Desert Voices: The Edge Effect - Couverture souple

Tessa Bielecki and Fr. David Denny have worked together for almost forty-fiveyears. They began as Carmelite monks at the Spiritual Life Institute in the desert of Sedona, Arizona, where they co-edited Desert Call magazine and gave retreats and workshops. At Colorado College they taught Fire and Light: A History of Christian Mysticism and Desert Spirituality: from the Middle East to the American Southwest. They left monastic life in 2005 and created the Desert Foundation (see www.sandandsky.org) and now live in neighboring hermitages near Crestone, Colorado, in the spirit of the Christian Mothers and Fathers of the desert. Tessa recorded Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics for Sounds True, and is the author of three books on St. Teresa of Avila, most recently Holy Daring. Fr. Dave has served as chaplain for Image journal’s Glen Workshops and Seattle Pacific University’s writing residencies. He raises funds for Cross Catholic Outreach, a relief and development ministry for the poorest of the poor. Both authors are currently working on their memoirs. They co-authored Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology, and continue to teach on Christian mysticism, desert spirituality, and the contemplative life at retreats and workshops around the world.

Desert Voices is a song from the edge. It celebrates the amorous frontier between two “desert rats” and an arid landscape of sand, sky, and giant cactus. It celebrates friendships between Abrahamic brothers and sisters who have spent too much time demonizing each other. It mourns the lives lost along the border of Israel and Palestine and honors non-violent sowers of hope. It sings from the death bed, from the poverty of the Cross, the universal desert of impermanence that may be the shadow of eternal life. Attracted by beauty and responding to sorrow, Tessa Bielecki and David Denny offer insights about inner work and earth care, peacemaking and social justice, living and dying, and share the nourishing wisdom that blooms in the desert today.