Life in the Desert

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. (Luke 4:1-2)

The first sentence of this Gospel reading (1st Sunday of Lent) sounds a lot like my own experience after graduating from Notre Dame. Literally and figuratively, I have been living in my own desert for the past year. After graduation in May 2012, I left Notre Dame, was diagnosed with a heart condition, returned to ND briefly to work at ND Vision for the summer, road tripped it home to Arizona, and underwent open heart surgery just 5 days after returning home. Suddenly, life as I knew it was radically different from anything I had ever experienced. And while I had expected things to be different as I plunged headfirst into the great post-graduation unknown, I was unaware of how closely my story would resonate with Lent and the Easter season. 

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A stranger driving along the highway in Arizona might only see the monotonous brown of the desert mountains, and remark that there is no civilization, no sign of life for miles and miles. One might take one glance at the harsh desert sun and wonder how anything survives with such little rain. One might wonder, like I did, how anyone can survive, let alone thrive, in a place that is so much different from what we are used to. One might ask how Jesus, evil temptations aside, even survived the harsh elements of the desert. 

In my case, I wondered how I was supposed to thrive in my own desert, away from the comforts of my alma mater. How was I supposed to grow without the omnipresence of the dorm chapels, adoration, and Basilica Masses? How was I supposed to survive when all my friends were no longer across the hall from me, but rather, across the country? 

As I reflect on this Easter season, I find it difficult to separate the desert passage read on the first Sunday of Lent from the celebration of life that accompanies Easter. I find myself focusing not on how Jesus resisted Satan's evil in the desert, but rather on how Jesus might have embraced God's good, God's life, in the parched landscape, and carried this experience with him as he entered into his passion, death and resurrection. 

I don't always see the living life-giving water that kisses the earth, but I know of its existence through the proof it leaves all around me. I see the unassuming sage color of the grass that bravely pokes through the cracked earth and reaches for the sun, its roots clinging to the water deep within the soil. I see the tiny purple and yellow of the plants that bloom in the median, quickly forgotten by speeding cars on their way to big cities and office buildings. I laugh at the scandalous magenta of the prickly pear cactus fruit that stains my fingers as I make it into homemade jelly. And a lump always comes to my throat when I witness sunlight piercing through ivory clouds in the most beautiful lilac, tangerine, scarlet symphony of color. 

And that's what I love about the desert. I'd like to think that that's what Jesus might have loved about the desert. Yes, it gets lonely out here. Yes, there is so much empty space, and so few people. Yes, things are different here. But there is so much life, there is so much good, so much God. 

The sky is so wide and so blue that it threatens to consume me in its grandeur. The sun is so hot and the earth is so warm that when I lay down in the dry grass, I am warmed to the bone. The wind here is so strong and so overwhelming that it seems as if God is literally trying to sweep me off my feet. 

Yes, Jesus was tempted, and he felt alone, and at times, he probably wished he was anywhere but where he was. Maybe he wished, like I sometimes do, that he was somewhere else--anywhere else. Maybe he wished that he was back at Lake Gennesaret fishing with his friends James, John and Simon, or dancing and laughing with his mother at that wedding party at Cana, the one with all the wine. 

But I bet Jesus also stared out into that desert landscape and wished that his friends could see just how eerily beautiful the mountains look by moonlight, or how special a tiny yellow flower seems when it is the only sign of color for miles. Most importantly, I'm certain he noticed how much more brightly the stars shine on the darkest nights in the middle of nowhere. I'm certain he thought, "Yes, there is life here. There is God here in this desert. I am lonely and I am hungry and I am exhausted, but I know I'm not alone. Life is all around me." 


Yes, Satan tempted Jesus. But try as he might, Satan was not able to break Jesus' spirit-- not in the desert, not on the cross, not even during his descent into hell. In the desert, Jesus was tempted, and life as he knew it was stripped away from him for 40 days. But perhaps Jesus' time in the desert was a spiritual encounter that forced him to grow deeper, and look more closely, and see life in a radically different way. His trial in the desert isn't an isolated incident; it was an experience that prepared him for what was to come.

As he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, I'm sure Jesus rejoiced at seeing those beautiful green palms that represented such a stark contrast to the life he'd experienced in that parched landscape. I'm certain that after Jesus rose, when he told his disciples, "Do not let your hearts be troubled," or, "I am with you," or "Peace I leave with you," some of that wisdom was obtained from 40 days of nothing but prayer and fasting and resisting the lure of despair. Jesus knew that even in our most trying moments, there is always life to be found; all shall be well. 

So as this Easter season comes to a close, I am certain that I will embrace my own desert and acknowledge the loneliness that it entails and the harsh, raw beauty that it contains. But most importantly, I will keep in mind that my own awareness of God's life all around me shouldn't just happen during Easter, but also in my everyday life: in my joys, in my sorrows, and especially during my trials.