Storm in the Desert
Welcome to Contemplative Underground and thank you for reading my first blog post for this community. When we decided to schedule the launch of Contemplative Underground in early November, it had nothing to do with the election here in the United States. Our launch date of November 9th, 2024, was simply about when the website would be ready.
But I am now glad we chose a day this soon after the election, because it just seems so right. It makes me feel like I need the desert.
For at least several thousand years the desert has been a breeding ground, both literally and figuratively, for the contemplative life. A place in which people have searched for themselves, for a promised land, for some form of spiritual or material treasure, and for God. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all been formed and informed by the desert. Some Indigenous spiritualities and New Age spiritualities also trace their beliefs and traditions to the desert.
There are many reasons for this, and some are obvious - or at least they are to me. My top three reasons for falling in love with the desert (in particular High Deserts), in no particular order are:
I never truly experienced silence until I could “hear” the silence of the desert. The depth of its silence makes the occasion of being in the desert a contemplative experience in and of itself for me. An experience that makes me dig much deeper into myself, through all the outer layers of dust and aridity, only to find the soil and life-giving water that is my soul. And, as a Christian, I believe the very source of that living water is the Holy Spirit of God. Put two or three of us together, and Jesus is present among us.
And then there are the stars, the moon, the planets, that light up the night sky like so many torches blazing a path to the greatest expanse of eternity that, left to my own devises, I could never imagine myself. As a Christian I believe that God is in all places – those I know and even those I can only imagine.
Which leads me to the third reason I fell in love with the desert - and the one I am focused on right now a few days after the election: storms.
When I experience a desert storm, I get a glimpse of the power of forces I cannot control, forces that unleash drenching rain, intense hail, lightning strikes that make me consider the end times, and so much more.
Those storms, those forces I cannot control, remind me of why I so desperately need to be able to hear, once again, the silence of the desert to know the “still, small voice” of God.
It is why I need to live into the expanse of the night sky. It points me back to the desert of my own soul in which I can hear truth, and in which I am confident that God reigns in both the silence and in the storm.
To be sure, the storm clouds have gathered, and the intensity of the storm is likely to be severe. I am grateful to God that we have each other in the Contemplative Underground, so that we can continue to point one another in the direction of truth, non-violence, and love.
I cannot get there without the guiding hand of God, without following Jesus, without the strength of the Holy Spirit. This contemplative community is one in which, together, we can live more deeply into God while we lower our anxiety, tamp down our fears, and open ourselves to love.
Welcome. I hope you will join us.
Peace be upon you.
Br. James Dowd, OSB
Prior of Incarnation Monastery & The Benedictine Way
Spiritual Guide of the Contemplative Underground