Wild Church

Moving Out Rather Than In To Come Alive and Stay Alive

Photo by Steve Smith on Unsplash

“Books and talks and articles about Nature as little more than…dinner bells Nothing can take the place of absolute contact, of seeing and feeding at God’s table for oneself.”—John Muir

“I am becoming a detective of divinity”—Barbara Brown-Taylor

The best teachers show up in our lives without warning.  When the teacher shows up and the student is ready, some kind of “bedazzlement of consciousness” happens, as the American psychologist and prolific author, James Hillman tells us.  We somehow just know, we are on holy ground.

More and more for me, these teachers hold no PhD’s and are not published experts at anything.  The teachers that bring the truth to me these days are Red Winged Black Birds and most recently, the Great Blue Heron.  When the Blue Heron showed up the other day, class began. I become a detective of divinity.

I listen.

I watch.

I study.

I observe

I notice.

I loved.

I am loved.

I became more alive.

I know.

I wrote a poem about it, which you’ll read below. It’s a poem about “wild church”.

That’s it—there was a knowing that came over me. A knowing that I remember often having in church. A knowing that reminded me I was small and not the center of the universe. A knowing that told me, that I was to simply take my place in the wildness of life.  A knowing that came without words, song or books. No creeds. No doctrine. A knowing that made me bow and acknowledge a Greatness beyond myself.

This brings up wild church.

This brings up going into nature and tasting and seeing that God is good. This bring up a fatigue, as you’ve read me talk about with institutional anything—including church. Perhaps this is the power of moving into nature—way out beyond where human fingerprints have touched and ruined and maimed.

We feel most alive in the presence of Beauty. Everything in our lives cannot be simply functional, useful or efficient. Diana Kappel-Smith writes in her, DESERT TIME, “Plants and animals change as one goes up the mountain, and so apparently do people.” I know this is what happens to me.

Gwen and I went yesterday to attend our own, sort of, Wild Church. We drove into the National Forest in search of a secret, secluded and spacious place, unfrequented by tourists. Someone in the know told us about this space and off we went with a picnic lunch to share in communion when we arrived. When we arrived, we sat in the pews made of granite and listened to the pristine water fall and watched children scoot themselves down the granite slide into the waiting pool. (I’ll post a video of this space on the Substack NOTES, so be on the lookout. It’s where I often post tid bits about things I’m reading and recommendations. It’s available to all.)

Wild church can change you.  It is church without walls. It is place in the outside so that we might connect with the inside of us all.

I’ve been intrigued by Wild Church as you might imagine. It’s a movement of people, now across the world, who are finding what they feel the traditional church is not offering.  Google ‘wild church’ and you’ll see what I mean. There is a growing network of human beings finding each other and finding God in a place you might have forgotten about in these days of addicted technology, availability and speed of life.

As I look back on my life and formation, it was on the water or in the water, where I had my Dad for myself. There, I saw him come alive—leave the “cereal stare” we shared at breakfast for so many years and see his eyes young again. He would talk in the water. He would talk there in that primal wetness and it was in the water where I could talk with him. He always had a boat and he always took me on the boat. I think his boat was his escape. Perhaps from everyone and everything that held him captive. Off we went across the water and off we went without others to distract us. We were together. Alone, but together. Could a boy ask for more than that? There was no business to do on that water but to share. There was no conversation to be had but about an unspoken togetherness which I had been looking for all my life. He was most fully himself on the water and in the water and he was enough for me in the water and I think, most of all, that I was enough for him as we swam, talked, rode to the marina and got our nabs and Sun Drop drinks. It was the finest of Eucharists I have even had.

In case you’ve missed church news in just the past month, the Southern Baptist Denomination are voting churches out who have women pastors.  The PCA is putting famed and best selling author, Sarah Young  on a sort of trial for being a heretic in her book, Jesus Calling. The Methodist are in a mess now. Mega pastors are caught in ‘sin’ for molesting children. There’s corruption everywhere the church bells ring it seems. It’s disheartening. I am fatigued by it all.

To find a sense of re-ordering, renewal and rejuvenation, more and more of the “dones”( a growing and popular term for people who are saying, I’m “done” with the church) seem to be heading to the wild—to the woods—to the shores of lakes and beaches by oceans to find their solace and sanctuaries. 

I get it. The more I study and read about Celtic Christianity, the more I feel like I understand.  It all just makes so much sense. In fact, it makes more than just sense with the mind—it offers an understanding of the heart.

With all our divisions and discord we are experiencing, there is something about finding oneself in nature that brings a balm to our busy souls.  I am a witness to the fact that my own experiments of spending some uninterrupted time in the woods brings a sense of belonging that I need.

“Our hunger is to belong and to find a bridge across the distance from isolation to intimacy. Everyone longs for intimacy and dreams of a nest of belonging in which one is embraced, seen and loved. Something within each of us cries out for belonging. We can have all the world has to offer in terms of status, achievement and possessions. Yet, without a sense of belonging, it all seems empty and pointless. Like the tree that puts roots deep into the clay, each of us needs the anchor of belonging in order to bend with the stores and reach toward the light.”  These are the words of John O’Donohue in his book Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on our Yearning to Belong. In Wild Church, there is a belonging and there is, by the way, no membership or joining. We are all “in.”

I agree with John O’Donohue.

I am thinking more about Eden these days than I think I ever have and I wonder why? I wonder if we all are. When things get bad, we remember and there is no harm at all in remembering Eden. For in Eden, we may find our great hope again.

I agree with Eden’s promise and I experience Eden’s promise in part when I leave the human made and stand alone in the God made. It’s really that simple and it is really simply needed. Eden’s promise is what we are reminded of when we go outside. Eden’s promise is where we see God walking in the cool of the day looking for us and where we look for God. Eden’s promise reminds of in our heart ache of what beauty actually does to us when we sigh when seeing a sunset, a vista, a landscape, a farm pond or a city park alive with glory. There—or here—we are reminded about what it means to be alive and what the purpose of our lives actually is.

To be clear, and to say it plainly, Jesus is in my Wild Church. I’m not talking about worshipping nature—not at all. I am though, describing Christ in nature and how this Beauty and this realization grounds me, helps me and saves me.

I wrote a poem about an experience I had in Wild Church recently. Perhaps the poem will say more than I can say here.  The poem really needs no explanation. I think you’ll be in the place of the wild church when you read it and see what I saw; hear what I heard and become a listener with me in such times.

Here are a few resources that I have used in recent months with links. I’ve read and re-read them all. I highlly recommend each one. Ask someone to read one with you then go outside and talk about what stirred in you as you read:

A Beauty and Nature: Reader —a PDF document of the greatest quotes, prayers and excepts on beauty that I have collected through the years. And it only costs $1.

The Wilderness World of John Muir: A collection from his collected works

Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder

Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity and Hope

Sacred Earth Sacred Soul

Beauty is Oxygen

The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul

Information on Wild Church

Here’s the place where you must decide if you want more—if you want to read a poem about what I’m describing here. It’s my own way of trying to write every single week these days but to write in a different way than I have before and in a new way—with a new voice—.