You can go through personal, marital, vocational, spiritual, institutional, etc. deserts. There the conditions are spartan, it is very cold and very hot, there is little company, the food is precarious, time passes slowly, silence prevails, there is dust and bugs, they are inhospitable, austere and unpleasant places. It is logical to complain and seek comfort, whether it is a golden calf, turning stones into bread or crying for the leeks and onions you used to eat.
And at the same time, remember that you are passing through, that you will leave behind something that was left over, that you know it is a desert because you have known other places and you can compare. The fact that you are there now does not cancel or deny what you have lived before, but rather reinforces, affirms and contrasts it. That it was different before also reaffirms that you are now in that desolate place. The emotional dryness of this season contrasts with the wise conscience that connaturally points out the truth. The desert is a lonely place where only God meets you at dawn after having contemplated you while you slept.
Don't be afraid of it, it's scary, yes, and go for it because it's good for us even if we don't understand it.
1.- It threatens to destructure your life. It seems that everything is over, that nothing makes sense anymore, that everything before was false. Great uneasiness and/or subtle deceptive approaches will appear: disillusionment, tiredness, existential questioning or amendment to the totality.
2.- It questions. To go through it means to discern again. Yes, again. What is wheat and what is tares, what is straight and what is crooked, what is light and what is shadow, the demons and the wild beasts ask you, if it is this way or the other. It is a lucid deliberation in which, at the same time, you know and you don't know, you see and you don't see.
3.- Awaken the spirit so that you can start again, and really start. It is the preamble to a new spiritual path, to return to the essential and make things new. Do not deny the past, you know where you come from, even sometimes running away from the Egyptian on duty. The sun burns your old skin and a new one appears. You are thirsty and long for the light; unlike the depressive pictures, where you don't care about anything, here you want to find the truth.
4.- Show the north. To see the stars well, the more darkness the better. It seems - so say the mystics who enlighten us with their dark nights - that He does not exempt from the fecund blackness of the blind man who recovers his sight. The lack of light on earth allows you to see the stars in the sky, where the Polar remains at your service. If you trust the night with your time and wait, in the end, it always surprises you with the gift of dawn. There is hope, in the face of the hopelessness of depression.
5.- It clears and stuns at the same time. It generates confusion at first: what is going on? Little by little it centers you and allows you not to be distracted because there is little noise there, with so much emptiness around. It frees you from weights that are not necessary to move forward. In silence the word is better heard. Without so much complement the Word is more authentic and you know it is there, even if you feel almost nothing spiritually, and in other areas of your life you are still as alive as ever.
6.- Wanderlust. When you find yourself so sold out you have two options: either you wake up and continue walking to live, or you abandon yourself and die for the desert nothingness. This scenario offers you a full life according to the spirit, because the material, structural, institutional or task supports are few, unappetizing and little satisfying. The desert does not lull you to sleep like the alterations of the state of mind.
7.- Detach. To be able to advance through the sands it is necessary to detach oneself from what is not essential: occupations, errands, activities, distractions. It is frightening because it seems that there will be nothing left, but there will be you and God who, moreover, in the midst of the depopulation, will say to you with a half smile "feed them", when all you have left are rags, much hunger and thirst.
8.- Go inside. As the outside of the desert is of little interest and is always the same, it is necessary to stop looking outside for what you have inside. Thus, it places you in a propitious scenario for the encounter with yourself, with your own truth, and to see that there inside they were already waiting for you for the wedding. However, in depression you are not able to reflect.
9.- Rename. With so many stones around, at the end you see your name written on all the little white stones. A new name, after the hero's journey, which turns out to be the same name as before.
Thus, you make history, you build your history, and you come out of the desert awake, vitalized and with that look -comprehensive, amazed and appreciative- about yourself, others and life, which allows you to enjoy every drop of water much more.
