The Wilderness

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 We say its name in a way that denudes it of its essence—wild. The strong "I" demoted to a weak "i." But the ancients would have none of that. We paint majesty of peaks and green of valleys, satiated by their supposed beauty, and the forefathers of forefathers saw none of that. They saw the danger, the lack, the thirst, the isolation, the bear and lion and serpent and stranger. They saw the raw power and violence of the wildness and something to be conquered, and they did conquer it—not with heavy machinery but pure labor and sweat. It did not matter the topography, it mattered that the desert was deserted and the forest had no trails and the mountains’ caves had no addresses.

What do we seek in the wildness, the wilder-ness, of desert, jungle, forest, plain? Why does God send us to it? Have any of us in this modern world really experienced the wilder-ness, except in our metaphorical and perhaps overheated seeking for connection to the Bible?

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