Desert Places
I am drawn to the stark honesty of poets, who with an economy of words express a truth that often alludes my own verbiage. Robert Frost, in his poem “Desert Places” writes:
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
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I love it that Frost admits he has desert places within him. I want to learn to be that honest, but I am afraid. I want to be able to admit my own desert places and to explore them honestly rather than running in fear, afraid of what I will find there (or not find there). I wonder what it is about my desert places I am so afraid of. Perhaps it’s fear that I will succumb to the temptations that hide there. Maybe I’m afraid that I may hunger and thirst for that which I cannot have. On the other hand, it could be the fear that I will never find my way out once I’ve entered or that others will not enter with me.
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I’m convinced we all have our desert places, but we rarely share them with others. They are the places in our soul we fear the most–places of pain, uncertainty, failure, hopelessness, and doubt. To deny that desert places exist is to live a life of falsehood both to ourselves and others. It is to revoke the real possibility of self-understanding. Denial removes all hope for healing and discards any faith of green pastures on the other side. Tonight, I can only admit I have desert places and they scare me. That is enough for now.
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