I’ve been in Arizona this week at a conference — the schedule has been so packed that it has been hard to keep track of the news and it wasn’t possible to write mid-week.
Instead, I’ve mostly been thinking about the new people I’ve met and the new ideas I’ve encountered at this week’s gathering exploring “awakening” (one of my favorite topics as so many of you know!) here in the desert.
It is good to be back in Scottsdale, my growing up place. When we moved here in 1972, I was barely a teenager and I thought the desert ugly and dull, my eastern eyes unused to Arizona’s drier, more subtle beauty. But I came to love it as I learned to listen to it, the great capacity of its power and magic earned my respect and taught me to see differently. Humans have tried mightily to ruin this landscape, and in many ways, we have. But, at the edges, where the certainty of the city dissolves into the eternity of dust, the desert still has the final word.
People often go to the desert to find awakening, especially in times of cultural stress and conflict. The Bible is full of stories of those who left more comfortable habitations to find God in the desert.
Indeed, the first place that ancient Christians went to escape the temptations and violence of empire was the desert —and it was in their struggle with landscape (rather than Caesar) that their first wisdom tradition emerged. In the sayings that remain to us, we hear an alternate attentiveness to soul and spirit, sometimes pricking the heart as the needles on cacti:
Macarius said, “If you are stirred to anger when you want to reprove someone, you are gratifying your own passions. Do not lose yourself in order to save another.”
Arsenius always used to say this, “Why, words, did I let you get out? I have often been sorry that I have spoken, never that I have been silent.”
Abba Macarius the Great said, “If we keep remembering the wrongs which men have done to us, we destroy the power of the remembrance of God.”
Abba Poemen (called the Shepherd) remarked, “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.”
Abba Poemen said, “The beginning of evil is heedlessness.”
Abba Isidore of Pelusia said, “The desire for possessions is dangerous and terrible, knowing no satiety; it drives the soul which controls it to the heights of evil.”
Amma Theodora said, “Let us strive to enter by the narrow gate, Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter's storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; this present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.”
Abba Doulas, the disciple of Abba Bessarion said, “One day when we were walking beside the sea I was thirsty and I said to Abba Bessarion, ‘Father, I am very thirsty.’ He said a prayer and said to me, ‘Drink some of the sea water.’ The water proved sweet when I drank some. I even poured some into a leather bottle for fear of being thirsty later on. Seeing this, the old man asked me why I was taking some. I said to him, ‘Forgive me, it is for fear of being thirsty later on.’ Then the old man said, ‘God is here, God is everywhere.’”
And, ultimately, that’s what the desert has taught me: GOD IS HERE, GOD IS EVERYWHERE.
It was good to be reminded of that this week.
In the news, the Herschel Walker abortion story has generated an enormous — and almost giddy — commentary on hypocrisy. I’m in no mood to add to what has been said, other than to point out that white evangelicals will embrace any male celebrity who claims to have repented and been born again. The whole, sad, and sordid business will probably make little difference when it comes to voting patterns. But it does add to the public narrative that Christianity is little more than a faith of charlatans and power hungry fools.
My main thought? The best course of action is to keep this clearly unbalanced and troubled man out of the United States Senate — and whether you live in Georgia or beyond, do what you can to promote healing and sanity in this political race. And, quite honestly, pray that Georgia voters don’t vote for Walker. It seems painfully obvious that he needs friendship, love, medical help, and deep therapy — not public office. The main Christian response to this ugly news should be wise compassion, not public snark and shaming.
INSPIRATION
every tree
a brother
every hill
a pyramid
a holy spot
every valley
a poem
in xochitl
in cuicatl
flower and song
every cloud
a prayer
every rain
drop
a miracle
every body
a seashore
a memory
at once lost
and found.
we all together —
fireflies
in the night
dreaming up
the cosmos
— Francisco X. Alarcón, “Flower Song”
The morning is clouded and the birds are hunched,
More cold than hungry, more numb than loud,
This crisp, Arizona shore, where desert meets
The coming edge of the winter world.
It is a cold news in stark announcement,
The myriad stars making bright the black,
As if the sky itself had been snowed upon.
But the stars—all those stars,
Where does the sure noise of their hard work go?
These plugs sparking the motor of an otherwise quiet sky,
Their flickering work everywhere in a white vastness:
We should hear the stars as a great roar
Gathered from the moving of their billion parts, this great
Hot rod skid of the Milky Way across the asphalt night,
The assembled, moving glints and far-floating embers
Risen from the hearth-fires of so many other worlds.
Where does the noise of it all go
If not into the ears, then hearts of the birds all around us,
Their hearts beating so fast and their equally fast
Wings and high songs,
And the bees, too, with their lumbering hum,
And the wasps and moths, the bats, and the dragonflies—
None of them sure if any of this is going to work,
This universe—we humans oblivious,
Drinking coffee, not quite awake, calm and moving
Into the slippers of our Monday mornings,
Shivering because, we think,
It’s a little cold out there.
— Alberto Rios, “December Morning in the Desert”
God is here; God is everywhere.
Yes, I grew up in the high desert in central Mexico. There is some stoicism in the desert.
I spent a vacation in Scottsdale once. We stayed at the Princess and drove to Sedona for a day trip. The desert air, beautiful nights, the red rock & humongous cactus gave me a feeling of “Awe”. I think we could all do with a feeling like that about now. Diana, glad you had a chance to connect with your roots. Amidst the political turmoil, and for me Hurricane Ian it’s helps to give ourselves replenishing moments. And to remember God is here in all the moments. Thank you!!