Yesterday my wife & I snuck off to watch INTO THE WILD , one of the powerful films I have seen in a long time.

image from BEAT NIK

As I sat and drank in the movie, a few pieces came together for me in terms of a tension I have been experiencing.  For the last 5 years, my family & I have been, in great part, off the grid of the local faith community and the ongoing faith tradition my wife & I grew up.  Unlike the protagonist in the movie, we did not change our names or follow a path to Alaska.  That said, the seminary experience was as barren as the Salton Sea and our exile from the Episcopal culture we were formed in has been as disruptive as any thing in our adult life.

For the past 18 months, we've chosen to be part of fledging non-denominational church plants.  They are filled with wonderful people, just as our own faith background is.  They embody values that are indigenous to their assembled community, often in worship that is loose & organic, in community that is typically raw and life-changing.  It has been hard to switch the focus of our worship from the Eucharist to a longer sermon, but it has been offset (at least most of the time) by a sense that we are in a place where we can collapse on God & one another.  Given our cultural background, it is not surprising that we still find ourselves on the fringes of the Episcopal/Anglican conversation.

The movie helped me understand the tension I have experienced over the last 10 years or so, since I dove deeper into a spiritual helix that seemed to be beckoning me.  The tension I have found is between the wildness that I experience in evangelical (even post-evangelical) settings and the tradition I experience in more liturgical settings.  This force has mostly stretched or elongated my own journey in following God in a Jesus way - it has also felt like a hike in the woods that turns into a survival experiement.

My buddy ysmarko captures one aspect of this tension is a post today with a quote he is using this fall as he talks with thousands of youth pastors across the U.S.in his closing session talk at the national youth workers conventions, which i got from the great book, the shaping of things to come (quote from hans kung):

a church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling?. [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, live by improvisation and experiment.

Striking camp can take us deeper and deeper in the wilderness that Parker Palmer describes:

People who are not grounded, remain unconnected, lie, and hoard do not lack a soul. Rather, the soul was a 'wild animal,' and 'exactly like a wild animal, the soul is also essentially shy. We know that if we want to see a wild animal the last thing we should do is run crashing through the woods screaming for it to come out ... We must walk quietly into the woods, sit at the base of a tree for a long while sometimes, breathe with the earth, and eventually this precious wild thing we seek may put in an appearance.

I must confess that my soul aches when I am in many traditional Episcopal or mainline settings.  Far too often, they have the feel of a natural history museum, where dioramas depicted wildness of old, but the current setting has been scrubbed of any & all wildness.  It feels like a sign is planted out in front:

No precious wild things allowed - please leash them or leave them at home

The movie makes an intense point about how Alexander Supertramp went about killing himself.  It was the berries or even the wilderness - it was the way in which he cut himself off, the way in which tried to be completely self-sufficient, the way in which true happiness or sadness could not be shared.

I experience that a lot in evangelical (or post-evangelical) settings.  The gathered people, or the core leaders, often set off from another camp, another church or denomination.   Sometimes this setting off takes place in a liminal setting, a safe space for unlearning and the gust of God's spirit blowing through unfettered.  What troubles me though is the lack of connection to a tradition, the creeping sense of a sort of Christian community Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome.  Far too often this is manifested as an unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another culture or from another time in the story of God followers or the Jesus way.

These are clearly not either or choices, nor are they fixed points on some spectrum or continuum.  Holding the wild and the tradition is a humble move, but I can sense the transformation that takes place when I read things like this post from Andrew Jones or read about what communities like transmission or ikon.

The movie provided an a-ha for me, one I learned during my brief and troubled stint in Boy Scouts as a wee 10 year old.  I did not learn how to tie a know or start a fire - I think I got only 1 merit badge.  But I did learn something that gives me meaning for the faith journey I am on (as well as the few hikes I take):

NEVER HIKE ALONE

Parker Palmer is right that our souls are wild & shy animals.  Moving into that wilderness demands a connection to our story, our ancestors, our tradition - all of this did not just get invented or re-imagined or even oozed.

NEVER HIKE ALONE