An Excerpt from The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women by Laura Swan

Laura Swan has compiled a treasure trove of material on the lives, sayings, and wisdom of the desert mothers, or ammas. Here is an uplifting passage on the spiritual practice of transformation.

"Desert evokes a sense of silence and solitude, magnifying our feelings of dependence and vulnerability. With all its intensity, only the present moment exists. Our inner desert is the place of encounter with our selves and God — not escape. It is in our own inner desert that our deepest self comes radically face to face with the Divine. Here we are invited into the transforming and consuming love of our Beloved. Our inner desert is the place of ongoing interior transformation, where we wrestle with our idols and false self. The ammas understood that the desert is where we deepen in freedom, simplicity, and compassion. Here we confront the deepest truths of our selves. The result is purity of heart."