It is in the wilderness that the dizzying noise of life fades, and where the soul is exposed to God. For sure the mountains can be wilderness to us, but can we find wilderness in the city?
Wilderness is not obviously a place of beauty, rather it is the lost place, barren and unloved. Neither is it a safe place, it is enhabited by people who are outcast or recluse. The wilderness is the hard place, the quiet place. Where can we find it?
5 comments:
yes, it's an interesting one, the city. Traditionally it's been in 'nature' that God is meant to be seen, but if people are in God's image, then God should be most visible where the most people are. I found Kester Brewin's writing on that quite thought provoking.
Wilderness has connotations of being alone, and that almost never happens in London, physically. But at the same time, you're always anonymous and people avoid eye contact and never speak to each other, so you might as well be alone. In fact that may be even more lonely than an empty space, because it's wilful disengagement. So perhaps the tube, that would be my wilderness.
The tube is a very good suggestion. A day spent down there would certainly be a wilderness experience...
I would love to find somewhere ancient and slightly neglected (now that still sounds like the tube!) - there is that old bombed out church in the middle of the city that is now a garden - I wonder if we could use that
Ah, you've got me thinking now. If you wanted to get people together somewhere, what about a multi-storey car park after closing. that would be awesome - really bleak, stark lighting, purely practical and entirely souless. Good acoustics though, no doubt. How cool would it be to lay out rugs and folding chairs in an underground car park and do church there? or three or four floors up a multistorey and sing over the city? the phrase 'how do we sing god's songs in a foreign land?' springs to mind!
An abandoned warehouse would work too, or a shopping centre after closing if you could get permission, or somewhere like Battersea power station. Anywhere in the city itself is completely silent on a sunday too - all round the banks and so on. Or there are offices that are standing empty in loads of places. There's a huge one just across the road from here, really nice offices, but no furniture, no carpets, just empty boring space.
Time Out has done a feature on just that this week - "Disused London - finding beauty in decay". Some great pictures.
I think the wilderness generally has an element of the unknown, so the underground wouldn't cut it for me. On beauty as an aspect of wilderness, there are definitely plenty of beautiful buildings around london, especially since I find dilapidated/decaying buildings one of the most beautiful things ever. www.toddhido.com is inspiration for me, as are the scrapyards of Hackney. Jeremy, I was glad to find that someone else finds Battersea power station amazing, I think its like a cathedral. Lets get in there quick before they turn it into apartments or a shopping mall!
Another way I find I can experience 'wilderness' in the busy city is just to shut my eyes and listen. The minute I think about the busyness around me, I'm separated from it rather than being part of it. Through my work we spend quite a lot of time listening. Just recording a street scene and then replaying it over a stereo makes you perceive the noise of the city in a whole new way, it really gives a sense of awe.
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