(I reference a scripture story in 1 Samuel, chapter 3 verses 1 - 10. You can read the story here: http://niv.scripturetext.com/1_samuel/3.htm)
I would like to say first off how honoured I am to have been asked to share this story and to say that I am not used to public speaking so I’m very nervous. Please bear with me.
To understand my journey I need to begin, well at the beginning. I have attended Mount Seymour United Church since I was a child. Some of my earliest memories from childhood are from attending the little church on Berkley when Brad Newcombe was the minister. All us kids thought he looked like Luke Skywalker and we’d all sit in the front pew on Sunday and sigh.
I was here, in 1989, for the ground breaking ceremony for this church and helped paint the walls when it was first built. When I walk in the doors it’s like walking into my own home. I had a part in the creation of this place and the church, this church has always been my community.
I came every Sunday with my parents, attended Sunday school and was confirmed in the church in 1991. I remember this because my parents gave me a silver cross with the date engraved on it.
After confirmation in the traditional style of teenage rebellion I chose sleeping in over coming to service on Sundays. This wasn’t just an act of rebellion and angst; there was more to it than that.
I had a lot of questions that I didn’t think I would find an answer to them here and I was seeking something that was missing from Sunday worship.
In the scripture Samuel was sleeping in the temple when he heard a voice. He didn’t know who it was, but it was there in the temple speaking to him, asking him to listen. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was listening for a voice and I knew I wasn’t going to hear it in the church.
So I explored. I looked to faith traditions outside of Christianity, listening, wondering, seeking, looking for something.
What I found was the wilderness.
There are many terms used to describe the faith tradition I connected too. I like the term Earth Based Spirituality. Earth Based Spirituality takes worship outside to the wild places, the forests, the mountains, the ocean, and the rivers. Places where there is quiet and you can feel the pulse of Mother Earth.
This is different from the wilderness as we read about in Hebrew and Christian Scripture. In these traditions the wilderness is a place where one often gets lead astray. It’s a place to wander for 40 years abandoned, lost, scared. It’s the endless ocean for 40 days and nights with no land in site, desolate and empty. It’s a place to fast for 40 days, to be challenged and tempted and forced to face your fears. In these traditions the wilderness is not often a happy place. It’s not a place people generally choose to go. And one where people like to leave as soon as possible.
For me though, the wilderness has been a place of solitude and comfort. A place to listen to the wind rustle in the trees, hear water splash over rocks, meditate on bird song and raven talk. It is a place to get away from the busy, busy that is everyday life.
I crave the wild places. I crave the solitude and the connection to the Divine that I only feel in the wilderness. I seek it out because like the wilderness in Christian tradition, it is a place where one can grow, listen and change.
I was alone, but I wasn’t. There was always a gentle presence waiting in the wilderness. This was what I was looking for.
Unlike Samuel, who felt it in a building, I only felt that gentle presence outside in the woods and wild places. Outside away from the buildings and the cars and the people, I could meditate and feel surrounded by the Divine. Feel connected to it; feel at one with the universe and know that I was a part of something bigger than myself.
It was enough. I was happy. More than happy, when the busy, busy world overwhelmed me, when everything seemed loud and garish I could retreat to the wild places, be a hermit in the woods, alone, but not alone; always the gentle presence comforting and patient.
Honestly there was a time when I didn’t think I would ever need a Sunday worship service again. I was nourished and content. But then something changed.
Samuel lived in a time where the voice of God is not much heard and visions few. I think that we can relate to that. We also live in a time when the voice of God is not much heard and people who hear voices, or have visions, are looked at with scepticism and mistrust.
We want proof, scientific explanations for the mysteries, but there are something’s that cannot be explained.
I had a vision. I heard a voice in the wild places and like Samuel when I first heard the voice I didn’t know who was speaking.
Let me correct that. I didn’t want to know. Deep down, I knew, but I was afraid. I was afraid of not just what I heard, but that I heard it at all. I mean, seriously does this really happen outside of the movies? Outside of books and scripture? Visions, being called by God to do something more?
No. I said. Why me? I said. No, I think I’ll just pretend I never heard a thing, thank you very much.
