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1 " While being questioners and questers, we are often lost; we follow too many fads and fashions in our search. Too often we are left with a shallow and narcissistic inner life. "
― Laura Swan , The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women
2 " How do we best cultivate a quiet inner spirit? Do we attend to what feeds and expands our soul? What helps us focus on God? Where is our sacred space? Have we made a cell in our home, at the ocean, or in our favorite park? It is that place where we are away and alone. "
3 " The ammas taught me that the way out of the frenzied pace of our culture involves both external and internal journeys. I simplified possessions and needs. I am committed to owning less, not accumulating more. I let go of all commitments and activities that did not support or fit in with my life goals. Friendships are fewer but deeper and richer. Do we give ourselves permission to say “No”—to self and others? Do we live intentionally, making choices by our values and goals? Do we give away everything we haven’t used in the last six months? I began literally to slow down. I am learning to be more mindful of what I am doing while I am doing it. I am not so scattered, with my mind drifting in so many directions. I am deepening the awareness of God’s presence throughout my day. I stop to breathe, take note of where I am and what I am doing, and notice the Spirit in the midst of my do- "
4 " Our world is rampant with idolatry. Cars, computers, television, careers, success, political movements, and religious leaders own our hearts—rather than God. Idols are everything to which we are deeply attached, that take the place that belongs solely to God. These idols are our known and unknown replacements for God. We create them in order to control our world or to attempt to define and control God. "
5 " They teach us that we must shed our false self and allow our true self to emerge. This journey toward holiness takes us deep into our inner desert. The desert is too hot a place in which to carry our emotional and spiritual excess baggage, so we begin to let go rather than continue carrying the burden. Our desert begins to remove the excess we did not know was there. "
6 " Over the years, we have invested much in our public persona: the self we developed during our teens and young adult years that reflects our own hopes of who we wanted to become. This is the self that developed from the expectations of others, the self that got confused with our “roles. "
7 " In their brutal self-honesty and intentional stripping of illusion, the ammas remind us of our tendency to project our psychological issues onto others. This projection occurs when we find something emotionally unacceptable in us that we reject and attribute to others. "
8 " Projection is part of the false self. We diminish our God-given empowerment when we spend energy projecting rather than feeding our interior life. Living from our false self drains us of our desire for self-awareness and growth. Our self-respect is undermined and our tendencies toward internalized self-hatred are fed. "
