The Desert is a Good Place in our Tradition

It’s why we celebrate both Advent and Lent, times of fasting where you go out into the desert to pray, reflect and get your head together in the presence of God. Israel did it. Prophets did it. Jesus did it. And we do it.

So the period after an election loss is a good time for people who care about the Church’s engagement with the political to think of it as time in the desert. And the happy news that I’m seeing all around me is that lots of Christian and Catholic conservatives are doing that. I plan on posting some of these promising signs of thought from time to time, as well as continuing to post on the places where faithful Catholics need to disengage from obvious unreality, slogans, and shibboleths that are preventing them from facing reality.

One person who seems to have his head screwed on straight and trying to think with the Tradition is Philip Blond. Check him out. He and Chesterton would like each other.