The Desert

The desert. A harsh, barren landscape that strips everything down to its bare essentials. There's beauty here--tall mesas, rolling hills, red and brown clay--but it's a beauty that's been hammered, beaten down, refined, and is unforgiving of any false steps. Roses and willow trees do not live here, nor the blossoming reds, yellows, pinks and oranges of tulips, roses, or pansies. Instead, there's a dull gray to the sage, scrub brush and cacti as they cling tenaciously to the rocks and thin soil. You could drive for hours without seeing another living thing. If you were on foot, it could take days. The silence could be maddening, and the days and hours blur into each other until all that seems to be or to have ever been is the desert. Defenses are ripped away, and the possessions and relationships and comforts--resources that made life easy--are no longer available.

Deserts are dead places, and deserts are places where people are sometimes tested and reborn.

Joseph, sold by his brothers into Egypt then falsely accused of hitting on his master's wife, spends over two years in prison. Abandoned to his own desert and forgotten, he continues to dream of someday feeding a nation.

Moses, educated by the greatest civilization of his time, privy to the comforts of the palace, kills a man and flees into the desert for forty years, only to return to lead a nation of slaves to a land of freedom.

The Israelites, former slaves who prefer the security of slavery to the risk of freedom and something more, are tested, broken down, and reshaped in the desert.

John, sensing the winds of change and a new order, goes into the desert to prepare the way.

Jesus, before his ministry begins, goes into the desert for forty days where he's tempted, but doesn't give in.

There are also the Egyptian monastics, the Irish monastics, and others who go, willingly or unwillingly, into the desert. Sometimes it's to escape, sometimes it's to die, sometimes we're prodded and goaded into these uninhabited wastelands.

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It's a literal landscape, and yet it can also be an apt metaphor for the journeys we find ourselves on. Last summer I spent a couple days in southern and eastern Oregon, driving up and down mountains until I lost sense of direction, then I crossed over into the desert and drove around mesas and through valleys for hours. The lakes, the sand, the landscape was breathtaking, but after a while I became uncomfortable with the silence. I began to wonder if I'd ever get out. I began wondering about whether I had enough gas, or what would happen if the car broke down. My cell phone didn't work here, and I began to wonder what trying to survive out here would feel like.

Deserts are spiritual places. It takes bringing us to uninhabited wastelands, away from the noise and comfort to strip us down and make us realize our dependence, our animalness of being human. We sense something bigger when we're not constantly distracted by ourselves. Rock stars, entertainers, politicians tell us how great they are, and commercials tell us how great we will be if we use their products. In crowds, we tell ourselves we're better than that fat slob, or that greasy haired girl, or could be as good as that prima donna if we practice, or that model if we lose another ten pounds, or that guy if we have this girl. We have none of that to rely on in the desert. Instead, we ask "Where will I find water, where will I find food? How can I get away from this pounding sun? God, help me!"

Sometimes our desert is a broken marriage, losing a job or moving to a place that is strange and foreign to us. Whatever the circumstance, we find ourselves at the end of our strength and resources, ready to die and not sure how to live.

And something changes. A part of us dies. A part of us is reawakened.

We have a need to live differently, to realize that there is someone bigger than ourselves and that the universe moves on without us pulling the strings. In fact, most of the time the natural world could care less whether we won a trophy, a beauty pageant, or a promotion, but notices when we abuse the resources we're given. Solitude and silence have been timeless spiritual disciplines because that's what it takes to see the ways peace has been broken in the world, in our lives, in our relationships with each other and with God. Deserts provide both. But then deserts also require that we leave them and reenter the places where flowers grow, water flows, and laughter fills up the silence.