The Wilderness

Maria had never been in the woods. There were so few trees in Queens; but she had never thought about it. She just thought that concrete and graffiti were the way the world looked.

Maria lived alone with her mom. Her mom had lots of boyfriends that would come and go. Sometimes Maria's mom would not come home. So when she didn't come home, Maria would find something to eat in the cold of the morning. One morning, she decided to steal her mother's favorite red heels and wear them to school, along with her tight jeans. Maria loved it when the boys shouted at her and whistled.

Her grandparents lived less than a mile away in a little townhouse. If her mother was not home by dinner, she always knew that she could walk over to their house, but lately she didn't want to. They were always asking her questions. When did her mom get home last night? Why was she wearing those shoes? Had she done her homework? Up until 5th grade or so, Maria had done well in school. But in middle school she began to care less and less. She almost failed eighth grade.

She got her mom's heels all dirty that day so she thought she'd go immediately to her grandparents house. Maybe she could borrow a pair from her grandmother. Then when her mom asked her where they were, she could just shrug and act all innocent.

Her grandfather was sitting at the kitchen table when she arrived. "How's my girl?" he asked. Maria shrugged and looked in the refrigerator. She seemed to be talking less and less.

"Honey, I have great news for you!" he said, and then proceeded to tell her about this crazy outdoor camp where kids slept in tents and fished and stuff. He told her that she was going.

"Are you crazy?!" she yelled. "There is no way that I am going there. No way!!"

The next few weeks were crazy. Maria even tried to run away once and slept at her friend's. But she came back, and when she saw the look on her grandpa's face, she knew she would be going to this camp.

They took her, along with a bunch of high school kids she didn't know, in a school bus. They drove for three hours. When they pulled to a stop, Maria stepped out. There was nothing. No concrete. No buildings at all. Just huge trees and sky. And there were stars, when it was clear at night. She could hardly believe it.

The first thing that she noticed was the total silence. She had never heard anything like it. It made her realize how noisy her world was, with the cars, the TV, and the constant talking or music or noise. Now there was nothing but wind and sky.

Maria didn't fit in. Her clothes were all wrong. She felt cold all the time. When they went fishing, she was so grossed out by the slimy scales of the fish that she dropped it. People were kind, but Maria had never felt so alone.

The campers were given time alone in the afternoons, time to write in a journal or time to sleep. Maria found herself sitting under a tree and she began to cry. She cried and cried; the tears would just not stop coming. She could hardly breathe. It was scary. She felt such pain. But some part of her knew that this was better than the kind of living she was doing back in the city. And as the days sped by, she began to tell the other campers about her mom, how she lived to please men, how they sometimes hit her, how she sometimes didn't come home. She told about her life around the camp fire. And she began to learn who she was. And she felt alive for the first time in many years. She felt truly alive.

Jesus was baptized at age 30 and that baptism began the most important part of his life. Something happened to him when he was baptized. It was a jumpstart, a catalyst to a life that God had planned for him. His baptism marked him and God spoke from the clouds. "This is my son," God said. "I am pleased with him."

The sentence that follows Jesus' baptism in the Gospel of Mark is a strange sentence. So much happens in that one line that it is almost mind-boggling. Mark writes that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. The ancient Greek means to throw someone or something out, to force it, chuck it, push it. It was like whoosh! And Jesus found himself in the wilderness. He was made to go, no questions asked, no stopping to see if this was the right decision. No directions. No explanations. He just did it.

What was the wilderness? The ancient Greek for that word gives us great insight. It means, literally, the wasteland, or the place of loneliness.

So Jesus was thrown out into the wasteland alone. That was the first thing that happened to him, to the Son of God, after his baptism. He was uncomfortable and hungry and lacking any kind of direction. He was driven to a place where he was lost and alone.

Why? Why would God drive Jesus to a wasteland, a place of loneliness? Wouldn't some kind of a party or luncheon have been more appropriate to celebrate the baptism? Why send Jesus out alone to a place where Satan could tempt him?

I believe that God knew something that you and I don't know. God knew that the best place to grow is in the wilderness. God knew that there is nothing like pain and loneliness and even temptation to form Jesus into the Christ himself. Jesus was to know himself so that he could minister to others. He needed the silence of loneliness, the place of pain and hunger, in which to hear himself.

Why do we fast in Lent? Why do we try to do something that is hard, giving up something that we love? Why do we think of hard things, like how many children are starving in the world or all the mistakes that we have made? We do this because the pain of it causes us to grow. We do it because we recognize that running from pain and suffering causes us to remain immature and frightened, that the only way to God is through the pain. The only way to grow is to look at your life straight in the face and see where it is that you hurt and invite God to join you there.

Even the temptations that Satan provides, all the distractions and even the darkness of your thoughts, these too are part of the journey to God, for at some point you must decide if you can and will say no to them. It is essential for all of us to realize that we are tempted, that we are not God, that we think bad thoughts and want things that are not good for us. And when we see the truth about the battle that goes on even in the minds of the best of us, then we begin to understand how much we need God. We see that we cannot do this on our own.

What is your wilderness? What is the wasteland inside yourself that you want to run away from? Do you have feelings of despair, of loneliness? Let the Spirit drive you there, throw you there, don't think about it too much, just go - to the place where there is no noise, where it is just you and God and all your temptations. Stand there naked and alone.

There is a lot of pain in the world. But God does not run from that pain. God moves to it and through it in the cross. Do not be afraid to listen to your thoughts, your fears and insecurities. The darkest places are often where He waits for you, where you will find that all of a sudden, you are not alone.

After Maria's wilderness experience, she knew that she needed to confront her mother. She ended up moving out of her mother's apartment and in with her grandparents. She got back in the groove of school and is now in college. Without the pain of that time in which to step back and see her life for what it was, she might not have survived. And now, she is alive.

- The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead