Practical spirituality for dummies: the desert fathers and mothers

How much does "Spiritual Warfare" have to do with your personal faith? For many of us in "Practical
Spirituality for Dummies" this is not a primary concern, which would explain why we do not immediately identify with the "desert fathers and mothers" who withdrew from
mainstream society in the 4th Century to battle against demonic spirits by long hours of prayer and fasting.

In fact, we are not as different from them as it first seems. Anyone who struggles against any kind of addiction knows the destructive power such afflictions can wield, and also the spiritual struggle that recovery requires on a daily basis. When we see how humanity seems "addicted" to patterns of waste and consumption that threaten the ecosystems that sustain life, we can relate more readily to a "desert spirituality" that seeks to renounce the self-destructive impulses within us. The same could be said about violence and greed.
The awareness of evil and the need to actively cultivate spiritual health is more of a concern among us than might first appear. While the life of an eccentric hermit has little attraction for us, we can see how periods of silence and solitude, regular prayer, and an effort to live more simply make sense.
At the same time, we have seen the harm done when a concern for evil becomes obsessive, and exercises a kind of addictive fascination for people and for society. Conspiracy theories, racism, and homophobia can work this way, in individuals as well as in society, revealing once again the need for the kind of spiritual sanity and serenity that only a higher power can restore in us.
A sense of humor can also help. The writer and family therapist Edwin Friedman observed that his clients were usually deadly serious about the problems in their lives, and that the ability to see the humor in their dysfunctional behavior could be an early sign of recovery.
In the 4th Century people used to flock to the desert to seek counsel from holy hermits such as St. Antony of Egypt and St. John the Dwarf. The enigmatic advice dispensed by these desert-dwellers inspired me to invent an alter-ego for myself, an addle-brained ascetic named Abba Jonathan, whose "wisdom" is either so obscure, or so unnecessary, as to deflate any tendency I might have to take myself too seriously.