Wilderness Theology or Pagan Saints

I have decided to devote this blog to developing thoughts I began collecting in college. Somewhere around fall of my senior year I began to think of things through the filter of the wilderness. I call these thoughts 'Wilderness Theology'.

It is a theology, because it is fundamentally rooted in theism (in the general use of the word). Wilderness Theology is a way to view the world in a similar way as Liberation Theology or Existential Theology. While belief in God permiates throug WT, it often focuses on humans and our environment. I have thought about renaming it Wilderness Anthropology or Wilderness Theory, but neither of these seem sufficient to capture its full measure of spirituality. "Anthropology" seems to neglect the deep connection the thoughts have with the divine. "Theory" is okay. After all, these thoughts are far from fully developed. On the other hand, for years I have lived the theory, and it deeply impacts my daily decisions. Wilderness Theology is far from abstract.

You may be wondering about the optional second title "Pagan Saints". Like all good theologies, WT has in mind the ethical turn. One core observation of WT is that the so called "Pagan" religions include some of the most connected people trying to live in balance with the wilderness. It is my belief that many versions of Christianity throughout the ages have diametrically opposed themselves to the way of the pagans. In doing so we have considered their connection with nature devlish; this should never have been, because deeply rooted within the heart of Christianity and Judaism is life in balance with nature. The title "Pagan Saints" labels the hope of making saints out of the pagans and re-paganizing the saints. Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy must have the chance to regain God's heart for the redemption of the whole of creation.

I decided to develp these thoughts into a webpage for a few reasons. For starters, I have soaked in the implications of Wilderness Theology far too long. I need to put them in writing. Personal journaling has not worked too well. Blogging is more fun than writing in a book that is closed 95% of the day.

Furthermore, blogging is a community project. I want your insights. I hope to hear your thoughts on Wilderness Theology, because it will make them better. I think these thoughts have great implications for our society and for individual redemption. You will see corners of WT in greater ways than I can alone.

Of course, there are a few hazards to using a blog to develop what I consider some of my best thoughts. It makes them open for everyone to read. In a day and age when people like me want to make a living off our thoughts, blogging is not the smartest way to write. But this is the way I look at it: I'm going to die...someday. Perhaps this will be sooner than later, and I want to get the word out about the wilderness. The thoughts will do no good collecting dust in a journal. I have other projects that I'll save for the publisher anyway.

Like I said before, WT is a collection of thoughts. I probably am not the first to think them or organize them in this way, but I haven't read them elsewhere.

So, let me begin with a few disclaimers:

-WT stems from my experience in the woods. Many of you know that I love the wilderness. I have spent much time in the woods. While school has intruded on my ability to be in the woods, I hope to always find myself by a stream somewhere overshadowed with trees.

-WT does not center around ecology or a greener earth for the sake of generations to come, though it definately has implications toward balance in creation. It is a theology.

-WT is practical in nature, but rooted in the abstract. Readers beware of confounded philosophy, especially when in conversation with existentialism and transcendentalism.

-WT is rooted in Christian scripture, or perhaps it describes it (by the way, I don't think its scriptural connection limits its relevance only to Christian people. Actually it is quite the opposite).

-WT contains sociological and anthropological theory (This might be my favorite aspect).

-I am a western middle class male desceded from Europe pursuing doctoral work. Please let your heritage challenge my thoughts.

-I am weak in the realms of biology, chemistry, physics, and general math. I could imagine that these disciplines would impact WT in giant ways. I am counting on you to show me how.

-I am keeping the former site name: Druadan Forest. As you can tell, the creation of the former blog had the future blog in mind. (Click on the title to find out more about the name DruadanForest)

-WT has vast implications for the city.

I hope you enjoy this site, and feel free to add to the project (See the disclaimer about copywright below). Feel free to email any quesitons to me you may have. I am happy to talk more about WT or this project in general.

life needs grandeur

Life needs grandeur. Luckily we live on the earth. As the mundanity of life creeps from our corner places into our everyday living, something in us begins to die. We suffocate within the walls of our sometimes sturdy shelters, losing perspective, losing awe, losing enchantment. One remedy for such a depression is grandeur. Mountains, trees, ravines, fields, starry skies, storms, oceans, lakes, deserts, glaciers; all pull us from our tiny lives into the greater epic that alludes the mundane.

There are many types of grandeur: large scale, small scale, mythical, actual, fast, slow, gentle, and full of power. Our access to the wonders of this world are most imperative to our health.

For example:

Mountains make you loose yourself in the firm and vast expanses. They are giants, full of solid rock that steep their way up to the sky. From a distance, an mountain is a unit of shades and cuts and lines. Yet, when climbing or hiking a mountainside it overwhelms you with its intricacies and parts.

