Wandering

Has this ever happened to you? Traveling, singing some awesome song from high school when suddenly, static! You change the channel, hit the scan, even adjust the volume…but it’s gone. Now all that’s on is some strange station singing in a language you don’t understand, an announcer following an amateur golf tournament, and a talking head that seems to hate republicans and democrats equally. And as you drive up and down the hills, you have no choice but to listen to the noise or listen to the silence. You are at the mercy of the space between the towers. You know if you keep going you will eventually find a decent channel again, but will it be as good as your channel…with just the right blend of amusing commercials and music awesomeness? You could turn around…but how will you ever get anywhere if you have to stay within range of your local radio tower? Now, I know this is why things like xm radio and Pandora have been created…but let me just state the obvious: while we have been smart enough to create xm radio, we still are at the mercy of God in our spiritual wilderness. The idea of a spiritual wilderness actually comes from several Biblical accounts of literal wilderness experiences, the 2 most notable being the Hebrew Nation wandering in the wilderness of Sinai for forty years and Jesus wandering in the Judean desert for forty days. Other wilderness accounts in Scripture include Noah on the ark for 40 days, David hiding in the wilderness for months while Saul chased him, Elijah hiding in the wilderness for 40 days after defeating the prophets of Baal, and Jonah laying low in the belly of whale for 3 days. Their literal wilderness experiences give us many spiritual lessons and Scriptural notes for our psychological or spiritual wilderness wanderings. And not all the Scriptural accounts are of literal wildernesses: Job would probably characterize his season of grief and loss as a wilderness wandering. The disciples might likely describe the 10 days between Jesus’ ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit a spiritual wasteland of fear, anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty. And those are good words for a wilderness experience. The word wilderness denotes a lonliness, vastness, lack of direction. When we are wandering in a psychological or spiritual wilderness we may be surrounded by people, performing our daily tasks, even be accomplishing routine goals. But we feel alone, purposeless, vaguely…vague. Wilderness might also be sensed in a season of waiting. We have sensed that there is something on the horizon. We once were hopeful, full of vision, walking in a forward, determined motion. But the road took an unexpected bend and we lost sight of the tower…and now all we are picking up on is static. The longer the static plays, the more we begin to feel forgotten, abandoned, alone. The message of the wilderness accounts tell us two things: one, they are a part of human experience. If you haven’t ever experienced a wandering of your soul, you should pray that God strengthens you for the one yet to come. That isn’t to say all people lose faith, all people will experience devastating life events, all people will get lost in life. That’s not the only wilderness we might know. One person described spiritual wilderness as living between the trapeze bars. If you imagine the trapeze artist who flies gracefully through the air, releasing one bar only to dazzle her audience by flipping, spinning, and grasping the next, you must force the image to pause while she is suspended in mid air. To the observer on the ground, we may gasp, but that is all we have time for because it is just a moment and she is on to the next attachment. But I can imagine the moment may seem longer to her…the faith to let go of the bar safely in her grip and reach for a bar that is in her vision but not yet in her reach. A million things could go wrong; only one motion can make it right. She’s practiced a thousand times, so her confidence in her grip is strong. But she is also placing a lot of unspoken confidence in a safety net below her to catch her if the bar doesn’t swing like she expected. When was the last time you lived between the trapezes? Another person described the wilderness experience as if they were Linus and their blanket was in the dryer: they had nothing to hold onto. I have a picture in my mind of this: we used to have a Linus in our house. He has outgrown his blanket now, but when he was a little guy, that blanket went everywhere he did…and I mean everywhere. Which meant whenever I could, I had to sneak that blanket into the wash. Nap time was the best time…I could ease the blanket out and hopefully have it returned by the time he woke up. But one day the nap was shorter than the spin cycle and he came looking. I tried distraction, I tried substitutes, but to no avail. He wanted the blanket. I soberly explained it was in the dryer and it would be at least another half hour. The image forever seared onto my brain is of the little guy with his head and hand leaned against the dryer and the other hand in the mouth…same posture as when he held the blanket. Sad. That was a wilderness day for that little guy: he had nothing to hold onto! And for others, the best description is just static. The longer the static plays, the more you can believe you are all alone. Surely if someone else was here, there would be noise, a voice, a cry, something. But static says “alone.” Even silence is more companionable than static. We use white noise machines to drown out other voice and lull ourselves to sleep. Static can convince us that there is nothing to pursue, no one to talk to, nowhere to go. Might as well take a nap. That is one of the temptations of the wilderness: to just set up camp. The other is to turn around and go home. Sure, they only sing Egyptian songs on that radio station, but truth be told, some of those tunes are catchy. Which is why the work of the wilderness is to learn to find the right frequency. If static is all you hear…you’re on the wrong channel. You see, the other message of the Scriptural accounts of the wilderness experience is that while it is a human experience common to all people, it is also a divine experience every time. Lesson two: we are not alone. We are not alone in the wilderness. We feel very alone. We sound alone. We are hungry, thirsty, tired, and lonely. But we’re not alone. I tried to find some record somewhere that God would sometimes leave people even for the briefest moment alone in the wilderness. It’s not there. In fact the opposite is blaringly the case. "If I soar to the heights" exclaimed David, "you are there; if I sink to the depths you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, even there you find me." "For I am convinced" said Paul, "that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The mystery, the glory of the incarnation is that Jesus the man was in the wilderness, but so was Jesus the God. God is in our wilderness. He is a whispered promise in a starry sky and sandy beach when we feel too old to try. He is the tentative promise of hope grasped in the delicate beak of a dove finding shelter. He is the cloud by day and fire by night that guides. He is the manna, the quail, the water in a rock…provision so amazingly characteristic that we learn to take it for granted. He is a song in a cave that provides shelter from our enemies. He is oil in a stranger’s jar that is generous and free. He is that which swallows us whole yet deposits us wholly on the shore of our salvation. He is the Living and active Word which nourishes our soul and causes our enemy to flee. He is. That’s what he told Moses. Who should I say is going with us on this journey? "I am. I am with you. To the end." So go ahead. Reach. Scan. Lean on the dryer. We are not alone. Logically of course we can deduce that just because we can’t pick up a radio station doesn’t mean the music stopped. In a few miles, and just over a couple of hills, the music will return. It’s better to keep going. Experience tells us that a better radio station is coming. In the mean time if we must travel in the static, between the trapezes, waiting for the buzzer, we must sing the songs we learned in the city. And that’s how we remember we’re not alone.