A Note on Faith

In reading these stories one might feel as if I have attached some great religious significance to what happened to me in the wilderness.  On the broadest, crudest,  level you might be right, but do not confuse that with any typical conceptualization of religion and faith in a God who sits in judgment of the unfaithful or those who do not follow the letter of ancient prescriptions from an old and badly translated group of writings.

My faith is real and based on experience.  I know what I know, and it is unshakable.  I am, after all, Big Chief Full of Shit.  When I began College I thought I was going to become a pastor in the Church.  Looking back I now know that my beliefs were hopelessly immature and shallow.  As I matured in the crucible of school forging deep bonds of friendship with my comrades, and discovered what I have described in the wilderness, I lost all traces of conventional faith and religiosity.  The faith that replaced it was much deeper, much more profound, and it is my foundation today.  At the root there are the truths I discovered that afternoon at the bottom of the Grand Canyon; they were reinforced by many other experiences, mostly in the woods, but not always.  My faith has been tempered by my fall and the resulting separation from wilderness.  Now twenty five years after my fall it is as strong as ever.

At the core, there is a force more powerful than our selves, both as individuals and as a collective.  Lau Tzu in the Tau Te Ching refers to this force as simply the Way (Tau.)  Only those who know the Way can and do experience true contentment.  It is only natural that those who have experienced it and know the Way will try to pass it on to others.  This is doomed to failure. 

A noted Jewish scholar, Martin Buber, also noted this in his hierarchy of experiences or interactions people have within the world.  He refers to those experiences with the divine as an I-Thou relationship and when one tries to pass those experiences to others they necessarily become I-You relationships.  Lau Tzu expresses this by saying that the Law follows from the Way, but it is always a poor substitute. 

My faith is rooted in my experience with the Way. I am not trying to pass on my experience with the transcendental, I can not, but I am trying to express the joy and fulfillment I found in Wildness.  I also want to encourage all who may read this to try, in their own manner, to find it for themselves.  Even if a person’s perception of the Way is a profound non belief, but is what they have found, that is right for them.

For me, I know that all will be right, as long as there are wild places where my heart and mind can roam; even if I can not physically be there.  The quote on the front piece from Edward Abbey sums this up nicely:

But love of the wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need – if only we had eyes to see.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading these essays. If you would like to ask any questions or make a comment feel free to contact me: kherrell@comcast.net