Over the centuries, civic and national leaders have recognized the importance of preserving natural areas in the vicinity of urban developments—like parks, lakes, forest preserves, trails, and riverside recreation areas. The existence of a city, state, or national park is mute testimony to the fact that the human heart yearns for relief from the unrelenting pressure of manmade things and human systems. Any place where we can manage to be mostly alone with our senses and attuned primarily to what God has made can serve as a sort of wilderness.

As a child, I often found that a square foot of grass observed with a magnifier, or a clump of overhanging shrubs that could give me a private “fort,” served to fulfill some of the beneficial aspects of a wilderness experience. Yet as one outdoor adventurer noted, “The deeper the wilderness, the deeper the experience.” This is perhaps why the most significant biblical sojourns into the wilderness were the ones that were for an extended time or were the most remote. Sometimes more space and time are required for us to receive the positive spiritual impact of a wilderness experience.  As John Muir said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.” [Muir quotes]

Yesterday I needed a wilderness experience and headed out to Seidman Park, a nearby preserved natural area of nearly 500 acres that are mostly wooded.  Honey Creek runs through it, a trout stream that’s been protected enough to give you close to the same impression that hikers might have had there generations ago.  Except yesterday.  The place was virtually overrun by cross-country skiers.  That’s good, though—to see so many enjoying the outdoors on a Sunday afternoon.  I, however, am balance-challenged when wearing anything longer than a shoe or merely placing one foot in front of the other.  (Though I’ve never been drunk in my life, I sometimes worry that if I got pulled over by the police and was made to walk the line, my lousy sense of balance would implicate me!)

So I wandered off the ski trail to walk in frozen places where I would have been up to my ankles in muck on a summer’s day.  There was a gentle snowfall, which combined with the 10 or so inches of snow already on the ground quickly muffled the sounds of exuberant distant skiers, and I was left with the sound of the creek and the sight of a landscape transformed by puffed whiteness.  As usual the beauty of it touched my soul. The value of natural beauty to the human soul was what inspired the masterful landscape painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of painting. With his paintings, he wanted to put people back in touch with the Creator. He hoped his paintings would give a city dwelling admirer a yearning for the outdoors where he too could discover what he had—that “in gazing on the pure creations of the Almighty, he feels a calm religious tone steal through his mind, and when he has turned to mingle [again] with his fellow men, the chords which have been struck in that sweet communion cease not to vibrate.”

This Monday I’m back a little better equipped to mingle with my fellow man—actually and electronically.

See you outdoors!

Dean

Honey Creek in the spring