New Mexico
A New Mexico monastery where the silence calls
Thirteen miles down an unmarked dirt road quietly sits the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, along the Chama River in Northern New Mexico. The monastery is home to 15 monks, some livestock, and a guesthouse for people looking for a little quiet in this turbulent world.
“The silence here is deafening,” said Brother John Chrysostom. “No sirens. There’s no electrical buzz or anything. You have no cell phone connection here. The silence allows you the opportunity to hear that which you are to hear.”
That is, the sound of bells, and the sound of voices chanting seven times a day.
“When you chant, that is prayer,” Chrysostom said. “And what any monk probably aspires to do is that he doesn’t want to just chant the Psalm, but one day he wants to be the Psalm. He wants it to be a part of who he is as a human being.”
This part of the world has always drawn people seeking. It drew artist Georgia O’Keeffe to settle just down the road, and in 1964 it drew Father Aelred Wall, a monk, to found a Benedictine monastery here. Famed architect and furnituremaker George Nakashima designed its church.
When we visited, Chrysostom was our “guestmaster,” welcoming us among this order of Benedictine monks. “As guestmaster, I keep this rule: basically we were to treat guests as if they are Christ,” he said.
The brother happens to hold an undergraduate degree from MIT, an MBA, three more Master’s degrees, and a Ph.D. in political science. He was a professor, and also: “I was an investment banker for a while,” he said. “That’s not a very peaceful existence even in the best of times!”
But it was on a pilgrimage, the famous Camino de Santiago, that Chrysostom heard a voice calling him here. Anyone can visit, for a suggested donation and a willingness to participate in the silence.
Here the monks follow the Rule of St. Benedict – Ora et Labora, Latin for prayer and, well, work, which of course you’ll find on YouTube, posted by Brother David. Online, he calls himself The Desert Monk.
And his work around the monastery is never done. “The gist of the message is, in everything that you do, the work is for God,” he said.
When Charles Osgood reported on the monastery in the 1990s, the monks had just begun working with a new invention called the Internet – a union of “inner space with cyberspace.”
Watch the 1996 “Sunday Morning” report: A New Mexico monastery meets the internet (Video)
Today, guests Mary and Joseph Roy, from Washington State, have found something here a five-star hotel cannot offer. “Sun on the red rocks and the River Chama flowing by,” Mary said. “It’s a good way to listen to God, to listen to nature.”
Asked what he takes away from his visit there, Joseph said, “For me, being more aware, listening to that of God in each person, as we talk, as I experience their story and their life.”
The monks ask guests to help with the running of the monastery, if they can, and Brother Chrysostom says their guests’ presence is fundamental to the monks’ calling: “We need the world as much as the world needs us,” he said. “Don’t think we’re escaping or moving away from the world because we don’t need the world. We need the world.”
I asked, “Do you need the world because it helps you feel like you’re fulfilling what God wants you to do?”
“I guess it hearkens back to the desert fathers, the early monks who lived in the Egyptian desert,” Chrysostom said. “You had monks living these holy lives praying, and lives of asceticism, and forgoing eating. It was remarked once like, ‘Okay, you’re doing all this. But whose feet will you wash out here in the desert?’ So, you’re doing these things for someone as well, and with someone.”
But the monks ask no questions of those who wish to become their guests. “No, you just show up as you are,” Chrysostom said. “And you’re not required to do anything while you’re here. You’re just required to be. You can pray with us if you want, you can eat with us if you want. Or you can hike. We ask that maybe, if you’ve chosen to come here, that you spend some time with us getting to know the community and the place. But our schedule’s not your schedule!”
Maybe the quiet of places like Christ in the Dessert isn’t an end in and of itself. But by making space for a little silence, you hear your calling … a little louder.
As Chrysostom pointed out, “One thing you’ll notice that we are in a canyon. So, we’re at 6,600 feet above sea level right now. And so, these hills and the cliffs stretch another 1,000 up and everything. These are all false horizons. Basically, when you get up to the top of these hills, or what you think is the top, you’re just beginning to go up. It continues on. So, this is a false horizon. This is not the top; it’s just the beginning of something which is even higher.”
Perhaps a lesson for all of us on our own spiritual journeys.
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Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Chad Cardin.
SANTA FE, N.M. – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham asked Attorney General Raúl Torrez to investigate whether any Drug Enforcement Administration agents broke state law when pills reached New Mexico streets.
In a statement, Lujan Grisham said, “make no mistake: the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities.”
