You cannot be fully active, unless you are partly contemplative, nor fully contemplative (at least on earth) without being partly active, says the great English spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing.

All of God's best leaders spent a disproportionate amount of time (we would think) in deserts. What do they do there? Pray? Yes. Think? Yes. Plan a ministry? Perhaps. Do nothing? Yes. But mainly, I think, deserts help us get life into balance. The left-brained get a bit of right-brain experience. Manic activists find time to meet with their God (as Moses did).

Robert McAfee Brown says playing the cello (which he began to do at age 60) is his 'desert'.

You go into the desert to 'find God', but you find yourself there too. May this little book help in that redemptive process.

So, Lord, in the desert-silence of my prayer-corner, a garden-seat, propped up in bed or on my knees, in a car parked under trees or walking slowly - may I seek you, and find you, and in finding you find my true self. Amen.