Me too.

And I knew whatever this was, this is, I wanna be part of that.

I wanna be part of this sort of, uh...

I mean, okay, this is going way, I wouldn't have even had this language at the time, but the Ephraim the Syrian is this, um, like third, fourth, fifth, I don't even remember, um, uh, uh, mystic and theologian, but he talked about, um, God as the light that you see from the corner of your eye.

The, this idea of like you just glimpse something just for a second, then it's so real and it's so true.

And I feel like that I glimpsed it at a young age and was like, "That's what I want.

Whatever that is, that's what I want." And, um, and so I, um, loved going to church and again, to the point where my parents thought, like, it was a little weird.

You know, maybe it conjures up images of, like, Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," you know, just sort of this, like, who, who are these people? What is that? Why does that matter to me? So tell us, who are the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and, and why have you become so fascinated with them?

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and so I draw on that to say, like, if we understand the, the world of the artist, if we understand craft or making something or any kind of de- you know, what, if you're an athlete, like the need for training, um, whether or not you feel like getting up in the morning and, you know, um, painting the painting or running the miles or whatever, we have, we have a category for that.

We need a category for that in the Christian life as well.

And, um, and I think stability kind of gets at that.

That said, to your friends who are like, "But I want the fire," I don't, I, I mean, I'm not, I'm all for that.

Like, if the-

[laughs]

... like, normal ones.

[laughs]

Well, I'll just take my own life.

I mean, one of the reasons I got interested in formation is that, you know, uh, my husband and I were, um, young and restless and reformed, and, uh, we, you know, were in a church in Harvard, like right by Harvard, a lovely church with friends, still lovely friends there.

It's a wonderful church, and I'm so grateful for it.

Um, and we were in a top seminary.

We were spending our days learning Greek and Hebrew and reading the scriptures, uh, deeply, and every elder at our church had a master's or PhD, was working at Harvard or MIT.

I mean, it, we were in like the most intellectually, doctrinally, like, um, nourishing place we could possibly be, and we were-

It's perfect.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on why dry times are actually necessary for our flourishing.

That's such a good question.

Part of this book is I'm trying to be intentionally pastoral because when I hit this, I experienced it exactly like you said, Cherie.

I experienced this, am I doing something wrong? Has God is God more interested in someone else and other people and not me? Or is this, does faith not work? Is it like time to deconstruct this because it's not working kind of question? And so, I was asking all of those.

Like, is it wrong? Is faith wrong? Is what I believe wrong? Am I doing it wrong? Is God mad at me? I mean, all of those things.

So, the idea that you are highlighting that the desert is actually a part of Christian maturation and human maturation that we need was so encouraging to me.

So, there's two different ways to talk about this.

What makes it so tempting? Yeah.

It was a

lot.

But then on top of that, there's just, it's a very different experience than like preaching where people are there to like, sort of like they're, they're there to be edified.

They're, they're presumably, they're not going to, they're not going to be like, why is she talking about God? You know, in the New York times kind of are.

And so not, not everyone, but there are certainly readers that are like this.

Why is this even being talked about in the paper record? So, um, Yeah, I was, when I left, it was a hard decision, but I was worn out, both, I was physically worn out, I was creatively, like writing-wise, pretty worn out, but also spiritually.

Like, I think it...

love that kind of thing.

It's those patches that really do something deeper and richer than if we had our, you know, just our full cognitive mind intact, you know?

Yeah, that's right.

What you said about the car, I love that metaphor.

that would have been helpful to put in the book.

There's so much in these interviews.

I'm like, man, I wish I would have had this before I wrote it.

But, um, uh, that I talk about Stanley Harwas having this idea of, um, learning how to go on where we, when we do not know where we are.

or we will

So stay.

The reason this was helpful to me is that I think there's sort of a trite like, "Oh, just keep praying.

Just keep ho-" you know, like, that can be sort of almost dismissive of the struggle, which you don't just-- there's just not even a whiff of that in the desert fathers and mothers.

So instead of it being kinda like, "Well, there's nothing we can do to-- Like, life sucks.

Just keep going," there was this sense that the cell is actually this transformative place, that this very struggle that's trying to push you out of the place you're in is the thing that if you remain, if you build resilience, if you sort of work that muscle of perseverance and resilience, eventually this is the ground that will bear fruit.And that was so hopeful to me.

It just le- it lent a theological depth to remaining in practices of faith that felt more rooted than what I had found in evangelicalism, and sort of encouragement to like, like, "Just keep praying," or just, you know, "Keep at it," or...

It felt like, no, this is, it's actually the staying that is the place of formation.

... what did you learn about God from the process of this book?

Yeah.

And when I started at The New York Times, our youngest son was, he was not yet two.

He was only one.

So I had, I, I had little kids, a mom with Alzheimer's, and um, this big job.

And so, uh, when I left, I was tired.

Um, but it was deeper than that.

It was like, uh, it was spiritually, I was, I was in this season where God felt very distant.

In the end, nothing will be wasted." And just, could you just offer a final word of encouragement to our audience who feels like, "Ah, nothing I'm doing right now is accomplishing anything"? What, what would you say to them?

