the generous desert

Forty years ago, I went into the desert in New Mexico with a friend, Dave Gaetano. It was our second foray into the beauty of the Southwest. This time, we went into the canyon of the Rio Chama, northeast of Santa Fe, in Abiquiu. Abiquiu itself is a handful of houses and a store sprinkled lightly along a highway. Several miles away, there was a small sign, perhaps six inches by ten, hunched low to the ground, with an arrow pointing west along a track to “Christ in the Desert Monastery.” The road goes west a mile or two, then it tips over an edge and feels its way down and down into the canyon, then turns north again, and goes another ten miles or so to a dead end at the monastery. We went to the end, then backed up a mile and set up camp on a hill between the river and the extravagantly colored canyon walls.

We arrived there on June 24, which is on the liturgical calendar as the birthday of John the Baptist, six months and a day before his cousin’s birthday. I stayed there 40 days (Dave left after a few weeks to see family in Wisconsin). In 1972, the Gospel of the day on my 40th and last day was about the beheading of John the Baptist. I believed then (and now) that the time was blessed.

I did not have any agenda. What was on my mind was that Jesus invited us to call God “Father.” I wanted to give that invitation time to take root.

That summer, there were three monks at the fledgling monastery: Father Aelred, Father Gregory, and Brother Anthony. There was a wonderful family attached to the monastery, sharing their life: Priscilla and Bob Bunker and their children. There were assorted guests coming and going, including a couple of young men who had been there for months, stroking their beards and speaking slowly, but flashing into clear laughter. There was a man I never spoke with, although his attitude was a vibrant detail of my experience there: a probing testing doubting Thomas figure, who came to Mass in the monastery chapel and leaned against the wall, one foot crossed over and toed up, arms folded, turned facing not toward the altar but sideways toward the congregation, with an expression of skepticism -- a permanent expression, as far as I knew.

Father Gregory had a beautiful voice; when he sang the Psalms, they were seriously and completely sung. He was a Princeton grad, but a man of depth and thought and wisdom; when he preached, he knew whom and what he was talking about. One Psalm and sermon of his stirred my soul, far past the testing probe of Thomas’s quick-cleansing questioning eyes. “What return shall I make to the Lord,” Gregory sang, “for His goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will take up, and call upon His name.”

What return can we possibly make to God, who doesn’t need anything we have, who gave us everything we have, who restored it all to us after we tossed it away carelessly? Our response to God’s gifts cannot be a matter of justice; we cannot reciprocate in a balanced way. We cannot deal with God in the way we want, with justice and equality, giving and receiving without calculation but nonetheless with approximate tit for tat. Imagine trying: “Thank you for the world; have a well-warmed worm.” So what do we do? Just give up? Take everything we can take, mutter thanks once or twice, and go on our way? Gregory's response: forget about justice, and aim higher. God is generous, and we can be generous in return. Give, give, just give -- to God and to his children -- not because it is owed, but because your heart has overflowed.

Thank you, Gregory. Thank you, desert. Thank you, skeptic. Thank you, Lord.