CHRISTIANITY AND WILDERNESS

“Jesus withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.”  (Luke 5:16 RSV)

"Wilderness has deep spiritual value."

Most people who spend time in wilderness settings will say that their being in wilderness is spiritually strengthening. Indeed, some go into the wilderness for the purpose of spiritual cleansing and awakening. For these people the preservation of wilderness areas is vital.

The U.S. federal government defines wilderness as an area that appears to be affected primarily by the forces of nature with the imprint of human influence essentially unnoticeable; with outstanding opportunities for solitude or unconfined recreation; with at least 5000 acres or of sufficient size to make practicable its unimpaired preservation; and may contain features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. The U.S. Wilderness Act speaks of wilderness as areas untrammeled by man." (This and many of the following sections are from Fred Krueger, ed., The Wilderness Handbook, 2001).

On the other hand, Native people of Canada's Yukon have no word for wilderness. For them, the natural landscape is simply the place where they live and the ecosystem is something they are a part of. A debate in southern Canada and the United States is to develop the native concept of wilderness as being large swaths of area undeveloped by industry with land developing in its natural state...with people as integrated in the ecosystem. (Environment Canada, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory; www.taiga.net/index.html)

"Wilderness remains one of the most ambivalent words in the language: it has two contradictory meanings representing two diametrically opposed values. the biblical meaning of wilderness, which was brought to Americal by our Puritan forebears, was "desert." It was a hostile environment, a last refuge for outcasts, a place into which you drove the scapegoat laden with the sins of mankind...Wilderness was unholy ground inhabited largely by devils...[In contrast] to the frontiersman the wilderness was of course an adversary. Only afer it had become largely subdued could the surviving fragments be enjoyed...Not until the time of Thoreau and the transcendentalists of America did the term become generally respectable." (Paul Brooks, The Pursuit of Wilderness, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971, p. 5).

For millenia humankind has sought its own survival in the face of the dangerous and harsh and dangerous realities of nature. Wilderness was a place to tame and subdue so that human life could go on. Hunter-gatherer societies might coexist in small numbers within wilderness settings, but complex, numerically large societies needed to harness nature for predictable sustanence and safety.

Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary of the English Language (1755) defines wilderness as "a desert; a tract of solitude and savageness." The Enlightenment objectified nature in congruence with the scientific revolution, further eroding more positive religious perceptions of nature. Wilderness began to emerge again as a positive entity as Thoreau, Emerson, Muir, Audubon, and others gained insight and spread their influence.

John Muir eloquently writes to his mother of his early experience in Yosemite Valley (from My First Summer in the Sierras):

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, owever weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.

I wish you could come here and rest a year in the simple unmingled love-fountains of God. You would return with fresh truth gathered and absorbed from pines and waterfalls and deep-singing winds, and you would find that they all sang of fountain love just as did Jesus Christ and all of pure God... (from Wilderness Handbook, p 34).

Biblical Passages on Wilderness (from Wilderness Handbook, pp 8-11)

Wilderness conveys a number of messages in over 300 distinct texts. Although at first glance these meanings might appear contradictory, at a deeper level they often coexist. Wilderness is challenge, test, struggle, yet also a place for spiritual purification and reflection. The following is a small sample:

Isaiah 41:18-20 I will make the wilderness a pool of water,And the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and teh olive; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together; that people might see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel created it.

Song of Solomon 3:6 Who is this that comes out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankinsence?

Isaiah 35:6 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus.

Isaiah 40:3 A voice cries: "in the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Joel 2:22 Be not afraid, you beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wildernessdo spring, for the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.

Mark 4:12, 13 And The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Matthew 11:7, 9 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the mutlitudes concerning John, "What did you go into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.

Luke 1:80 And the child [Jesus] grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his manifestationi to Israel.

Luke 5:16 But he [Jesus] withdrew to the wilderness and prayed (RSV)

 

Historic Jewish Writings on Wilderness and Nature (from Wilderness Handbook)

Judaism has a long tradition that values the land, the wilderness, nature, as essential for the formation of Jewish identity. Commentary on pertinent scriptural passages is massive. A short sampling follows:

"Torah was born of a desrt/wilderness experience. We found our call for truth through the path of "mitzvah" commandment in the wilderness. In turn, it is our responsibility to care for God's wilderness and all creation." ---Rabbi Warren G. Stone

"Master of the Universe, grant me the ability to be alone. May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass and all growing things, and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer." ----Nachman of Bratzlav from Maggid Sichot, 48.

