Finding Life in the Wilderness

Patricia and I recently went on a mini-vacation to Index, Washington, a small out-of-the-way place about an hour and a half drive north of Seattle. We rented a little cabin that was so far in the mountains our phones did not receive signals powerful enough for urban intrusions. No internet. No cell phones. No Face Book. It was quite wonderful. The air was heavy and wet and just cold enough with the remnants of winter, sharp and brisk, as though the breath of God was blowing us away from our busy and distracted lives and closer to one another.

As we drove into Index we saw an old truck that had been abandoned probably decades earlier. Someone just gave up on it and left it to die beside the road. In the process, trees and bushes and grasses grew up to claim the vehicle and turn it into an exquisite environmental canvass, a haven for new revelations of supernatural existence. How often have our lives become like this truck? How often have people given up on us, leaving us to rot by the side of the road? God continues to create life in us, however, and works in concert with all of the elements of Nature to bring beauty from our seemingly rotting beings even as we sit and imagine ourselves powerless, even as we surrender to messages that discount our value and seek to negate our sanctity. Foolishly we believe that just because someone has removed our engines and busted out our windows, nothing great can come from within or explode around our lives. There is a truck on a road in Index, Washington, however, that pushes truth to the surface and challenges the familiarity of hopelessness.

  

Our little retreat provided a most incredible view of the Skykomish River flowing down from the Cascades toward the Puget Sound. The cabin sits right at the turning point of the river, looking somewhat like an elbow. The shifting direction at that point causes water to flow rough and violently, its resistance evident in the frothy white waves reaching out and up to slap the banks. Its sound of protest could be heard throughout the night as nature somehow redirected its anger and its loud, violent howls became soothing lullabies pulling us deep into a restful sleep.

Sometimes it is good – no necessary – to move away from our lives in order to find them. That is the central message in the scripture passage about Jesus going into the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). There he came face to face with three of his own demons. The first was the fear of physical suffering. Jesus had been in the wilderness for forty days and nights. Like any one of us, he was hungry, his body was weak and longing for nourishment. We live in a society in which food surrounds us wherever we go. We may not be able to eat what we want all the time, but compared to so many other places in the world, if you live in the USA, most of us can find something to eat. A friend of mine who is essentially homeless and lives in a tent in one of Seattle’s many wooded areas stopped in to visit me the other day. He had been out “shopping” for food at the various food banks and programs for the hungry and homeless. As we chatted about the state of the union, he pulled an assortment of sandwiches and beverages he had amassed during his journey that day. He recounted his adventures and offer to share fresh meats and vegetables and sweets and juices he had collected since early that morning. He was proud of both his efforts to care for himself and of the many people who cared enough to share what they had received.

There are times when we are assaulted by demons of hunger, which convince us that our souls and our bodies do not have enough sustenance. We hunger for that car or that house or that job or that person we believe will fill us up and ensure our survival. Unlike my friend, however, we fail to get up and get out and search our narrow and restrictive little worlds for the many storehouses God has placed along our paths. We sit in our wildernesses of despair and become prey for demons of self-hatred that offer home delivery of brokenness.

The second demon Jesus encountered was doubt. He was tempted to push God into a corner, to force a demonstration of faithfulness. Oh how frequently this demon appears in my life! When things are less than I want them to be, when my life is not moving in exactly the direction I want or at the speed I desire, it is so easy to demand some proof that God cares. So often we jump ahead of God and move according to our own timing. We convince ourselves that we are acting according to God’s plan, knowing full well that in reality out actions are driven by our own selfish need to be in charge. We jump headfirst into raging waters and persuade ourselves that if God loves us we will be pulled out of the rapids. The reality is that we have learned throughout our lives that even the best swimmer can drown and have been cautioned to wear a life jacket when the water is rough. When we jump anyway and discover the water is too cold and the waves too strong our first thought is to accuse God of abandonment. Faith is not so much being willing to jump into dangerous water as it is trusting that because we have worked in partnership with God to prepare our lives, when we step into the rapids, we will know how to remain afloat.

The third demon Jesus encountered was the illusion of power. Satan promised ownership of all the riches in the world if only Jesus would worship him instead of God. To Satan, that represented power. Now that’s a familiar temptation as well. Jesus had been called into a battle for social justice and healing, a task that would require abundant strength and power. In his wilderness experience, it was probably quite tempting to think of all the good he could do with the supremacy Satan was offering. He could feed all the hungry and house all the homeless and clothe all the naked people throughout the universe. How often do we deceive ourselves into believing that if we had, we would do? I always think that if I won the lottery I would give some of the people in my family enough money to get their lives in order. What utter foolishness!! In my more sane moments I understand that those I worry about most have already received more from me and done less for themselves than a lot of folks in the world. In my wilderness experience I remind myself that when people take responsibility for their own prosperity, when they utilize available resources and work- really work - to embrace joy and possibilities, their lives change for the better. It is pretty tempting to think about how I could create a good and just world if only I had power and money. But it’s not about power or money or anything else. The bottom line is that we don’t run this world. God is in charge and when we trust and act upon that reality, life is good and peace abounds. It costs nothing to care and share, to love and affirm one another.

Our wilderness experiences bring us to a place of humility and self-awareness, a place where we meet our demons and defeat them. The authority and demonic powers of fear in our lives continue to astound me. Sometimes our greatest selves speak from our most familiar fears. Our visit to Index began with a glimpse into my own wilderness as reflected off the waters of the Skykomish. I have been unreasonably afraid of water since I was a child, a legacy from my mother who grew up in a time when rivers were where you looked to find missing children or to fish out Black men who said too much to the wrong people. Staring into the rapids below our refuge, however, brought comfort in the realization of God’s presence and awe at God’s power and majesty. I was reminded that when our people had many names for the manifestations of God and before we had the arrogance to claim such wonders as discoveries of men, the beauty and power I beheld existed and will continue in spite of humankind. What’s really going on is that the Spirit of Life calls to us in the wilderness and beacons us to rejoice and move closer to the natural wonder of God’s presence. It is then that life begins and the rest of our lives grow into the best of our lives.