A Desert of Your Own

A Desert of Your Own
Written by the Very Rev. Vladimir Berzonsky

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"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights He was hungry. The tempter came to Him..." (Matthew 4:1)
The same Spirit will lead you into a desert that you must fashion by separating yourself from whatever prevents you from self-discovery. You need not go anywhere, but you have to put a distance from your routine way of life. WWJD-W? What Would Jesus Do - Without? If your Lenten desert includes batteries and electronics, how serious are you? This is an experiment in spiritual transformation. Either do it right or not at all.

You are imitating our Lord who was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert for a forty-day struggle with Satan. You begin with the intention to fast, pray and contemplate the meaning of salvation, "working out your own salvation with fear and trembling." You are set on following the prescription for the time until Pascha. Then you sense an urge for a more intense challenge. You intend to exceed the norms suggested by the Church. You will not just fast, but lose weight. Not only will you pray, but you set out on a program to read the whole Bible. It's all too much, so you give it up as hopeless. Or you may be influenced from below. Your body sends signals that you are punishing yourself senselessly. Suddenly you feel a headache coming on, your stomach sends out grumbling noises, and if you did not decide to avoid TV watching, you are influenced by advertisements where food is always being stuffed into open maws. Forget fasting, you decide. Surely there must be another way. Or you feel depressed, and you abandon the ideals you began with just a few days ago.

You may feel that Lent is a proper time to heal an unpleasant wound between an old friend or family member and yourself. You were the injured party, but you decide to make a Christ-like overture and patch it up. You phone or send a message, but the response just revives all the old animosity. You are made to feel that you were the cause from the beginning, and you are sorry that you even raised the issue again.

The sleepless genius of evil goes at you from another side. Like the verse in the song, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me," you make a gesture of outreach with a few words of kindness to a total stranger; and the attempt at friendship is taken the wrong way. You are made to feel foolish, like somebody with evil intentions in mind. You regret your charitable action and pull into yourself. Or worse, you feel a temptation rising that you thought you had under control a long time ago. Memories are conjured up from years past when you struggled with urges that only with prayer and intense effort you were finally able to sublimate.

The thought comes to mind: What is the purpose of all this effort? How can a person with all good will and intention "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," as the beloved apostle Paul puts it, and what's the point of it all? So you give up the struggle and striving and accept yourself as you are. Or not. You may open yourself to the Spirit within you and take ownership of your soul. You will then not just accept the challenge of Lent but welcome it as you would a worthy opponent if you were playing in your favorite athletic contest, or just deciding to run a long stretch of miles, determined not to give in to your body, your mind, your memories, your temptations, and most of all to Satan.


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