Feeding a hunger in the wilderness

Carlsbad, N.M.

There are those who want something more than security or pleasure; those who can't help but taunt security or pleasure....

There may be some bravado in their posture, but maybe they also know a tender dimension of adventure. Perhaps the restless risk-takers find in the wilderness a home for their brokenness; something of raw beauty to touch that which needs to be touched within.

And so they head out into the wilds, casting themselves...upon the ultimate insecurity and wonder of the elements.

-Geez Magazine

I lowered the magazine in my hands. The words I had just read about caution, security and pleasure rolled in my mind as I tried to look past my shadowy reflection in the bus window and into the black Arizona night. We were making our way back to British Columbia after five days of caving around Carlsbad, N.M., and our heads were full of images of rocks, stories of exploration, memories of fear and excitement-anything but feelings of caution and comfort.

There were 13 of us who drove the 40-plus hours to reach the promised land of New Mexico. We spent the week living like gypsies in a local caver's backyard-using the washroom at the grocery store next door, cooking our meals on stoves in the grass, sleeping under the stars.

Every morning we would be awakened by birdsong and the sounds of the trucks unloading their products at the grocery store loading dock. The locals watched us mill about in our little "lawn-village" all week, and I'm certain we thoroughly amused them.

By the end of the week, the milk truck driver became so curious that he approached me. "Do you like the chocolate milk?" he asked over the rock wall that separated our impromptu community from the loading dock. His English was textured by his native Spanish.

"Well...I suppose I do," I said, a bit taken aback.

He disappeared around the back of his truck and returned in a moment with two litres of chocolate milk in one hand, and four litres of skim in the other. Then we talked about where I was from, and why I was living in someone's backyard, and I thought how wonderful it was that I was getting to know the Carlsbad grocery store milkman. The others were just happy that I had scored some free milk.

We spent our days wandering into the desert, weaving through cacti until we found holes that opened up under the hot, dry skin of the earth. And down we would go. Suddenly, the vast mesas and dizzying blue sky were a memory, and our worlds became only as big as the glow emitting from the headlamps affixed to our helmets.

We would run our hands along the dry walls and peer closely at the rock that was still alive-glistening with water that was dripping from the roof above. The caves were pulsing, breathing things that grew sluggishly but persistently, as if they knew that the slower they moved, the stronger they would be.

Some of the rooms were as big as churches, filled with columns and decorations. If you were the lucky one who wandered in to one of these rooms first-with only your light peering into the darkness around you-your heart would lurch and your breath would catch.

My friend Lori was writing about God during our bus ride home. She passed me her journal at one point, and I read:

"Where has our hunger gone? How have experiences like caving in New Mexico become the extreme and not the norm? Why do caution and comfort motivate us more than adventure and passion? How long have we been so afraid?"

It is time to live illogically. It is time to respond to your gut. It is time to accept that God is moving in ways that humans can never understand, and it is time to take a risk. We are all meant to be adventurers and explorers, to discover new and important things.

Some of us quench that thirst by going into the wilderness. But our needs are truly deeper than that. They will remain insatiable as long as we look to the earth to speak to our brokenness and longing.

It is our spirits and our hearts that must risk-that must move illogically-that must open their arms to fear and excitement and danger and hurt. It is in us that the greatest adventures should take place.

[Author Affiliation]

-Andrea Ykema

The author just completed her first year at Columbia Bible College, Abbotsford, B.C., where she is studying outdoor leadership.