Crossing the Desert: Learning to Let Go, See Clearly, and Live Simply

by Robert J. Wicks

Book Overview

Robert J. Wicks, noted psychologist and author of bestsellers Riding the Dragon and Everyday Simplicity, delivers this paperback edition of Crossing the Desert, an insightful guide on how the wisdom... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933495081
• ISBN13: 9781933495088
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Sorin Books
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

great book, wonderful insights

I have read several of Bob Wick's books and highly recommend all of them. this one is no exception.

The desert has its gifts...

Assuming there is eternal wisdom that gets written about in different cultures and in different contexts, this book presents some of that wisdom in the name of the desert fathers and mothers. The recurrent and superficial mentioning of the desert fathers and mothers in the book makes it easy to believe that invoking them is perhaps little more than a marketing ploy, because really very little is said about them in this book. The current that runs through this book most clearly stems from the author's background in psychology- and perhaps having yet another psychologist write a book about how to live wisely did not inspire the publishers the way adding some spice with references to desert mothers and fathers did. I am just guessing here- and the way the book reads makes it easy to make this kind of guess. That said, there are some truly worthy, inspiring and insightful passages in this book that while they were rare, were thoughts and inspirations I hadn't heard put that way previously and that I found very helpful.

Total Conversion

In his latest work, Dr. Wicks advises those seeking wisdom from the desert fathers and mothers to "read, underline, write out what we've underlined, study, think...absorb, practice." I suggest the same approach to Crossing the Desert. From the first chapter, Wicks continually draws parallels between the fourth century culture the Christian ammas and abbas wished to escape and that of the twenty-first century. He illustrates his points with stories from his personal and professional life and passages written by spiritual leaders and seekers of all faiths. With deeper, more focused reading we see that he is writing about total conversion and the freedom it brings, not simply offering a few add-ins for our bag of spiritual tricks.