And A River Runs Through It - GOD

"Abbot Moses.....took with him a very old basket full of holes, filled it with sand, and carried it behind him. The elders came out to meet him, and said: "What is this, Father?" The elder replied: "My sins are running out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I come to judge the sins of another!" (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)

The desert can make you delirious, not that you would know it. We are often lost and rarely admit it in this ocean of sand. I have found the desert to be utterly impartial, without remorse. How many has it claimed? Abandoned possessions and crooked markers line this Oregon, Santa Fe trail; whatever you prefer to call it. Recently in my own desert wanderings I realized how desparately thirsty I was, dustdevils swirled around me, forerunners of a sandstorm that would engulf me. Hunkered over by the battering wind, eyes red with sand swept tears I was reminded that desert trials fall upon the just and the unjust. "Flash floods of tears, torrents of them, flow down exposing long forgotten strata of life, a badlands beauty. The same sun that decorates each day from arroyos and mesas also shows every old scar and cut of lament. Weeping washed the wounds clean and leaves them to heal, which always takes an age or two" (Ann Dillard).

When Christ suffered in his agony, he hoarsely whispered, "I thirst." Suffering is not something which any of us are fond of but it is inevitable for those of "the way." Pain and tragedy have become a part of my desert. A word spoken can not be easily retrieved (and that is putting it lightly). Yet I have determined that this is a desert journey worth taking. Relentlessness is imperative. And just when I thought my cup had run dry, it came to me: there is a desert and a river runs through it- God. I have drunk and I am no longer dry. Sola Scriptura WHB