The Wisdom of Wilderness - What I Learned

We’ve now finished our online discussion of Gerald May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness that started back in October at the High Calling Blogs. Thanks to Laura Boggess who served as our discussion leader with grace and occasionally mirth, and smiled at minor rebellions from some of the participants (me).

May, who died from cancer in 2005, embraced the idea and the reality of wilderness in the early 1990s as a kind of healing. He discovered what he called “the power of the slowing,” and he learned a lot about himself while experiencing often extremes of weather in isolated areas.

It was an important book for me to read, because I learned from May an appreciation for nature that I’d forgotten. I was reminded, and wrote about here, some of my own experiences, like hiking in the White Tank Mountains near Phoenix, finding myself in the middle of a herd of elk in the dark, biking with an American eagle on the Katy Trail near St. Louis, and even a time when I wasn’t in the wilderness but experienced one of the those incredible moments of felling absolutely alive. I recently went hiking with my oldest son at Shaw’s Nature Reserve near St. Louis, and wrote and posted a poem about it yesterday.

Where I found May troubling was the theology. Along the way, he began referring to the “power of the slowing” as a she, which at first I thought was Mother Nature but then realized that he was veering dangerously close to equating creation with the creator. He also had a problem with Scripture when it didn’t appear to conform to human reality, i.e., rejecting the concept of stewardship over the earth because it implied mankind was separate from nature, and that separation was the source of numerous problems that people face collectively and individually. Separation from nature is not the basic human problem; it’s a result or symptom of the basic human problem.

But even reading the parts of the book I disagreed with, and often strongly disagreed with, I learned several things. I had to clarify what it was I did believe, and not take my beliefs for granted. I had to carefully consider what was being said, and not to accept it blindly or reject it in a knee-jerk fashion (too much of both defines almost all of political discourse today). And I engaged with May’s statements and arguments and learned something about engaging with the culture.

So reading The Wisdom of Wilderness was well worth the journey and the effort. Listening to how others responded and reacted was just as valuable. I'm not going to be dancing around campfires in thunderstorms any time soon, but I'm glad I read the book.

Related post. Our discussion leader, Laura Boggess, has some final thoughts on the book: http://highcallingblogs.com/blog/5293/anything-but-passive/.

A Line I Can't Cross

I reached the line in Gerald May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness that I can’t cross.

We’ve been reading May’s book as part of a discussion group over at The High Calling Blogs. This past week, we read chapter 10, “Natural Being,” in which May recounts a dream he had about encountering a mountain lion. From the dream, May moves to a short discussion about animal being and healing. When he talks about healing, he says this:

“Some of us still see the earth as an enemy, something to conquer, subjugate, and squander. More of us, thank God, now see it as something to cherish and to care for. But even in our cherishing, the earth remains an ‘it,’ a ‘something,’ an object that is not us. The popular language is ‘stewardship of the environment.’ Stewards are managers, overseers, caretakers, and no matter how benevolent they are, they must forever remain apart from that which they care for…Before we can effectively heal the wounds we have inflicted upon the rest of Nature, we must allow ourselves to be healed. And we must allow the rest of Nature to help us…

“I have never been able to do this for myself. It has to come through grace, in the Presence of the One I called the Power of the Slowing, the Wisdom of the Wild.”

May is not talking about God, but he is talking about a kind of god, a god that is creation. He’s infused it with a supra-human spirit and given it voice and personality, but it is still, ultimately, creation, the natural world, but the natural world that has a very human-like presence projected on to it.

There's one chapter left, and I will finish the book. But this is a line I can’t cross. Perhaps I’m too modernist, too corporate, too “religious” – but May has now formally established the point he’s been aiming at all along – oneness with, and the worship of, the creation. It’s an old, old problem, and it’s called idolatry. And it’s ultimately destructive of that very self May is so desperate to find in his book.

