Whispers in the Wasteland

Visions of the Wasteland

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
     Frisch weht der Wind
     Der Heimat zu.
     Mein Irisch Kind,
     Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

Thus, I began a new direction on this blog, decrying the weakness of modern conservatism. Formerly this blog was called Voice in the Wilderness, but I felt the title was unoriginal and I did not have the courage to claim that I was following in the footsteps of John the Baptist. So I softened it to Whispers in the Wastleland, searched for an appropriate biblical quote -- there are a few places where whispers and wastlelands are mentioned -- but none seemed appropriate.

The title of the website is a play on the etymology of the word hermit. Indeed, also valid for this site is Eremite's Wilderness or eremites wilderness which would mean desert wilderness when the Greek word is translated. Additionally, there are some interesting personal connections. My mother grew up in a village Saint Antoine, more properly, the parish of Saint Antoine L'Ermite, named after Saint Anthony the hermit of the Egyptian desert. Saint Anthony is considered to be the founder of Christian monasticism. My father grew up in a nearby village Notre Dame (Our Lady). My parents married in my mother's parish and my birthday is the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes (however, my actual day of birth was on a Sunday). The healing waters of Lourdes and the desert are quite a contrast and yet, naturally, I've come to think of the Church as an oasis in the wastleland.

So when Pope Benedict XVI spoke of deserts and water during the homily of his installation Mass, I knew I had found a match, an appropriate signature quote for the blog (n.b. Saint Benedict is the founder of western monasticism):

For the Fathers of the Church, the parable of the lost sheep, which the shepherd seeks in the desert, was an image of the mystery of Christ and the church. The human race -- every one of us -- is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way. The Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition. He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the cross. He takes it upon his shoulders and carries our humanity; he carries us all -- he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

The pastor must be inspired by Christ's holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God's darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth's treasures no longer serve to build God's garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. The church as a whole and all her pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, toward the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the one who gives us life, and life in abundance.

Update: Credit to Amy Welborn for highlighting the desert theme and pointing out that St. Benedict was on the pope's mind as he chose his new name.