Desert Dangers and Delights Stories, Teachings, and Sources

The spiritual life, in Scripture and in church history, is shaped by the garden and the desert. John Michael Talbot, whose fruitful ministry spans fifty years, guides us from that garden to the contemplative life of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. In this new book, he shares the treasures to be found in a place of dangers and delights. Highly recommended.

There has never been a more crucial time to listen to the past. And who better to listen to than the desert fathers, who left everything to embrace a life of simple listening to God in the wilderness. My brother John has done much the same with his life; he has spent a lifetime listening to the fathers and has gifted the church with this remarkable digest of their wisdom.

What a pleasure for me to read John Michael's new book on desert spirituality. It is a beautiful spiritual offering from a great musician who has become a very special author as well. Desert Dangers and Delights addresses a hunger for a faith that can be experienced in the here and now.

Every generation seems to discover the Desert Fathers as something new, surprising, strange, and radical. Opening heaven's door, we never find what we had expected. This book will be the Desert's doorway for a new generation.

John Michael Talbot is the real deal—a true holy man and spiritual father. This book is a booster shot of grace that will reinvigorate your spiritual life—it is both encouraging and challenging. It's not a how-to, if that means a set formula that is supposed to work for everyone, rather it is a way of empowering the reader to find his or her own way through the desert. From time to time we all need to strip away the barnacles of the distracted life and get back to what is essential. With this book, you can immerse yourself in a world without the annoying distractions of modern technology, then really begin with yourself and go deeper than perhaps you ever have before.

In this book, John Michael Talbot draws from the rich treasure of the wisdom of the desert fathers. With them begins the story of a radical life according to the Gospel, in the midst of a society that resembles the deserts of nature, then as now. John Michael Talbot knows about the distractions of this world and gives practical suggestions to rediscover the dignity of man and himself in God's ray of light. The book is a testimony to decades of wisdom. Simple and impressive are the examples from everyday life, unsurpassed are the quotations of the desert fathers, which are still so relevant today. The book provides orientation for searching people in a time of disorientation.

In this interesting and inspiring book, Catholic monastic pioneer John Michael Talbot introduces the spiritual life and teaching of the Egyptian desert fathers and mothers. The wisdom and example of these ancient spiritual guides has clearly informed his own spiritual journey. Describing his own personal experiences, Talbot allows the desert spirituality to constructively criticize the Catholic context in which he lives out the Christian life. He encourages his audience, which should certainly extend beyond Catholicism, to find a deeper and richer experience of God by the Holy Spirit, in embracing aspects of the monastic desert spirituality for themselves. He allows the desert fathers and mothers to speak for themselves, without simply providing another collection of sayings and quotations. Rather, he shows in an engaging manner, how this transforming spirituality has been fruitful in his own life, and has the potential to produce spiritual fruit in the lives o f all those who embrace it, making Christ the focus of our life, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Talbot interweaves his reflections with stories from his own life; thus, we see a real live monastic trying to live out a monastic, deeply spiritual, life. Each of the thirty chapters begins with a saying by a desert mother or father and concludes with 5–8 questions for self-reflection. Thus, the book would make a good vade mecum for a retreat or daily spiritual reading (and self-questioning and self-answering).