The Second Day of Christmas: Laura Boggess

Over at the High Calling Blogs, Mondays have been devoted to a discussion of Gerald May’s book, The Wisdom of Wilderness. We’ve all learned that May is nothing if not provocative. But he’s telling his story, he writes well, and there’s a lot to learn from his book. So I’ve been content to read and offer an occasional comment if I think he goes off the deep end. Like in chapter 9, ‘Rainstorms,” when he does a wild dance in the wilderness around a campfire in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I laughed. I remembered something a friend in college once said – that we are ordained by our creator to have the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and to make monumental fools out of ourselves.

Instead of a rant about Gerald May, I wanted to talk about our discussion leader, Laura Boggess, who has intrepidly guided us through the discussion with good humor and grace.

Laura lives in West Virginia, and was born and raised there. She has a master’s in Clinical Psychology from Marshall University, and that’s where she met her husband. They have two sons and a Boston terrier named Lucy and are active with the Boston Terrier Rescue League. (I identify here: my very first dog was a Boston terrier named Mr. Ike, which tells you who was President when I was three years old.)

She works in a physical rehabilitation unit at a hospital, where she counsels individuals and families going through traumatic medical experiences. Experiences like spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, amputation. (Consider the grace and the strength needed for that job.)

Laura teaches Sunday School and works with middle school kids at church midweek meetings. Her husband is the praise band leader, and she says music has always been a big part of their lives. And she’s a runner (as in exercise).

And she is a published author of a novel for young adults called Brody’s Story, the first in a series (and the second is set for 2010).

You can find Laura at her blog, The Wellspring. She writes about the stuff that matters, like family, and children, and God, and you'll find your heart warmed and your soul encouraged. This weekend, snow arrived, and she was inspired enough to write this simple, beautiful poem. And you can follow her on Twitter, too.


(Over at the High Calling Blogs, we’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by highlighting a blog or web site of someone besides ourselves during this season of Advent and Christmas.) (Which is what we should also be doing the other 353 days of the year.)

Link to Last Week

So I didn’t read what was plainly stated and more than obvious in the ongoing book discussion at the High Calling Blogs, and posted my thoughts on chapter 8 of Gerald May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness last Monday. (We were supposed to take a week off for Thanksgiving.) Here’s the link to that post, "Biking with an Eagle," and I’ll get back in line.

This will not surprise my wife.

The discussion at the High Calling Blogs continues here.

Biking with an Eagle

There is a section of Grant’s Trail in St. Louis (mile marker 1 on the map) where a biker or walker (and sometimes a blader) is almost guaranteed to see wildlife, and not just rabbits or squirrels. One summer a nice seven-foot long king snake slowly meandered its way across the trail, pausing long enough to stop foot and bike traffic in both directions. Then there was a family of wild turkeys – two grown birds and several chicks. I slowed and then stopped, just watching the two grown birds herd the kids across the trail. And there’s the herd of deer that inhabit the stretch. I’ve seen them from some distance down the trail as they quickly crossed; fairly close as three of them, as close as five feet away, stood and watched me bike by, and once when several suddenly darted across the trail, right in front of me.

I braked hard. It’s bad enough to hit a deer if you’re driving a car. Hit one when you’re biking, and you, not the bike, will sustain most of the damage.

There was also the time on the Katy Trail, a stretch in St. Charles County near St. Louis that’s heavily wooded but adjacent to the Missouri River. I was biking by myself, when I heard a huge rustling in the tree limbs overhead. The next thing I knew, what caused the rustling was flying alongside me, and we continued together (once I resumed breathing after the shock) until it rose and soared off toward the river. “It” was an American bald eagle; I could have reached and almost touched the tip of its wing next to me.

Over at the High Callings Blogs, we’ve now finished week 8 of our discussion of Gerald May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness. And a family of wild turkeys and a bald eagle are characters in this chapter. The turkeys seem to serve as a digression for May, and how Benjamin Franklin wanted to have the turkey as America’s national bird. But his eagle story – when an eagle flew straight at him as he was in a boat -- resonated. He dodged that eagle, but along came a second one. And both did exactly the same thing – attempted to defecate on him.

