As the year of grace unfolds, as we count down the days toward February 2, 2012, the day of the abbatial election, we find that thus far it has been a year not only of grace but of scrutiny as well. And rightfully so, as we will have to give an account of ourselves. The scrutiny has taken the form of admonition and exhortation as we, the community, experience the tension of who we are, as opposed to who we ought to be. The admonition challenges us to be more than we can be, to be faithful to our vocation as monks; and the exhortation, to build up community and to attract vocations. In the context of fraternal correction, we know: "If a good man strikes us or rebukes us, it is a kindness"; and, as the Book of Sirach reminds us, "when you come to serve the Lord, expect trials." The year of grace and scrutiny is also a year of trial for he who has not been tested cannot be saved.

We do not see the date February 2, 2012 as a D-Day, nor as a DEADLINE, which would make the meantime a stay of execution, but rather as a consecrated time. For us, time is a precious gift—and we are not anxious about the passage of time. Three of our brothers have celebrated birthdays this summer and, though all are in their 50s and 60s, we see their birthdays as gentle reminders from Jesus that we carry this treasure of life in earthen vessels. One might say that a birthday celebrates time, while our feast days consecrate time. Neither a birthday nor a feast day conceives of time as an enemy but as a graced time, as Jesus draws us ever closer to Himself.

The month of August has also seen the celebration of our Patronal feast: the Holy Transfiguration, on August 6. The Monks of Mt Tabor are like Peter, James, and John as we once again say, "How good it is to be here." We once again renew our ''being Here": a celebration of our stability, of our oneness with Jesus on the vertical level, and of the horizontal support we have for each other. Mt. Tabor is not an ivory tower, but a mountain of intercession for a world that needs healing. As sin has distorted the image of God within us, only repentance can restore the lost image. We can "find it back," as Archimandrite Boniface would say, by our daily faithfulness to prayer. To be here on Mt Tabor is to be in prayer.

Finally, as the liturgical year closes with the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God on August 15, which is the anniversary of vows for some of the brothers, we re-consecrate ourselves to Her as the Landlady of Mt. Tabor. The Mother of God is constantly reminding us "To do as He Tells you." That is, she directs us to the voice of her Son, and we can focus on that one voice by which we can be saved. Only through her intercession can we be freed from any alien voice that seeks to distract us. She can safeguard our vocations by keeping us ever attuned to her Son's voice.

So, as we begin a new liturgical year in September, let it be a year of grace of the Lord: yet another opportunity to grow in His Grace.

—Administrator Theodore

Last summer I wrote about Hell, which I thought was appropriate, considering the summer's heat. I don't know what your summers are like, but here in Northern California they are not only hot but very dry, so I thought I'd write about spiritual dryness this time around.

Almost everyone who is serious about the spiritual life will experience "dry" periods from time to time. I've sometimes wondered why we call it that. When we are experiencing manifest blessings, we never say we are spiritually moist, so why do we say we are spiritually dry when things take a turn for the worse?

I guess it has to do with a nature metaphor. Deserts are dry and mostly barren; lush gardens are well-watered and hence fruitful. Just about everything needs water to live, so if we are spiritually "dehydrated," we are fading fast. It's true that too much water can be quite unwelcome, as many people in this country have discovered earlier this year, but that's just too much of a good thing. Water itself is always necessary and good. Parched land is never good. The psalmist laments that he is like a "dry, weary land without water" (62/63), and he says so precisely in the context of his relationship with God. Again, he says, "Like a parched land, my soul thirsts for You" (142/143).

Why is it that we get spiritually dry? Is it just a matter of regular cycles of the inner life, like wet and dry seasons in various regions of the world? Perhaps it is, to some extent, but if that were the only reason it would seem to leave much unexplained, and then this article would have to end right about now.

From what I've heard and read and experienced, there seem to be several more reasons, not all of which are our own fault, though some are. So we can take some consolation in the fact that our dry times might actually be something that God is deliberately doing in our souls for his own good reasons. Let's start here, then, and try to learn something of his mysterious purposes.

It seems that there is one main reason for a God-initiated spiritual drought, aside from the "negative" reason of prodding us to clean up our acts. Drying out our souls is a way of his getting our attention, but for a specific purpose: to increase our longing for Him. There's a tendency among Christians, even among relatively serious ones, to get somewhat complacent in the spiritual life. This isn't something we ordinarily choose to do. It just sort of happens to us, imperceptibly, so it's not always our fault—unless we notice it and then choose to do nothing about it.

