Have you ever thought about the wilderness, and the role it plays in our lives and in our world?
In Canada we pride ourselves as a nation for having so many thousands of square kilometers of wilderness from the barren arctic tundra to the deep dark coastal rain forests, and everything in between. In pop culture, the wilderness had been an ever present reality.
Recent movies like ‘Into the Wild’ have highlighted the struggles and tragedy one young man experienced when he journeyed into the Alaskan wilderness.
Throughout human history, the wilderness has played a prominent role in all aspects of our lives. Found just beyond our civilized world, the wilderness is a relatively unfamiliar and unknown place full of danger and discomfort. When we travel into the wilderness we are by and large leaving the certainty and comfort of what we know behind, and putting ourselves outside of our comfort zone.
Admittedly, we could be like some of those who travel into the wilderness carrying with them all the comforts of home. I remember reading a book about the dangers and risks of climbing Mt Everest. The author describes climbers who spend enormous amounts of money carrying in everything from microwave ovens to portable wine coolers so their base camp will be a replica of their posh homes. On the toe of the mountain, hundreds of kilometers from home, the desire is to experience one of the ultimate wilderness experiences with ALL the comforts of home.
Yet, these notable exceptions aside, the wilderness is a potent force in the psyche of humanity. It is perhaps the danger that lurks just beyond our field of vision, that excites and titillates us. The first nations people on the west coast had a mystical understanding of the shadowy rain forests they lives within.
Often the villages of the first people crowded under the very edges of the massive trees that lined the coast, but they very seldom went very far into the forests beyond the fringe along rivers and inlets. The interior of the forests were then, as now, strange and shadowy places full of strange noises and able to disorient the unwary quickly.
The mythos of the First People along the coast is full of delightful and potentially dangerous creatures and beings who lurk in the shadows just beyond the safety of the smoke houses. Some like Tsoniqua will steal unguarded children and carry them in a basket slung over her back, others like Sasquatch offer no direct threat, but will scare you by their immense size and solitary nature. Throughout the stories and myths shared by the people, the wilderness was a place to be respected and honoured, and in many ways avoided. Better to stay near the hearth in the long house, then risk encountering one of the mystical beings who call the wilderness home.
Yet, the wilderness was also a place for the young to go and find themselves and make the spiritual transition into adult hood. The secret societies met out in the wilderness where they could wrestle with the mystical creatures both literally and figuratively. The wilderness became simultaneously a place of risk and danger, but also a place of spiritual nurture and place to more fully encounter the Holy.
This understanding of the wild places is a common thread throughout human history. The Aborigine of Australia see their harsh and hostile environment as a place brimming with spiritual life … Thoreau went into the wilderness at Walden to wrestle with things spiritual … and our Gospel reading today has Jesus spending 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness wrestling with temptation before beginning his ministry.
The wilderness represents the unknown and the uncomfortable, but it also represents the margins beyond which we know we’ll encounter God in a different and more direct way.
Moses travelled into the wilderness where he encountered the burning bush. The later he journeyed up into the craggy peaks of Mt Sinai where he again encountered God. Throughout the Scriptures we constantly encounter people who went out into the wilderness where they not only encountered God, but returned charged and called to share that experience and the message that came from meeting God in the wilderness.
Think of the prophets like Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah and the others. They went off into the unknown desert wilderness around them, and returned proclaiming the message God had given them for the people …
In the 4th Century, a new phenomena gripped the Church that saw and experienced the wilderness in a new and different way. The desert fathers began to travel into the wilderness to emulate the temptation experience of Jesus as a means of purifying themselves and ultimately the surrounding society.
Some chose caves or isolated huts far from the lure of cities and towns. Others chose more extreme locales, such as one monk who perched himself atop an abandoned pillar from a long forgotten pagan temple. Writers today acknowledge that while many of the desert fathers were sincere in their spiritual quests, many could easily be regarded as hucksters who were in it only for themselves. Criminals used the desert asceticism as a means of escaping their actions, others used the desert to flee happenings in their lives, while still others engaged in full blown fraud by charging the unwary for the supposed wisdom and knowledge … nonetheless, the ascetic desert fathers movement has left a profound and lasting legacy on the entire Christian Church – a legacy that remains present over 16 centuries later.
It was from the desert fathers that many of the religious orders arose. Some like the Benedictines came from the desire of Benedict to encourage his brethren to live in the very presence of God, and realized the necessity of invoking some sort of order and discipline to weed out those who are less than sincere about their spiritual quest. In short, Benedict wrote rules and regulations, not to control the wilderness, nor to limit the experience of God ‘out there’, but rather to ensure the purity of spiritual quest one can find in the wilderness.
Ironically, orders like the Benedictines physically abandoned the wilderness, but carried with them the concepts and the ideas that the wilderness represented and offered. Even Centuries later in their monasteries and cloisters, the religious orders still engage in liturgy and actions that arose in the remote isolated wilderness with the desert fathers.
Such is the power of the wilderness … it is a place of risk and danger, but it is simultaneously, a place of awe and wonder where we can encounter the Holy presence of God in startling ways.
I discovered some of that when a few years ago I began back country mountain biking in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. On many weekends, I would throw my bike in the back of the van and head out on one of the many trails that criss cross the park. Along the way I had nose to nose encounters with moose and elk, and encountered sights and vistas that repeatedly took my breath away and left me marveling at the beauty of this corner of creation.
It was hard work at times to bike up and down these back country trails, but the experience was well worth it. Such is the power and the draw of the wilderness. It is something different from what we have around us day to day. But more than that, it is something that enriches us by allowing us to be removed from the familiarity of our day to day lives, and experience something new and different – from something as simple as a sunrise through to the majesty of a mountain top – we experience something awe inspiring, and we attribute that moment to God, as a gift.
And that is the ultimate draw spiritually of the wilderness.
Jesus went into the wilderness to face his temptations and to make his final preparations for his ministry. But as one commentator pointed out, the entire experience was an attempt at finding and living in the presence of the Spirit.
The wilderness, with its discomfort, its dark shadowy places, and with its incredible diversity of unknown experiences and creatures offers us the opportunity to trust more fully in the presence of God. Journeying into the wilderness opens the door to experiencing God’s presence in a more direct and less familiar way – and that is what has drawn generations of people outside the comfort of the city walls into the wilderness.
Leaving the comfort of the city behind they seek the very presence of God and an encounter with the Holy … in many ways, the wilderness is the model for our Lenten journey:
The Way – Ann Weems
The way to Jerusalem looks suspiciously like Highway 10, and the pilgrims look suspiciously like you and me ...
I expect the road to Jerusalem to be crowded with holy people ... clerics and saints ... people who have kindness wrinkled into their faces, and comfort lingering in their voices ... but this looks more like rush hour ... horns blowing, people pushing, voices cursing ... This is not what I envisioned!
O God, I've only begun and already I feel I've lost my way. Surely this is not the road, and surely these are not the ones to travel with me.
This Lenten journey calls for holy retreat, for reflection, and repentance.
Instead of holiness the highway is crammed with the cacophony of chaos.
Is there no back road to Jerusalem?
No quiet path where angels tend to weary travelers?
No sanctuary from the noice of the world?
Just this?
Can this hectic highway be the highway to heaven?
May it be so … thanks be to God … let us pray …
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