Despite the funny story about the eagles, of the eight chapters we've read so far, this one has the least to recommend it. It begins with a veer toward a rant about rejecting the “dominion” over nature God gives man, as recorded in Genesis. (And this is one of the reasons May rejects the inerrancy of Scripture.) This is a point at which the book is beginning to show its age – there’s been a huge development in Christian thought about nature and the environment in recent years, and what “dominion” actually means. And it’s not “plunder and pillage,” but more like “use and be good stewards.” And the chapter finishes with the eagle story. I’m not sure where May was going.

But the eagle story is funny.

A Feeling of Perfection

In chapter 7 of The Wisdom of Wilderness, Gerald May talks about trees – actually, looking at trees and experiencing a “feeling of perfection:”

“I think you know what a feeling of perfection is. It just happens; you’re driving along and walking along or maybe just sitting there and suddenly, gently, everything is perfect. It doesn’t matter whether things are pleasant or unpleasant, or whether you’re happy or sad; you just get this sense that everything, just as it is, is exactly the way it should be. It has a cleanness to it, a simplicity, a just-is-ness, an absolute sufficiency.”

May goes on to say that at the time, he believed it was one of those things that just happen; later on, he understood that every moment is actually like that.

Every moment a feeling of perfection?

Well, yes. I think he’s right. And I’m almost startled to say that.

I recall a solitary hike. The two sons had outgrown hiking with Dad in Shaw’s Nature Reserve, far to the west of the St. Louis metropolitan area (they changed the name a number of years back; I still call it Shaw’s Arboretum). It’s some 2400 acres of mostly forests and trails, with certain sections dedicated to tall grass prairie and a few planned gardens. But mostly woods and trails. The reserve touches a stretch of the Meramec River, and you can actually walk down and out into the large rock bars and sand bars when the river is low.

Hiking by myself, I walked down to the river, scouted interesting looking rocks, and inhaled the quiet. I sat on an old tree trunk, which judging by its whiteness had been sent down the river a long time before. And all I could hear was silence – even the river was flowing almost soundlessly. And no one else around. It was like that feeling of perfection that May describes.

And then I hiked back, and the hills are steep. The River Trail, which is the one I was on and my favorite at the reserve, followed back up a tall hill at a pretty significant angle. At the top, there’s a rest place with a bench, as if the reserve people know you’re going to need it after that climb.

I sat, and this time looked down on the river, and could actually see the place I had sat on the tree trunk. I looked across the river to the bluffs on the other side, and could see and clearly hear the low mooing of cows in a pasture. It was another feeling of perfection, when everything was actually perfect. And I had two of those in the space of about 30 minutes.

As I stood to walk the two miles or so back to the parking lot, it began to rain, lightly. Hearing the raindrops on the fallen leaves, feeling them on my face – it was yet another moment of perfection. That made three.

If I had been more attuned, I would have known that every moment is like that. Every moment has been created to be that.

(We’ve been discussing May’s book over at the High Calling Blogs on Mondays. Come take a look. Today's discussion starts here.)

Violence in the Wilderness

Last week, my wife and I were watching the conclusion (fifth of five episodes) of an old televised series of a P.D. James mystery novel, starring Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, who investigates murders and writes poetry. We had actually seen the series when it was on television (probably PBS Mystery) back in 1989 or 1990. As we watched each succeeding episode, it became more and more familiar. I remembered more than my wife did. As we approached the horrific conclusion, I remembered what happened, and I cringed, knowing what was coming.

Even in fictional life, I hate violence. I won’t watch war movies; I never saw “Saving Private Ryan.” I can watch murder mysteries if the violence stays off-stage (and in the case of our Netflix rental, the goriest stuff did). But slasher movies? Forget it. Halloween Part 23 or stories about families being held hostage by homicidal maniacs? No way. Stories about the World War II death camps? I’m a basket case. And that one’s particularly odd because years ago I use to read all about the Holocaust.

But it seems that, as I’ve gotten older, my tolerance for violence on television or movies, and even books, had diminished considerably.

So I was not looking forward to reading chapter 6 of Gerald May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness, which I’ve been reading and writing about as part of the online discussion group at the High Calling Blogs. Chapter 6 is entitled, “Violence at Smith’s Inlet.” I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what May wrote: a squirrel swimming in the middle of a reservoir and likely to drown; a box turtle mutilated by young idiots with nothing else better to do; a swan killing a small duck; May himself breaking a carp’s jaw when he tried to remove a fishing hook; and (okay, one expected thing) a body of a young woman found floating in the inlet. He also adds some scenes from his military tour in Vietnam and the years he spent as an institutional psychiatrist.

