They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars—on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

I’ve grown fond of Robert Frost in the last few months. A poem of his really spoke to me today, in fact many of his poems have that effect on me. His lines are so deceptively simple but therein lies the genius of his style. It speaks it plain, and achieves a dramatic effect with each word resonating to its core. So much truth is embodied in the plainness of diction and syntax, I cannot help but read it over and over again for that curious and silent sadness that pervades after it is read.

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it–it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less–
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
 

-Robert Frost 

and this painting came to mind as I was writing out the poem..

In my desert places

The Lord touches me;

Not because He loves

Desert places but

Because He fills empty pots.

I have cried out of

My need in desert places.

It is not during times

Of lush, fertile life

That I reach my Maker,

But in those dry, barren

Places, God touches me.

I thank Him for

My barren times,

My times of sorrow:

I have emerged

Like lazarus,

Raised from the dead.

I have touched the Lord

And having touched Him,

Poetry has been created

From the dust of my soul.

Alice Parris

These are some entries from my spiritual journal dated Jan 6, 2007.

Times of great trials and hunger for me while on my journey with lyme disease.

“God leads me into the desert places to rest and wait upon Him.

It is in the desert that I learn to persevere.

James 1 talks about when perseverance has finished its work, making me complete and mature.

Jesus spent much time learning and listening to the Father in the desert with times of rest and quietness.

It is in the desert that the devil tries to tempt us. It is there that we must cry out, “it is written”, because it is there that we feel so totally dry and helpless and abandoned.

The desert was never the destination it was only a resting place along the way.

It is in the desert that God gives us green pastures to lie down in and rest on our journey.

Jesus did His greatest miracles in the desert.

Once He fed 5,000.

It was in the desert that the people were the hungriest and He met their needs.

He fed them and they were filled.”

The reason I chose this photo by James Neeley in Flickr was because of the mountains in the background of the desert.

~~

Another entry in my journal shortly after this was:

“We want so badly to go to the mountain top first-but we must all walk through the valley and climb to the top. Oh how tiring it is to climb a mountain. Thank God we don’t have to climb it alone.

Jesus the Good Shepherd walks with us up to the mountain top.”

~~~~

And when we get to the mountain top, we will find rest yet again, beauty and a gentle stream for refreshment!

And oh the view of where we’ve come from.

The trials that are past and the new journey that is ahead.

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