Anything But Passive

We’ve reached the end. This week we discuss the final chapter of Gerald May’s The Wisdom of the Wilderness, Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature. I’ve enjoyed walking through this book with you all. It has stretched my faith in some areas and strengthened it in others. Though we’ve been challenged by some of May’s views at times, I feel we’ve been true to Paul’s exhortation to Timothy: Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.( 2 Tim. 2:15) We can never know the true state of Gerald May’s heart, but I have been pleased with the way our little group has handled those times of dissonance that entered our conversation. There has been much grace here. I cannot help but to think that God is preparing us for a greater dialogue.

That said, this final chapter evoked much the same reaction as others on this journey. As May steps into Another Wilderness--the wilderness of cancer--he speaks of the Power of the Slowing, the Great Gratitude, and the Divine Presence. Again, I found myself feeling uncomfortable with these namings, longing for May to openly proclaim God as the giver of all these good things. Before his diagnosis, May realizes that he is experiencing a deep and pervasive happiness. He even wonders at the completeness of this happiness. Wonders if it means he will die soon. And then the diagnosis comes. May confides that during a particularly difficult treatment he did not feel any guiding Presence. It occurred to me then that maybe sometimes when we feel most alone and abandoned by the Divine, it is because that One is so very close to us that we can no longer make the distinction. And to May’s surprise, he finds that his feelings of joy and gratitude remain with him throughout his illness. He realizes that his experience in the wilderness was a preparation of sorts. It shaped the way he views his illness; gives him a sense of peace about the changes in his body. May goes on to say that this acceptance of what is may be perceived as passive, but it is anything but. It is alive, vibrant, dynamic, even exciting. Most of all, it is simply what Nature taught me about being who I am in this world, just as it is in this present moment, just as it is. I am a part of the whole situation. I do not have to perform an imaginary extraction of myself from things-as-they-are in order to respond accurately to them.

This description sounds a lot like faith to me. From the outside, it may appear that Believers are passive…acquiescent… inert. Faith is anything but passive. It is vibrant, dynamic, exciting. As people of faith we cannot extract ourselves from things-as-they-are in order to respond to them. We are part of the whole situation. We must love in the midst of this world’s circumstances. Faith is intimately intertwined with love. I found it surprising that Love is the ultimate lesson May takes from the Wilderness. He seems almost to stumble upon this final Wisdom from Nature. What the Power of the Slowing taught me is what the Source of the All constantly yearns for: that each one of us will know without doubt that we are loved, and that we are intimately, irrevocably part of the endless creation of love, and that we will join with full freedom and consciousness, the joyous creativity that is Nature, that is Wildness, that is Wilderness, that is Everything. And this is my prayer for all of you as I leave you here... I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:16-19) Merry Christmas. May the Love of Christ be the gift you carry to others this Christmas season.

Post by Laura Boggess, Photo by Elizabeth Weller, used with permission.