The desert is a powerful place. During the first few years of our marriage, Brandy and I lived in Colorado, and when it came time to visit her parents in the Los Angeles area, here and there we’d skip the flight and make a road trip of it. It always sounded exciting and romantic—rushing around searching for maps and motel information, gassing up the car and spending $100 on junk food at the mini-mart. But after a few hours and a few belly-aches, we’d usually come right back down to earth.

There was one part of the trip, though, that never disappointed. Usually in the wee hours of the night (or next morning), we’d make our way into the surreal wilds of Utah. It always seemed like we were graced with a full moon on those nights, and often we’d pull over, shut off the engine, get out of the car and just take it all in. Before getting out, I always hesitated a bit and got a chill. There was something about the silence and the darkness and the vastness of it all. The glowing moonlight would cast long, eerie shadows of those dramatic sandstone rock formations against the barren, seemingly endless miles of sand and cactus. It was like we had just landed on the moon; we were always ready for something small, creepy and not-of-this-world to make its way out from behind a rock.

The overall impression? Have you ever seen something beautiful and scary? Intimate in its beauty yet terribly remote—welcoming and at the same time foreboding?

This is the desert, whether in the U.S. or far away in the Mid-East. This is the place Moses and his flock escaped to from the slavery of Egypt—where they dwelt for forty years struggling to obey the will of their God and trying to find their way home. This is where Jesus was driven by the Holy Spirit in preparation for His earthly ministry; this is where He was tempted and triumphed over darkness. This is where our saintly mothers and fathers dwelt, searching for a place without distraction from holy things—and doing battle, like their Lord, with great temptation and spiritual assaults.

This is the desert: a place of trial, struggle and sometimes great failure, a place of isolation and desolation—but also a place where we can gain focus and grow spiritually. A place where we can recover something powerful and beautiful that we’ve lost.

And the desert is a place in the heart; it is a place where you and I do battle with our personal weaknesses, temptations and failures—a place, also, where we can regain focus, begin talking to God again, and triumph over the deepest struggles in our lives. During our new ecclesiastical year, our parish theme for all of our ministries and programs will be “The Desert: Searching for the Oasis of the Heart.” Through our Sunday School and general youth ministries curricula, adult education programs, Philoptochos endeavors, and every other means available, we will go to the desert together, exploring this mighty theme in our lives.

Will this be an easy journey? No—not by a long shot. But we will not be alone. Guided by our Lord and leaning on one another, we will face isolation, loneliness, fear, temptation, confusion and every sinful mirage. Together, as a family, we will fight. And together we will search for that holy oasis deep in our hearts, a place where we are finally close to God, open to the Holy Spirit, and not afraid anymore. Now, we are pilgrims.