The Desert Foundation explores the wisdom of the Christian desert and both the Jewish and Muslim traditions, which also grow out of the desert. We build bridges, not walls, and help heal divisions created by the violent tribal dualism that has plagued these three “People of the Book” for centuries. We also explore the wisdom of the Sonoran Desert where the Tohono O’odham live. The O’odham say, “Saguaro is a person” and call the desert “a place of miracles.” 

“The different forms of life in the desert are intricate parts of our own being… We sing, engage in ceremony, and do the work of writing and testifying on behalf of those who do not speak with human voices.”

Lorraine Eiler, Hia-Ced O’odham Elder

We move together in a caravan across the inner desert of grief: the universal desert of unchosen loss and death, darkness and injustice, the pain that breaks and grinds the soul to pieces and carries within it the threat of despair as well as hope for justice, compassion, and transformation. “Come, come, whoever you are,” wrote Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, “Ours is not a caravan of despair.” Neither is ours. We travel in a caravan of kindness.

“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, / you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. / You must wake up with sorrow… / Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Kindness”

The Desert Foundation offers you human interest stories, spiritual reflections, poetry, and podcasts, looking for signs of hope not widely reported in our mass media. We review relevant books, films, and the occasional art exhibit. We engage in interspiritual dialogue and listen to other languages, cultures, and religions, encouraging peace and understanding, healing and reconciliation.

“See no stranger… You are a part of me I do not yet know.”

Valarie Kaur, The Revolutionary Love Project.

We create a Tent of Meeting where everyone is welcome. The descendants of Abraham and Sarah meet the descendants of Mohammed, Jesus, and the Christian mystics. The Jewish Voice for Peace and Israelis against the Destruction of Palestinian Homes meet the Muslim Peace Fellowship.  New Monastics and the Center for Creative Imagination meet the “Nones,” who call themselves “spiritual but not religious.” 

Meeting the “other” in love is not contamination but cross-fertilization, counter-cultural creative subversion, and good common sense. As Martin Luther King declared: “When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.” 

“My heart can take on any form… a cloister for monks, Ka’ba for the circling pilgrim, the tables of the Torah, the scrolls of the Qur’an. I profess the religion of love. Wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the belief, the faith I keep.”

Ibn ‘Arabi, Sufi Mystic