“To go out into the wilderness is to leave behind our attachment to our everyday world.”
Why the wilderness?
The Lost Inca City
Back in the “golden age” of archaeology (think Indiana Jones,) an archaeologist set off for South America to track down a “lost” Inca city. It wasn’t really lost, the natives in the area knew exactly where it was. And so the archaeologist hired some native guides to lead him to the site.
They trekked through the jungle for what seemed like hours when all of a sudden the native guides stopped, put down their packs and refused to go any further. At first the archaeologist thought there must be some obstruction or danger ahead of them but that turned out to not be the case. The guides simply refused to go any further and no amount of cajoling, wheedling, arguing or anger could get them to move.
The archaeologist began to consider his choices. He could push on ahead without his guides and hope to find the city on his own. Or he could go back to the village and try again another time. He had pretty much come to a decision when the guides stood up, grabbed their packs, and continued through the jungle leading to the Inca ruin.
The confused archaeologist finally caught up to the guides and asked them why they had stopped.
“We had been moving so fast,” replied one of them, “that we had to stop and let our souls catch up to us.”
Our world moves very quickly these days, Advent is a time for us to take a moment to rest from what has gone before and to prepare for what lies ahead. This year, perhaps more than any other, has been difficult, to say the least, for so many people. This year, Advent should be especially significant to us as we pause to let our souls catch up to us.
Into the Wilderness
“John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John is the herald, calling us to prepare the way for the Lord.
In the bible, the wilderness is the place where one encounters God. It is where Israel received the law when they left Egypt. It is also where Jesus fasted for 40 days before beginning His public ministry.
Different translations often render the word “desert,” but wilderness, solitary, lonely and desolate is more accurate. To those in the Holy Land, this means the desert. To us, that may mean the forests or the lakes or the seashores.
To go out into the wilderness is to leave behind our attachment to our everyday world. We leave behind the material things that may not leave room in our hearts for God. We leave behind the noise of our daily lives. In the wild places we leave behind our everyday cares and concerns and find the quiet to hear the voice of God that speaks to us.
A Musical Lesson
A “rest” in music is a point at which no music is played, there is only silence. Composers may include rests of different lengths in their music for different reasons. But the point is that although there is no music in a rest, the rest is there for a reason.
God writes the music of our lives, and He includes in that music points of rest. It may seem like these are periods when nothing is happening, we are not moving forward or backwards. We may feel stuck. But it may just be that these are “rests” that God has written into the song that is unique for each person. There may be no activity in these rests, but the Composer has placed them there for a reason.
“Carry some quiet around inside thee,” said George Fox, founder of the Religious society of Friends (the Quakers.)
Leonardo da Vinci left us some of the most beautiful paintings ever created. Yet his body of work is surprisingly small. There are less than 20 paintings that can be authoritatively attributed to him and many of these are unfinished.
In his notebooks he wrote, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment…Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller, and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.”
Perhaps that is why there are less than 20 paintings attributed to him. But those paintings are magnificent, even in an unfinished state.
Or perhaps the reason is because Leonardo da Vinci was so much more than a painter. He was also a poet, a sculptor, an architect, an engineer, a city planner, a scientist, an inventor, an anatomist, a military genius, and a philosopher. He was all of these things, and he still found time to paint. How important it must have been for him to go away for a while and relax.
We need periods of rest in our lives, time to sort out our direction and our relationship with God. We do not need to physically travel out to the forests or deserts, although if we can it is a wonderful way to prepare ourselves during this time of Advent. But we can also retreat to the wild places within us. Find a space and a time where you can sit quietly and explore the place of solitude and desolation in your heart, if you listen, it is there that you will hear God.
Pax Vobiscum
2nd Sunday in Advent