The Deserts in Our Lives
Friday, April 11, 2025
Author and podcaster Cassidy Hall explores the desert as a metaphor for difficult times in our lives:
Sometimes desert conditions invite us to strip ourselves of all that is unnecessary and all that hinders us from forging ahead…. The desert distills us into the absolute rawness of who we are and asks us who we want to be. The desert will always find a way to reveal the core of our humanity, in all its naked vulnerability. And we must live through the desert moments in order to survive. The words of life get us to the next day. The chosen and unchosen deserts must be crossed…. As the desert monastics suggest, the only way through the deserts of life is to remain in the practice of examining the self, to stay in the Divine’s presence as we unveil ourselves, to truly see and be seen….
Even when I don’t want the gifts of the desert, I know they are real; with time I will be able to receive them. The unchosen deserts of my life have often been places of my most profound growth, where I’ve found liminal knowing, healing, new layers of vulnerability, and quiet blossoming. I’m reminded of the words of life that have come to me in past experiences, including the words and wisdom I’ve received from the early and modern desert monastics….
Most of the desert monastics committed themselves to some kind of rhythm combining prayer, self-reflection, and seeking the Divine. And amid this commitment, the landscape of the desert offered its own invitation into depth, growth, and the reminder that we are never alone. The desert plants, like the desert monastics, teach us again of the necessity to deepen our roots. We only carry through the deserts what we must: our reliance on root systems, communal care, and interconnection; the clarity of knowing what pieces of ourselves must die; and the timeless lesson to know and understand ourselves more intimately.
Through desert experiences, we learn to care more deeply for ourselves and the world:
The deserts are many. Chosen and unchosen desert encounters have opened me up to see and experience more room within myself for the whole world—to carry myself, the beloved, and the world with open hands; with compassionate, vulnerable, and tender acceptance. From here, I recognize my capacity for action in the world with deeper clarity about who I am and what I am to speak—or show up to….
In the spaciousness of solitude, we open ourselves up to the truth of ourselves. We more deeply root, examine, shed, and soften. Even in the desert moments of daily life, we are invited into renewal, when the wonder of uncertainty meets a sacred pause amid a busy day. And almost always, the desert spaces are places and moments of paradox: knowing amid the unknowing, refreshment in the parched places, life amid death, fecundity in the barrenness, midnight blooming, and acceptance of seasons.
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John Chaffee 5 on Friday
1.
“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”
– Karl Barth, 20th Century Swiss Pastor and Theologian
During our Fully Alive cohort this past week, one of the attendees brought out this quote from Karl Barth.
I had forgotten it for a while, but it is good.
Barth was a pastor-theologian during World War II and began his work as a Presbyterian pastor before shifting to being a professor of theology. At one point, he was even dubbed “The Professor of Grace.”
His magnum opus, Church Dogmatics, is his attempt to give a reformulation of the Reformation for the average church worker. He did not seek to write solely for academics, although they did cling to his every word in the mid-1960s. His work was so influential that the Catholic Church even said he was the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas (which is a MASSIVE compliment).
One commentator even said, “I know Barth’s theology to be true because when I finish reading it, I have a profound sense of joy.”
2.
“Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.”
– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk and Author-Activist
Now that spring is here, and warmer weather is happening, I am so glad to see cherry blossoms and trees with budding leaves. Winter can be rough when there isn’t much snow to keep it beautiful, and I admit to being significantly affected by how much sunlight I get or don’t get.
I love taking long hikes. A saunter through the woods can be as short as an hour, but it feels like a whole afternoon. Time slows down.
There truly is a spirituality to being outside in nature.
Perhaps this is the case because it was what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden. Green is a naturally calming color, especially when paired against a blue sky
Yes, St. Francis indeed used to preach to the woods and woodland creatures, but it might be a good idea to let them preach to us as well.
3.
Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: “Father, to the limit of my ability, I keep my little rule, my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and to the limit of my ability, I work to cleanse my heart of thoughts; what more should I do?”
The elder rose up in reply, and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: “Why not be utterly changed into fire?”
– The Sayings of the Desert Fathers
In Biblical imagery and the Christian tradition, fire is and continues to be a metaphor for God.
The great saints, sages, hermits, mystics, and holy fools of the Church speak of encountering this Fire and teach us that what we are all looking for can be found in that elusive yet ever-present Fire.
Religion is good and, in many ways, necessary, and it is a frequent tool to expose us to the Fire that is God. The unfortunate thing is that sometimes we yearn for the Fire yet settle for ritual.
This is what happens above with Abbot Lot. He has kept to the external and internal practices of ritualistic religion but missed that all those practices exist to expose him to the Fire enough that he can BECOME the Fire by participating in the Fire. And so, Abbot Joseph, who must have been a spiritual master, understood the task at hand and invited Abbot Lot to be transformed into that Fire who is God.
This aspect of the Christian faith did not make it across the Atlantic, the concept of becoming God by participating in the life of God. However, that is why these sayings of the early desert fathers are so important; they hold onto the early formulations of the Christian faith for us to pick up thousands of years later.
4.
“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it’s right.”
– Dorothy Day, Founder of The Catholic Worker
Follow the joy.
5.
“3 Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
9 “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.“
Jeremiah is one of the three Major Prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, alongside Isaiah and Ezekiel.
Isaiah emphasizes a New Creation, while Ezekiel emphasizes a New Temple.
Jeremiah is set apart by emphasizing a New Covenant.
For Jeremiah, the Israelites so desperately lost the plot that the Lord divorced himself from being their God. Israel had gotten to the point of trusting in itself and its economic and military might that their faith became mixed and fused with the surrounding pagan religions. All of their trust was in themselves, so they began to believe their own lies and deceptions. Israel told themselves a narrative that they were the foremost nation in the world, and that became their downfall.
Israel oppressed aliens among them, did not care for the fatherless or the widow, shed innocent blood, followed (and sacrificed) to gods of their own making, and trusted their own falsehoods. They stole from one another, murdered, committed adultery, lied in court, paid respects to foreign gods, and then dared to talk in holy places about how they were a people of faith.
As a result, God turned his wrath on Israel and the Temple.
One might think that such wrath would be spared for non-believers, but in Jeremiah, the wrath is directed first toward the household of God, who should have known better than to fall into such practices of injustice.
When a nation that calls itself devout falls into practices that lack compassion, humility, generosity, understanding, welcome, and a preferential option for those at the bottom, it should not be surprising if God must do some pruning.
