Article March 5, 1938 Issue

The Blossoming Desert

ALICE JACQUELINE SHAW

When the traveler enters the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, he is struck with the change in the coloring of the landscape. For the most part, the more vivid coloring of the eastern states has gone. The grass becomes more scanty, but the blue-gray of the sagebrush and the pale pink of the ground form an exquisite combination of pastel colorings. At first one misses the heavier shades he has left behind, but gradually his eye accustoms itself to the new landscape, and he may become an ardent admirer of the desert beauty. Yet the desert has always stood in the thoughts of men for unproductivity and sterile waste.

In their human experiences, men appear to wander more or less frequently in the "desert," just as the children of Israel wandered for so long in the deserts of Arabia. At such times, in spite of all their efforts, the way of human life seems to stretch before them drab and lonely, dull, uninteresting, and long.

Often, however, this wilderness experience denotes merely a change in spiritual values. In the wilderness, the Israelites became again a comparatively free people—they lost much of their desire for the material things of Egypt; they were no longer so deeply enslaved to materiality; and they became a hardier race, more fitted for the difficult task of subduing the land of Canaan and possessing it. Therefore, when men begin to undergo some wilderness trials which seem to them laborious and painful, they may well consider that this is a moment when they may lay aside some old, enslaving beliefs, and gain a better understanding of the way of God.

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