Desert Wanderings

Deserts are arid, minimal water, and they can be either hot or cold (like a lot of arid people I know!).

But it's in deserts that much is learned, if we're willing to listen and "enter the experience." The Israelites wandered in the desert wilderness. Jesus was in the desert wilderness during his temptation. The desert is the place where we learn to do without, where we are stripped of our "support system" and make our stand in a place of scarcity, rather than the abundance we prefer.

But it's the abundance, especially of physical/material things that blind us from our spiritual poverty, or even our emotional, relational, and societal poverty. If it's in being poor that our wealth is proclaimed, then the desert is a place where we become rich. Know what I mean?

I'm in the desert this week; in Arizona, in the Valley of the Sun. And there is plenty of sun.

At the pool yesterday, while it was 100 degrees, I heard one man exclaim that he was going to go inside because, "I'm cold. The wind is blowing too hard." My mouth became parched, it was open so long in astonishment! (And with the wind blowing hot, arid air.) I was sitting there in the heat and I would have been sweating if it hadn't been so dry. The humidity is around 15-17%, which is like almost totally dry air. Not many clouds in the sky.

So I wasn't sweating. But I was hot, sitting there in the sun, letting the heat warm my joints and soak into me. Winter in Indiana will come soon enough and heat will be welcome.

I am here visiting my mother, who transitioned from the nursing home back to her own house. It has been a week of challenges, as my weakened mom struggles to regain her strength. Breathing is her main problem, and it's a big one. There have been times when the breath of life has been in short supply, not able to make it through her constricted airways and make it to her bloodstream because of damaged and congested lungs. Not a pretty picture. Breaks your heart to hear someone struggling to take every single breath. Makes you thankful for the ability to breath.

When the breath of life escapes you, you are in a desert. A place of scarcity.

It gets your attention!

And God says, "Now that I've got your attention, while you're here, wandering around wondering if your 'lostness' will ever end, let's do business. Let me be your life, even though all you want is your next breath."

And then ... and then ... God blesses us with His presence. And that's enough.

He meets us in the tabernacle of our bodies, that holy place where His Spirit comforts us and fills us with Life, Life we cannot give ourselves. That Spirit whose very name is "breath" fills us with Life.

I return to Bremen tomorrow.

Flying on air.

Faster than the wind.

(Really?)

Out of the desert ... or so I think.

God is laughing.