In the experience of many people COVID-19 has been a desert time. While the lockdown has taken us to the depths of loneliness, isolation and longing, we have found in the barren landscape new questions and new wonders. Every desert holds a well… Like the cactus we have found water in the dry place and together we ask who is the one who carried us to a pathway in the wilderness?

The Lenten Season each year draws us irresistibly into the sustainable relationship of encounter and despite the grit and the relentless heat we press on through the moving sand, in search of living water. When silence falls in our lives, the desert reveals the partnership that is love and it turns our ears to the inner voice. One of the great wonders of the desert is the discovery of life in the empty space and Presence in the silence. Lent is still about giving up and letting go for a clearer view and in the discovery of the rising sun behind the sand dunes, the fast becomes the food.

There is something about the desert that is a magnet to our hearts. In the nomadic urge we find ourselves letting go to the unknown in search of our deepest longing and then someone in the great somewhere sees the footprints of our search and carries us to the well of restoration. Making time for the desert- time, sounds like the right time.

We will meet at the oasis…
You shall cross the barren desert but you shall not die of thirst…
You shall see the face of God and live. Be not afraid    (John Michael Talbot)

 

Let Us Pray

In the desert of despair may we find Hope
In the desert of fear may we find Release from Bondage
In the desert of hunger and homelessness may we find Water
In the desert of waste and want may we find Shared Bread
In the desert of sickness and infirmity may we find Trust
In the desert of emptiness and doubt may we find the Vast Expanse
In the desert of isolation and rejection may we find a Desert Flower.
In the desert of pollution and desecration may we find Forgiveness
In the desert of spiritual drought may we find The Well.
In the desert of sorrow and tears may we find the Empty Tomb.
In the desert of the darkest night may we find The Presence        

 

Communications