This year, I am wandering the Mojave in my mind. If you’ve experienced the Judean wilderness or Jordan’s Wadi Rum, go there. Just go. Jesus stayed for 40 days. I’m staying just one day—actually one fragment of a day—at a time. I’ll sit down. I’ll be quiet. I’ll stay. No timers, no music, no script. I just mean to stay until I know where I am. I may be in a cavern. I may be in a field of wildflowers. I may be lost in a barren sandscape. When I know where I am, I may say, “Let me finish,” or I may say, “I’ve got to rush off.” But I will have been in the desert of Lent, a place where Jesus has been and where the divinely human awaits.
I’m not asking for insights or visions or comfort. I’m just repeating: “Let us pray. Let me pray. Let me finish or refinish.” Or I may be silent. The less of a rule I make for myself, the less likely I will fail to observe it. I don’t want to box out any possibilities. I want to be open to uncertainty. I want to be in the desert, but not be deserted.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Let Us Pray: Allowing, Aiding, and Abetting“
by Carol Ann Morrow
