Susan Pitchford

One of the symptoms of my current insanity is that, in spite of having no discretionary time at all, I’ve agreed to participate in no less than three reading groups. One of these is reading “In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers,” by John Chryssavgis. The desert abbas and ammas were those strange third and fourth century men and women who fled civilization, with all its comforts and distractions, and went into the Egyptian desert to be stripped bare before God. The book, which is a collection of their sayings grouped around a set of key themes, begins with a fourth century Eucharistic prayer to God: “We entreat you, make us truly alive.”

The last chapter we were to read for today’s discussion is called “Education and Formation,” and contains this passage:

“The Coptic monks of the desert knew only a single word and a single struggle for designating both the mind and the heart. We tend to separate the mind from the heart. We like to fill the mind; yet, we forget the heart. Or else, we fill the heart with information that should fill the mind. Nevertheless, the two work differently: the mind learns; the heart knows. The mind is educated; the heart believes. The mind is intellectual, speculative; it reads and speaks. The heart is intuitive, mystical; it grows in silence. The two should be held together; and they should be brought together in the presence of God.

“ It is not that secular education was unacceptable to the desert elders…It is simply that secular education always remains insufficient without an ascetic depth; it is unfulfilled without the spiritual content. The only degree that counted in the desert was the degree to which one was humbled, even effaced, in order to reveal the presence and grace of God.”

I have lately reached that point in the academic year when I can no longer bear the sound of my own voice. And I am fed up with knowing things. It’s rather an awkward position for a teacher. This week, my introductory sociology course will begin a unit on global poverty, and I plan to start with a look at the situation in Haiti, which perfectly captures some of the key issues of this unit. But this is where the role of “sociologist” becomes uncomfortable to me, in a way I think the desert fathers and mothers would understand: I don’t want to turn the people of Haiti into data. I don’t want to theorize about them. I want to sit down, shut up, and grieve with them, to allow myself to feel a bit of their suffering, and to beg God’s mercy on us all.

Is there a way for “secular education” to do that? My greatest hope is in my students who are meeting to organize action against contemporary slavery. They have become informed on the issues, but have not built a dam between their brains and their hearts. They’ve let themselves be moved – moved to “com-passion,” to “suffering-with.” I don’t need to say much to them now; they know what they are doing. And they’re willing to venture into the desert of others’ suffering. I suspect that the ancient abbas and ammas would look at them and nod in recognition.