What Grows in Weary Lands
What Grows in Weary Lands, Tish Harrison Warren. Convergent Books (ISBN: 9780593728840) 2026.
Summary: Lessons for the weary from the desert fathers and mothers on practices that cultivate resilience and renewal.
One of the hard things I’ve seen in my Christian journey are others with whom I travelled give up, often in mid-life. While some have been because of “church hurt,” others are just tired. The demands of life combined with their own waning energies are part of it. Another part is that the faith of their twenties isn’t working anymore. The God who once seemed so real is distant. Some, out of habit, keep showing up, perhaps with a faint glimmer of hope that something will break through. Others just walk away. Sunday brunch is so much more inviting.
To look at her from the outside, Tish Harrison Warren was the model of the vibrant Christian. A gifted writer, she had reached the rarefied air of writing a weekly op-ed for The New York Times after a string of well-received books and articles. She was also an Anglican priest, who had returned to her home town of Austin, and the mom of three children. But her life mirrored that of many in mid-life: in the “sandwich,” harried, distracted. In reality, she felt like she was in a desert–weary and parched.
In this book, she describes turning to a weird bunch of saints from 1700 years ago, the desert fathers and mothers, the progenitors of monasticism. Yes, they did some strange things lie sit on pillars. But they also understood that the desert is part of the spiritual journey. They named the condition and the tendencies to “flame out” or “numb out.” Instead, they wrestled what it meant to go on with God through the desert times.
After this introduction, Warren, in a series of pithily titled chapters reflects upon and passes along their wisdom. “Stay in Your Cell” focuses on the temptation of acedia, to flee to ease or new distractions, and the wisdom of stability, of staying true to one’s people and one’s spiritual practices. We meet John of the Cross, who learns to set aside the longing for feeling or insight to simply be with God in his cell, even when there is no sense of his presence. “Pledge Your Body to the Walls” draws on Benedicts insights about gyrovagues who moved from one monastery to another. Warren explores all the ways we are gyrovagues from relentless moves to church switches and the challenge of letting our roots sink deep in a place.
“Wait in the Womb” explores how stability that waits and perseveres becomes a place where God develops and transforms us. She quotes C.S. Lewis’s counsel to ” ‘continue seeking with cheerful seriousness,’ knowing that unless God ‘wanted you, you would not be wanting Him.’ ” Then, “Relax the Bow” draws on a story of Antony with a hunter, asking him to draw a bow more and more until the hunter protests that it will snap. So it is, Antony says with God’s work. Warren writes about learning the gift of days of delight and sabbath and the grace of confession as ways to relax the bow. Likewise, “Let the Silt Settle” invites us to silence and solitude.
Throughout the book, Warren is both hopeful and yet honest. There are no quick fixes or shortcuts out of the desert. This is a book about going through desert lands, about how to keep going, cultivating resilience. “Brace the Wall” addresses the realities of doubt and disorientation in our desert journeys. We have questions and don’t see clearly the way forward. And sometimes we doubt that God can be trusted. She writes of working through the Psalms and how “yelling at God about our anger, our doubt, and our complaints is perhaps one of the most faithful moves we can make.”
Finally, “All Smoke, All Flame” speaks to “the culmination of Christian resilience.” The title comes from the counsel of Abba Joseph to Abba Lot, who recites his practices and asks “what else can I do?” Abba Joseph “stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.” We cannot force fire by our efforts, which are just smoke. But by grace through our stumbling practices of faithfulness, we slowly progress. And one day God will set us ablaze in glory.
There is a lot of wisdom as well as earthy humor in Warren’s rich prose. The gist of it all is to not give up, flaming out or numbing out. It is not to chase after spiritual quick fixes. It is to stay put and keep going deeper in the inexhaustible world of prayer and scripture, of sacrament and community. I’m past those perilous middle years. But Warren speaks to my senior years as well. It’s so easy to settle in. I need her call to persevere all the more. And, I’m compelled by the vision to become all flame. By grace, may it be so!
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.