"Whereever I turn my eyes, around on Earth, or to the heavens I see You in the field of stars; I see You in the yield of the land in every breath and sound, a blade of grass, a simple flower, an echo of Your holy Name." Rabbi ibn Ezra

"In order to serve God, one needs access to the enjoyment of the beauties of nature, such as the contemplation of flower-decorated meadows, majestic mountains, flowing rivers. for all these are essential to the spiritual development of even the holiest people." ---Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)

"It should not be believed that all the beings exist for the sake of the existence of humanity. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes, and not for the sake of something else. ----Moses Maimonides

 

Historic Christian Writings on Wilderness and Nature (from Wilderness Handbook)

Fred Krueger writes that "Christians once had a strong and vigorous sense of value for creation, especially for wilderness and forests. This faded primarily because of influences from the Enlightenment, industrialism and consumerism." A very small sampling follows:

St. Jerome (341-420) spoke that the desert fathers and mothers went to wild places to flee the corruption of cities, to wage war with their passions, but especially to encounter the holy. He writes, "to me the town is a prison, and solitude is a paradise."

St. Augustine (354-430) wrote that "divine providence admonishes us not to foolishly criticize created things, but to investigate their purpose with care, and where our mental capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a purpose though hidden."

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) said, "Believe one who knows: You will find something greater in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters."

St. Columba (521-597) had such a deep love for forests and wilderness that he made sure that his monastery was buldt without a tree being cut down. He wrote that he was more afraid of the sound of an ax in the forest than the voice of hell itself. He founded the largest monastery in Christendom on the island of Iona which became a great center of learning.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) said that any error about creation also leads to an error about God.

St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) had a profound sense of God's revelation in creation. He saw that just as creation serves humanity that humanity should also humbly serve creation.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) stated, "God is substantially present everywhere, in and through all creatures, in all their parts and places, so that the world is full of God and He fills all, but without His being encompassed and surrounded by it."

John Calvin (1509-1564) wrote, "We are inexcusable when we have not considered God in His works. He does not leave himself without witness here...Let us then only open our eyes and we will have enough arguments for the grandeur of God, so that we may learn to honor Him as He deserves."

John Wesley (1701-1791) testified, "I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings, to a broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth."

St. Nikephoros of Chios (1750-1821) said, "If you don't love trees, you don't love God."

Fyodor Doestoyevski (1821-1881) wrote, "Love all of God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will soon perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better evey day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) wrote, "One has to be alone, under the sky, before everything falls into place and one finds his own place in the midst of it all."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1998) said, "We need to find God, but we cannot find Him in noise or in excitement. See how nature, the trees, the flowers, the grass grow in deep silence. See how the stars, the moon, and the sun all move in silence."

George Washington Carver (1864-1943) said that "As soon as you begin to read the great and loving god out of all forms of existence He has created, both animate and inanimate, then you will be able to converse with Him anywhere, everywhere, and at all times. Oh what a fullness of joy will come to you!

Excerpts from Poetry and Prose on Nature

"Up! Up! my friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double;
Up!Up! my friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher;
Come forth into the light of thinks;
Let Nature be your teacher.

On impulse from a vernal wood
Mahy teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

----William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit around and pluck blackberries...

---Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks.
Sermons in stone, and good in every thing.

----William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from As You Like It

And Nature, the old nurese, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, "Here is a story book
My Father hath writ for thee.
"Come, wander with me," she said,
"In regions yet untrod,
And read what is still unread
in the manuscripts of God."

---Henry Longfellow (1807-1882)

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infitinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

---William Blake (1757-1827) from Auguries of Innocence

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is smeared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

---Gerard Manley Hopkins in God's Grandeur

Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide gray skies!
thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me--let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

---Edna St. Vincent Millay in God's World

NOTE: Many of the above is excerpted from The Wilderness Handbook under the auspices of the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation, Santa Rosa, California. Copyright May, 2001. Fred Krueger, editor, along with contributions from Jim Davidson, Angela Kantola, Jerry Lang, Thea Levkovitz, Larry McCowan, and David Patrick. For copies of this book or other materials call (707) 573-3161.