The Desert Foundation

03/31/2026

During Holy Week, we reflect on the weight of empire and institutional power attempting to crush a movement by killing its young founder. How do you see it? Is that world long gone? What world do you live in?

According to presidential advisor Stephen Miller, “We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”

According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, "We ... don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters." He prays that there be “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy."

According to Pope Leo XIV, "... this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’” (Is 1:15).

(Photo by Leo Visions on Unsplash)

03/31/2026

As we move through Holy Week, find inspiration in Tessa Bielecki's Via Saguaro, the fourteen Stations of the Cross she composed several years ago as she walked the desert during Lent and saw the suffering and death of Jesus mirrored in the saguaros all around her.

Dramatic photographs create a "Via Saguaro" in a meditation on life's sorrows, inspired by the Fourteen Stations of the Cross.

03/01/2026

I love the Jewish Sabbath prayer that calls the Sabbath a "soother of sorrows ... healing the hearts that were broken." It ends, "Banish despair: here is hope come."
So I pray for a just peace in all conflicts and for the grace that banishes despair through peacemaking. Even as I grieve.

The most fruitful penance is positive. I find solace in the Pope’s words, the Buddhist monks’ mindful walk, and the Love Forward March.

02/18/2026

Here are some thoughts for Ash Wednesday on treating each other as wonders while also embracing alchemical anger:

At the beginning of Lent, I’m thinking about speech, words and their power. God speaks and it comes to be. We exist through a primal Word.

02/14/2026

Tessa and Fr. Dave loved their recent retreat with the Community of the Incarnation at the Redemptorist Renewal Center in Tucson.

02/12/2026

Thinking about glory in a dark time and what it looks like in action.

We grow younger and younger because we realize how wondrous Reality is, how vast Love is, and it all keeps attracting us, now and forever.

01/23/2026

Courageous Christian disciples who resisted war and bigotry often ended up in jail while many denominations “remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows,” as Dr. King declared from Birmingham jail.

Those years listening to loons, skating in the moonlight, perched on a mountainside or having my heart broken planted a kind of madness.

01/23/2026

By ‘new monastic,’ [the Charis Foundation refers] to the potential of living out this spiritual calling while ‘in the world,’ amongst intimate relationships, friendships, family, and daily hardships. As a ‘new monk,’ one passionately embraces social, political, and spiritual transformation, utilizing tools of traditional contemplative life, and allowing all of one’s life decisions to flow out of this commitment.”

A new generation of contemplative leaders and "new monastics" is arising. Here's how to find and follow them.

12/24/2025

Faith life Photo by courtesy of Tessa Bielecki By Tessa Bielecki November 28, 2025 November-December 2025 Issue 6 min read For over seventy years I spent Christmas in lands of cold, snow, and crackling fires, and these elements became integral to my feeling the Advent-Christmas season. Now in my ear...

12/24/2025

Christmas: Heartbreak and Beautiful Madness

I spent most of my adult life preparing for Christmas either in the snowy lakeside woods of Nova Scotia or the snowy arid expanse of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Both landscapes were wild and silent. Maybe that’s one reason I still love Christmas. It was preceded by weeks of starry nights and reading St....

Those years listening to loons, skating in the moonlight, perched on a mountainside or having my heart broken planted a kind of madness.

11/28/2025

Celebrating a New Generation

We close our 20th Anniversary year with the Winter 2025 Caravans newsletter account of our joyful participation in the Center for Action and Contemplation’s October ReVision conference. And we honor the new generation of contemplatives who give us hope for the future. Tessa offers thoughts on “the desert as resistance” and ten key practices for living contemplatively. Do you enjoy listening to podcasts?...

Celebrating he Center for Action and Contemplation’s ReVision conference nd honoring the a new generation of contemplatives.

10/31/2025

I love good conversations. Recently Tessa and I enjoyed conversations with Dr. Daniel Sage, an educator and “Cosmic Consciousness” podcaster in Colorado. You’ll find Tessa’s interview here and mine here. Dan asked me about how and why I experienced a call to the priesthood. Since I tend not to have dramatic moments of revelation, I described a series of events and insights—from Afghanistan to a Buddhist retreat—that led me to become a monk, and then a priest....

A series of events and insights—from Afghanistan to a Buddhist retreat—led me to become a monk, and then a priest: my life in one hour!