Wilderness and Wonder

The following reflections date back to summer 2003, when I took a course exploring the themes of Technology, Wilderness and Creation through Regent College. The setting for the course was a week-long camping and row/sail-boating trip throughout the magnificent Gulf Islands in British Columbia, co-taught by Loren and Mary-Ruth Wilkinson – two of the most generous, self-giving people I’ve been privileged to know.

In several months, I would learn that the breast cancer – treated several years before – had progressed to my bones. In those same several months, I’d be dating the man I would marry. I also would no longer be able to row in a boat or carry heavy packs on my back up mountain trails, or sleep in on the ground, or sit for hours on rocky shores exchanging ideas, cooking food, smiling at otters’ antics…

I look back on what I reflected on then, in the light of all that happened afterward, and see a sort of foreshadowing that only hindsight can provide. God's the best story-teller, story-maker.

And, of course, today as much as ever I find relevance in these themes. I'm walking through days filled with new sorts of difficulties...illnesses among much-loved family members, efforts among us all to hold onto our kindness toward each other when we're being stretched and strained and drained. Our questions rise up, sometimes angrily and insistently. I think God can take it. I think we need to take the questions to him.

On another note, if you read further you'll see scepticism about the value of the oodles of technology so embedded in our lives. Even while using it gratefully to share my thoughts here, I do still wonder...

[With regard to format of the writing below, I started with journal entries (small font) from my trip and then expounded a bit more on some the themes that arose (in regular 12 point font), after I returned from the trip. ]


Wilderness and Wonder
by Maureen Morley

Sunday, June 22, late morning. Coon Bay (Dionysio Point Provincial Park)
It’s pretty here and quiet, sitting on these rocks looking over the Bay. For some reason I’m reminded that the Lord answers prayer. We need to come to him with our simple requests….I’m struck by Genesis 1:2b, “…and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Is that why the water has always called to me? The Lord’s spirit was there during all my bad times on the water, bearing witness? I like the fresh eyes with which some of the folks in our group look at the world. We have “woolies” to sit on – little squares of pure sheepskin - and I’m reminded of Dottie and Bob and sheep and Gracestoration…all the ways that the Lamb provides for us.

So here we are in the Lord’s creation with all of its exuberance and vitality. I’d like to say that we – all people – are in the same boat as part of God’s creation…all just as poor in that which really matters. But is it easy for me to say this because I have plenty of stuff? Lord, where do I begin to learn about creation? And what is beginning? Teach me to think, to ask questions. I pray I’m here for good reasons rather than the escapist sort of reasons Wendell Berry[1] warns about.

I close my eyes and images flow through my mind of throwing away food or letting the water run at the kitchen sink while doing dishes. Truth is I feel ashamed of my lack of attention to how to live respectfully with nature on a personal level. Looking back at these images, I recognize in me a sense of unease with how I’m living in the ‘modern’ world – just going along with what prevails and is common in culture. Not knowing enough to make real choices about matters. Not knowing how to make a piece of clothing; not knowing how recycling works. Not living at all within the “proper scale” that Berry writes of; not knowing where to begin. Lord, have mercy. But here I am, amid his mercy. And I sense that he wants to teach me how to better walk with him.
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Albert Borgmann, in the “Introduction” to Power Failure talks about the inverse relationship between standard of living and faith, and the problems that technology poses for Christianity. He notes that important questions about the effects of technology on our lives often go unasked. I agree that on a cultural or national level or within popular media these questions are seldom raised, but they do arise in individuals who think and try to be honest about their experience in the world. Because amidst all the technology and the “freedom” that we enjoy, amidst the “extreme sports” this or that and the many highs we can create there is still an emptiness inside us. I certainly felt it and I can see it in others, in all the angst that rules the days of so many. I agree with Borgmann that “underneath the surface of technological liberty and prosperity there is a sense of captivity and deprivation….” Yes, we feel stuck; stuck on the proverbial high-tech treadmill. But I think this is good news, ultimately, if the result may be stumbling off it to search for truth – which it was for me. And then the One who is the Truth can guide and teach. Then perhaps He can lead us to ask the meaningful questions posed by Borgmann and Berry, and others questions besides.


Monday, June 23, morning. Coon Bay (Dionysio Point Provincial Park)
Last night we discussed Wendell Berry and I find him to be an interesting thinker and writer. But there were beautiful moments aside from that. The sky darkened into restful shades of purple…people spontaneously spoke words of kindness to each other for no other purpose but to edify. That’s beauty. And you have to watch for it because moments like that are rare…too pure to be common. It is seeing Christ alive. O ye speakers of kind words, praise ye the Lord! But is it really praising the Lord or is it the Lord himself doing these things? Didn’t the Son glorify the Father’s name? Does it matter to make a distinction?

