The Gospel of Mark, the earliest in the Christian tradition, begins with the adult Jesus seeking baptism. The earliest Gospel begins with his yearning for cleansing and the hope of new life that John the Baptist promised. It was a very human yearning, I think, that drew Jesus to the Jordan.

Immediately after his baptism, “the spirit drove him into the wilderness.” This is the season of Lent, in the Christian liturgical calendar, a time of preparation, of seeking and centering, modeled on the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness.

Many of us know wilderness journeys in our own lives, times of uncertainty and seeking. The wilderness can certainly be a place of loneliness. The natural world can also be place of renewal. It is for many of us. I wonder if we always need to experience the wilderness and the times of searching in only a negative way.

Rev. Jake Morrill offers this story:

“For twelve years, Daisy has been the best dog any person could love. But last week, when she disappeared into the woods? That wasn’t what I was thinking. As I tramped along the wet trail, calling for her, other words came to mind.

“We’ve rambled together through these woods for years. Well, I ramble. She bounds. Even now, slowed by arthritis, something out there makes a puppy of her. So, mostly, she remains a black blur through the trees. After a while, I turn back and she meets me at the trailhead. Except last week, when, for the first time, she didn’t. I had to walk back up the trail into the woods, whistling, singing out, ‘Daisy! Daisy! Here girl!’ Like a fool.

“Which is how it is sometimes between me and God. Some know god as a thunderstorm: scary, overwhelming. Others, as a porch light: steady, soft, always on. But I like a Celtic image of the spirit: a wild goose. Untamed, ungoverned by our words, our demands, our categories of mind. A wild goose goes where it will.

“For Christians, Lent is a wilderness time. A time when it’s not clear how, or if, Love will win in the end. A time to ponder Love’s elusiveness. Its absence. I’ve known times when I’ve wandered bereft. Maybe you have, as well. What if Love wasn’t a far porch light, toward which we have to trudge? What if it was a wild goose, a wet dog? Instead of some grim pursuit, in our desire to meet it, we’d be compelled to sing out. To invite, to entice it.

“In the end, Daisy returned, very pleased with herself. But, before? In the woods? When I thought she was gone? All I knew was my part: to sing out her name.”

Blessings of the season,

Bill