Listening for God in silence, stillness, and the everyday
Dear People of St. David’s
On Sunday evening I’ll be making my way to the Mojave Desert in Southern California where I’ll be on retreat at St. Anthony’s Coptic Orthodox Monastery. This is one of my favorite places to be in the world, and I’m among the only western Christians that go to this monastery regularly for retreat—and I’m the only Episcopalian any of the monks have ever met.
If you’ve ever heard of the “Desert Fathers and Mothers” who established Christian monasticism in the 3rd century BC, these monks are their spiritual descendants. They have lived and prayed much the same way for the last 1,700 years. When the monks become monks, they first lay down on the floor and a burial shroud is placed over them. They lie there and listen to their funeral service from under the shroud. When the funeral is over, they rise from the floor and are made into a monk. They have died to this world, and they rise in a new world, with a new name, and a whole new life in Christ.
We rise at 4 a.m. to begin the prayers and worship which end sometime around 11 a.m. Then we start the prayers back up again around 4 p.m. Coptic Christians fast for about 180 days a year—and this is the first time I’ll be there when they aren’t fasting! When I’m not with the monks in communal prayer in their small incense-filled chapel, I’m usually in my cell reading or resting—or if it isn’t over 100 degrees, I’ll walk out into the desert and climb one of the small hills that are outside the monastery walls and do my reading there.
I love the remoteness of the place. I love the austere simplicity of life there. I love being around these monks, who are among the holiest people I’ve ever personally met. I love that their Christian faith is, in ways, so different from my own, and yet we still love the same Jesus, we still meet Jesus in bread and wine, and we still seek a life that is marked by love.
I realize that it’s a little crazy to fly across the country to spend a week praying—and if I ever forget that Karen is happy to remind me. I fully realize that God is no more present in a desert monastery than God is in our 300-year-old church, or the beach, or my backyard, or on any random street corner in the world. Yet, there is something to the practice of carving out time and space to do nothing but commune with God.
In the silence and the incense, outside of my usual daily busyness, I can hear the still, small voice that so often gets drowned out. In the ancient prayers of the monks, I’m reminded that our faith is deeper and older than my daily worries. In the rhythms of their lives—so unlike my own—I see more clearly the shape that my own life of faith might take if I let it.
You don’t need to go to the desert to experience this. You don’t need to wear a burial shroud or fast for 180 days a year. What you can do is carve out sacred time. Close the door. Light a candle. Open the Scriptures. Take a walk and pray. Go to a chapel, or a beach, or a quiet room in your house, and be with God—not to accomplish anything, not to be productive, but simply to be.
I invite you—challenge you even—to carve out a little desert of your own this summer. A quiet space. A holy pause. A moment to be reminded that you are loved, that you are not alone, and that God is already there, waiting to meet you.
Peace,
Rick
The Rev. Rick Morley
Rector
Photo: The Church at St. Anthony’s Coptic Orthodox Monastery across the desert grounds by The Rev. Rick Morley.
Editor’s Note: One way you might find time for quiet, holy space this summer is by joining one of our Centering Prayer groups. Learn more on the Adult Christian Formation page.
Published on May 22, 2025.