The desert dwellers' original impetus to flee civilization for the uninhabited wastelands rose out of the insight that it is far easier to focus on what is good, true, and beautiful when we are not being constantly distracted by temptations toward overeating, over-shopping, and escapist forms of recreation. Though the rampant consumerism of our time was still more than 1,500 years away when the Desert Father movement began, the great cities of the ancient Middle East were filled to overflowing with rich foods, and wines, exotics spices, and perfumes, gold and jewels, flamboyant silks, and a thousand other temptations toward gluttony, lust, avarice, and envy.
And that combination, the Desert Fathers knew, quickly leads towards chronic sadness arising from disappointed expectations, or to covetousness and the violent anger that can spring up when strong desires are thwarted. One monk put it, "I have this reason for putting aside pleasure--that I might cut off the pretext for growing angry. For I know that anger constantly fights for pleasure and clouds the mind with passion that drives away knowledge."
...we need to actively resist the pressure to mindlessly consume what we don't need, to covet what we can't afford, or to go into debt for the sake of fleeting and distracting pleasures.
-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL
