(This is from a draft I am writing for an interfaith group that is crafting a statement about stewardship of the California desert. As one who finds spiritual sustenance in the desert, this project is especially meaningful to me! I'd really appreciate any feedback or suggestions from you, dear "musings" readers, about what could be included in this statement. )
Pedro Chino, a Cahuilla Native American pa’vu’ul
or shaman in the 1930’s, was said to have traveled under the earth
through steaming hot springs in the desert. “This land is alive,” he
said. “That is why you can see where it breathes.” (Dozier, p 56)
For the Cahuilla, everything in the desert is alive – even the rocks.
(Dozier, p 61) In traditional tribal life in the desert, according to
Alvino Siva, an elder, “Everthing had to be done right if you were
going to do it…. Even cutting wood or picking up a rock, everthing.
You had to talk to it.” (Dozier, p 26)
Moses met God in the burning bush on the desert mountain of Sinai. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place upon which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)
Hagar was led by God to water in the desert, and God promised that from her son Ishmael would come a great nation.
Jesus prayed in the desert for forty days before beginning his ministry.
Mohammed meditated in a cave in the desert mountain of Hira, where the Angel Gabriel visited him and began to recite the Koran to him.
To begin his quest for liberation from suffering, the Buddha left the man-made environs of his palace, and meditated under a tree in a natural setting.
For the Latter Day Saints, who found their promised land in the Utah desert, even the scrubbiest tree had a spirit. In the words of God recorded by their prophet, Joseph Smith: “And out of the ground made I, the Lord God, to grow every tree, naturally, that is pleasant to the sight of man; and man could behold it. And it became also a living soul. For it was spiritual in the day that I created it…” (Moses 3:9)
The desert is harsh but fragile, seemingly empty but in fact sheltering countless forms of life. It is a place where absence awakens us to presence. The place where pride and pretense is stripped away, and we are exposed to an awe-filled encounter with our divine Source.
The Greek word for "desert" in the Christian New Testament is “eremia” -- the root of the word "hermit" that was applied to the solitary monks living in the wilderness of the Near East in the first century. 'Eremia' has at least two meanings. The outer desert has its natural processes, some awful and others just awe-full, and the sojourning hermit observes them with minimal interference. It may seem at first to be a parched and dusty place, but the longer an alert observer remains there, the more life is apparent in the shade of cacti, scrubby junipers, and creosote bushes. Likewise, the inner, spiritual desert of solitary silence may at first seem dead. But as practitioners of prayer disciplines so often report, a lengthy sojourn in silence will reveal a rich and complicated inner world of experience that, like an arid wilderness, must be negotiated on its own terms.
The encounter between “eremites” and the “eremia” had everything to do with the land covenant established between God and the people of Israel. The 'hapiru' were semi-nomadic herders who escaped the tyrannies of Egypt and Babylon to live off the land in the hill country of Palestine. In the Jewish imagination, and to at least some degree in history, they lived in harmony with nature, interfering only minimally in the natural order, honoring the sacredness of all life. Later, the 'hapiru' became the 'Hebrews', an ethnic group that settled on the flatlands, practiced peasant agriculture, and began to build cities and kingdoms. The Covenant, the Sabbath day, and the sabbatical and jubilee years were established to preserve and restore the connection of the people of Israel to their roots in communion with God and nature. The Covenant of the Abrahamic tradition is not just between people and God. It is a bill of rights for the earth.
The primary meaning of Sabbath or Shabbat is cessation from all activity that is 'melacha', the Hebrew word usually translated as 'work' or 'labor’, but more precisely is any interference in the processes of nature. 'Shabbat’ means giving the earth back to itself. It restores harmony between us and the Creation of which we are a part. It means ceasing to act as though we were the owners and rulers of nature.
Likewise, in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions, “ahimsa”, to do no harm, is a fundamental principle that defines not only relations among people, but between human beings and the natural world. It releases human beings’ claim to ownership and control of nature.
For Christians, the Sermon on the Mount is a manifesto for the redemption not just of humanity, but of the natural order, called for in the Torah. “Consider the lilies,” said Jesus, “how they grow; they neither toil nor spin…” (Matthew 6: 28) It is a call to a sabbatical way of life.
The vision of the ideal city in the book of Revelation in the Christian Bible (chapter 22) is centered on a natural environment reminiscent of Tahquitz Falls at the base of the mountain at Palm Springs: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22: 1-2)
Two Sonoran Desert dwellers, a Quaker and a Catholic priest, posed this question: "What would it mean if Law's sword were made into stewardship's plowshare? Covenant communities would convert management into symbiotics, possession into communion, and ownership into earth rights." (Corbett/Elford, p 43)
Islam expresses these traditions in the humility so central to its faith: “True servants of the Merciful are those who walk humbly on the earth…” (The Quran, 25:63)
This humility leads us into awe for the holy and wholly Other, manifesting in the natural world that surrounds us. Humble awe leads us to let the desert be.
References:
The Heart is Fire by Deborah Dozier (Heyday Books, 1998)
The Bible (New Revised Standard Version)
The Koran (N. J. Dawood translation, 1956)
The Servant Church by Jim Corbett and Father Ricardo Elford (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #328, 1996)
The Pearl of Great Price (Selections from the Book of Moses) by Joseph Smith, 1830