Daily Thought For May 3, 2022
The Wilderness
Any life that cannot measure up to the wilderness, or seeks to evade it, is not worth much. There must be periods of withdrawal alternating with periods of activity and companionship or the horizons will shrink and life lose its savor. Unless a man consciously retires within himself to that quiet place where he may think out great problems he cannot hope to solve them and if he denies himself this healing effort an evil fate will certainly overtake him. God, who loves him, will chain him in loneliness, perhaps to his own undoing. And the world too will be in a bad way if ever it happens that there are no more wildernesses, no more silent unspoilt places to which a man can retire and think, if every corner of the earth is filled with noise and underground tunnels and soaring airplanes and communication networks, if cables and sewers scar the surface and undermine the crust.
Mankind needs to keep a few quiet corners for those who seek a respite and feel the urge to retreat for a while from over-civilization to creative silence. For those who occasionally feel the hermit instinct there should at least be a chance to try it out. The law of absolute utility, of total functionalism, is not a law of life. There is an extraordinarily close connection between the wilderness and fruitful, satisfying life. Where all the secluded places ring with tumult, where the silent muses have been degraded to pack horses and all the sources of inspiration forced into the service of official mills grinding out propaganda, the wilderness has indeed been conquered—but at what a price. Even greater devastation has taken its place. The wilderness has a necessary function in life. “Abandonment” one of my friends called it and the word is very apt Abandonment to wind and weather and day and night and all the intervening hours. And abandonment to the silence of God, the greatest abandonment of all. The virtue that thrives most on it—patience—is the most necessary of all virtues that spring from the heart—and the Spirit.
Please don’t think I am trying to write an ode to the wilderness. Anyone who has ever had to encounter and withstand a wilderness must have a healthy respect for it—and must speak of it with the reserve that prompts a man to hide his wounds and his weaknesses. It is a great place for thinking things out, for recognizing facts, for getting new light on problems and for reaching decisions. A heavy load brings the ship low in the water but it also keeps her steady. The wilderness represents the law of endurance, the firmness that makes a man. It is the quiet corner reserved for tears, prayers for help, humiliations, terror. But it is a part of life and to try to avoid it only postpones the trial.
Delp, Fr. Alfred. The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp (pp. 125-126). Papamoa Press. Kindle Edition.