Louisville Process Theology Network

Returning from the Wilderness

“Until modern times, we focused a great deal of our best thought upon rituals of return to the human condition. Seeking enlightenment, or the Promised Land, or the way home, a man (person) would go or be forced to go into the wilderness; measure himself against Creation; recognize finally his true place within it, and thus be saved both from pride and from despair.

Seeing himself as a tiny member of a world he cannot comprehend, or master, or in any sense possess, he cannot possibly think of himself as a god.

And by the same token, since he shares in, depends upon, and is graced by all of which he is a part, neither can he become a fiend; he cannot descend into the final despair of destructiveness.

Returning from the wilderness, he becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessings to his successors. He embodies the passing of time, living and dying with the human limits of grief and joy.”

Page 99 from “The Unsettling of America” by Wendell Berry.

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