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Some of you have
heard the story of the first time that my spouse, Omar, and I went camping
together years ago—or rather, the first time I took him camping. We were visiting Badlands National Park in
South Dakota. If you have seen photos or
visited the Badlands, you know that they’re their own kind of wild beauty. It is a dramatic and colorful desert full of
craggy peaks and valleys. There aren’t many trees and the sun and the heat can
be very extreme. It’s its’ own kind of
wilderness.
If you happened
to have camped in the actual Badlands campground before, you know that the campsites
are so close that you can hear everyone snoring in concert around you at
night. There’s also a bathroom with full
showers and hot water. I felt like this
was sort of “camping light” but Omar, the city kid from Tegucigalpa, (which is
a city of scorpions) was terrified. Not
only did he sleep in his jeans that night which he tucked into his socks so
that “no animals could bite his ankles,” he also decided to sleep with an empty
wine bottle next to his head in order to—as he put it—“beat off any wild
animals” that snuck into our tent. We
did—for the record—make it through the night unscathed. I don’t think he slept
much.
I’ve heard it
said that a Wilderness is any place where there is something out there that can
eat you. While I know folks who are
terrified of wild places like mountains and jungles and deserts because of the
scorpions, or bears or snakes, I also know of folks who wouldn’t set a foot into
a city like Chicago (or even worse, Mexico City where we used to live) for fear
that something that might eat them or consume them. An urban wilderness. They’re afraid of violence or crazy drivers or
air pollution. All urban things that—in so many words—could eat them.
What’s wilderness
for some isn’t wilderness for another, I guess.
Sometimes wilderness experiences are short, and I’ve had some wilderness
experiences that have lasted years. There
is the wilderness of feeling like you’ve lost faith or have been overwhelmed by
doubt or skepticism. Some of us wander in and out of this one. There’s the
wilderness of being single and wishing you had a partner. The wilderness of a
difficult marriage. The wilderness of
never quite being on top of your finances and feeling chronically stressed
about debt. The wilderness of caring for
an aging parent. The wilderness of
aging. The wilderness we find ourselves in as a society—uncertain of how to
love those who are different than us or even have civil conversations about
basic social justice.
When we talk of the ash of Ash Wednesday that we wear on our
foreheads, we are speaking of the wilderness ash of grief and weary exhaustion,
sin that sickens us and our world, the things that imprison us, the fears that
eat away at us. Wilderness Ash.
Needless to say, no one looks for the wilderness. I certainly haven’t. No one looks to be
thrown into the valley or the desert. If
you happen find yourself in a dark night of the soul, know that you are in good
company. Eve and Adam wandered outside
of the garden trying to find their way, the ancient Israelites were in a
wilderness together as a people as they wandered through the desert for forty
years searching for the promised land or, at the very least, searching for an
encounter with God. Ezekiel looked out over a valley of dry bones and wondered
if they could live. Jesus of Nazareth,
stepped into the valley of wilderness where he wrestled with self-doubt, distance
from God, temptation to do evil, desire and even suicide when he contemplated throwing
himself from a high place.
I wonder what
went through Jesus’ mind as he wandered out there in the wilderness. Did he argue with God? Did he lay under
a bush and groan? Write poetry? Did he contemplate throwing the whole Son of
God thing away and settling down like a regular family guy? We can’t be exactly sure how he passed the
time. But we can be sure that something
happened out there in the wilderness.
In the 1980s and
90s, the country of Costa Rica lost its’ fair share of magnificent cloudforest
to corporate farming and slash and burn techniques. In the mid 1990s ecologists
from Princeton[i], convinced
the Costa Rican fruit juice company, Del Oro, to donate a piece of their land with
healthy cloudforest to the Costa Rican National Park. Then, In exchange, it was negotiated that Del
Oro would be aloud to dump their agricultural waste onto a part of the national
rainforest which had been deforested. The
deal was signed, the virgin cloud forest was handed over to the National Park, and
Del Oro dumped 12,000 metric tons of agricultural waste onto the desolate,
deforested and rocky ruin. A rival Juice
company, TicoFruit, caught wind of the deal and sued saying that Del Oro had
defiled a National Park. The contentious
lawsuit ultimately arrived at the national supreme court of Costa Rica and the
rival juice company won.
The case was
eventually forgotten. Years later—almost
15 years later--scientists stopped by the area of the dump on a routine trip to
visit other sites. The transformation of the deforested land was utterly
stunning. There, on the 7 acres of wilderness where the agricultural waste of
orange peels and pulp had been dumped, the earth was so overgrown with trees, vines
and stunning forest that they could barely find the sign indicating they were
in the right place. There were thick tree diameters, robust canopy closure up
above, rich biomas in the soil, and a higher amount of biodiversity. There was 176% increase in above ground
biomas.
No one expected
the wilderness to be transformed in such a way.
(except perhaps the sneaky scientists).
No one expected that the cloudforest would be healed. But the Spirit worked something mighty and
holy in that wilderness and it was never the same. Eventually, this story of
the Del Oro fruit juice company became a basis for greater study on the
significance of corporate social responsibility. The powerful effects of this
story continue to positively ripple outward today.
This quiet, slow
and holy transformation in the Costa Rican cloudforest wilderness echoes a
fundamental truth in our Bible story today.
We come from a long line of people who have wandered in the wilderness: John
the Baptist, is the voice crying out from the wilderness, prepare the
way of the Lord! The Ethopian Eunich, an excluded sexual minority, is baptized in
the wilderness. Jesus of Nazareth, was “filled with the power of the
Spirit, and returned to Galilee” after his 40 days in the wilderness. We come
from a long line of people who have wandered in the wilderness, and we come
from a long line of people who have been transformed in the wilderness.
I once was lost
but now am found
Was blind but now
I see
We can’t be
certain exactly what Jesus’ time in the wilderness looked like, but we can be
certain that in his journey, he was transformed. His identity and sense of purpose were
stronger. His strength and faith were deeper.
We can be certain that these wilderness experiences can transform us as
individuals and us as a society too (for we are also a society navigating a
wilderness time).
This Lent, we
will wander together through our series called “Wilderness” that will take us
all the way through Holy Week. As we
explore wilderness in our lives, I hope and pray that we remember who we are
and whose we are. I pray that we’ll walk with courage into the deserts we can’t
choose or avoid. And I pray that we will remember that the presence of the Sprit hovers
there with us caring for us, guiding us, and always coaxing out something new.
Blessed be the journey.
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