The governor also shared a timeline from 2022 to 2025 that she said shows when she asked federal officials for help with New Mexico’s fentanyl crisis and violent crime.
Lujan Grisham said the first request came on June 21, 2022, when she wrote to then-Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray and asked for 50 additional federal agents.
She said she wrote to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland on Sept. 15, 2022, asking for more agents, resources and support for New Mexico law enforcement.
Lujan Grisham said she wrote Garland a second time on Aug. 8, 2023, with the same request.
What came next?
About a month later, Lujan Grisham said she sent Garland a third letter and said New Mexico needed more federal law enforcement to curb violent crime, drug trafficking and human trafficking.
She said her most recent request came on Sept. 4, 2025, when she wrote to former Attorney General Pam Bondi and again asked for additional agents and resources.
The governor’s statement says those requests span several years as she pressed the federal government for more help in New Mexico.
Full statement from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham:
“I am appalled by reporting this week by the Associated Press and Albuquerque Journal that revealed federal authorities made a deliberate decision to let hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills flood into New Mexico communities, despite knowing that fentanyl is so lethal the White House has designated it a weapon of mass destruction.
Let me say that again: the Drug Enforcement Administration watched as 74,000 fentanyl pills were delivered to a mobile home park in Albuquerque, and they did nothing. And that’s just one transaction. Shockingly, the federal government stood by while monitoring shipments, tallying exact pill counts, and watching as these deadly drugs hit the streets.
There are no words to describe how reckless and dangerous these decisions were. Make no mistake: the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities, and the agency let it happen anyway. The result: hundreds of New Mexican parents burying their kids. Hundreds of New Mexican kids growing up without stable parents. All while the federal government stood by.
If the justification for letting these pills flood our communities was that it would somehow make New Mexico safer down the road through bigger eventual busts, the results say otherwise. New Mexico now leads the nation in the increase in overdose deaths for the second straight year, despite deaths dropping nationwide.
Today, I wrote to Attorney General Raúl Torrez and asked him to investigate whether any federal agents broke state law when they allowed lethal drugs to remain on our streets, and to prosecute anyone responsible — regardless of whether they are a federal agent or not.
I have spent years working across two administrations — writing letters, traveling to Washington, meeting directly with President Joe Biden and his cabinet, pushing for accountability, asking for more federal agents to be deployed to New Mexico to help fight this crisis.
- On June 21, 2022, I wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray, imploring the FBI to assign no less than 50 additional agents to New Mexico to stem escalating drug trafficking and violent crime.
- On September 15, 2022, I wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting that the Department of Justice provide additional federal agents, resources and support to New Mexico law enforcement. We asked the department to match the level of investigative, analytical, and technical resources the FBI had deployed in its Buffalo, NY surge.
- On August 8, 2023, I wrote again to Attorney General Garland, renewing my request that the DOJ expeditiously assign more federal agents to New Mexico.
- On September 7, 2023, I wrote to Attorney General Garland for a third time, reiterating my request once more federal law enforcement support to curb violent crime, drug and human trafficking.
- On September 4, 2025, I wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi, once again requesting additional agents and resources.
I have declared the surge of drugs like fentanyl to be a public health emergency. I have deployed the National Guard to both Albuquerque and Española. While my administration was doing everything we could to stem the tide of fentanyl coming into our state, the federal government deliberately allowed it to flood in.
New Mexican lives are not the federal government’s cost of doing business.
I plan to hold the federal government accountable for this disaster and will explore every possible avenue of action against the federal government to right these wrongs.”
The Canyon Venado Fire has grown to 852 acres east of Clines Corners and crews say wind farms in the area are threatened.
CLINES CORNERS, N.M. – The Canyon Venado Fire has grown to 852 acres east of Clines Corners and crews say wind farms in the area are threatened.
The fire is burning just east of Clines Corners, south of Interstate 40.
It forced the closure of eastbound Interstate 40 at Clines Corners on Tuesday night. I-40 reopened Tuesday night. I-40 is back open but smoke still affects visibility.
“We’re on the side of I-40 so drivers have to be pretty cautious. As far as our establishment itself we’re pretty isolated by the freeway itself as a nice fire break,” said Lincoln Tarantino, Clines Corner general manager.
The fire has burned around 852 acres, up from just 20 at this time Monday.
Crews say the fire is not contained and wind farms in the area are threatened.
New Mexico
Feds allowed millions of fentanyl pills to ‘walk’ on New Mexico streets: DEA Whistleblower
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