This is the eighth piece in my series, “The Journey of Ecological Discipleship." You can find the first seven pieces HERE. This piece looks deeper into the Rewilding stage of the journey.
Thanks for reading! - James
A Wild Encounter
One day in December 2020, after months of Covid lockdown, I found myself agitated, anxious, and tired of looking at the walls of my house. I decided to go for a walk, hoping that the rhythm of walking would regulate my body and calm my mind. It did not. Despite intentionally slowing my pace several times and trying to control my thinking, I kept unconsciously increasing my pace and allowing my mind to explode in a barrage of anxious thoughts.
I walked to a parkway that meandered along the west edge of Lake Sammamish in Bellevue, Washington. Typically teeming with commuter traffic, on this day the parkway was eerily quiet as I walked along. Covid was keeping people at home, and construction had closed one lane of traffic. It looked and felt like an abandoned roadway ready to be retaken by the surrounding forest. Despite the solitude and silence, I continued struggling to slow my frantic pace and quiet my frenetic mind.
As the afternoon light began to fade, a strange prayer entered my mind: a request that I would have an encounter with a wild animal that would slow me down and refocus my mind. Strange indeed, but I let the prayer escape my lips (with the caveat that it not be a cougar). In less than a minute, I came across a deer standing just a few feet off the road. We made eye contact and looked at each other for a while. When I moved on, my pace slowed and my mind cleared. It was a gift of the wild.
The Domestication of Life and Faith
Much of modern life is spent within human-dominated spaces. A recent survey of Americans revealed that almost 60% of respondents spend one hour or less per day outdoors, and nearly 20% spend less than 15 minutes per day outside. The powerful forces of industrialization, urbanization, and digitalization have literally changed the face of the earth and centered human life around machines, cities, and screens.
This has profoundly shaped our relationship to the more-than-human world, leading to what author Richard Louv calls "nature-deficit disorder." In his book, "Last Child in the Woods," Louv argues that we have enculturated this separation from nature and are actively passing it on to future generations.
Our society is teaching young people to avoid direct experience in nature. That lesson is delivered in schools, families, even organizations devoted to the outdoors, and codified into the legal and regulatory structures of many of our communities. Our institutions, urban/suburban design, and cultural attitudes unconsciously associate nature with doom—while disassociating the outdoors from joy and solitude. Well meaning public-school systems, media, and parents are effectively scaring children straight out of the woods and fields.
Modern Christianity has perpetuated this domestication. Theological reflection has often confined God to rigid belief systems and limited the gospel to human needs in the present and human salvation in the future. Churches have centered their life on gathering in constructed worship spaces that often serve to restrict access to the divine and reinforce the sense that God is more present in these spaces than in the outside world. And the more that Christians have aligned their identity and mission with political, military, and social power, the more domesticated God has become, reduced to a weapon in the arsenals of those who seek to rule and control.
Despite all this, people continue to be drawn to, and by, the wild landscapes and life-giving ecosystems of Earth. Though it may be muted, humans continue to hear the call of the wild. We continue to learn how indelibly connected we are to everything else in creation, and how much our lives depend on the lives of other beings. We continue to be drawn by a God who cannot be contained or controlled, but comes to us in, through, and with the whole community of creation.
Ecological disciples hear this call and seek to follow the path that leads us deeper into creation and the life of the Creator. This is the journey of rewilding; here is what it looks like.
Recovering Our Creatureliness
One of the core projects of the Modern Era has been to set human beings apart as distinctly unique beings within creation. This effort has been so successful that it is easy to forget that we are creatures with so much in common with other creatures that, as my Lakota friend Lenore Three Stars is fond of saying, "Mitákuye Oyás’in," which means “We are all related.”
Whether we are reading Genesis 1 or studying Biology 101, our fundamental creatureliness and place within the community of creation is undeniable. Recovering this understanding of who we are is an important part of discipleship. Even more important than reading or thinking about it, however, is experiencing it firsthand. Can you remember a significant moment, season, or place in your life in which you experienced yourself as a creature with deep connection to other creatures and to the earth? If so, take a moment to remember what it was like, and see if you can identify what made it so significant. How might you open yourself to recognize these connections today?
