The Wilderness We Fear



“
Perhaps the wildness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.” Terry Tempest Williams

How long dear Lord? How long? This lamenting question to God has been on our lips for more than 40 days, more than Noah, more than Lent. And so I have found myself trying to embrace this wilderness into which we have been cast, to receive it as I would a Rilke question, to love it as I would my enemy. It is not easy.
Terry Tempest Williams has written a lot about wildernesses and their merciful characteristics. 
The quote above seems to locate me in the wild pandemics with which we grapple. Layers upon layers of untamed power: virus, racism, narcissism, greed, lies, manipulation, politics and economics of selfishness. Like the layers of the wild: rapids, jagged mountains, wild animals, extreme weather. Who are we in these spaces? And how do we survive much less thrive? 
The very questions suggest the “pause between our heartbeats”. And in that pause we confront the generous gift of the answer: grace. We are united, every single creature and every single aspect of creation, in that very grace. I am thinking there is no fear in grace. The fear comes when we try to control and commodify grace. 

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