Into The Desert

Thus begins the diary of a trip into Death Valley. In many ways it was an ordinary camping vacation. In other ways it inspired thought and ideas and being. Follow along if you will. Just as it took 5 days to make the trip, it will take several days to blog about it.

Spiritual and religious tradition tells of leaders and prophets who went to the desert to pray, find enlightenment, be strengthened in their faith. In Christian tradition, not only Jesus, but also people known not only for their faith but also for their place, the Desert Fathers, the Desert Mothers, found solace in those empty spaces. 

Today we enter the desert in a whole different way. We drive in ~ in cars, RVs, in our case in a truck towing a camper.

We come to isolated areas that are still marked off in camping sites. We come to clustered camp sites where the people next door greet you with energy and smiles. If you don’t have them for yourself, personal amenities like toilets and sinks for washing your dishes, are just around the bush on the corner. 

In spite of all this 21st century paraphernalia, there is something about driving into the desert. The road stretches out ahead, straight on forever until it disappears between two hills. On either side great rocks are thrust up out of the flat sand, still bearing marks of the trauma that pushed them there millions of years before. The sky is wide and barren. The landscape is mysterious and huge.

Everything shrinks next to the size of the environment. Telephone poles just off the road look like toothpicks stuck in the sand. A car coming toward you down the road is a tiny dot until it is right upon you. You feel that your large truck pulling what seemed like such a large camper has shrunk to a miniature size as it moves across such a landscape. And your soul acknowledges that you are in a different place. 

What will you find here? What changes? What enlightenment? What knowledge or wisdom you have never recognized in yourself? The desert has been waiting for you for thousands of years. You are only a blip on the time of its existence. It will accept you though and offer you peace and wisdom, blessing and calm if you will but listen. It is worth the drive.