One of the values of the wild is that helps put technology in its place. One way to understand this is to imagine yourself on a remote wooded ridge—say somewhere in the Ozarks. You’re suddenly engulfed by a violent thunderstorm, and while rushing to find shelter and safety, you find yourself in the company of two others in the same pursuit. Together you find a large overhanging rock ledge and crawl under it for cover. Finally at rest, you seek to begin a conversation but quickly find that verbal communication is hopeless—for the other two, because of some warp in time, are a French explorer from the late 1600′s and an Osage Indian from the 1200′s.

Because your cell phone doesn’t work where you are, it’s a mere fascination to the other two, and your iPad, while it creates a sense of awe, soon goes the way of all battery-powered devices and your companions’ wonder ceases. Your clothing, too, is a curiosity—as well as your eye-glasses. But when the storm soon shows that it is but the precursor of a cold front bringing with it several inches of snow, other modern devices, like your Swiss Army knife becomes of little value, and the frustration of leaving that lighter in your car several miles away only adds to your distress. What you discover is that the wild pretty much obliterates all the differences between the generations. But you are also soon delighted that you are not caught in these circumstances with, say, “important people” like Oprah, Lady Gaga, or Donald Trump, who appear to have never have ventured more than a hundred yards away from a light switch and whose wilderness survival understanding could well be limited to the old joke that you start a fire by rubbing two boy scouts together.

I like to think that in the wilderness we meet our ancestors, because apart from our technology and heads full of technical knowledge, most of which is of little lasting significance, our common spiritual, emotional, physical, and relational needs have been the same since Adam left the Garden. Further, the importance of the health and fruitfulness of the creation is as important now as it ever was. They could not—and we cannot—remain healthy without good air, good water, good soil, adequate shelter, and health-giving foods—access to which modern technology may as much threaten as provide.

KEY SCRIPTURE:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15)

Having, as most of us do, a pride of the present, we find ourselves irrationally disconnected from the past—somehow thinking that no forebear would have much to offer us moderns. Yet if we did find ourselves in a raging thunderstorm on a wilderness mountaintop, we’d quickly learn that we are fundamentally no different from any other person living today—or yesterday. The fears, desires, and temptations of the first human beings were at heart no different from ours. The wild is one of the most important venues for compelling us to recognize what is most significant in life and what is common to all people of all ages.

In the same clothes, speaking the same language, I believe we’d find Saint Francis, William Penn, and John Muir certainly far wiser and astute companions on life’s journey than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Jacques Ellul reminds us of this in his book The Technological Bluff:

[Modern technology] causes us to live in a world of diversion and illusion. . . . It finally sucks us into this world by banishing all our ancient reservations and fears.

So among its many other values, a walk in the wild links us in an unbroken chain with all who have gone before. Valuing and preserving natural parks and wilderness areas will permit our descendants to do the same.