What do you do in the Wilderness?
Lent is said to be a time of “walking in the wilderness.” In its origins, this word, “wilderness,” comes from old English, meaning an untamed, uncultivated place of wild plants and animals. It was a place called “savage” and also “pure,” revealing a complicated etymology. I imagine all the ways that humans have tried to control and manipulate it to quell their embedded fears.
It wasn’t until the late 19th century that the wilderness was revealed as a place worth preserving. This is when humans grew aware of the importance of protecting places that hadn’t been significantly modified by human beings and ushered in the rise of national parks.
My father was a park ranger most of his life, literally from the time he was 16 until he died at 42, he was employed by that National Park Service. This meant that I grew up roaming land that most would consider “wilderness,” often alone with nothing but my backpack for my journal and a pen. Long days I spent roaming the huge stretch of uncultivated land around our park service home, finding trees to climb over, rocks to sit upon, imagining my way through adventures much wilder than even that savage land could provide.
I didn’t know then that this was a place to be feared or contained. The metaphor that this place provided me was one of refuge, though my child mind wouldn’t have named it that either. It was simply the space where I felt most free, most myself.