Thought for the Week: Roy Stephenson escapes the wilderness
‘Anything undertaken purely for its own sake is only masking emptiness and lack of meaning.’
Just recently I’ve found myself filled with the image of Jesus, immediately post-baptism. As he comes out of the water, he receives a message that tells him his true identity. What does this do to him? In the first place, it complicates the business of being human. The gospel writers tell us he’s driven into ‘the wilderness’. For him, this seems to be the desert. But the desert is not really empty, or dead – it’s full of life. So what has happened?
I think perhaps the wilderness is in Jesus’ heart and mind, rather than what is around him. Suddenly, what he thought himself to be no longer is. While he has a new, or truer, identity thrust upon him, it may not be as welcome as old and apparent certainties had been. He has to work out what to do with this new self, and it isn’t easy.
Most of us will have known times of wilderness, and I want to name three of them. The first is the wilderness of consumerism. On TV and elsewhere, images often flash up of a satisfied-looking person who has bought the ‘right’ product – the right make-up/clothes/car/holiday to make them ‘complete’. There are parallels here with Jesus’ own temptations.
The second wilderness is the wilderness of activity. This is a wilderness precisely because it doesn’t look like one, and it doesn’t really matter what the activity is. It could be personal fitness, foreign travel, work, even one’s family or good works or contemplative prayer. Anything undertaken purely for its own sake is only masking emptiness and lack of meaning.
The third wilderness is loneliness. And there is no greater loneliness than lack of relationship, which is a psychological state, not a physical one. This may also happen in an empty relationship, when one wonders if the meaning one used to find was ever real; and the loneliness of grief doesn’t just apply to physical death.
Recently, because of a minor operation, ‘normal’ life for me has been put on hold. But in this time of enforced inactivity, I’ve felt more ‘me’ than I have done in a while. I think that’s because my activities have been put in abeyance. My ability to get out, perhaps spending more than I need to, has been brought to a stop. And I have received many messages of loving friendship to add to the ever-present love of my wife. In short, life has meaning!
If God is the name we give to our life-quest for meaning, then when the epistle writer penned the words ‘God is Love’, they really hit the nail on the head. When we have love, and know it, then we are in heaven; our life has meaning, and will do so whatever happens to the universe. When we don’t know that love surrounds us, life is meaningless and hellish. And this, as George Fox might have said, I know experimentally. So, Friends, let us be intimate enough with each other to share love and to tell it, especially to those who are least lovable, for they are the ones most in need of Meaning.
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