If we have adopted a certain rule or program for spiritual life—prayer, Sacraments, Scripture and meditation, etc—and it seems to "work" for us, we may think we can simply follow this rule without alteration or advance. God is pleased with us (we assume) and we are pleased with God, and so we more or less coast toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

Somehow, though, this comfortable program just doesn't bear the maximum fruit God intends. So if we are not exerting ourselves sufficiently to grow more, to enter more deeply and consciously into the mysteries of God, He is going to have to give us a little wake-up call. Sometimes this takes the form of a bout of spiritual dryness.

One of the dangers of complacency is that we can become satisfied with our relationship to God, with our level of spiritual attainment, and then mistakenly begin to think (even if rather inarticulately) that we have already come to know and experience God sufficiently in this life so as not to have to "strain forward" to grow and mature. Many years ago, I was taken aback when one of our novices declared that he was quite satisfied with his prayer life. "You're satisfied?" I thought to myself. I then made a mental note that this one might not persevere in his monastic vocation. He didn't.

So if we are satisfied with our prayer life, God may have to inject a bit of dissatisfaction into it—not to discourage us, but to disabuse us of our illusion that we can remain indefinitely on our current spiritual plateau. As Adrienne von Speyr was wont to say, God is the "ever-greater Reality," who is always way beyond anything we have hitherto come to learn or experience of Him. And because He loves us, He wants continually to show us more, lead us further, open us more fully and, yes, stretch us perhaps just a little more painfully so as to expand our capacity for knowing and loving Him. The seed has to fall to the earth and die, a man has to deny himself and take up his cross: these are images of the shattering of complacency, for which we are sometimes cast into the desert of spiritual aridity.

Now dryness itself isn't the answer to one's need to go deeper into God; it just makes us aware of the need. It is supposed to be a catalyst for growth, a means to make us thirsty for God again if we are more or less self-satisfied. As the saying goes, we never miss the water till the well runs dry. So when God permits this to happen, it is a call for us to seek the Beloved more ardently, to pray more fervently, search the Scriptures more diligently, and perhaps repent more sincerely and thoroughly. We have to do everything in our power to dispose ourselves to a renewed experience of the grace of God, and then wait, patiently but vigilantly, for his return, so that our dried-up souls once again can be like a watered garden. "On this, your own land, O God, thou sendest rain abundantly; all parched it lies, and thou dost bring it relief" (Ps. 67/68, Knox translation).

So then, let us not assume that if we are in dry spell God has abandoned us or even is working against us. Remember this prophecy of Jeremiah: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for woe, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" (29:11-13).

There are some ways, however, in which our dryness is our own darn fault, the result of our failure to do God's will. In such cases, God has to use the dryness not primarily as a means of inviting us deeper into his love and life, but rather as a therapeutic or disciplinary means to get us back on the right track again. Much of what is in the following three points on this subject I learned many years ago at a conference in Southern California, and I hope you will find something here to help.

The first reason for dryness that may be our fault is simply this: rebellion or disobedience. We have to examine our consciences on this, in our relationships both to God and to other people. Rebellion and disobedience—especially due to pride, which usually underlies these sins—go back to the primordial sin, the refusal of our first parents to obey God. This destroyed their relationship with Him, and they could no longer walk with Him in the lush gardens of Paradise in the cool of the day. Instead they merited the dry, unyielding ground that produced thorns and thistles, and their former joy that proceeded from a right relationship with God was turned into the misery of culpable alienation. Likewise, we can't expect grace to flow freely within us if we are in a state of spiritual rebellion. All we can expect then are the thorns and thistles our dry and barren souls will produce. If we are angry at God, if we refuse to accept the crosses He may send or permit, or if we are in any way placing ourselves in an "adversarial" relationship to God, we must humble ourselves, repent, and submit to God's superior wisdom, trusting that He knows what He is doing in our lives.

