Wilderness is a word that marks the Second Week of Advent 2011. In Sunday’s Gospel selection we heard that “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness” (Mark 1:4).
In your meditations this week consider the word, WILDERNESS. From the timely meditations offered by Suzanne Guthrie let these words help you:
Meditation One (introit)
the inner desert
There is a physical desert, inhabited by a few exceptional men and women who are called to live there; but more importantly, there is an inner desert, into which each one of us must one day venture. It is a void; an empty space for solitude and testing.
-Frere Ivan The Desert and the City quoted from The Desert, An Anthology for Lent
He [John the Baptist] is in the wilderness. Obviously because he finds these surroundings appropriate to his life- the parched solitude, the endless spaces, where no one can feel at home. Inevitably we keep discovering that we too are in the wilderness, the wilderness of a great city, the wilderness of isolation, a wilderness that seems to have no center, a wilderness we cannot feel at home in. And we are also men and women who would live in a wilderness if we have to give our outward environment the shape of that which is within us.
-Karl Rahner 1904-1984 sermon for Advent 3(B) from The Great Church Year
From Soulwork Toward Sunday: self-guided retreat Advent 2 (Year B) | At the Edge of Adventure blog
Have you ever been in the wilderness? Physically? What did you learn? Spiritually? What did you learn? Are you there now? What are you learning?
Hear what the Spirit is saying 