Wandering Into Truth
Can We Allow Ourselves to Get Lost in The Woods?
Have you ever taken a walk, just to take a walk? Not caring about a destination or a specific path? In a recent essay, Dr. J. Aaron Simmons quoted a mentor paraphrasing Thoreau: “One of my graduate school mentors, David Wood, used to start philosophy classes by paraphrasing Henry David Thoreau by saying ‘If you want to go for a walk, you have to be willing to get lost.’” The emphasis here is on philosophy, but the concept can cross disciplines. Honestly, theology leans into philosophy, poetry, and other disciplines as well. Simmons' essay got me thinking about getting lost or at least not worrying about pathway boundaries as long as we remain centered in a place we can return to safely.
If we stick to the well-worn paths in the woods, we may never encounter new things of beauty. But leaving the path is how Christians have always moved in obedience to the law of love. Paul, the Apostle, went outside the comfort of a path he had trod his whole life and discovered a new way to read and understand familiar scripture. Paul also knew that he could not come to the fullness of understanding when he wrote of seeing through a glass darkly. But that’s okay. I like to imagine the fear and unsettled mind of Paul as he retreated to study the scriptures after his Damascus road experience. What was that journey like? Did he encounter fear and wonder wrapped together? As he moved through fresh paths, did his spirit soar as he encountered a new dialogue and a fresh path toward God? He merged the familiar and new like a jazz combo, improvising together. He did not let go of centered ideas, such as the holistic nature of humanity as inseparable body and soul. Yet, he pressed on toward fresh paths and conversations, even as those around him feared his paths.
This continued throughout the history of the Church. Luther and Calvin veered from the path and that pushed the Roman Catholic Church to look at the paths being trod. In my context, John Wesley got lost amongst voices and sources that set him on a fresh path. From Wesley came folk like Phoebe Palmer, Phineas Bresee, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, and others who have wandered in the beauty of the woods centered in Wesleyan and Holiness theology, yet following the Spirit off the beaten path. It is the nature of Christianity. Change and upheaval is such a part of Christianity that we have seen inevitable five hundred year cycles of upheaval.
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Phyliss Tickle expressed the idea of upheaval in her prophetic book The Great Emergence. She is quoting an idea and applying it to our time. “The Right Reverend Mark Dyer, an Anglican bishop known for his wit as well as his wisdom, famously observes from time to time that the only way to understand what is currently happening to us as twenty-first-century Christians in North America is first to understand that about every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale.” (Tickle 10) Tickle recognizes that we have been amid paths being formed and moved, centered in a look toward ancient Christianity and seeing our place in history. When looking at the history of the Church, we see regular patterns of fresh paths that are still rooted in faithful practice and belief. Five hundred years from now is the Great Reformation. Go back another five hundred years and we see the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Church. Tickle then takes us another five hundred years to Gregory the Great and the monastics who “saved” Western civilization. Of course, the next backward look is to the first century and the incarnate birth of the Church through the Christ.
I believe that where we find ourselves now is in the middle of the next change. Tickle called it the Great Emergence, and she saw where we have been heading in the twenty-first century. Her idea was that four strands would coalesce into corners and those who exist in the middle would need to be strong enough to dialogue with all corners as we live in tension with the corners and with our own contextual struggles. The four strands she saw are definitely obvious nine years after her death. These strands are Liturgicals, Social Justice Christians, Renewalists, and Conservatives. I recommend picking up The Great Emergence to better understand these strands, but for our purposes, the conflict amongst the corners is understandable, even if the particularities are not. Why is there such conflict and upheaval? Fear. The simple answer is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of being wrong, and fear of losing something. But Tickle reminds us that “[w]hen Christians despair of the upheavals and re-formations that have been the history of our faith—when the faithful resist, as so many do just now, the presence of another time of reconfiguration with its inevitable pain—we all would do well to remember that, not only are we in the hinge of a five-hundred-year period, but we are also the direct product of one.” (ibid 17)
Our fear of the now and future “rummage sale” forgets that we are the product of the last rummage sale of the Reformation. Fear drives us to conflict, overreaction, and retreat. It is not enough to faithfully walk in the woods, because even walking on the well-worn path is not safe. The wolves prowling at the edges of the flock are not dressing like sheep, they appear as shepherds. Those wolves even call faithful shepherds wolves, which is a great irony. Blocking access to the past paths that can inform our future, the wolves also watch for sheep and shepherds who wander, seeking dialogue and growth. Even when the path that is known is being walked, the wolves may pounce, because someone mentioned another walking a different path. Why do the wolves prowl? They prowl out of fear. They fear being wrong, they fear losing control, and they fear the possibilities present when we live in tension.
As the corners pull away from the center, it becomes harder to exist in that tension. Conflict exhausts and exacts a great price. But fear exacts an even greater price. Fear causes stunted growth and stunted discipleship. Fear rips at relationship and tears at the very heart of love. Fear shows an absence of love as “perfect love casts out all fear.” For fear to be pushed out, we need to live into love. But that is hard because tearing at one another is the simple path. The hard path is wandering together without fear of that wandering, but remaining centered in the roots of who we are. When we wander, we might just wander into the truth.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Aaron’s essay:
