Desert Silence

Each year September rolls around, and invitations to refresher courses, assemblies, and updates drop like colored autumn leaves into my mailbox. They range from polite invitations to enthusiastic exhortations to continue my medical education.

Over the years I've attended conferences and sampled buffets at five-star hotels in faraway places. Eventually I realized that these ed-travel scenarios, with few exceptions, are of limited value. I remain committed to some "evidence-based learning" each year, but now, when September comes round, as an alternative form of professional development, I book my November week in the desert.

Why alternative? After 20 years of emergency medicine work in different places, the prospect of another lecture on the acute coronary syndrome or a review of delirium in the elderly has lost some appeal. What I need is an antidote to the repetitive nature of my work, a tonic for the disorientation of nightshifts, or a distraction for my increasing focus on money-based medicine. At this stage of my career, it's time to seek out the company of the saguaro cacti, those towering sentinels of silence and stillness in Arizona's great Sonoran desert.

The Desert House of Prayer

Desert House of Prayer is located on 31 acres (13 hectares) of green desert off Picture Rocks Road, northwest of Tucson, on the edge of Saguaro National Park. Desert House occupies a patch of cultivated green desert at the end of a paved road. It is surrounded by a very big sky and a ring of low mountains that encircles nearby Tucson and the Santa Cruz valley. Desert House's brochure describes the retreat center as "a place committed to silence," and it has been promoting the value of silence since it was founded 30 years ago by the late Fr. John Kane, a Redemptorist priest.

The center welcomes individuals of any religious tradition to spend time with them in silence and contemplation. It has a capacity for about 15 guests in motel-style single rooms with another eight hermitages suitable for one or two people (one-bedroom suites with kitchenettes) scattered about the property. Last year about 350 individuals made their way to Desert House. Some come for an afternoon; others stay for as long as six months. Most come for about a week.

Accommodation is clean and comfortable. The facility includes a chapel (Nuestra Señora de la Soledad – Our Lady of Solitude), a dining room, a common room with fireplace (for those cool desert mornings), and the John Kane Library. There is no swimming pool, tennis court, exercise room, gift shop, bar, or café. The website simply advises, "People looking for desert resort amenities and activities would find these elsewhere."

A Day in the Desert

First-time visitors are informed at the outset that participation in any of the scheduled activities is voluntary. At dawn and dusk each day the community gathers in the chapel for 45 minutes of silent meditation. The form of meditation is influenced by the Soto Zen tradition. Two twenty-minute periods of sitting meditation are interrupted by a slow, attentive walk around the inside of the chapel.

The twice-daily meditation periods are followed by 20-minute periods of communal prayer. The prayer takes the form of antiphonal singing of selections from the Book of Psalms along with short readings from the New Testament. The Desert House of Prayer continues a long tradition in the Christian church of setting aside certain times of the day for prayers of thanksgiving, praise, and petition. The morning prayers are followed by the celebration of the Catholic Mass.

The periods of prayer are brief breaks in the expansive silence of a day. The activity list for retreatants is Spartan and consists of three simple but nutritious meals, desert walks, perhaps an afternoon siesta, and endless opportunities for reading. Individuals who struggle in their daily lives to find time for reading will have to be careful at Desert House not to over read. The 10,000-volume library has a sizeable collection of books on philosophy, spirituality, art, biography, history, and the flora and fauna of the deserts of the American southwest.

The Value of Silence

I spend some of my time at Desert House photographing details of the desert landscape. Each visit allows me time to look again at the barrel cacti, the stick-like ocotillos, and the deceptively inviting teddy bear chollas.

Sunday afternoons are marked by a social gathering before dinner where we can talk. Agnes, a nun from St. John's, Newfoundland, is celebrating her 50th year as a religious sister. It is her first visit, and I ask her what she finds attractive about Desert House. "No expectations," she replies, indicating that she thinks the experience of quiet time in the desert has potential value for anyone at any age who is willing to make the journey. The meditative act requires no special equipment, no skill beyond the ability to sit quietly, and no particular belief system.

How much stillness and silence does a life need? How much can it stand? We've likely approached a satisfactory balance when the movement into and out of silence doesn't seem so strange or jarring.

On the day of our departure, Jacqueline gives us a ride to the bus. She is a retired nurse who has lived and worked at Desert House for five years. How does she sum up her time there? "The community, and the quiet." And over time she has come to understand how each one nurtures the other. We agree that the thing we call silence is larger than one person going on a silent retreat, and more encompassing than the efforts of any one community to cultivate silence.

A Short Suggested Reading List • Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life • The Desert Smells Like Rain: A Naturalist in O'Odham Country • The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and 'Women's Work'

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