The simplest way to remember our creatureliness within the community of creation is to get outside. Whether you intentionally walk in solitude through a city park, sit in the shade of a backyard tree with a friend, or go on a group wilderness trek, the life of creation hums and vibrates and calls all around us. This symphony is accessible to us, if we take a little time to retune our senses.
Encountering the Wild God of Creation
Recovering our creatureliness also entails remaining open to the ways in which God is present in, through, and with creation. This does not mean that God is not present to us in traditional church sanctuaries or cathedrals - the built environment is part of creation, after all! It is important to note, however, that most people, when asked, report that they feel the most connected to the world and to God/the divine when they are outside in some capacity.
This creation-centered spirituality is found all throughout the Bible: Noah and the animals riding out the flood waves, Moses meeting God in a bush on Mt. Sinai, Elijah hearing the sound of sheer silence from the mouth of his wilderness cave, Ezekiel having visions by the Kebar River, Ruth finding her place in Israelite grain fields, Amos prophesying from his sheepfold, Jesus helping fishermen alongside a lake and being transfigured on a mountain, Peter seeing a sheet of animals from a rooftop, John envisioning the end from the island of Patmos.
We should not be surprised to encounter God outside the walls of our homes, churches, and communities. God is, after all, the wild God of all creation, who "does not live in houses made by human hands" (Acts 7:48). We can encounter God in the wild, if we are willing to release control and be open to mystery.
Do you ever pray, contemplate, worship, or read the Bible outside? What was your experience like? If not, think of where and when you might try doing so. What might you notice? Who might you encounter?
Becoming a Student of Creation
The process of rewilding also entails sitting at creation's feet. This entails, first of all, learning about our fellow creatures, the ecosystems and planet we live on, and the unfathomable universe within which we float like a "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam" as Carl Sagan put it. No matter where we live, the world is ready to reveal itself to us. All we need is a little curiosity and guidance.
The curiosity must come from within. We can move through the places we inhabit with our heads down, our minds distant, and our hearts closed off, or we can allow awe and wonder to open us up to intriguing mysteries and interesting questions. Do you know what bioregion and watershed you live in? Do you know the names of the fauna and flora that live there with you? Do you know how your life is made possible by your particular community of creation? Most of us know very little of these questions, but the good news is that we have more than enough guidance. All the knowledge we need is now at our fingertips, although a local guide is often much better than a print or digital resource.
Learning about creation is not enough, however. We must also learn from creation. When Job is being admonished and rebuked by his "friends," he refers to people who look down on the misfortunate, and to robbers who steal with apparent serenity, as "those who carry their god in their hands." It is a poetic phrase that reveals their hubris and ignorance. Job's advice to them is to look to creation for correction and instruction.
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this? (12:7-8)
I don't think Job is simply using a poetic device - I think has he recognized that other creatures often know the Creator better than we do. We are so conditioned to think of ourselves as the only creatures with superior intelligence and spiritual capacity that such a claim may seem nonsensical, even heretical. But our fellow creatures provide us daily examples of what it means to be exactly what one is created to be. How can a bird be anything but a bird as it soars through the air? How can a plant be anything but a plant as it stretches its leaves toward the sun? Are they not in tune with the will of their Creator? But we humans do not always know what it means to be human. We often resemble Job's friends, spouting "wisdom" while spreading harm. Maybe it is time to learn from our non-human relatives.
One practice that can help us approach creation as our teacher is finding a sit spot. This is a place outside to which we go repeatedly to sit and observe. There are no specific questions to bring, no curriculum to carry, just a willingness to be still, observe, and be ready to learn from your teacher.
Rewilding, like the other stages of the journey, takes time and practice. But it is worth it, as we recover our beautiful creatureliness, take our place in the community of creation, encounter anew the God of heaven and earth, and explore the deep mysteries of life and faith. Go wild!
With you on The Way,
James
Let me know what you think - james.amadon@circlewood.online