The next element is related to the first: unconfessed sin. It's one thing to be currently in a state of rebellion, and another to have something from the past (perhaps even the relatively recent past) hanging over us and hindering our communion with the Lord. We have to see if there is any unforgiveness, any grudges, uncorrected bad habits, attitudes or faults that are presenting serious obstacles to divine grace. In Psalm 31(32), we read this: "Happy the man whose offense is forgiven, whose sin is remitted… I kept it secret and my frame was wasted. I groaned all day long, for night and day your hand was heavy upon me. Indeed, my strength was dried up as by the summer's heat…" The psalmists sure knew a lot about spiritual dryness! So, if you are in a dry time, maybe all you need is a good confession. Think and pray about it; it can't hurt and it can actually help very much. The psalmist continues: "But now I have acknowledged my sins; my guilt I did not hide. I said: 'I will confess my offense to the Lord.' And you, Lord, have forgiven the guilt of my sin… Many sorrows has the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, loving mercy surrounds him. Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord…"

We come now to the third possibility for self-inflicted spiritual dryness, and this is something we might not think of right away: acting on the last word God spoke. We have to discover if there is any "unfinished business" between ourselves and God. If we don't keep his word, He will not tell us anything new until we obey his previous instructions. "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" (Lk. 6:46). Have we made any promises to God that we have failed to keep? Have we received some guidance in prayer or through the Scriptures or spiritual direction that we have ignored or refused to put into practice?

There are a couple of points related to this one as well: Is there any inordinate desire in our heart, something that—in effect—we desire more than God or the accomplishment of his will? Or is there anything we already have of which we are jealous or to which we are attached, and therefore that we're afraid may be taken from us? Such things will keep God from coming close to us, and we will end up in spiritual dryness and even darkness. We need to trust the Lord and surrender without reserve to his will. Then He will reveal Himself more fully, and it will be easier for us to see the truth: that nothing in this world is valuable enough to be preferred to God, and that He knows what makes for true happiness, so we should let Him arrange everything toward that end.

Psalm 29(30) is a good little summary of the experience of the spiritual life and its occasional periods of dryness and then restoration to joy in God's grace. Here I will present the text, with some commentary.

It begins after the time of trial is over, so on the whole it is a psalm of thanksgiving. "I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me and have not let my enemies rejoice over me." As we need to do often in the psalms, we will here consider our "enemies" to be spiritual ones: either the demons or our own inner disorder and sin (or both)—whatever the affliction might be that makes us gradually (or not so gradually) fall away from God.

"O Lord, I cried to you for help, and you, my God, have healed me. O Lord, you have raised my soul from the dead, restored me to life from those who sink into the grave." The memory of his affliction as a disease that needed healing and then as death that needed resurrection can perhaps be seen as two levels of this spiritual malaise. Dryness will always feel like a sort of spiritual sickness, but let us not ignore the symptoms so long that it brings us to the point of spiritual death! Even though all things are possible with God, healing is easier to perform than resurrection, not so much on his part but on ours. The damage is deeper and the recovery longer if we do not turn to Him at the first sign that something is amiss.

After a bit more unrestrained praise—"Sing psalms to the Lord, you who love him; give thanks to his holy name"—the psalmist begins to impart some wisdom on the subject of spiritual dryness: "His anger lasts a moment; his favor all through life. At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn" (I'm sure you immediately recognized where I got the title for my first book!). It is common for the psalmists to attribute any unpleasant or tragic event to the "anger" of God. God is the absolute Sovereign of the Universe, so everything that happens is in some way under his control. So if something bad happens to me, it must be that God is angry.

God's "anger," however, is only remotely analogous to human anger. He doesn't get all emotional or red in the face or say things He will later regret. The "wrath of God" is simply the inevitable result of our not acting according to the way we were made; things just go terribly wrong when something is used for a purpose other than that for which it was designed. God doesn't have to directly smite us for our sin (though He can if He sees that is the only thing that will get us to wake up and repent). Ordinarily, we experience within our own bodies and souls the penalty which wrongdoing, by its very nature, inflicts (see, for example, Rom. 1:18-32). God "gives us up" to the consequences of our choices if we do not seek his mercy and change our lives.

The psalmist would reason thus: since God is good by nature, I or someone or something else must have provoked his righteous wrath. The Old Testament authors don't tiptoe around such mysteries or try to sugar-coat them or even say they aren't so. They simply accept reality as it is (or at least as it appears to be) and try to do whatever it takes to be restored to God's favor.

They do, however, give God a lot of credit for being better to us than we deserve. Despite our sins and all the evil in the world, "His anger lasts a moment; his favor all through life." So if we are really trying to seek and to serve God, it is likely that our dry spells will be short-lived. "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), so we ordinarily should be able to enjoy the blessings of his loving kindness. A tearful night is supplanted by a joyful dawn, for "his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning" (Lam. 3:22-23).

