Soulmaking: The Desert Way of Spirituality
by Alan Jones

Atheism can mean disbelief in God. Or it can mean “a purification of the notion of God” Simone Weil p. 9

Two alien ways of believing:
1. Vindictive (damnation)
2. Replication of experience (formulaic)

These are tyrannical to believers and offensive to unbelievers. #1 puts a person in a closed, individualistic world. #2 confines a person’s faith to right language (“personal Lord and Savior”) pp9-11

The monk told the author “we always treat guests as angels, just in case.”

The desert monastic life: simplicity without naivete. P. 13

This way of believing means hospitality that receives others as lively images of God, regardless of whether they are believers or not. P. 14

Chronologically and ontologically, being and action first, formulas second in response to the being and action. P. 16

ONE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT

Questioning is part of the way I believe. It deepens and strengthens me. Both believers and unbelievers are in need of conversion. P. 19 Then when I believe, it is not because someone told me I must, but because I have found it to be true. P. 21 So how do I evaluate so as not become captive of my own perceptions?
1. cultish letting someone think for me
2. dogmatic fundamentalism
Both are immature irresponsibility p. 21

3 imperatives for spiritual maturity: Look, weep, live p. 22

spirituality rejoices in the interdependence of all things p. 23

greed for spiritual treasure can be just as much self-preoccupation as greed for material treasure p. 26. God is unknowable and inexhaustible. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ does not undo that completely.

“the things that matter, like love and truth, shrivel and die when they are help captive too long in an image or idea” p. 27

The desert way of seeing commits us to two attitudes:
1. openness to change and transformation
2. detachment
Both are important and need each other but we put more weight on one, and then the other, at different times in our lives. Affirmation and rejection compliment each other pp. 29-30

TWO CHRISTIAN NEUROSIS

To deal with a tyrannical perfectionism, Karen Horney says, we can move toward the powerful, move against others in a hostile way, or move away from others and withdraw inwardly: seduction, aggressiveness, or withdrawal.

Some can use religion for vindictive triumph over others; revenge. They like the doctrine of eternal punishment. When we transmit this neurosis to others, we are all victims of victims

We all have appetites. We become victims of them when we try to master them. 45

Experience “is the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of our appetities…and the desire for truth becomes the desire to master reality rather than experience it.” 46

The task of the artist is to help us develop “double vision”. 47

Healthy faith is a way of looking at the world, self and others critically and compassionately. 47

Real attentiveness has:
1. the need for detachment
2. a belief that nothing is accidental
3. the fact we are not as free as we think
some of us are starved psychically and spiritually as we attempt to force others to eat
4. conviction that remembering is an important part of the process of growth
the only way to get at the “besetting sin”
5. The belief that companionship is essential

The longing for an omnipotent parent can lead to a god who provides a neurotic solution for my basic anxiety. 56
6. necessity of contemplative commitment
We need a Savior, but we need one who will save us from our craving him. 57
7 An appreciation for our “fallenness”
8. The mystery of having to let go of the things and people we love the most

DEATH IN THE DESERT

God wants us to look death straight in the eye. Why? To discover what love ought to be. 60

NINE THE HOLY AND UNDIVIDED TRINITY

The trinity speaks to our desire to be one with each other without being swallowed up. 186

There is a part of each of us that wants to grow toward others. It is sometimes called “the image of God” or the “maturing we”. There is an inner struggle between the ego and the “maturing we”. P. 189 I am not meant to be alone. 190

I can not be whole by myself. I cannot have a whole faith without others. God is not solitary and neither am I. God is trinity, and so am I. 191

John 15:15 “I call you servants no longer; a servant does not know what his master is about. I have called you (plural) friends because I have disclosed to you everything that I have heard from my father.” 190

Opposition to reaching out is non-trinitarian life. P. 193

Spiritual knowledge does not transform the counterpart into the property of the knower. Spiritual knowledge transforms the knower into a participant into what he perceives. P. 198

Sound doctrine means accuracy, liberty and openness. It requires the end of self-centered thinking. 200
1. Is it true?
2. Does it make freedom?
3. Does it show the incompleteness of any human concept?