Why the title "Letters from the Desert"?

I think the obvious answer to this question is:, "Uh, well, because I'm living in the middle of a desert!" If you check out the links in the sidebar you will discover that pretty quickly. First, if you check out "Balad Weather" you will see that here at the end of September we are enjoying the fall-like temperatures of 105-110 degrees for a high. But it's a dry heat. If you check out the link entitled "About LSA Anaconda" you will find a wealth of information about the location and history of Anaconda, officially known (by the Air Force at least) as Balad AFB. So, for many, that is the obvious answer as to the title of this blog.

A lesser known reason comes from one of my favorite spiritual writers, Carlo Carretto. Carretto was born in Italy in 1910, studied to become a teacher, and ended up working in the hierarchy of Catholic Action. At the age of forty-four (interestingly enough, my current age) he left Catholic Action and entered a monastery in the Sahara. His first book was entitled, you guessed it, Letters from the Desert. Personally, my favorite book of Br. Carlos is I, Francis. In it Carretto speaks in the first person as if he is Francis of Assisi.

So, here I am after forty-four years of life living in the desert. The Army has done what The United Methodist Church could never do; made me adhere to vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. This is the true origin of the the title, Letters-from-the-Desert. Like all good preachers I have to have layers of meaning to the things I write and say.

Oh, and the hyphens are there because someone else has the Letters from the Desert blog name without them. And you thought there was some specific meaning to those as well!

God Bless,

Jim