(The pic is on the Devonshire moors in England.)
Our modern attraction to wilderness is often the heightening and clarification of self through natural beauty in the absence of civilization, but in the Bible wilderness is not a national park, but a place of isolation and death. Infested with demons and seemingly without God, this untamed and unknown place was entered only at great risk. To be in the “wild” is where one can become lost and die. This is the root of our word “bewildered,” which goes back to the physical and emotional state of being lost...
We dwell in a wilderness, but we are not alone. The best spiritual practices do not ultimately separate us from our world, but only separate us from our habits and assumptions that cause us to limit or doubt the divine presence. Finding God in the wilderness is finding God precisely everywhere we are afraid or lost...
This wilderness within ultimately sets us free, for here we encounter the mysterious, faithful Holy One. When our expectations are shattered, we receive the unexpected. We are bewildered by grace, and finally find ourselves at home.
Life itself is our wilderness and our holy habitat, the blooming desert and the fertile field. The love of the vitality of all life sent Thoreau in later years from philosophy to observe minute details of berries as part of his spiritual process; after his famous voyage Darwin devoted himself to the mysteries of the underground lives of earthworms. It is not the devil who is in the details, but God who brings life wherever we are.
1 comment:
That looks like you in this picture!!! Where is it? Love this blog. It's so like you!!
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