Now we come to the crux of the matter, the dynamics of dryness: the complacency, the time of trial, the turning back to God, and the restoration, all in a few verses. "I said to myself in my good fortune: 'Nothing will ever disturb me.' Your favor had set me on a mountain fastness. Then you hid your face and I was put to confusion. To you, Lord, I cried, to my God I made appeal… The Lord listened and had pity. The Lord came to my help. For me you have changed my mourning into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and girded me with joy…" (emphasis added: that is the concise articulation of the experience of spiritual dryness).

So, when things are going well, we might think they will always go well: "In the day of prosperity, adversity is forgotten" (Sir. 11:25). But all God has to do is "hide his face," that is, withdraw his grace somewhat, and we are put to confusion, our peace departs and even our hope is shattered: "In the day of adversity, prosperity is not remembered" (ibid.). The only solution: cry out to the Lord in heartfelt prayer. I suppose you can do what the psalmist did, and try to persuade God that it really is in his best interests to help you: "What profit would my death be, my going to the grave? Can dust give you praise or proclaim your truth?" Hey, it worked for him, as we see from the rest of the psalm! But usually it is better simply to put our trust in the Lord and submit ourselves to his holy will, repenting of whatever may be our fault in the matter and renewing our longing to be united to God in peace and joy.

The psalm closes with a look towards a blessed future: "So my soul sings psalms to you unceasingly; O Lord my God, I will thank you forever." Even if we might guess that there will still be some adversity in our path down the line, it is good to keep the spirit of gratitude and praise, for these will go a long way toward protecting us from much that can cause dryness in the first place.

Finally, a couple points to remember. God is sovereign and free; we have to allow Him to be God in our lives and to do with us what He sees is best. He is not at our beck and call; we are at his. Therefore we shouldn't rebel against what God is doing (or apparently not doing) in our lives, for when we are spiritually dry, He is doing something. We just can't feel it, but we modern Americans live too much by feeling, anyway. We need to live more by faith! If it seems like God has left us for the time being, then we must first accept from the heart the state in which we find ourselves, but begin to praise Him in anticipation of his return! Then the Lord will know that we are not merely happy when feeling good, and unhappy when feeling down, but rather that we choose to give Him thanks and praise—even when that seems not to be the most desirable or even reasonable thing to do. That is living by faith, living by hope, and even living by love, for love is a matter of willing and doing, not merely feeling (see Jn. 14:21-24).

None of this is easy to do, especially when the Lord "hides his face" and we are therefore "put to confusion." But He never said it was going to be easy; in fact, He said it was going to be hard (see Mt. 7:13-14). So, whenever our souls feel like scorched earth, we have first to perform an examination of conscience, to see if the fault lies in ourselves, or at least if we have been taking the Lord's blessings for granted, and then we cry out for a taste of the Living Water the Lord has promised: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink" (Jn. 7:37). Then, like the psalmist, we will rejoice once again, knowing that "his anger lasts a moment; his favor all through life." And having endured with patience and trust the time of drought, we will once again rejoice in the Lord: "He changes the desert into streams, thirsty ground into springs of water. There he settles the hungry… They sow fields and plant their vines; these yield crops for the harvest. He blesses them… He raises the needy from distress… Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the love of the Lord" (Ps. 106/107).

—Fr. Joseph

According to Irenee Hausherr, if I understand him rightly, the practice of the continuous Jesus Prayer began, not with the set formula commonly promulgated today, but with the recitation of a psalm verse, of any verse from sacred scriptures, or of a word received from one's spiritual father. It sounds rather as if it began perhaps before Christ and was originally what we call "oral tradition," adopted by Christians and applied to prayer. One receives a fruitful "word" or saying, and repeats it: turning it over in heart and mind till it memorizes itself; one lets it come back to mind often, and continues pondering it, allowing it to mold one's life and behavior, the better to obey God, to follow Christ. (Normal Vincent Peale, famous for promoting "positive thinking," put his similar method in more modern language, saying that one should do the same sort of thing with a positive, encouraging motto and "letting it dissolve like a lozenge" in one's heart or mind.) This was one of the main "works" of the monks in the days of the desert fathers, such as those well-known ones who lived at Sketis.

One should not lose heart, though, when undertaking such an edifying practice. We in the "Western culture" are not, most of us, accustomed to oral tradition, nor to the art of memory, yet we would not do well to excuse ourselves, on that account, from such a simple and helpful practice—for we are rather in the position of that old man of ancient times, of whom it was written:

And so, if we are moved to try the way of often pondering a spiritually uplifting saying, and if we become discouraged by poor memory, let us take heart: the fount won't run dry.

—Br. Seraphim

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