Guest commentary by Beth Brown
For as long as I can remember, I have been afraid of the night. When my spiritual director first issued the invitation to do a five-day “vision fast” in the wilderness, I remember the difference between my head and heart response. My head was saying, “No way would I ever go alone into the wilderness for five days!” My heart was saying, “Of course I will go into the wilderness to seek God more clearly and deeply.”
When the invitation was issued, I had just completed a 30-week practice doing the spiritual exercise of St. Ignatius with three other women and our spiritual director. Three of the four of us decided we felt called into the wilderness and so our preparations began. For a month, we received training in first aid, animal safety, how to fast for five days and what kinds of spiritual practices we would engage in while on our own. Every time we had conversations about wild animals, nighttime fears or first aid, I could feel my heart racing and my hands shaking. I was truly afraid and it was only because of how deeply I felt called that I continued with the preparation.
At sunrise on day one, we gathered around a fire, participated in a blessing ritual of smudging and being smudged and then we each set off into our own wilderness area in the northern part of the Napa Valley in California. Loaded down with water jugs and a backpack, I hiked to what would be my home for the next five days. It took me less than an hour to set up my camp (no tents were allowed), and then I realized I had no idea what to do next. I am an active person, so I spent a couple of hours hiking and walking and exploring the area around my “camp.” Hunger began to set in and it’s astounding how loud hunger sounds can be when there are no other competing noises! Wanting to distract myself, I decided to make a schedule for the week. I had paper and pens so I could journal through my experience. After I made my schedule, I looked it over and realized that inactivity was almost as terrifying for me as the night. When I realized I had done everything on my list for the day before it was even noon, panic began to creep into my mind and body. What on earth would I do for five days?
That first afternoon dragged on interminably as I waited with dread and fear for the sun to set. As soon as it was dark, I climbed into my sleeping bag, put on a baseball cap and covered myself in mosquito netting as it was a warm night in early June and the mosquitos were everywhere. Sleep was not my friend that first night and I learned, despite all of my years of camping (but hidden in tents), that stars come out one at a time. That first one appears and then another and another and as the sun sinks further and further and darkness covers the sky, the stars come out to play as though being bidden by playmates. Later in the week when I stayed awake all night, I learned the reverse was true as well. One by one, they go back from where they came as the sun begins to rise.
At some point during that first night, I fell asleep for a bit and then wakened with a start. When my eyes shot open to figure out what had awakened me, I saw the strangest sight. Peering at me were two little beady eyes that made no sense. As my brain processed what I was seeing, I realized a mouse had climbed onto the bill of my baseball cap and was bent over looking at me. All at once I jumped up, hit my cap off my head and screamed a little. Maybe a lot. I did the dance we all do when a bug or creature has invaded our body space and then worked on calming down. Eventually I laid back down but heard mice scratching everywhere and didn’t think it was just my imagination. When the sun finally came up to rescue me from the night, I looked under my tarp and, lo and behold, I had spread my tarp over an entire mouse city made up of holes and tunnels. With no further ado, I left them to their home and I found a new home with no holes or tunnels. While I had envisioned being torn limb from limb by a mountain lion guarding her cub, I was forced to consider the visit from my new animal totem – the mouse. So far, the wilderness was not what I expected.
After the second day of fasting, I no longer felt hungry. Instead, I felt the slowing of my body and mind as well as the sharpened focus. Food-fueled energy is very different than hunger-fueled focus. I paid attention to what I was seeing and hearing because my blood and muscles and oxygen were moving more slowly through my body. Without feeling hunger and without the need to think about or plan for food or eating meals, I had space within me to listen. Like most of us, when we finally get to that place, we hope and sometimes plead for God to speak. In my experience, God is not on speed dial and is also not much into texting, so one simply has to wait. And wait. And keep listening. It wasn’t during any of my prayer times that God spoke to me. It was while I was washing my clothes one day in the nearby stream. As I was perched on a rock and bent over as I scrubbed, God asked me a question I will never forget. “Am I enough for you, Beth?” It didn’t occur to me in that moment to question whether it was God speaking or not, so I answered as best as I knew how. “Yes, as long as you include my family and friends. You know how much I love my little girls and you know how much I love my friends and my family.” And the conversation continued. “I know how much you love them. But am I enough for you?” And because I am a Taurus, I said, “Yes, you are enough for me along with my family and friends.” Though I didn’t understand the purpose of the question that day, it ended up being very important in the years to come in a way that I never would have imagined.
Gerald G. May wrote of his experience in the wilderness, “Wilderness is not just a place; it is also a state of being. If happiness means being happy and sadness means being sad, then wilderness means being wilder. Look it up, and you’ll find that the primary meaning of wild is ‘natural.’ In turn, natural comes from the Latin nasci, meaning ‘to be born.’ Words like natal, nativity, and native come from the same root, all referring to birth. Wilderness, then, is not only the nature you find outdoors. It can also refer to your own true Nature – the You that is closest to your birth. This inner wilderness is the untamed truth of who you really are.”
Within six months of returning from the wilderness, I met and fell in love with a woman and came out as lesbian. As I lost my marriage, my home, my church, my community and many friends, I clung to the question, “Am I enough for you, Beth?” There were days when I can honestly say I wasn’t sure if God was enough, but on every single one of those days, someone reached out to me by phone or email or a card in the mail or with a date to have coffee. When some friends told me I was in the grips of the devil, God would show up in the form of a new friend who would tell me how inspired they were by my authenticity — “the untamed truth of who I really was,” in the words of Gerald May.
Someone asked me recently if I would ever do another five-day vision fast in the wilderness. My response was to laugh heartily and say, “No way. I know better now.” But the truth is that even though I thought I was facing my fear of the night, what I was really facing was the fear of my authentic self. My wild self. The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius invited me to experience imagination and the love of God and reading Scripture and walking with Jesus in ways that have changed my life. The wilderness invited me back into the womb of God to be born again into the love of God that is enough.
BETH BROWN has been ordained for almost 25 years and has specialized in transitional ministry, mediation and spiritual direction. Beth is currently serving as pastor for Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church in Chicago. She has two young adult daughters, Emily and Anna.
