The Song of the Desert
by Cavan Brown
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 61
Winter 1998

Introduction

The other side of silence

Cavan Brown
Cavan Brown is the minister of Geraldton Baptist Church, WA, and is the author of Pilgrim Through Barren Land, Albatross, 1991, and the forthcoming The Blackfellas' Friend: a life of John Gribble (Access Press, 1999).

IN JULY, 1990, I DROVE through the Gibson Desert with my wife Lynn, who was too nice to say no, and my daughter Conor who at that time was nine years old and too young to understand why her father wanted to drive through a desert when her school mates went to Bali or Rottnest Island.

We bought a cheap, painfully slow but indestructible Land Rover and we stocked it up with a week or two's provisions and headed for the Gibson Desert via the Gunbarrel Highway.

Alongside the food, spare parts and fuel I also took my copy of Ernest Giles' journals (Australian Twice Traversed, 1889, Sampson Low, vols I and II). Giles was the first explorer of the Gibson Desert in 1873 and in my reading of the desert explorer's journals, I came to believe that he heard the Song of the Desert more than any other white explorer.

We camped the first night at Yeelerie, often the coldest place in Western Australia during winter. In the morning, I lit a fire and made coffee and toast for all, noting a distinct lack of courage by my fellow explorers who would not budge from the warm bed in the Land Rover. After coffee, we drove for an hour through colourful breakaway country, passing a mixture of old and new mining ventures and arriving at Wiluna for a break before heading towards Carnegie Station from where the official Gunbarrel Highway commences.

Although we were still in station country, there was an increasing sense of remoteness, maybe the odd vehicle every few hours. Living in the Pilbara region for over six years had given me some experience of solitude and the tangible silence of the desert that Roland Robinson described as "the silence that brims on forever". In comparison, the intensity of risk was not there for me as it was for Giles. In three days time, I had every reason to presume that we would be out of the desert. In contrast, Giles continuously faced the risk of being swallowed up by the silence and solitude of the desert.

Listen to some of his journal entries written in the desert landscapes: "The silence and the solitude of this mighty waste were appalling to the mind . . . The place might well be termed the centre of silence and solitude; despair and desolation are the only intruders here upon sad solitude's triumphant reign . . . Nothing could appal the mind so much as the contemplation of eternal solitude".

His words indicate the alien nature of silence and solitude for most humans. We are not made for extended or eternal solitude: "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). However, I had become convinced that there was something on the other side of silence. The faith of the people of Israel, for instance, was shaped in the desert. Christ was sent by the Spirit to the solitude of the desert to listen to God before he began his ministry and he often returned to the eremos, mainly in the semi-arid environment east of the Lake of Galilee, to spend time with God. Paul went to the desert of Arabia after his conversion to re-form his faith.

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