The servanthood of Mary Ruth and Loren is striking. They work all day and into the evening doing things for us.

Rowing in the boats provides some food for thought! We’re sitting pretty close to one another, and I find I’m seldom quite comfortable. There’s either too much stuff at my feet to give me the leg and knee room that I want or there’s too much stuff and furled sail beside me; I’m often wanting a better position. And then someone beside me will keep hitting my arm or taking more room than I think necessary; or perhaps someone behind me hits me in the small of the back now and then. I find myself noticing that I’m noticing all this garbage and I don’t like that it annoys me, but there you have it. I decide not to go there with the annoyance; notice it, let it go. Then later on, I find myself sitting in the spot of the one that was bugging me. And I notice that the stuff at his or her feet or beside his or her arm makes it not quite comfortable and difficult to avoid hitting the person in front of me in the small of the back or knocking into the person beside me. What a turkey I am and what a good lesson. Don’t judge. You don’t know another’s circumstances. Give grace. Keep your sense of humor. Why do I even notice when there’s so much else I could be seeing that is beautiful?
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I think about Berry’s 9th reason for not buying a computer (Wendell Berry, “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” from What are People For? Essays by Wendell Berry), “It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.” There is so much to be gained by being in all sorts of relationships with others. Being in class with other people or working alongside others provides all kinds of opportunities to learn from each other and witness beautiful moments. (Add to that the wonder of holding class and working alongside others in a spectacular natural setting, and you’ve a recipe for blessings!) But technology does often remove us from direct interaction with others. I think we’re losing something valuable, many things. Now we have a proliferation of on-line courses where little direct interaction with classmates or teacher takes place. Learning through modelling is less likely to occur. Learning about yourself – because you see your inner reactions as you take part in a group – is less likely to occur. The moments of appreciating others simply for the pleasure of their company do not have a chance to occur. Like Guardini[2] I feel that something vital – many things vital – are being lost.


Tuesday, June 24, after dinner. Saturna Island
“Wilderness.” What does it mean? In the Bible it’s a place of vulnerability when you encounter your need that you can’t fill yourself. God dwells everywhere – not just in “untouched land” where man is not. But perhaps “wilderness” is that place, literal or figurative, that gets us to our place of need. It seems that man likes to take a concept, like “wilderness” and grasp it, over-define it for his own purposes and ultimately pervert it. Man wants to do something on his own apart from God. That’s the same old story. Man must take the totality of what God is saying! That is important!

Look at Ezekiel 34:25: “I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert [wilderness] and sleep in the forests in safety.” Do we see what it means? What does “desert” or “wilderness” mean? What are “harmful beasts?” We need to know the heart of God and the fullness of the Gospel.
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I remember writing this entry quite vehemently and even the style of my handwriting is more emphatic than most of the rest of it. Our discussion about wilderness reminded me about our basic (base) nature in that we want to know so much and define so much and control so much. It seems that men sometimes took the references to “wilderness” in the Bible as something untamed and said, “So that means we need to tame it!” And that became an excuse for all sorts of sin.

I appreciate Nash’s[3] observation that “Any place in which a person feels stripped of guidance, lost, and perplexed may be called a wilderness,” and that this could be an urban setting as much as a wild rural setting. It strikes me as quite true that there are two emotional tones to the word – one threatening and scary and the other capable of raising our spirits in delight. It seems to me that these two aspects are related. God is at work in us in the wilderness. He takes us to wilderness of all kinds, to our place of vulnerability, so that we might recognize our true state of need. And it is there that he meets us. That’s scary and wonderful all at once. There’s real life in that. But instead, we often seek to control, set about our work to make the wilderness less wild. As John Muir said[4], “Toiling in the treadmills of life we hide from the lessons of Nature.” And we hide from God.

I, like many people, am most often “on the world, not in it.” The readings and discussions we had during this course helped to jar me awake a bit, to draw me in.


Thursday, June 26. Taylor Point, Saturna Island.
Beginning the solo day. I walked up to a high point on Saturna Island. This is one of the most beautiful spots I’ve ever seen. I’m sitting on a ridge facing SE into Washington state. Water and mountains and then behind that, snow-capped peaks. Wakes of the boats extend on and on. There are half a dozen vultures swooping around wishing I was almost dead. I can hear voices of people in the distance, along with geese. I lay down to nap a bit. I awoke and lying here heard a big splash out on the water…Orca whales! A half dozen or so making their way across the water. Thank you, Lord!

