Chapter 23
Re-wild:
The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
When our ancient ancestors developed language, it became a tool we used to describe reality, but it could also become a substitute for reality. We might say it was the original form of virtual reality. Christianity evolved as a set of words pointing to a set of ideas. But like everything, language evolves. What was once liberating can become a cage in which we pace. Many of us who choose to stay Christian must deconstruct the Christianity we inherited and shake off much of its language. If human words have taken on a life of their own, and if that life is out of sync with the wisdom of creation, then we need nature to become our teacher. Nature reminds us that humans co-exist with land, water, fellow creatures and one another in mutual interdependence. The world is not a “collection of objects” but a “communion of subjects.” Jesus was by the way an indigenous man who prepared for his public ministry with a 40 day retreat into the wilderness, and he retreated into the wild whenever he could, often to the consternation of his followers. Psalm 19 proclaims:
1. The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[ goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Chapter 24
Find the Flow:
Rev. 21:1-8
A New Heaven and a New Earth
21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.
(also see 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Isaiah 43: 18-19)
Over many centuries, meta-movements have provided the context in which thousands of institutions and movements could arise, reform, renew, decline, die and be replaced. What happens when a meta-movement runs its course, when the assumptions of the meta-movement no longer hold. When Isaiah speaks of God “doing a new thing” do we hear the prophet reimagining a time when the old religion is leaning into a new humanity? With or without Christianity, we must invest in the new spiritual meta-movement that is already emerging within and among us. McLaren encourages us to: go beyond opposition to create positive alternatives, don’t expect any micro-movement or institution to be the whole answer, support every positive change in every micro-movement and institution, prepare yourself for turbulence, prepare to live good lives of defiant joy even in the midst of chaos and suffering. To use familiar biblical language, we will need to walk by faith through the valley of the shadow of death, always holding anticipatory space for something beautiful to be born, especially during the most painful contractions. When you find that flow, you know it is holy.
Grace Episcopal Church 