Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Part I: Desert

Navajo Desert, Rock Point, Arizona

In my last post

we reflected on the spiritual need from time to time to leave people and the world behind to be renewed by nature. This is a three-part spiritual movement in which we give up control and enter into solitude (which can often be both painful and lonely), trusting that as we allow ourselves to fall into God's grace and love we will experience revelation and insight leading to a deepening sense of God's presence and of our communion with all people and all of creation. This three-part movement corresponds Biblically with the experience of being in the desert, on the mountain, and inside the cloud. First, then, the desert.

Desert (or wilderness) is the place of weeping. In its vastness and desolation, dangerous as it is to human life, we realize our lack of control. It is the place of sorrow and grief, as its barrenness reminds us of our losses and broken dreams. In the desert we are stripped naked of all our pretensions. We are vulnerable, bewildered, feeling abandoned. There is no protection from loneliness, isolation, depression, confusion, emptiness, meaninglessness, fear, and ultimately death. Grief overwhelms us and opens us to God, the only one who can quench our thirst.

Judean Desert

Jordan River Valley with Samaria in the Background

Abraham and Sarah wandered through the desert, not knowing where they were to go, only trusting that God had a plan for them. The Hebrews wandered for forty years in the desert, at times trusting God to deliver them from their suffering, more often doubting and disbelieving. Jesus spent forty days in the desert, fighting all manner of human temptation in preparation for being a relentless and undeterred follower of “the way” of God.

One's desert place varies by the biome in which one lives. The main features are of expansiveness and emptiness that give one a sense of being alone before God and nature in order that our minds and spirits can be cleared to receive revelation and enlightenment.

High Desert Near Durango, Colorado

Antelope on the Plains of Wyoming

Sheep on the Plains of South Dakota

Badlands of North Dakota

Advent is a desert season. Isaiah describes the mood and task of Advent: "A voice is calling, 'Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.'" [Isaiah 40:3]

I have had many desert experiences, but two stand out as the most profound and painful for me. One was the year after my first wife, Pauline, died. I felt like I had been dropped in the middle of a deserted planet, not knowing which way to turn, seeing no oasis to step toward. Like the Psalmist I called out over and over gain, “How long, O Lord! Now long!”

Another was a decade ago when my daughter became severely depressed. I could taste the fear, having no choice but to admit that I was powerless to protect her from death. I was forced to give up my desire to control events. I felt totally lost and bewildered, and had no choice but to do what is so painfully difficult for us humans to do: to trust her to God.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Introduction to Nature Spirituality

Sangre de Cristo [Blood of Christ] Mountains, Colorado

The spiritual journey almost always begins with other people.

We enter this world surrounded by people who love us. If we come from a tradition that believes in infant baptism, we are reborn at an early age into the family of God surrounded not only by the people at our birth, but by a cloud of witnesses who are called to embrace, protect, and nourish us with their love.

There are people at other spiritual events in our lives: confirmation, bible camp, church youth gatherings, church bible study, worship, social ministry projects, marriage, ordination, small groups, like the Men’s Group I help lead at Peace Lutheran in Alexandria, Virginia right now.

However, there may be times in life when being surrounded by, crushed by, forced to be with, people; well, it can be both exhausting and spirit draining.

Since the beginning of creation, humans have sought God within and through nature itself, often while alone and far away from other people. Adam and Eve found God in their garden, until they made the mistake of trying to take that garden over, without God. Cain found God in the fields, and Abel in the pastures. Moses went up the mountain. Jesus went into the wilderness, and then up the mountain. John ended his life on a deserted Greek island, Patmos. St Francis wandered in the hills behind Assisi.

Even our hymn writers have sensed the possibility of finding God in the natural world.

                                          Oh Lord my God

                                  When I in awesome wonder

                                     Consider all the worlds

                                     Thy hands have made

                                         I see the stars

                                     I hear the rolling thunder

                                     Thy power throughout

                                     The universe displayed.

                              [How Great Thou Art, Stuart Hine]

In a time like ours, when community seems lost, nastiness runs rampant, prejudice has regained popularity, moral leadership has taken a nap, and anger and cynicism are the new norm, we may need to leave people behind for a time and find our spiritual nourishment in nature once again.

Ten years ago I went on a photographic and spiritual quest to find spiritual meaning and inspiration in nature. From the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Colorado to the Badlands and plains of North Dakota to the lakes and forests (and thunderstorms) of Minnesota, I sought comfort, peace, healing, and hope in God’s creation.

My guide was a wonderful, spiritual book by Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. This book relates the emotional and intellectual journey of spirituality to three aspects of creation: desert, mountain, and cloud. Lane finds these three landscapes as seminal to the spiritual journey in the Bible, in the history of the church, and in his own experience.

He is building on the Christian apophatic tradition (primarily of the desert fathers and mothers), the via negativa, that “rejects all analogies of God as ultimately inadequate.” [p. 4]  Paradoxically, the tradition views God as beyond any kind of language or place, and yet it uses the three spare and lean images above to suggest metaphorically the most profound and ultimately indescribable human experiences of both joy and pain. [Ibid.]

The overall spiritual movement Lane describes is from “abandonment of control and acceptance of God’s love in absolute, unmitigated grace.” [p. 6]  More specifically, it follows the classic pattern of Christian spirituality as movement through the three stages of purgation (to be made free of something unwanted), illumination, and union, corresponding in order to the three landscapes of desert, mountain, and cloud. In my next post, I begin with the first part, purgation (desert).