I feel like I need a long time in the quiet of this place in order to simply wake up. My mind wants to come alive, but is so weighed down, burdened somehow by how I live my life…. I’m reminded of Hannah Hurard’s Hinds Feet on High Places. Lots of goat trail up here; an amazingly pretty bell-shaped flower that grows on the side of a path. Majesty and expanse. John Muir says, “go up and away for life; be fleet!” But I am struck by an idea from Annie Dillard’s essay, "Teaching a Stone to Talk": “the suppression of self-consciousness, and a certain precise tilt of the will, so that the will becomes transparent and hollow, a channel for the work.” Hmm. There’s that same theme written of by Guardini, that self-consciousness inhibits life. This has a ring of truth.
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I think I need to read Jeremy Begbie’s “Christ, Creation and Creativity” over and over again. As I read, I kept thinking, yes! Begbie says, “To try and gain freedom through autonomous self-direction can only be self-defeating, for it is precisely this closed circle of self-centeredness which needs to be broken.” I have been struggling quite a bit with the whole realm of psychology as a legitimate way to approach helping people. There is much (not all) that seems to me to be wrong with it, be it secular or “Christian.” It seems to encourage the very self-centeredness that Christ discouraged. Is that really the only way to help people who are hurting? What about encouraging living that is in right relationship to God, others and creation? Can we encourage others to live more fully rather than try always to figure everything out by looking more closely at ourselves?


Saturday, June 28, afternoon returning to our starting point in the Islands, but before the ferry-ride to the Mainland
After arriving back…I’m aware of several themes in my thinking:
1. Anxiety – how people (and, hey, I’m “people”) aren’t at ease because they aren’t living right with God
2. The great importance of human relationships, inter-relatedness on many levels
3. “The sin problem” – how I can’t get away from it in my thinking…sin being the root of what’s wrong
4. Why is the Creation aspect of right living/right relationship so ignored? Why haven’t I been exposed to these sorts of ideas before?
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This whole boat course unfolded with understanding of how we humans operate. Respect for our humanity was inherent in all we did and how we did it. Our bodies were never pushed too long in the rowing. Food was prepared that delighted our palates. Bedtime replaced class-time when folks seemed tired and worn. There was much sweetness and grace and therefore so much beauty. It fills my heart with joy and thanksgiving. It makes me want to create such an atmosphere for growth and learning and community elsewhere – at some other time and place. I want people to experience this sort of vibrant living. I’m touched by the beauty of this rare and precious experience. And there was respect for technology as well, not a dogmatic shunning. Thank you, Lord. I’m grateful for the trip.

I think it was quite important for me; it shook me up a bit. The readings provided good food for thought. Yet it is more than just the readings that had this effect. Other aspects of the trip were critical. We read thought-provoking material, in an environment that was far closer to nature than I usually live. The majestic beauty of the water and the mountains draws me, creates a yearning to somehow enter into the majesty, to rise above the mundane. God calls. I remember the same yearning at other times in my life, prior to knowing Jesus at all, and feeling frustrated by it ultimately because there seemed to be something indefinable that was beyond my reach. Now, of course, there is much beyond my reach but it makes all the difference having the Lord’s spirit inside…I can sort of join in the joy of creation without wanting to possess it and with the hope and assurance of continuous transformation by His spirit.

And then, we worked closely with each other and had conversations…all with guidance from those who had greater experience in these things. And we so much need other people to share with, to learn from, to ‘be in the same boat’ with. We need relationship; it’s the core of who we are as creatures made in the likeness of a triune God. But we’ve become so isolated. And of course, all aspects of the course take their ultimate meaning from taking place under God, by his guidance and grace.

I suspect that my thought life is sluggish. Often during the trip I would sit down to write and be unable to remember what seem to me to have been the more important thoughts that arose within me during the last hours. And then when the thought would come, I’d find it difficult to communicate. It’s as if they float around the periphery of my brain. Yet the course has sparked something. Or, more accurately, it has created a stirring…perhaps taking some of what was already there and ordering it a bit, heating it up a bit. But it’s not cooked yet…not much form or substance. Still, the stirring seems good, vital…like a small beginning toward a more alive life.


[1] Wendell Berry is a Kentucky farmer, environmentalist, poet, essayist and novelist. We read several of his essays in preparation for this course. I can’t recommend his work strongly enough. [2] See Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como. [3] From Roderick Nash, “Prologue: The Condition of Wilderness” from Wilderness and the American Mind. [4] See John Muir, “The Philosophy of John Muir” from The Wilderness World of John Muir.