The Desert of Patience

 As I am writing this now, I am facing an issue that is requiring a lot of patience, and I wanted to just share a little about it here.  Have you ever been in that position where you were waiting for something, and yet it seems like it's hopeless?  Today, someone very special to me reminded me that God listens in the silence, and is working behind the scenes on everything.  If something is meant to be, it will be, in other words.  Let's get into that today.

Imagine if you will a desert, and the nearest place to rehydrate is a ten-mile walk.  Your body is limited, and a certain amount of hydration is required for you to function, especially when exerting energy to walk.  This will stretch you to a limit, and the odds are really against you as you trudge through the heat, the sand, and possibly deadly creatures like scorpions and sidewinders.  This makes me recall a song that was recorded by Billy Vaughn's orchestra in 1953 with Ken Nordine's narration - the record was two-part, and it was not in essence a song, but rather a story set to music.  The title of it was "The Shifting Whispering Sands," and the story is about a gold prospector who is stranded in the desert in the American West, and it went something like this:

listen to the age old story of
The shifting, whispering sand)
Yes it always whispers to me
Of the days of long ago
When the settlers and the miners
Fought the crafty Navajo
How the cattle roamed the valley
Happy people worked the land
And now everything is covered
By the shifting, whispering sand
Oh the miner left his buckboards
When he worked his claims that day
And the burro's broke their halters
When they thought he'd gone to stay
How they found the ancient miner
Lyin dead upon the sand
For months they could but wonder
If he died by human hands
So they dug his grave and laid him
On his back and crossed his hands
And his secret still is hidden
By the shifting, whispering sands
This is what they whispered to me
Way out in the quiet desert air
Of the people and the cattle
And that miner lying there
If you want to learn his secret
Wander through this quiet land
And I'm sure you'll hear the story
Of the shifting, whispering sand
The shifting, whispering sand

(lyrics by Vivian Clarke Gilbert and Mary Margaret Hadler)

The story is somewhat tragic, and when you listen to it you realize that we face a lot of deserts in life.  Some we come out of, but wiser.  Others we may not survive.  The deserts of life are long, desolate, and lonely, much like what some Church saints and Fathers called "the dark night of the soul."  God provides for us though some Scriptural way-stations to refresh ourselves, and one of those is in Romans 8:28 - all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.  In other words, it takes a vision for us that needs to be rekindled to move us forward.  The miner in the above story somehow missed that as far as his physical needs were concerned, but some of us miss it spiritually as well at times, and I am the first to be honest and say I am guilty of that.  In another part of the story that is not included here but is spoken narration, even the donkeys that escaped didn't survive, as the traveler found "their bones picked clean by buzzards."  Let's talk about those "buzzards" a little, as they seem to swarm us on occasion.

When one thinks of buzzards (or turkey vultures, as they are properly called), one thinks of an opportunistic scavenger that will greedily take advantage of a carcass it finds.  There are human buzzards too - Baltimore is full of them, as we call them porch pirates because many of them (of a certain demographic I might add) will steal packages right off of a porch and then sell what they steal to obtain drugs like crack and fentanyl.  The adjectives opportunistic, greedy, and corrupt can describe these types of human buzzards easily.  In the wild though, an actual buzzard is in reality the garbage man of nature - they are created to essentially dispose of potentially dangerous biological waste such as animal carcasses so they don't contaminate the wild.  Human buzzards are not that useful unfortunately - they are parasites who profit off the stolen goods of others.  Buzzards can also be situations we face in adversity too - when you are struggling for money and the IRS somehow slaps you with a tax penalty, or when you have only so much in your bank account and the teledoctor who you have to depend on to renew a vital prescription hits you with a bill that doesn't go to your insurance but rather overdrafts your bank.  Those things are buzzards in that they see a dying carcass that is your personal adversity and they start picking at it.  I have a whole other thing about the current medical profession to talk about later, but essentially medical professionals can be the ultimate buzzards because they profit from keeping people sick a lot - if someone dies in the process, they always have someone waiting to be drained in the same way, both in health and often in money, and the evil cycle of Big Med continues.  On a long and rigorous life journey, there may be buzzards ready to pick at you - they are circling as they know you are weak and vulnerable, and then they just pick at you until you collapse.  There needs to be a deterrent against this, and God gave us that very thing - our faith.  Let me clear up a few things about that though, as this also has been abused by religious buzzards who seek to capitalize on people. 

Faith is not a force, it is not a god in itself, and it is not a fix-all cure to anything, but it does strengthen us and we can grow in it.  In order to do that though, we need something else - supernatural grace.  A faith that is not nourished by supernatural grace becomes hard to maintain, and as a result we seek to fortify it with false substitutes like these so-called "affirmation statements" which "positively confess" things that God never explicitly promised us.  We cannot speak wealth into existence - if we could, we would be a planet of millionaires, wouldn't we?  It does not mean God does not provide, as he does help with our needs.  The way he does so, however, is by challenging us often to use the resources he has already given us - our minds, our talents, our religious faith in proper context.  If we are faithful then to use what he has already given us, he will provide the increase and open the door in a reasonable way and not like some televangelist tells you to "blab and grab" a swimming pool, Mercedes, and room for a pony.  A reasonable need will be met, in other words, if we truly seek guidance of how to use what we have to make things happen.  Let me explain.

Just yesterday, the daily reading in the lectionary was from I Kings, and had to do with the story of Elijah and the widow.  Remember what he told her - make him a small cake, and they would not go hungry.  By encouraging the widow to use what she had available, Elijah was able to promise her that her fundamental needs would be met too.  She was not covered in wealth or earthly prosperity, but her needs were met.  This is what we need to remember, and believe me, I have to remind myself of this constantly.  Another aspect of this is having protection to keep the buzzards away too from stealing what little you have, and that is where Ephesians 6 comes in.  Surviving a desert - literal or figurative - means then we have to be resourceful and use what we already have, and if we do so then it can increase in a reasonable way to sustain us.  That is not "positive confession" either, but rather just using what one has to make something productive. 

I grew up in an environment where one learns to use ingredients on hand to create a sustainable meal, and over the years I have learned the secret of always having on hand a certain amount of basic ingredients so that in a pinch I can make a filling dinner for myself and my family.  This means that a kitchen should always be stocked with some pretty basic items - cooking oil, flour, corn starch, sugar, and a variety of spices and herbs.  If you have those and know how to use them, you might be surprised what you can do with the simplest of ingredients, such as a pound of hamburger, a package of turkey necks, or some other cheap but ridiculous base ingredient.  Also, know your surroundings as well, because unbeknownst to most people, there are probably at least five edible things that grow right in the front or back yard, and if you know what you are looking for and how to use them, you can create a feast fit for nobility.  Some of the most expensive dinners served for up to $100 a plate in 5-star restaurants started out humbly - lobster is a perfect example.  Lobsters used to be considered garbage by fishermen, and often they were used as bait or something else instead of eaten.  But, once the meat was consumed by an unsuspecting poor fisherman due to hunger, the lobster rose in status to the elite entree it is today.  The lesson here is that you never underestimate the simplest of things - today's garbage may end up being tomorrow's treasure.

Those are my thoughts for today, and hopefully I can help someone going through something with this practical wisdom I cannot claim myself - it comes from listening to others over the years too.  Thank you, and have a good rest of your day until next time.