Trees are firm but stretchy in the wind. Their thousand fingers wave in the wind, their branches twist from all sides. The trunk is firm and uniform, the roots complex and deep. The delve in the direction of strength and security.

Ravines are valleys full of growth and wild things dwell in holes galore. Vines and trees make a community full of diversity and wonder. Something is always at the bottom of a ravine, mostly water and dried up banks. But you have to climb down it to see.

Open fields invite freedom and lostness. The stretches of the prarie land flow in the wind mimicking the marching of a vast invisible army. An ocean of grass can strech for miles bearing millions of living things, billlions.

Starry Skies are like a scroll streched wide across the sky. Small things of light that engulf nearby astroids. Speckled across the cobalt sky the flickering dots have travled millions of years to meet our eyes.

Storms well up from billowing clouds. The terrifying calm that preceeds its fury steal the breatheable air. Slowly the shades of white, gray, and black squeeze single drops of warning until the skys pound the earth with water. Spectacles of light and loud rumbling-crashes frigten all living things into shelter. Sometimes deadly things spring forth from storms; giant suction clouds, deadly gales, and enormous waves.

Oceans command the deep respect of those who would venture within. Giant creatures swarm below while giant waves curl atop. The deep will swalow anything that drifts hundreds of thousands of feet. The oceans shelve the celestial beings revealing the morning sun and the evening moon. At night the oceans even swallow the sun.

Lakes reflect the world like a crysal mirror. They make the world seem twice as big and twice as plentiful. In the mornings the mist creeps its way over the calm glass. Creatures live below in murky waters while deer and antelope sip the shoreline.

Deserts consume the miles of landscape grain by grain of the life once there. At night it freezes and during day it scorches those who would venture into the wild.

Glaciers move mountains inch by inch creeping along the frozen ground. The cracking of ice, the skyscraper walls each tell of power concealed within.

The display of our vast earth is one example of grandeur. These are a few examples. In my experience, perceiving them is like ointment to the soul. Grand things are tangible versions. The skillful soul will percieve the grandeur outside her shelter door. But one must begin somewhere.

A Letter of Encouragement

Sorry for my slow paced blogging lately. The litte girl has mixed all three of our schedules up. What a blessed mixing-up. We've enjoyed parenthood tremendously.
So here is a letter of encouragement that I wrote to the international community here at the seminary. Those of us who work with the office of international community life send these a few times a term. Enjoy.

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Dear Fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I want to encourage you today about the weather. I don’t know what the weather is like at your home, but here we have four seasons: fall, spring, summer, and winter. I want to remind you that God has created seasons, in various forms whether they be four or two or three. We don’t know all the reasons why God has created our earth seasonally, but we rejoice that we are part of his natural cycle.

Let me paint a picture for you of the four season cycle here. In the summer all is alive, from the trees, to the insects, to the flowers, and the animals. The temperature is hot, so that we seek shade in the day and walk comfortably outside at night. Fall comes and with it brings colder weather. The life begins to fade from the trees, to the insects, to the flowers, and the animals. As winter sets, all seems lost, the trees have parted from their leaves, the flowers have withered, and the insects and animals hunker down and seem to disappear altogether. Finally, in mid-February, all seems dead, and we scurry from house to house in search of warmth. But, spring is around the corner.

Some days in mid-February are warmer than others, whispering of some warm days to come, and in our hearts we hope again that winter is almost over.

So my encouragement to you today is that winter is almost gone, here in Kentucky. It lingers up north, but for us we have almost arrived to that time when the trees give blossom, and the flowers they bloom. The animals come alive and the bees and creeping things arise again. And best of all, the weather warms so that we can walk comfortably without a coat.

While winter has a few more weeks to live, we can rejoice that God has made winter and enjoy the cold air in our lungs; but, have hope that our mornings will soon be met without frost and with the sun on our skin.

Our great disparity

As fall deepens at Shaker Village we have a little problem; or a litter of problems. For the last three weeks we've been haunted by the rustling sound of an illusive mouse and the scraps of tissue it leaves behind. No one has actually seen the little gal, but we all knew she was building a nest; under the desk, in crannies that we can't reach.

So the pest control man has come with sticky boxes and vanilla spray (He says vanilla will attract the varmint). They were trying to get her before she bred. But, all to no avail; and here's how I know why:

As I was reading my homework around 7.00pm I start to sense flashes of movement in my periphery. I've seen mice before behind our desk, so I knew what I was almost seeing. After a few minutes of intentional watching, the parade begins. Little mice appear, one after another, foraging around for tiny bits of food. I slowly learn where all the small holes are in the floor-boards as three baby mice scamper too quick to catch; even if I wanted to. One of them was definitely the brave one of the two, maybe he was the stupid one. He came within ten inches of my foot before I gave a little flick of my toes to scare him off. The other two were very timid; flashing at every tiny move I would make.

