It Hides a Well

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

On a pilgrimage to a monastery east of Tucson, I wrote this in my journal after a two Sabbath-day’s journey into the desert outside the monastery gate:

“The monastic services are beautiful here, but it is the silence, the heat that takes breath away, the vast and deadly sweep of the desert itself that has been the catalyst for my real epiphanies about life with God. The desert should not be pitied. Only a pampered perception judges such a place needy, the human tendency to recoil from what is not overtly ample, lush, even excessive. Plants out here naturally distance themselves from each other in the competition for moisture. When the rain does come, it suffices the comical teddy bear cholla, saguaro cactus, and scrappy shrubs. Most of these can survive years without moisture if they must. This lean outback so austere of the sensorial is a reminder our souls and bodies need far less from earthly surroundings than we think. To insist on more than presents itself naturally through God’s provision is to squander life energies designed to be satisfied in simplicity, which has its own allure. In the deafening silence I have grasped briefly—very briefly for this extrovert—why so many saints of the past chose the desert for the formation of their souls.”

The deserts in our lives certainly don’t have to be literal, and are designed only to subdue our excesses, not kill us off, despite the raging heat. We think the monotony, or the perceived mediocrity, or the sorrow of the desert experience, will suck the very life from us. As one friend put it, “When this is over, will there be anything left of me?”

Strong issues require strong remedies. On the next go-around with the desert, let's stop thrashing our arms in the heat, spread ourselves a little apart from others, conserve energy by not making so many judgments on our souls or our circumstances, be a little more zen about God’s sovereignty. He’s the Sovereign, after all, ruling over His ironical earthly Kingdom, the desert of this world.