Like A Child

Alone in the wild.  A reality show in 2010 bore this name.  It featured the story of Ed Wardle, a born-and-raised wilderness man.  Ed has spent his entire life in love with nature.  But Ed’s love for nature is much more “hands on” than most.  In Orange County (let alone Southern California) it is not uncommon to hear “love for nature” equated with “appreciation of sunsets”.  Nothing is wrong with the equation, sure.  But it fails to really describe people like Ed.  See, Ed has climbed Mt. Everest twice.  And been on an expedition to the North Pole.  His astonishing resume can be viewed here, but let it be known that Ed is, quite frankly, unnatural. 

            Naturally, Ed had always dreamed of living alone in the wild and wanted to prove to himself that he could, if necessary.  The National Geographic Channel decided they’d like to give Ed the opportunity.  And wanted him to film it of course.  Alone In The Wild was born.  Ed was given the task of surviving alone in the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada for 3 months, living off the wildlife he could legally catch.  The story was compelling while it lasted.  Ed called it quits 5 weeks short of the goal.  But the 7 weeks of footage really were remarkable.  He lost 28 pounds and became literally sick with loneliness.  That majestic, beautiful wilderness which had always drawn Ed to such fantastic heights (literally) became cold, cruel, and dispassionate.  In a singularly powerful moment Ed confesses that nature, in all its beauty, could care less whether or not he starved to death.  The greatest teacher is life, after all.

            What would Ed have thought if he had read Psalm 19:1-4 while sitting in such a dismal classroom?

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. 
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Mr. Wardle may have reacted any number of ways.  Dying of hunger, going mad with loneliness, because of a river’s refusal to provide fish, of an unseen predator always lurking in the dark, from any and every noise completely lacking any trace of human causation, it doesn’t take the imagination of a Nick Fetner or a Jordan Benedict to know how Ed would have felt were he to read that the thing killing him was also glorifying God.  He may have questioned the psalmist; his character or life experience.  But the psalmist didn’t write this poem out of ignorance.  Exposure to weather was a little more widespread 3,000 years ago in the Middle East than it is today in the West.  Ed may have questioned the nature of this god; a god who is glorified by a thing capable of such fatal apathy as nature must be just that- fatally apathetic. 

            Despite the incredible distance between the experience of people who lived so wildly 3,000 years ago (or Ed today) and the rest of modern western society, a certain peculiar proximity between the two peoples does exist.  In fact the parallels are quite obvious.  Ed exposed himself to a world that could literally take his life at any moment.  It would not ask his permission.  Were a bear to smell the dead porcupine hanging next to Ed in that tree it would not have asked for a leg of porcupine.  The bear (and this thought tormented Ed all night) would probably have eaten Ed himself.  And that’s pretty much how it works.  By now some of you may already know where this is going.  It almost goes without saying that life in America over the last several years can be described in very similar terms.  Bears may not have haunted us in the night, but millions learned the implications of living in a world where the majority of capital is controlled by the minority.  A few bank owners behave like humans and the global economy is thrown into a nosedive that no one can see an end to.  Millions learned that saving up for retirement, like hanging a porcupine in a tree, does not guarantee that the bear won’t eat you AND your porcupine. 

            But there is good news.  We are not alone.  The machine or bear or whatever shape it happens to take does not have the final say.  Actually, it has already been defeated.  In actuality, the victory is ours (1^st Cor. 15:54-57).  We, as His children, no longer fear bears or machines (Lk. 12:4-5) because, in all truth, they cannot touch us (Rom. 8:37-39).  Our Father can literally, morning after morning, cover the earth around us with provisions (Ex. 16:4-5).  But we choose death when we turn our cares from Him to His provisions (16:20, 27).  It was with Mt. 6:25-34 in mind that a wise man once said, “God cares for tomorrow, and if man cares about God, then his tomorrow is also taken care of.”

            The good news is appalling when circumstances are the dominating filter through which it’s received.  But good news is good news, even when it’s salty.  Ed Wardle learned a hard lesson out in the Yukon Territory about the love of his life.  But his love did not turn to hatred.  His love actually grew.  Ed was humbled.  He realized that, ultimately, he is not in control.  The will of the Father is that His children would know this and more: to be His children we must act as His children, having faith like a child (Mk. 10:13-16), completely vulnerable and dependent on our Father for everything.  This is good news, that the One in whom all things exist (Rom. 11:36) is also the giver of life itself (Jn. 5:21), that if our hands reach out to receive instead of to grab our Father will give us His kingdom (Mk. 10:13-16).  May we stand in this truth for heaven’s sake.