Wilderness: Why we go into it and what happens to us as we enter it.

Why I am doing the Camino de Blue Ridge

There’s important new information about the Camino at the end of this post. It’s almost full and what I’m considering…

Photo by Hendrik Cornelissen on Unsplash

What is it about wilderness that captures us so? For centuries, we have gone into wilderness to meet ourselves and to encounter the One who must have made it all.

Wilderness is a territory of the human heart. We go out into the wilderness in order to be able to go in—to go inside the human heart. This human heart of ours needs such spaces and places to capture our senses; engage our imagination and to bring us back to ourselves. We do not get lost in wilderness. We get lost by not going into wilderness.

In the cathedrals of sky and forest; wild flowered dotted meadows; carpeted grassy knolls and towering crowns of magnificent trees, we enter a story beyond ourselves. We enter a story larger than our own narrative. In short, we enter a glory story. In this Great Story of glory and creation, our creatureliness somehow centers us—grounds us—stabilizes us—anchors us amidst rapid change; sprawling cityscapes and living our lives on the false ground of concrete and asphalt.

In wilderness, we put ourselves smack dab in the way of beauty. It is in this way of beauty that mystic and prophet; poet and engineer; sinner and saint all breathe the same good air; find shelter in the cradle of the forests and are baptized in the pristine rivers into the feeling of new life once again.

If you come for a day; for a week or for a lifetime, the gifts of wilderness give and give and give. One day, a great black bear comes. The next day, a curious fox and at night, a hooting owl all become companions to remind us that in wilderness, we are never truly alone. Where these creatures sent to us at this precise time? It is for you to decide.

This is why wilderness captures us and has held the hearts of hikers hostage until they return, time and time again to reclaim what has been lost when we go back to our lives in towns and cities. We do go back to our lives, but after one goes into wilderness, one is given a lifeline to hold onto to find the way out of conflict, discord, disillusionment.

This is the language that an old prophet named Hosea used to describe the romance, the intimacy, the hope we feel when we go into wilderness.

An now, here’s what Im going to do;

I’m going to start all over again.

I’m taking her back out into the wilderness

Where we had our first date, and I”ll court her.

I’ll give her bouquets of roses.

I”ll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope.

She’ll respond like she did was a young girl,

Those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.

--Hosea 2:14-15, The Message

People go “back out into wilderness” to reset their inner compass that has been broken by fast living; technological addiction; machine like living; feeling stuck; feeling dead; feeling lost and so many other maladies of the soul.

If Jesus went into wilderness for forty days, surely we could go into wilderness for four or five. Perhaps, Jesus knew what we too can come to know. We face our inner demons in wilderness and conquer them. We learn that we can live on far less than the media tells us. Our daily bread in wilderness, be it granola or a pop tart sustains us. And then there is this—in wilderness, we are confronted with our own human built kingdoms and realize in the vastness of wilderness that there really is a greater kingdom that is not made my human hands at all. We are right sized in wilderness and maybe this is precisely why Jesus went and we too must go into wilderness.

The medicinal value of going into wilderness somehow heals the body, mind and broken soul. Wilderness becomes a womb where hope is fostered; life is nurtured and the soul is grown in healthy ways.

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