The young woman’s death (and Vietnam) aside, May suggests that violence is part of the natural order, and that there will always be “within and around us… a violence that just is, just exists, just happens. It is a quality of destructiveness that is completely wild, unreasoned, unforgiving, relentless, and inexplicable” (pages 118-119). He goes on to say that unless we can accept this “shadow side” of ourselves, “we will never be able to appreciate being an integral part of things.”

He’s right, but I don’t know how willing I am to accept that shadow side. I can accept it in nature; I know it’s part of the (sinful) human condition. But I don’t think I can accept it in the way May seems to suggest here – almost an embrace.

More than any of the chapters so far, I found this one the most troubling.

Related links:

Maureen Doallas on The Enigma of Violence.

Today's discussion group at High Calling Blogs: When Mountains Scream.

Monica Sharman's Such Was I.

In the White Tanks

I've been reading The Wisdom of the Wilderness by Gerald May as part of an online book group discussion over at the High Calling Blogs led by Laura Boggess. In chapter 5, May talks about those moments when you're in a natural setting or wilderness and everything blends and focuses into one experience:

“But here’s the thing: IT’S ALL EXPERIENCE! Every bit of it, the oneness and the separation, the immediacy and the distancing, it all happens when it happens, and when it happens it’s as absolutely real as the snow and the tree and the sky. With just a little bit of grace, I can be here, really exist here, present, open available, immediate.” (page 82)

Flash back: Christmas week, 2006. My wife and I, along with Then-College-Freshman Son, flew to Phoenix for the holiday to visit with Graduated-and-Working Son, get to know Phoenix a bit, and visit with Significant Person in Working Son’s life. Significant Person is now Daughter-In-Law.

It was a great week. Phoenix from May through August may be awful for weather, but by December – it’s pretty close to perfect. Certainly perfect compared to what we left behind in St. Louis. We enjoyed mild temperatures, general goofing off, shopping (ah, Scottsdale Mall!), restaurants, and the Arizona Bike Trail (I enjoyed the bike trail; everyone else slept in).

One day, College Son asked, “Dad, what if we went hiking?” Given how rare those requests become after age 12, I leapt on it. The desk clerk at the hotel recommended what he called “the White Tanks,” the White Tank Regional Park on the far western side of the Phoenix metropolitan area. These were the mountains we always saw in the distance whenever we looked west. We packed some provisions and drove to the park.

The trails weren’t obvious, but we finally found one, and began hiking. We generally stayed in the lower elevations, but it was still a strenuous hike.

And it was dry, dusty and rocky – what you expect as the desert floor rose into the mountains. The trail we were on, one of several in the park, meandered near the front of the park but generally kept moving up. At times, the trail disappeared in a stretch of flat rock, and then we’d find it again.

When we reached the end (which was up and high), the view was breathtaking – the entire valley containing the metropolitan Phoenix area was below and stretched out before us. There were still higher mountains behind us, but this was enough a spectacular view in and of itself.

It was stunning – and in that moment, it all fused together – the view, the hike up the mountains, the desert, the dryness and dust, the rock outcroppings. It came together in that “all experience” May describes. For some time, we said nothing – just looked, watched and moved quietly. It was indeed an experience of oneness – everything together as one, including us.

It Was Lone Elk Park, But It Was No Lone Elk

I’ve been reading The Wisdom the Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature by Gerald May, as part of a feature on The High Callings Blogs being led by Laura Boggess . It’s a book about a lot of things, including May’s experiences in the wilderness, naturally, but it’s also a lot about healing.

We’re on the third chapter, “Night Fear.” May describes what it’s like to be camping by yourself in a remote part of a remote wilderness-like state park, and what you hear and think you hear at night (like bears, voices talking in an odd language, footsteps – all of the things that would drive me straight from a tent to the vehicle with locked doors). Only the bear was real, but the other things, well, you have to read the book to see how May comprehends and then understands them.

