Day 26: The Desert

 Growing up, I was not a fan of the desert. 

I couldn't understand why people would go there voluntarily. It felt uncomfortable and dangerous. It was the place people went to suffer in the Bible. 

I preferred green places. Abundant in water and life. 

My first trip to the desert was to take my kids to Palm Springs for a long weekend in the winter. They had cabin fever from weeks of rain and a place with warm weather and a swimming pool seemed like the perfect antidote. 

I grew to love the desert. As a mom of 5 very busy boys, I found an ability to rest in the desert that I haven't found in too many other places. There are no people there to judge my parenting or my kids. No one to worry about inconveniencing. There is a long visibilty and interesting rocks and things to climb. I don't have to worry about them breaking things. I can let them be them. It is a freedom I don't find other places. 

Other people that you run into in the desert tend to be very chill. Often they are also looking for freedom and peace. There's also very few other people so there am unwritten code of helping. Sharing tools. Helping with vehicle issues. Out in the desert, you have to rely on strangers ... there's no cell service. There's no AAA. 

In my ongoing reading of the early church, I've been learning about the very first Christian monasteries. Christians fled into the desert in Egypt. At first, they were completely alone. Single men and women who went into the most remote places they could find to dedicate their life to faith.  

Something was missing. One essential tenant of Christian faith is love. And these early monks could not fully live out their faith alone. And so they began to live in communities where devotion to God was accompanied with love and service to each other. 

What surprised me in the history is what drove them into the desert. If you had asked, I would have guessed it was persecution. But it was the rise of a "Christian state" under Constantine that pushed many to leave the empire and find a way to live more authentically. There was a fear that power and money would corrupt the church. That is was impossible to follow Jesus in a world with ornate churches. 

Listening to this history, I understand the impulse. There are moments when the world, the society and culture that i live in make me feel that the only way to live my faith fully and authentically is to withdraw. To move to a remote place and to develop rhythms of living that are congruent with my beliefs. And the other half of me says, my faith demands that I both love and serve others and that I bear witness to the work of God in my life.

This week, I am enjoying my freedom in the desert. But next week, I go back to work, finding ways to to live my faith in Livermore, California.