WILDERNESS, SOLITUDE AND GOD What time spent in the wilderness can reveal of God.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine this scenario: You sit down in your home to do some much needed praying and reflection on yourself and God. In these initial moments, it does not take long to notice the metronome over your head in the form of a ceiling fan, with it’s steadily ticking chain setting a solid tempo. Tick, tick, tick, tick. In the distance, you now notice the low baritone voice of humming tires on the highway providing a bass line. The neighbor 's basset hounds unremitting barking provide a nice solid drum beat. The background singer, the local ambulance, joins in ever so softly. At first, the pitch is barely noticeable, but then its braying sirens seem
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In nature, we are able to observe order and purpose. Furthermore, when we can see this community unfold and how it works together, then we may be capable of realizing that all the needs of each living being are taken care of without human intervention. It is during these types of epiphanies that a grown man (or woman) can quickly become envious of the inhabitants of the wilderness. Suddenly, that fuzzy (possibly rabid) squirrel sitting on his haunches on a nearby tree root munching on the sweet green Bermuda grass that graces his properties expansive lawn, seems to have it better than you. His home far exceeds your newly constructed mega-mansion in grandeur as it is within the trunk of a magnificent 100 year old oak tree, overlooking a lagoon where two limestone-lined creeks converge to create a deep pool of teal clear water. An array of wildflowers add sporadic color to the grassy knoll. And he did not have to plant any of it nor pipe in any water! It is at this point that you realize that nothing that we humans create is as magnificent as God’s. This simple creature, (though they have a tendency to foolishly run under moving tires), has its every need taken care of and in superb setting to boot. God is so honorable, that he cares for even the simplest creatures. When will all humans wake up and realize that we too were given everything we needed to thrive and be happy as well? The wilderness helps us realize this
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
He is unable to understand why they can’t leave nature alone. His frustration stems from the fact that so much valuable land is being destroyed, to accommodate the ways of the lazy. It seems as though he believes that people who are unwilling to enjoy nature as is don’t deserve to experience it at all. He’s indirectly conveying the idea that humans who destroy nature are destroying themselves, as nature is only a mechanism that aids the society. In Desert Solitaire Abbey reminds the audience, of any age and year of the significance of the wild, enlightening and cautioning the human population into consciousness and liability through the use of isolation as material to ponder upon and presenting judgments to aid sheltering of the nature he
In Emerson’s “Nature” nature is referred to as “plantations of god” meaning that nature is sacred. Also mentioned, is that “In the woods is perpetual youth”(#) conveying that nature keeps people young. Therefore, these excerpts show that nature is greatly valued by these transcendentalists. Transcendentalists would likely care significantly about the environment. In contrast, nowadays nature is often and afterthought. Natures’ resources are being depleted for human use, and the beauty of nature is also not as appreciated by modern people as it was by transcendentalists. The threat to nature in modern times contrasts to the great appreciation of nature held by authors like Emerson and
The Bible for many has several interpretations, and meanings. There is not one interpretation or meaning in which Christians all believe identically. Each part of the Bible has its own symbolic meaning to each faith, and their ways to interpret those meanings may differ from other Christians. In Having Words with God: The Bible as Conversation by Karl Allen Kuhn, Kuhn describes the Bible as a conversation between several and God. In this essay there will be a different approach to the same metaphor effect describing the Bible but, as a Pizza. The Bible is like a Pizza in the ways of having many toppings (topics) and layers (depths within the text), not to mention the types or styles just like there are many styles of scripture
He believes that the wilderness has helped form us and that if we allow industrialization to push through the people of our nation will have lost part of themselves; they will have lost the part of themselves that was formed by the wilderness “idea.” Once the forests are destroyed they will have nothing to look back at or to remind them of where they came from or what was, and he argues everyone need to preserve all of what we have now.
Around Thoreau’s time there were a smaller number of people who lived in America. Free and untouched land was vast and easy to come by. He says, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…” (Thoreau 1). He was able to basically walk into his backyard and build a cabin there. Today the population has grown so much that many people are lucky to have a backyard. In having tighter spaces people have learned to come together and be civil with one another. They learned to work with and around obstacles and one another. Friendly neighbors are made; rival ones forgotten. People have learned how to make others smile and cheer up the gloomier ones. If they were all to have built an isolated, self-sufficient cabin in the woods, this would not have been possible. They would have to rel...
