The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
Isaiah 35: 1- 2
The words on one of my Sierra Club calendars stated, “Nowhere else on earth is geologic time so exposed as in a desert.” These words got me thinking about how also nowhere else in our lives is God’s time so exposed as in our desert experiences. In those moments of grief, despair, and confusion we are more open to God’s longer timescale. We find ourselves having to trust God with the unknown future amid the chaos of the present moment.
The holidays often accentuate the grief that many people are experiencing. While we sing carols, how can we also give voice to the pain, the desert time some people are feeling? Can we sit silently with them and wait? Or maybe we help them sing the Advent Blues.
I love that blues music is comfortable with dissonance. Blues improvises during the dissonance. Sometimes it holds on to the dissonance longer than we are comfortable, but it does eventually find resolution.
So too it is in our lives as we improvise our way through. Chaos resolves to grace. As Rosalind Brown wrote, “If we can be quiet in our hearts long enough, we will discover that God still carves out highways and turns the wilderness into a place of wonder, life and beauty, even though it is nothing as we expected.”
I thought about Brown’s words as I went to the St. Louis County Jail again last Wednesday afternoon for Bible study. What Advent word could I share with these women who surely know grief and loss in their time of waiting. They know better than I about desert moments and singing the blues. But they also have deep faith and hope for the future.
The power of hope often comes out in their dreams. As part of our time together women can share a recent dream and talk it through. This last week one woman shared that she was dreaming of dragons. We talked about possible interpretations. Could the dragon represent the inner battle that she was fighting? Was it possible that her inner dragon (addiction) was keeping her from the love she deserved?
Another woman shared how she was dreaming of chocolate desserts, brownies to be specific. In her dream she knew she was in jail, but she was going through the school lunch line. While standing in line someone kept stealing her dessert. She couldn’t keep it from happening. Over and over again her desserts disappeared. We talked about how desserts are sweet rewards, but also often something to be resisted. She made her own connections quickly, the treats she was rewarding herself with were really something to be avoided.
Dreams of dragons and desserts in desert moments. Yes, even here at the county jail God was making a way. “The wilderness and dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom”
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