December 9, 2018
Antoine de Saint Exupery is most famous for his book, The Little Prince. Prior to its publication, though, he was known as a world class aviator. He began to fly mail and passengers to various parts of the world in the 1920s.
In December of 1935, on one such flight, he set out from Paris on a mail run to Saigon. His path took him over most of the Sahara Desert. His plane, which until then had been extraordinarily reliable, went down before he could reach the Nile River. Because he was so far out in the desert, he was beyond radio contact. Because he had come down in a cloud cover at night, he could not see the stars. So, he had no idea where he was or in what direction he should walk. He had no food and no water. He possessed only the knowledge that no one could survive in the desert more than 19 hours.
Three days and 134 miles later, Saint Exupery stumbled into the path of a remote Bedouin caravan. He was within a few hours of death, but miraculously he had survived. How did he do it?
Two things: a sharp attentiveness to his surroundings and a resolute indifference to his situation.
Because of his attentiveness, he was able to sense an unusual, moist wind blowing out of the northeast. The wind not only retarded his dehydration, but, using his parachute, he was able to collect moisture from the wind which he could take by mouth.
Because of his indifference, he was able to overlook his personal needs and wants. Even more, he was able to hold at bay his desperation, his hopelessness, his panic. He learned to ignore everything that was unnecessary, everything unrelated to the primary task of staying alive.
Attentiveness to what is essential. Indifference to what is not. This is not only the way to survive in the wilderness. It is the spiritual wisdom that the desert teaches.
It is wisdom, however, that is unpalatable to us. As human beings, we want to minimize our pain and maximize our pleasure. If problems come up, we want quick resolutions. We would rather be distracted by any old thing rather than do the hard work of looking honestly at ourselves and our situation. But only the God of the desert, the God that ignores everything that is inessential, will get at the deep root of our lives where true transformation will happen.
This is the call of the desert. It is also the call of John the Baptist in the wilderness. The wilderness is John’s place. Far from the halls of power and the temples of piety, John preaches. John calls us away from our patterned routines and our practiced roles. Apart from what others believe about us or even what we like to think, he challenges us to ask – who am I, really? And he exhorts us to watch for the one thing that is essential – the coming of God’s redemption in the person of the Messiah. John calls us to prepare for this coming by repentance in the wilderness. For not only does the desert strip us of all our attempts to protect ourselves and to prop ourselves up, the desert provides a place to pour ourselves out, to air our deepest griefs, and to bring to light our sins.
Why can we share all these things in the desert? Because, frankly, the desert doesn’t care. Belden Lane – who recounted the story of Saint Exupery in his book, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes – calls the desert a place of “holy indifference.”
He writes, “We cross its sands – unwelcomed, stripped of influence and reputation, the desert caring nothing for the worries and warped sense of self-importance dragged along behind us. There in the desert everything is lost. Absolutely everything. The extent of its unrelenting indifference is devastating. This awareness, at first, is terrifying. But if we stay long enough, resisting the blind panic that gnaws at our minds, we discover, beyond hope and all caring, that ‘in the end we’re saved by the things that ignore us.’
He concludes, “The deepest mystery of love is never realized apart from the experience of having nothing to offer in return. Only there does love reveal itself in unaccountable wonder.” (p. 195)
My experience of the wilderness has not been in the Judean hills or the Saharan Desert. It has been in the woods of northern Minnesota and southern Ontario.
When we moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1994, I met Dave Morton. Dave was also an ELCA pastor, a hospital chaplain and, most of all, a lover of canoe trips. So, a few summers later, he invited me to go on an eight-day trip with six other guys.
We departed at 4:00 a.m. one morning and arrived at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon at the Prairie Portage Canadian Ranger Station on the international border between the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota and the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. Soon after, we hit the water. The sun was bright. The water was calm. Our spirits were high.
We camped that night on Burke Lake. When we awoke the next morning, however, the sun was gone and the sky was filled with grey clouds. By the time we’d had breakfast, packed up our stuff and loaded our canoes, it had begun to sprinkle. Within 20 minutes of paddling on the water, it was in full downpour, which continued off and on the entire day.
Based on Dave’s advice before the trip, I was well prepared. I had a good rain hat – my Tilley hat. I was wearing my L.L. Bean boots, as well as a bright blue rubber rain suit I had gotten at the Farm and Fleet store. Although it made me look like a Smurf, it kept me dry.
Things went well for most of the day. (I even got to see my first moose!) But then in the middle of the afternoon, paddling in the midst of tall grass, we missed a turn and ended up portaging to the wrong lake. After we realized the mistake, we turned around, portaged back to where we had gone wrong, and continued.
Then, one of the four canoes tipped over. Dave told those of us in two of the canoes – including mine – to continue on to the next lake, find a campsite and start getting supper ready, while he and his partner went to help the overturned canoe.
Shortly after, in pulling our canoe over a particularly rocky spot, I stepped in the water and got my boots filled. So, even though most of me was still dry, my feet were wet and, for the first time that day, I felt cold and miserable.
We got to Cummings Lake. It took us a while to find the campsite on that lake because it was sitting on a high ledge out of view. We hauled our gear up there, got a tarp hung, and started laying things out. Because I was assigned to be the assistant cook that night, I had to go back out on to the lake to get water.
There in the middle of the lake, with the rain continuing to pour down on me, I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I had ever wanted to come on this trip in the first place. Then, it started to hail. And I thought, “Oh, no! What next?”
I looked up and saw something I’d never seen before – a rainbow in the middle of the lake. It was not up high in the sky, but it was down on the water. In fact, I saw that I was sitting in the middle of the rainbow, surrounded by multi-colored light. I don’t remember how long I sat there. (It was hailing, after all!) I got the water for cooking, headed back to camp, and helped prepare a meal of steak and mushrooms.
I didn’t say anything about what I’d experienced to anyone, until we went to bed. I shared a tent with my canoe-mate, Jeff Blain, another pastor. I told him my story.
Then he said, “Cool! That means you were the pot at the end of the rainbow!”
And even though it continued to rain all night and into the next day, things got much brighter for me.
This is what is possible in the wilderness. But you don’t have to go to the desert and eat locusts and wild honey to discover it. You don’t have to take long canoe trips into the Canadian woods, paddling and portaging for days on end.
When you stay up all night with a sick child and you set aside your own need for sleep while you stay keenly attuned to the child – to the warmth of his forehead and the rhythm of his breathing – you are practicing the wisdom of the wilderness.
When you sit with an older person, and she can’t seem to remember from one moment to the next who you are or why you are there, still you set aside your own need for recognition and attend to any indication that, despite what has happened to her mind, there is indeed a person sitting there in front of you, then you are practicing the wisdom of the wilderness.
When you have had an argument with a loved one or a co-worker, or when you simply step back from the craziness of your life, and you take a walk outside, where you gaze at the mountains or the night sky or out across the water, and you let go for just a moment your pain, or your anger, or your worries, and you see yourself and your troubles in a new way, you are practicing the wisdom of the wilderness.
When we are alert to the movement of the Spirit and surrender ourselves to the transforming power of God, then we have entered the wilderness and are prepared for the new life that is to come.
And he will surely come. He will be born among us. He will bring light and truth and love. He will bring new life. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.
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