But what this chapter most brought to mind was something that happened to me, and it helped me understand and identify with what May was writing about. (Let me say here I am no fan of camping by myself in the wilderness. My idea of roughing it is having to stay at a Ramada.)

I was on the board of a bird sanctuary group in St. Louis. We’d meet at different places for our meetings, and one November we met at Lone Elk State Park in the far western suburbs. The park is adjacent to the Tyson Research Center, where the bird sanctuary is located. It’s beautiful terrain – tall hills, isolation from the metropolitan area, dense forests.

Our board meeting was in the ranger’s station at Lone Elk. You had to drive quite a distance into the park to reach it, and it was at the bottom of a little valley surrounded by hills on all sides. You parked in a small lot, and then walked a good half-block or so to the station. The meeting went on for some time, as board meetings tend to do, and I finally had to leave about 8 p.m.

Outside, it was pitch black. No light at all. I hadn’t walked 10 feet when I knew I was in the midst of something, something large and numerous and alive and not human. I froze. It was a moment of perfect fear, the kind May describes in his book when he discovers a bear outside his tent. It was terrifying, yes, but it was almost exquisitely terrifying.

I couldn’t move. I think I was afraid to because I couldn’t see anything. I could only sense that something was there, right in front of me.

At that moment, the ranger returned in his vehicle from seeing another board member through the park’s locked gate. And in the headlights I saw what was all around me.

Elk. Lots of elk. The park was called Lone Elk State Park, but someone lied. There must have been close to a hundred in the herd, and they were quietly resting all around the ranger’s station, which is what the herd generally did at night. And a fully grown elk is big.

The ranger had seen me frozen in the headlights, and laughingly made his way through the herd with a flashlight. He escorted me to the parking lot, and assured me this happened all the time, and no one had yet been attacked, trampled, eaten or accidentally squished. Of course, only the park staff was there after dark, too – this is not a park for camping.

It made a great story to tell – the best ones are always the ones where you are the butt of the joke/victim/city bumpkin. But that thrill of fear, that fear that lasted only for a few moments but seemed much longer, was followed by exactly what May described in his book.

Gratitude.

The Wisdom of Wilderness and a Little RAP

Starting Monday, Oct. 5 over at The High Calling Blogs, author Laura Boggess will be leading an 11-week discussion of The Wisdom of Wilderness by Gerald May. First published in 2006, the year after May’s death from cancer, the book is about the idea of experiencing the healing power of nature – and seeing the wilderness and wildness that is in each of us. I decided to read the book and follow, possibly join in, the discussion. More details from Laura are here.

Boggess recalls visiting her father before she left for graduate school and, learning he wasn’t at home, went for a walk in the woods. And what she found in the stillness was the presence of God.

It’s been longer than I care to think since I went hiking at Shaw's Arboretum, a 2400-acre preserve some 35 miles west of St. Louis. (Okay, the Arboretum is the old name; it’s now officially "Shaw Nature Preserve" but we St. Louisans don’t give up familiar names that easily.) The arboretum has a number of trails, one of which takes you down to the Meramec River. There are some old, old trees there; the trunk of one is wider than three of us touching fingers to fingers could fit around.

The most remarkable thing about the place is, as Boggess found in her own stretch of woods, the stillness. There are many places to sit and think in the Arboretum, and many places just to sit. It’s where you can “empty out” and just listen.

I’m looking forward to the discussion, I know that nAncY over at the Just Say the Word blog is participating, too.

And I may have to find a way to take another hike. Soon.

A Little RAP

For L.L. Barkat's Random Act of Poetry this week, we've been asked to write a short poem based on something from a poet we've been reading. I've been reading Wendell Berry's A Timbered Choir, which, oddly enough, does relate to the themes and ideas of The Wisdom of Wilderness. So, here's my submission for the RAP:

Walking in Mr. Berry's Woods

I walk within woods,
At river's edge,
Seeking my talisman,
My trunked
And branched guide,
Pointing a way forward,
Signaling a way back,
Stopping time and
Enveloping my heart
In a sweet moment
Of solitude and
Sabbath stillness.