I'm nervous. Not "filled with anxiety" nervous... just nervous anticipation over the future. I'm okay with not knowing where we will be living next year or what we'll be doing. I know that we'll be okay. But I know in the next few weeks we'll have to make some decisions about our future... hopefully, some decisions will be made for us.... but we're in a waiting period to hear about that.
At the end of this month we'll be moving into a one-bedroom apartment back on campus. Last time I lived on campus, I had a two year old and a newborn, I wasn't working yet, and I was filled with loneliness and post-partum depression. This experience has seriously clouded my feelings toward moving back on campus. In reality, it will be a good experience for us. We'll have the opportunity to save a whole lot of cash, but beyond that, I'll actually be next door to a friend of mine who has a baby the same age as Turner, I'll be downstairs from another friend, and I'll have the opportunity to experience a little more simplicity in living and a more ascetic lifestyle. I do not say that tongue-in-cheek at all.
A few nights ago I saw the cave where St. Antony the Great lived in Egypt. He was a very rich man who passed by the temple one day and heard the words of the Gospel read: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow Me."
St. Antony took these words literally, sold everything, and wandered into the desert. He walked for three days until he came to a mountain with a source of water at the foot and a natural cave - really just a hole in the rock - up the mountain. He lived there and became one of the first ascetic monks to live completely cut off from civilization. A monastery was established at the foot of the mountain, and other monks would bring him one loaf of bread a week to live on. He lived the rest of his life that way, and died at 105 yrs old.
Please, please, do not think I am comparing moving my family into a small apartment to St. Antony's life in a desert cave of Egypt. Of course I'm not! But St. Antony and the other desert fathers have so much to teach me... and I do hope that one day I will learn a little more about living with less. Not one loaf of bread a week less, but less. Certainly his life can teach me about quieting my soul and waiting upon the Lord. My soul is a noisy chatterbox. I imagine it would be a noisy chatterbox even if I lived in a cave. But I don't live in a cave, do I? I live in my very real, very loud world. A world that pulls at me from all corners. A world of needy babies and kids, a world of "gimme gimme gimme, buy me, buy me, buy me," a world of teaching and grading papers and taking online classes.
How do I quiet my soul and calm my nervousness in the real world?
Altar in St Antony's Cave
A simple altar in Saint Antony's Cave supports an icon of Antony, a wooden cross and a collection of offerings left by visitors.
Saint Athanasius, who knew Anthony and wrote his biography, said, "Anthony was not known for his writings nor for his worldly wisdom, nor for any art, but simply for his reverence toward God."
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