A Dialogue in the Desert: On Loneliness and the Presence of God

(Inspired by Psalms 25–28, Grail translation, and the life of St. Paul the Hermit)

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Disciple: Father Paul, I have come to you as one exiled within his own heart. The silence presses like a weight. The days seem to blur into one another, and I find myself asking, as the psalmist does, “Turn to me and have mercy, for I am lonely and poor.”

St. Paul: My son, the loneliness you feel is not an enemy to be fled but a teacher sent by God. I too fled the cities, thinking I would escape men’s injustice and the vanity of the world. But I found that solitude only magnifies what already lives in the heart. The demons followed me into the desert, as did my memories. Only when I ceased to flee and began to kneel did I discover that the desert itself could become communion.

Disciple: Communion? Yet it feels more like absence. I cry with the psalmist, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. I trust you, let me not be disappointed.” But often I am left waiting, uncertain if my cry has reached the heavens.

St. Paul: When you cry and no answer comes, do not think your voice unheard. In my cave, I prayed for bread and received dates. I asked for a friend and received a raven. I prayed for the consolation of human speech, and after many years, Antony came. But understand this. I did not wait idly. I let my loneliness become prayer. I learned to say, “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.” Each day, the silence became my liturgy.

Disciple: The silence frightens me. It feels as though I am forgotten, as though even God has turned His face away.

St. Paul: Yes, it must be so for a time. Even David knew it and cried, “Do not abandon me nor forsake me, God my Savior.” But in that forsakenness, the soul begins to see the truth: that all consolation, whether from men or angels, is fleeting. Only God endures. I once feared the silence too. Now I see it as the shadow of His presence, the way the uncreated Light hides itself from the unpurified heart.

Disciple: Then what is to be done when the heart grows weary, when prayer is dry, and one feels like dust in the wind?

St. Paul: The psalmist answers for us both: “Wait for the Lord, be strong; let your heart take courage.” Waiting is not weakness but worship. The barren years sanctify the heart more than the years of abundance. You must not measure your life by what you feel but by your fidelity to the prayer you offer, however wordless it becomes.

Disciple: And yet, Father, does not even the hermit ache for the sight of another face? For the sound of a human voice?

St. Paul: The ache remains, my son. It is the wound of love itself. I lived alone for nearly a century, but I never ceased to love the brethren I had left behind. Love does not vanish in solitude; it is transfigured. The psalm says, “The Lord is my light and my help; whom shall I fear?” When you learn to see His face in every silence, every tear, every stone that burns in the sun, then you will know that you are not alone.

Disciple: Then loneliness is not to be conquered but transformed?

St. Paul: Precisely. It becomes the very place where the Spirit intercedes for you with sighs too deep for words. The solitude of the hermit is a mirror of the Cross, outwardly barren, inwardly aflame. I prayed often the words of the psalm: “Hear, O Lord, the sound of my voice when I call; have mercy and answer.” And in time, the answer came, not in sound, but in stillness. Not in vision, but in peace.

Disciple: Father Paul, I begin to see. The desert does not destroy; it refines. The isolation strips away illusion. The loneliness opens the heart until only one word remains, Jesus.

St. Paul: Yes, my son. And when that word burns within you, you will know what it means to say, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts.” You will know that the solitude that once felt like death is truly the womb of resurrection.

Disciple: Pray for me, Father, that I may not flee this silence.

St. Paul: I will. And I will send the raven with bread enough for the day. Learn to bless the silence, for within it God whispers His name.