Running Wild…into a wall

12. November 2007 by BruceSmith.

The Wilderness of the Soul

I hit a wall yesterday. You ever been there? The wall I hit, yes on the Sabbath, was an emotional, psychological, spiritual, and relational wall. After weeks of many intensely taxing situations I had come to a place of exhaustion. After watching one catastrophe after another in recent days and after weeks of “counseling” others on various issues (suicides, broken marriages, people throwing their lives and families away, health issues, career issues, …) I had come to a place where I had little left in the tank.

My response to finding myself in this state of mind was to finally withdraw from it all. What I need, I thought, is some down time, some me time, and a good movie. Sometimes that really can be a good thing, other times it is a cheap substitute for reality. The thinking goes along these lines, “There is so much brokenness in the world, so many dysfunctional people and relationships. I think the answer is to just go it alone for awhile and ‘find myself’”.

I think this occasionally, and I hear this an awful lot from others. Just days ago someone I know, and individual who has seen a great deal of difficulty and loss in this life shared with me the desire to just “remain alone” for the rest of the run (ie. the rest of this person’s life). In this case, the thinking was, “I hear too many stories of relationships falling apart…I think I will just avoid them all together and not risk the pain and heartache”. Sounds like a good strategy at first glance doesn’t it? After all, if relationships mean pain, then the avoidance of such relationships equals a pain free life. Right? Maybe not.

O.k., back to my own pity party. In taking my “time away” I found myself sitting in a movie theater longing for some adventure and stress free entertainment. Unfortunately, I found myself staring misery and brokenness in the face on a huge silver screen. The context of the film could not have been more ominous, brooding, emotionally taxing, or relevant as it turned out.

The film I wound up watching was Into the Wild, which is the story of an Emory University Graduate who had grown up in an affluent and academic household amidst a great deal of dysfunction and pressure. Through the years, Alexander SuperTramp, as the character had renamed himself, had become disenchanted with life, relationships, and family. Upon his graduation from a prestigious school and after contemplating Harvard Law, SuperTramp made a decision to run from the emotional and physical abuse he had seen in his own home and which had grown like cancer in his own soul, and he decided to abandon all relationships and human interaction. His goal: set out for the wild. SuperTramp, who would eventually embrace his true name in the end, had decided that the way to healing, the true self, was to be found in being alone and free from all societal, familial, and human interaction. The depth of his internal pain, he had decided, could only be healed in running into the wild of Alaska and away from the people and pursuits that had so afflicted him.

Most of us, if honest enough, would have to admit that we have taken a similar approach at one time or another. The child who was abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent is tempted to think that everyone, including God, will eventually abandon them. The wife or husband who remained true and engaged in a marriage only to watch in horror as a spouse turns from God and family wonders if they will ever find a relationship that “works” again. This is especially true for those who really made an attempt to be the kind of husband or wife God called them to be. The quest to find another “whole” human being can seem nearly impossible. While we are all certainly broken to some extent, it seems that in this culture of affluence, entertainment, and prosperity, very few, or so it appears, pursue life in such a way that it leads to a sense of emotional, relational, and psychological stability. Indeed, in the last two decades, despite the roaring increase in wealth, we find a culture that is more addicted, more depressed, more suicidal, more work obsessed, and more unhappy than ever. As the book Affluenza (by John De Graaf and others) shows in vivid detail, our quest to keep up with the Jones had led us also to a loathing of ourselves, our lives, and that of the Jones we seek to match ourselves to.

Well, let me get to the point. What I was reminded of as I went into the wild and tried to get away from it all, was the same lesson SuperTramp learned out in the wild of Alaska. Actually, he acquired his wisdom all along the way as he set out for Alaska hitchhiking across the country and living as a nomad; it merely was crystallized for him, albeit too late, in the wilderness of his own madness as he lay alone, starving, and in the throws of lunacy and physical pain. The last words he penned just as his “expedition” was expiring unfold the truth he found in the end, “…happiness, if experienced, comes only when it is shared”. SuperTramp, as he lay dying in the back of an abandoned bus he happened upon in mountains of Alaska, spent his last moments finally understanding the meaning of life and what it means to live life to the full. As he rolled back the tape and remembered the moments of happiness in his life, he was profoundly awakened to the reality that each of those moments of bliss was experienced in the company of others. While he recognized that much in his life had been less than ideal, he was equally aware that the moments of truth, goodness, and beauty were experienced as he was in community with other less than perfect people, people who like him, also had their own pains, failures, and questions.

In one particular moment SuperTramp stood atop a mountain with a fellow traveler he had happened upon. As the elderly man shared his love and concern for SuperTramp, and as he voiced his concern that Alexander would never find healing until and unless he embraced forgiveness for those who had hurt him, God shined his light upon them, literally. The two of them had climbed their way to the top of a mountain under an overcast sky to see the view. Just as the man was telling Alex to embrace love, forgiveness, and the truth of God, and to allow the “light of God to shine in”, the skies cleared up and Alex and his friend were enveloped in the intense glow of the sun. They both shrieked in astonishment and joy, and broke out in teary-eyed laughter as they marveled at God’s timing and the power of truth to enlighten their lives.

So, here is the deal. We are all broken. We all get tired of the race. We all are in need of offering and experiencing forgiveness. We all are in need of experiencing and offering vulnerable, pure, and Godly love. AND, we all find it in one place, and one place alone. The only real healing any of us will find, and the lasting peace we can offer to others is found in the person of Jesus. Unless we have a source of love that both exemplifies and offers love and forgiveness to us, we are without hope and destined to run into a wall. If we are to escape the fate of lunacy, madness, and loneliness, we must find the fountain of truth.

In Luke Chapter 4 Jesus offers us His mission statement. As He stands before His audience and quotes the Old Testament (Isaiah 61:1,2), He tells them that in Him this truth finds its reality. This freedom, this life, this hope, this release, this healing, Jesus tells the world, is found in Him. There is no amount of teaching, reading, counseling, programming, chemical consumption, or any other human approach that will bring us the deliverance we seek. Life, life to the full, is found in one place. The healing of lives, relationships, and hearts is found in this mission statement. Our pasts are redeemed here, and our futures unfold here, as we embrace these words, this Man. There is no other escape. Jesus speaks these word to us today,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed

Friends, if you are looking for your true self, you will not find it in an attempt to invent yourself. God has a life for you to live, and He wants to write His name on your heart. You will not find yourself alone. Aside from Him you have no hope of anything but greater darkness, stronger captivity, and more oppression. Any amount of acquisition, success, power, or pleasure will serve only to deepen your emptiness. He alone can set you free. And once you experience that freedom you become free to love and to offer your heart to others. And that, my friends, is where happiness is found.

Hoping and praying that you find your hope, your heart, your rest, and your future in Him,

Bruce Smith

Optimuslife.org

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