiritually deficient Christianity (remember, it is a Christianity that has been infected by Western secularism), the cure will not come by addressing the symptoms only (i.e. lack of concern for creation and social issues). We must dig deep into the spiritual traditions that Christianity has to offer, whether it be in the form of set daily prayers, lectio divina, the prayer of the heart, or whatever. If we seek only to enter into the work of social justice, activism, subversive living, etc, we will find ourselves confused and disillusioned like the first two monastic friends in the story who gave their attention to serving the sick, the poor, and the contentious, because we will not see clearly the task that is before us and will not know how best to go about it.

The image of the troubled waters used by the third of the monastic friends is one I hear often used in relation to the martial art I train in where we speak at times of having a mind like water. The image invoked by these words is of a pond or lake at night. When the waters are stilled and at peace, they reflect clearly the image of the moon and the many stars and one can look into them and see their beauty. But, when something is splashing in the waters or the winds cause waves to rise and fall, the image becomes distorted. In the context of martial arts, such a mind is necessary so that you can properly reflect on the attack that is coming at you and not have a mind clouded by anger, but one filled with compassion and sorrow for the person who wants to harm you, so that you can properly disarm and reconcile the situation.

So also,when our hearts and minds are full of many concerns and are not centered on the one thing needful, we are unable neither to truly hear the painful cries of creation nor to discern the will of God for His world and man. Therefore, we must turn aside, as Christ often did, to a deserted place or, as Christ said, enter into our closet and pray in secret to our Father in heaven. Then, when the waters of our heart and mind are settled, we will be able to reflect the light of heaven in this world and will be able to love, serve and protect the world and persons around us as God would have us do.