Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Thursday, May 11,2000
When a “desert experience”
leaves you at a
By Father David K. O’Rourke, OP
Catholic News Service
I drove with a friend years ago
oack to California where I lived, and
the only direct road ran right through
Death Valley. As we crossed this bar
ren desert, neither of us said much.
Traveling in our old car, we watched
the fuel gauge go down and the tem
perature gauge go up, hoping that we
would make it to the western side
without incident.
To be sure, the long desert crossing
was memorable. But for me it was not
pleasant. Like many people I prefer
the comfort and reassurance of our
green coastal hills.
Yet the desert is so important in
religious history. John the Baptist
was a creature of the desert, and
Jesus prepared for his public ministry
m the desert.
The desert is also a key place in
religious symbolism. Religious writers
talk about “desert experiences” as
times when we encounter both the best
and worst in ourselves, and as experi
ences that can lead to conversion.
But for many people such talk
seems as distant as Death Valley.
I want to suggest that these “desert
experiences,” like conversions, are
more common than we realize. We
can find them right in our own
nomes.
A conversion is a turning. But the
road to a conversion can be dark and
unknown. We can reach a point
where the discomfort of our life tells
us that things just can’t keep going
the way they are going. Something
has to give.
This experience can be likened to
going down an unknown road that
ends unexpectedly at a “T.” We know
we must go on, we can’t go back. But
we don’t know which way to turn.
a a m
I think of a couple I received into
the church; I’ll call them the Smiths.
They were very decent folks, good
neighbors, prosperous and enjoying
the “good life.” But unlike close Catho
lic friends whom they admired, they
told me, “We just don’t have anything
spiritual to hold on to.”
With growing apprehension they
had watched their parents begin to
age. But the Smiths really were jolted
when a favorite grandfather had a
stroke and died, and they were given
the task of arranging a funeral.
That’s when they dropped in to see me
— and their questions about life and
death went much farther than the
need for a proper farewell.
The tough times, when we come
face to face with what we do and do
All contents copyright ©2000 by CNS
conversion... simply means a turning. It is a recognition that
the road doesn’t end at that‘T’—that the road can continue. The
conversion is the
choice of the new
way to go.”
— that the road can continue. The
conversion is the choice of the new
way to go.
The Smiths’ choice to become
Catholics is an example of religious
conversion.
What makes a conversion religious
is what we turn toward. When we are
fortunate enough to be given the faith
that tells us there is a God-given pur
pose and meaning in our lives, then
we are having a religious conversion.
Even for believers the stresses in
life now and then will send the desert
sands drifting hot and gritty through
our lives. The discomfort they bring
can still hurt. But the difference is
that our faith tells us we are not lost
wanderers. Like the Smiths, and like
John the Baptist, we know where we
are going.
That God-given sense of direction,
even on life’s unknown paths, is what
makes all the difference between a
desert wanderer and a pilgrim who
knows the way to the green oasis.
(Father O’Rourke, a Dominican, is
a free-lance writer in Oakland, Calif.)
CNS photo by Bill Wittman
may be surprised just
how hard to handle
they prove to be.
These common but
difficult human reali
ties are the “desert ex
periences” religious
writers talk about.
They come about right
in the midst of our tall
cities and well-watered
suburbs.
What can make
these experiences so
difficult is the silent
way they sneak up on
us. The desert sands
drift in under our doors
when the lights are out
or our backs are
turned. In the midst of
our own sharing in the
FOOD FORTHOUGHT
What is it that you can learn from a “desert” experience? You can learn “to stop thrashing about and be still — be
still and know that God is God.” That’s what Sister Marie Chin, president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas,
said she learned.
“Times of disillusionment and doubt, times of depression, of transition, betrayal or misunderstandings can be
deserts for us,” Sister Chin explained in a 1999 speech.
—We can choose to enter a desert, she said, “as we do, for example, in times of retreat or choosing to live in
places of poverty and hardship.”
—Also, circumstances may “force us into the desert just as they forced the Israelites of old.”
This desert — “wilderness” — is “a place of struggle,” Sister Chin said.
In her desert experience, she said, she “had to let go of the thrashing of my own agendas, my own plans, my own
ideas, my own time schedule, and let God take center stage....
“In the desert I again heard deeply God’s invitation ... ‘to love tenderly, to act with justice, to walk humbly with
my God.’”
David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
not have going for
us, are common. I’m
thinking, for ex
ample, of the times
when we change
jobs, or the children
leave home, or we
face retirement, or
we leave the famil
iar and move to a
new town away
from family and
friends.
Even happy
times, like marriage
and the birth of chil
dren, bring big
changes.
These times of
change can make
big demands on our own inner re
sources. As our anxiety mounts, we
may begin to wonder whether we have
the personal resources we need.
Needless to say, many of us find
these experiences hard to handle. We
“good life,” for ex
ample, there comes
the unsettling sense
that something is
amiss.
The desert expe
rience and its push
to conversion do not
announce them
selves to most of us
until we are already
feeling distress. At
these times our
guard is down and
we are caught un
prepared.
But the difficul
ties of these times
also can make them
turning points.
That is what we mean by a conver
sion.
■ ■ ■
A conversion, as I noted, simply
means a turning. It is a recognition
that the road doesn’t end at that “T”
T
in
the
road