Why not you? The voice would reply. Why not you? (you can imagine the voice sounding a lot like Nancy right now if you want.)
You know I can be a pretty stubborn person. My family can attest to that. But there’s no holding out against something like this.
I tried to avoid listening. This is not so easily done I found. One can for a time, fill their lives with things to keep them busy. Thoughts and worries and concerns and many things that take up all their time so there is no room left for meditation, prayer or solitude. One can turn on the TV, the Radio, fill the rooms with noise and drown out the things they don’t want to hear.
One can go back to school, study and read, filling their minds with other peoples thoughts and voices so one doesn’t have to listen to their own.
I did all those things. I did choose Theology for my schooling, trying to convince myself that studying it academically may help me understand it spiritually, but mostly I was just left confused. It made for a good diversion though.
All the time the gentle presence waited.
That gentle presence waiting in the wilderness, is infinitely patient and has all the time in the universe to wait for someone like me to come around, or just give up.
Okay fine, I’ll listen.
In the scripture Samuel goes to Eli a number of times before Eli realizes what is happening. He tells Samuel to go back to the temple and wait for the voice to speak again and then say, ‘I’m listening.’
Although I was reluctant I did the same.
The voice I heard in the wild places reminded me of my roots. Reminded me of the child I had been and the place I grew from. My roots are anchored in the church and I should not forget that. Nor should I forget who I have become and the experiences that I’ve had.
I need not deny any part of myself, my faith or the spiritual path that I walk. In fact, the voice told me, I need to take what I’ve learned, what I’ve experienced back to the beginning, back to my roots and share what I’ve discovered.
In my vision, I was in the woods there was wilderness all around me. At that time and in that place the gentle presence was a wise old woman, a Crone as Old as The Earth. She spoke to me about dreams and hopes. In the woods there was an old church. I went inside and saw Jesus standing on some steps. He spoke to me about healing and wisdom.
I wanted so much for these two to meet. I wanted to bring the Earth Mother inside, but she couldn’t come in. I wanted to bring this Christ Light outside, but he couldn’t step from the church.
Not because he wouldn’t, but because he couldn’t. This vision made me intensely aware of how distant we can be from understanding different traditions, how much we’ve segregated ourselves from each other because of the faiths we follow and the words we use for the Divine.
And I know that part of what I’m being called to do is to try to change that. To open up dialogue and conversation, enter into understanding with other traditions with compassion and non-judgement. To see if it at all possible to cross the common ground world faiths share and meet somewhere in the middle. Talk, aruge, agree to disagree and respect one another. Or something like that. That part isn’t exactly clear yet.
For me it has been safe in the wilderness. Leaving the wilderness, sharing this vision, returning to the busy, busy world has been the hardest part of this journey. I am tempted often to retreat to the wilderness where I am alone but not alone.
Yet always, there is the gentle presence asking me to trust and have faith to step out of the wilderness. I went back to school four years ago, did a Bachelors in Divinity both in preparation for leaving the wilderness and to stay hidden in it awhile longer. Now that, that is complete I hear the gentle presence nudging a little harder, no more hiding. No more contemplation, meditation and excuses. It is time too, not leave the wilderness behind exactly, but to bring the wild places to the busy, busy world.
To find a way to bring that vision from the wild places out into the open somehow. So I share it with you now.
Part of this sermon is supposed to be, not just about the wilderness, but also about how I’ve found a way and I struggle with an answer because I’m still figuring that part out. I have one foot in and one foot out and I do not know where the next step will lead.
In Samuels’s story, God talks, Samuel listens (eventually) and he is deemed a prophet. Everything gets taken care of and tied up in a nice little package. There is no mention of any fear, any doubt, any struggle to accept what is being asked and it all comes about in one night.
It doesn’t really work like that does it? I still feel fear and doubt about being called to something more than just myself, be that ministry or interfaith work or spiritual direction. I don’t know what I’m being called out of the wilderness for, only that I am.
What I do know, is that I trust where I am being lead and who is doing the leading. So like Samuel, “I’m here, I’m Listening.”
Thank you
