Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

The Ten Commandments For Would-Be Desert Mystics

Like You and Me:

  1. Thou shalt have no other God than God, and shall not make a God of thine own holiness or thy desert search for it.
  2. Thou shalt recognize that thou art a sinner and that thou shalt take the heat for it thyself.
  3. Thou shalt know that silence is golden.
  4. Thou shalt recognize the greatest sin is the sin of indifference or complacency—and not the sins of sex or greed or theft, even though these latter sins shall also be avoided.
  5. Thou shalt know the seed must die or else it cannot bring forth life from itself.
  6. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s oasis, but recognize thine own oasis when thou seeth it, blooming where thou art planted—or where God desireth to plant thee.
  7. Thou shalt call a mirage a mirage.
  8. Thou shalt keep always on the lookout for shade: the cool shade that only God can provide.
  9. Thou shalt thank God for palm trees and springs of living water.
  10. Thou shalt pray always for rain…the reign of God.

Linus Mundy
A Retreat with The Desert Mystics, pp. 101-102

Share

Tagged as: , , ,