January 15, we celebrate the feast day of one of the Desert Fathers, known as Paul of Thebes or Paul of the desert (227- 342). He fled to the desert in a time of persecution, intending to later come back, but was drawn to the life of a hermit, where he lived out in the silence of desert.
Paul Shepard, in his book: Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature, has this wonderful quote about those like Paul who found God in the silence and solitude of the desert:
“To the desert go prophets and hermits; through desert go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.”