Many years ago, people saw the wilderness as a savage wasteland, but today, it is viewed as “the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth.” (Cronon) He discusses this changed point of view by stating the difficulties that society will have rectifying environmental ailments if it stops viewing wilderness as “a dualistic picture in which the human is completely outside the nature.” (Cronon) This is understandable because humans rely on others to create opinions, and they do not know how to form their own thoughts and solutions to issues such as environmental ones. Therefore, it is with great importance that humans begin to learn how to formulate their own thoughts and share those personal thoughts with others, such as sharing solutions about environmental
that is hard to answer. Why not just leave the wilderness alone, and let it
Plantinga’s (2002) book Engaging God’s World consists of five parts: “Longing and Hope,” “Creation,” “The Fall,” “Redemption,” and “Vocation in the Kingdom of God.” Throughout the work, Plantinga references public speakers and activists, lyricists, philosophers, saints, and authors to help his audience connect to his perspective.
In the beginning, God created a perfect world without sin, pain, or agony. God created this world so some of His creation would have a home and a place to serve him. However, this model of a flawless utopia became corrupted very quickly. God’s prized creation, humans, disobeyed the only command that their Father had set in place: not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and
Every religion embodies a plethora of recognized rituals that are significant to its teachings. Customs exclusive to each religion can include acts such as: attending a weekly mass, praying five times a day at specified hours, celebrating the transition from childhood to manhood, along with endless others. The similarity shared amongst all religious rituals is that the follower of faith must believe whole-heartedly in what he/she is doing or saying. Dhikr, or the remembrance of God, is a ritual based in Islam that does not receive the attention it deserves from mainstream Muslims, and is highly under appreciated for its value (Robson 238). Its myriad versions allow it to be very personal, whereas other rituals are more structured, which is
Many of the readings that we have studied in class have discussed the idea of human beings and our relationships with nature. The different authors we’ve studied and the works we’ve analyzed share different views of this relationship – a very interesting aspect to study. Human relationships with nature are truly timeless – nature can have the same effects on humans now as it did millions of years ago. Two of the works in particular which offered differing views on this relationship were “Entrance to the Woods” by Wendell Berry and “The Invented Landscape” by Frederick Turner.
The factual nature of God (given that He exists as the First Cause) is at all times argued by most Christians. Moreover numerous questions arise on the nature of God. We all know that, at some point we will actually die; yet, we consistently refuse the causes operating within ourselves that looks into the real result of what comes after a person loses his or her life. It is far simpler for humankind to agree that, they will depart to a secure home in Heaven and will be pardoned all their sins by a supreme being, rather than to query on the existence of the extremely all-powerful being. Luckily, some of us usually query this existence and the development of humankind; in addition to, the spiritual lessons obtained from our mothers and fathers, community and religion. This essay investigates the two logical justifications for and against the nature of God; in accordance to opinions of some exceptional researchers and philosophers. Through two classical arguments for God; the ontological argument and the teleological argument, I will show that there is no adequate evidence or extensive justifications for the true nature of God.
However, some only have this appreciation due to the fact that the nature provides a service to them, usually involving an escape from the busy reality that many deal with constantly. Perceptions of nature include an oasis from the stresses of real life, and for that reason, support the protection of certain pieces of land. In William Cronon’s essay, “The Trouble With Wilderness,” he claims that modern interpretation of wilderness is “quite profoundly a human creation” (Cronan 1). This phrase underscores the notion that humanity created the conception of wilderness as something particularly special and enchanting, and that the definition is not inherent. Even many people who are considered to have valued the environment to the utmost degree were actually acting this way due to their own human-centered uses for the natural world. For example, one of the sole reasons Theodore Roosevelt spearheaded the movement for a National Parks System is not due to his appreciation for the natural world, but because he was an avid hunter (NPS.gov). If urbanization would have continued, without preserving many areas of the United States, the ability to hunt in the United States would be very difficult if not impossible. If humans did not understand wilderness as “the remote corners of the earth,” that supply an “experience of wonder and
Humans’ strongest drive is to have dominion from a biblical perspective. When God first created Adam, of the first tasks given to Adam was to take care of God’s creation. (Gen. 1:28) He was given great responsibility over organisms, as God instructed him to name every one. Adam was given the duty to till the earth and its soil, and thus he did. His drive was to have dominion over his environment, as God gave him the right to do so.