The Wilderness Prophets and Climate Justice

Over the past few days, I was able to get away on a retreat led by my friend, Laurel Dykstra, on “The Wilderness Prophets and Climate Justice.” The retreat was held at Kirkridge Retreat Center in central PA (https://kirkridge.org/) and is a beautiful and rich space in which to reflect on the wilderness.

Laurel is an Anglican priest, environmental activist, writer and all around amazing person and leads something called the Salal + Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community, a tiny church that worships outdoors and builds skills for climate justice near Vancouver, BC. I haven’t many folks like Laurel in my travels and have known them for almost 20 years now.

You will be hearing more about my time with Laurel over the course of my blogging in the near future because it generated a lot for me to reflect upon!

A primary premise of the weekend is that there is a thread in the Hebrew and Christian traditions related to the “wilderness prophets” who re-placed themselves in wild contexts and heard the word of God there (or they heard the word of God and then went into the wilderness). And what they brought back was an important message for a people who had lost their way.

In my assessment, our North American consumer culture has lost its way and we have cut ourselves off from the very sources of life that sustain us. Furthermore, we have basically no regard for any of the non-human species let alone the forests, rivers, mountains, etc.

One text we took up was from the book of Job. While not a wilderness prophet, per se, this passage speaks so deeply to what is needed from us right now. In this passage, Job instructs his listeners to “ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will teach you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you (12:7-8).”

So a main question is, “What are the animals, plants, birds and fish saying to us? What are they teaching us (or trying to teach us)?”

Part of our task over the weekend was to listen.

Really listen.

During one imaginative exercise, I sat in the middle of a forest and let one of the forest creatures speak to me. It was a woodpecker who spoke to me, and this is some of what the woodpecker said, “One of your two legged prophets says, ‘Knock and the door will be opened’, Yet I knock and you cut down the trees. For centuries I have lived here, always finding what I need. I make holes and create spaces for other creatures to call home. You see only dead trees, but I see holders of life. I help make trees ‘holier’ even after the life has gone from them. The trees know how to surrender, but your kind knows far too little about such things…” The woodpecker said a bunch more, but I figured I’d give you a little taste of it!

What always amazes me is that when we ask for guidance from the natural world, it has a lot to offer. What is offered, however, may be hard for us to hear.

Throughout the weekend, we also sat with the realities of the climate crisis and reflected soberly, at times, on what is before us and why this thread from our faith tradition must be recovered.

I know at times that I can become overwhelmed by the enormity of things and lose some hope.

Yet in the first reading from today’s scriptures Zechariah ( Chapter 8) reminds us, “Thus says your God, Even if this should seem impossible in the eyes of the remnant of this people, shall it be impossible in my eyes also?…I will rescue my people from the land of the rising sun, and from the land of the setting sun. I will bring them back.”

Our God is trying to bring us back.

The plants are trying to bring us back.

The animals are trying to bring us back.

The birds are trying to bring us back.

The fish are trying to bring us back.

What does return look like for you – in this time and in our context?

(And feel free to comment about what this post brings up for you, practices you’re engaged in that help you return or whatever else this gets you thinking about!)