Anyway, this whole mouse experience has got me in a tight corner: on the one hand I know that the maintenance man will get them with traps eventually, on the other I know that God must delight in his little mouse-creation. Genesis 1 tells the story of our dominion over the creation: even to the little creatures that scamper across the ground (1.26)

Even Leviticus has an opinion:

Lev 19 "These are unclean for you among the creatures that
swarm upon the earth: the weasel, the mouse, the great lizard,
according to its kind, the gecko, the land crocodile, the lizard,
the sand lizard, and the chameleon"

One of the OT profs here give this great explanation of the Levitical codes on animals; that God wants us to STAY AWAY and DO NOT EAT, not because they are somehow gross, rather that he delights in them with intricate love.

I tried to remember this while the maintenance man set the traps. After I chased the furry toddlers around for a good half-hour, the clamps were sprung. I even gave a verbal warning to them, "Don't eat the trap-food. You have to leave now or you will die!". What were we to do? Leave the mice and give them the run of the place or just kill them? Is there a right way to co-exist with mice?

Now, all we had to do was wait for the snaps of death. The litany of my co-worker sums our great disparity, "I don't care if you snap them, stick them, poison them, or smash them; just get them dead". I couldn't help but wonder how our society has drifted so far from God's delightful creation and proclamation that this little mouse was GOOD.

We killed two.

Wilderness Bound

So tomorrow morning, say six-ish, we're off to Canada. We've packed the essentials, I got some new gear, and tomorrow night we'll be sleeping at the international border in Minnesota. It gets better! Monday morning we'll float-plane 86 miles into the heart of the Canadian wilderness to spend our daylights fishing.

I'm excited to be out in creation, pristine and wild. I'm excited about being away from the duties of Kentucky. I'm excited about building relationship with other guys. I hate being away from eve and her little pregnant self. It hurt to leave her today; I'm gonna miss her a ton! Perhaps her puffing little belly will be noticeably larger when we see each other next. I wonder.



There's hand fulls of life changes all intersecting this June. I feel a little bit out of control: maybe it should be that way.

If you get a chance to pray for us, we could use an extra portion of encouragement and perspective.

Love y'all

Copywright disclaimer

I hate having to write this link, but alas we live in a litigous culture. So, I want to voice at the outset that your participation in this blog is optional and and voluntary. If Wilderness Theology ever materializes into a work, I will use your ideas and suggestions as source material to be quoted and recognized. While it would be less than respectful to not honor the community-project as such, I reserve the rights to steward the the resources gained by the publication of the enclosed material.

It is difficult to discern, in these instances motivation for the above disclaimer contract. As far as I can tell, it is done out of community interest seeking to promote and preserve wild spaces.

Keith Jagger
April, 2008

Unprotected Walking

I was thinking a few days ago that walking on the sidewalk is like wearing a condom.

Our society drives us off certain patches of grass. Feel free to run across a park lawn, scamper around at recess, or trample your own patch of grass. But, don’t walk on immaculate lawns. Be careful how you stride on golf greens. And for your own sake, don’t run across your mean neighbor’s back yard even if it’s the only one separating you from your best friends. Kindly walk around…on the sidewalk.

I have a distinct memory from grade school. Roosevelt elementary is surrounded on all sides by concrete and black-top. Yet on the east side of Roosevelt, a small hill of untouched earth compliments the adjacent stony surface. Of course we had to run on the grass. Up and down we zoomed until that horrific voice rang itself aloud, “Stay off the terrace”. I hated that. Some adult thought that this patch of grass was too important for us to play on.

Why? Why should we stay off the earth? Sure our trodding presses on the grass, but it always grows back. Anyway, it was her institution that already paid a huge amount of money to permanently kill the grass that used to live underneath the blacktop.

You might accuse me of rebelling against the institution, or pathologically needing to forge my own path. Perhaps. But there’s something a lot deeper at play.

We saunter here and there always touching the ground, never touching the ground.
Whose idea was it anyway to pave our city pathways? I can understand the streets for cars, but why sidewalks? People have walked on the ground for millennia. Sure pathways get beaten, but why cover them up?

I suppose we value cleanliness enough that we’d rather walk on concrete than mud, especially in the rain. But what do we forfeit for the price of purity? Relationship. With the earth. I suppose the value that builds sidewalks says to the earth, “I want to use you, walk on you, even enjoy you from a distance, but I never want to touch you”.

When using a sidewalk and when using a condom one thing remains true. You’re very close, but not quite touching.

Maybe I just need to read a good book on the anthropology of sidewalks? Can anyone recommend a good one? Until then you can bet that you’ll find me ignoring all order of sidewalk as I search out the earth that is so lovely to touch.