Yeah.

And [laughs] so it can even feed into workaholism, right? And which is totally different with, from what acedia meant.

It's difficult to even describe in the English language.

So when theologians or writers talk about it, what they end up doing is just piling words on words, just having lots, long list of things this is.

But it's usually described as boredom, torpor, listlessness, um-Well, it's called the Noonday Demons.

These early fathers and mothers, uh, desert fathers and mothers called it that because it was, the idea is that it would tempt the monk, assail the monk midday when the sun is highest in the sky.

So it's that, "Oh my gosh, this day is taking forever." [laughs] Work, whatever your work is, whether that's being a stay-at-home mom or being in an office or whatever, checking your email, prayer is difficult.

Mm

Mm-hmm.

And, um, and i-in the historic language of the Christian tradition, we are full of consolation.

And then we m-move to this place where essentially it's almost like, um, on a bike where when the, um, resistance is turned up, when you, like, go up a gear, it, you, it gets harder, right, to learn.

It gets harder to pedal.

And that, um, and it's the same idea, is that the dark night of the soul kind of turns up the resistance.

God, John would say, John of the Cross would say, um, removes the subjective experience of God's presence, and, uh, that is not meant as, uh, an abandonment per se, but it is m-meant to sort of wean us off of, um, an addiction to kind of what we think the spiritual life should feel like or, um, what we think God should behave like and allow us, um, to, to sort of seek God for God's own self.

Um, so, uh, he talks about the dark night of the soul as this time of doubt, deep doubt, this time of, uh, he calls it aridity, of drawing from the desert fathers and mothers, this i- the idea of arid, like when things don't feel like they're not growing.

You know, i- is that, is that a fair critique or no?

And I wondered if you could tell us what would you say to them in light of your story and in light of this book and, and how, how does this, like, even focus on, on perseverance that you highlight in those places?

Yeah.

Well, okay, there's a lot.

A- some of it is, I think, um, [lips smack] letting-- being okay with the fire not starting, kind of letting the s- the idea of the spark go and grieving that.

Um, in the sense of if by what we mean by that is that we kind of have the same sense of encounter that we once did or that we did when we were younger, that we did when we were newer Christians.

I think, um, there does tend to be that, to use the language of the church, that the, um, times of newness are full of consolation, [lips smack] and that God sort of greases the wheels, that shows up and makes things easy in ways.

And in periods that are comparatively desolate, less consolation, um, there may be less of a sense of on fire.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I'm just curious as a fellow person involved in this work, what did that season of intense engagement with the world, what did that do to you spiritually?

Oh, wow.

It was really hard spiritually.

I, I mean, [chuckles] this next book starts with me kind of being burnt out and weary spiritually, and I'm sure that was partly because I was so, uh, sort of exposed.

I, I was kind of like...

I mean, this was, I started at The New York Times in twenty twenty-one.

I went through twenty twenty-three.

Hmm.

Um, I'm just curious, as a fellow person involved in this work, what did that season of intense engagement with the world, what did that do to you spiritually?

Oh, wow.

It was really hard spiritually.

I, I mean, [chuckles] this next book starts with me kind of being burnt out and weary spiritually, and I'm sure that was partly because I was so, uh, sort of exposed.

I, I was kind of like...

I mean, this was, I started at The New York Times in 2021.

I went through 2023.

Hmm.

in that moment where, what happens in real life when you're feeling so spiritually hungry and so spiritually dry at times.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad you liked it.

I, so, um, I start the story, actually, there's a little prologue about trying to light a fire and not being able to light it, and then I think you're referring, I think you're referring to chapter one where I kind of describe where I was, uh, in life, which was kind of like ...

I mean, I was not in sort of deepest tragedy or grief or loss.

I, that's, um ...

Mm

You spent some time talking about St. John of the Cross and his notion of the dark night of the soul and how he, he's pointing us towards the alternate ways one could think about the spiritual life in terms of it could be a pursuit of, you know, we'll put this in scare quotes, spiritual pleasure, or the pursuit of that which is good in and of itself or in and of God's self.

Yeah.

So he, he was talking about this idea of the dark night of the soul, which I had misunderstood to mean, like, when really bad stuff happens, like when you're walking through grief or tragedy.

But that's not primarily how he uses it.

He doesn't necessarily mean that it is deepest suffering.

He's talking about a stage in the life of faith where he said you kind of begin in what he calls the illumination, where you experience, he calls it the sweetness.

It's that newness, and we have this, I think we have this in the life of faith.

[laughs]

Yeah, yeah.

And, um, and so I was in that place, and it felt like there weren't great cultural options offered to me.

And it felt like there wasn't a lot of resources I could find in the church on this.

I had never, I didn't know what to do with this sense of God's distance.

I'd never been told to expect this, um, or that this was an inevitable part of the Christian life.

And then in the, in, so it sort of felt like, well, I kind of was worried I was doing it wrong, like I was doing something wrong or...

So I just didn't have a lot of Christian resources.

Hmm