TIME FOR A TRIP THROUGH THE DESERT

My old spiritual director in seminary loved the imagery of the desert and the oasis in the middle of the desert. He maintained that life is a journey and that there are times when, on that journey, we have to pass through the desert on our way to the next oasis where we will find rest and refreshment. He also loved the imagery of being in exile in Egypt like the ancient Hebrews and looking forward to leaving slavery behind and finding freedom in the Promised Land.

When he melded those two images together, what we were led to mediate on was that life is all of that and more. If we are indeed living in exile in Egypt in this life and if our goal is the Promised Land of heaven, then to get there from Egypt would mean that we would have to travel through the desert, stopping along the way at the many oases we found in order to refresh ourselves for the next part of the journey.

The best parts of the journey, at least spiritually, are the times in the desert. It is then that we find out who we are and of what we are made. For whenever we arrive at those oasis spots, we seem to quickly forget about the past while we revel in the joy of not having to struggle with whatever it was that made the past seem like trudging through the desert where water and food were scarce and life was always tenuous.

We all would avoid those desert experiences if given the choice. They are not pleasant and are often quite painful. Only a fool would freely choose to walk through the desert and we are no fools. Yet, as that spiritual director warned, unless we sometimes deliberately walk out into the desert, when the time comes when we suddenly discover ourselves in the midst of one, we will not be prepared.

Lent, which is upon us, is just the time to take a walk through the desert. It is a time for deep personal reflection. When the ancient Hebrews were on the march from exile in Egypt to freedom in the promised land, they had an abundance of opportunities to ask themselves why they chose to leave Egypt where they at least had three squares a day to risk their lives wondering if that day would bring any food or drink.

There were times when they thought themselves to have been fools. But those desert experiences strengthen them so that there came a time when they no longer worried about food and drink because their experiences in though desert had steeled them for any and all hardships that would come before reaching the Promised Land.

Desert times are times for “prayer, fasting and self-denial”, as the admonition on Ash Wednesday reminds – times for deliberate, freely-chosen, honestly-desired prayer, fasting and self-denial. Lent is such a time for you and for me. We are encouraged to use this time in prayer, fasting and self-denial to strengthen ourselves for the journey to come. If we do, we will be prepared when suddenly thrown in to the desert because of life’s vagaries. If we do, we know, when those times come, that we will survive because we have strengthened ourselves just for such hard and difficult times. Now is the time for that personal trip through the desert.