The technical definition of a desert is an arid land with sparse vegetation in a warm climate having less than ten inches of rainfall per year. Merriam-Webster also calls it a "desolate or forbidding area." So while not all of these pictures are technically deserts by the first definition, they can all be by the second. Throughout the United States you can find vast and remote spaces that evoke the emotional feeling of desert, where one feels alone, powerless, and open to the revelation of God.
The first picture is of the Verde Valley in Arizona. This is what we call high desert. I have already shown a picture of the high desert of the Navajos in an earlier blog.
This second picture was taken near the Ute Mountains in southwestern Colorado, another example of high desert. These qualify as deserts in the technical as well as the emotional sense.
These third and fourth pictures are of the the prairies of Wyoming and South Dakota, respectively. While not deserts in the technical sense, you can sense the great vastness that intrigued Native Americans who hunted them for buffalo and antelope. Interestingly enough, on hills in these prairies those Native Americans would go and sit for several days in a Vision Quest, seeking revelation and illumination from God. These lands look safe enough in the spring. But wait until winter. Temperatures in the Dakotas can drop to twenty below, and stay below zero for a month at a time. Add deep snow and icy cold winds out of Canada, bringing a wind chill of fifty below, and you have desolation.
This picture is from my home state, the Badlands of North Dakota, where Teddy Roosevelt liked to spend his vacations hunting and fishing. They have a feeling of both prairie and desert at the same time. However, for Teddy this desolate prairie would eventually become more important than as a place to hunt. , "After losing first his mother and then his wife on a single day in February 1884, Dakota became a place where Roosevelt could heal and move forward with his life. His days were spent riding alone through the wilderness, a spiritual storyline as old as human history. He would exhaust his body physically, riding, hunting, roping and ranching. He would write three books about his experiences in the west. In time, Roosevelt returned to society, resumed his public service career, and established a family." [Theodore Roosevelt National Park website.]
Wherever one lives, whether near a desert or not, we can find those vast, uninhabited spaces that call us to relinquishment and open us to the vastness and grandeur of God. Take time to go there and just sit, breathing in the beauty and mystery of God's creation. And perhaps God will speak to you just the Word you need to hear.
