Church of the Wild: How Nature Invitations Us into the Sacred (Church of the Wild, 1)

A gift for our time
I read Church of the Wild alone, in silence, in a remote desert canyon. There I was reminded of these lines from Rilke:”I was there with the first myth makers and monkswho made up your stories, traced your runes,But now I see you:wind, woods, and water,roaring at the rim of Christendom–you, land,to be left in darkness.”(Rilke, Book of Hours, I, 60)Church of the Wild also roars “at the rim of Christendom.” Roars, and whispers, dances, invites, seduces, imagines. “Come out deeper, friend, where the maps end, where the trail fades, where the weather is dicey, where ‘You will see rare beasts and have unique adventures.'” (WH Auden, A Christmas Oratorio).This is a deeply personal book, but it is not a memoir. Loorz retells some history, but it is not a history book. She does a deep dive into the meanings of important words and the kind of power they have (in historical context) for building empires, but it is not an epistemological writing. She unpacks the theological structures that humanity (mostly male humanity) have built around those words, and the concepts they wield, but it is not a book of theology – at least – not in the old way of doing theology. She draws deeply from the writings of such diverse voices as St. Isaac the Syrian and Clarissa Pinkola Estes to give grounding to doing this old thing in a new way. Loorz also gives us a loose guideline for how to be this “Church of the Wild” in the flesh, in community, but the book is not a “How to” manual. It invites imagination and daring, while giving groundwork for creating something solid and responsible to the Gospel of the Christ-way.To embody such responsibility is to steer away from the idolatrous DIY mentality that says “Anything goes.” This book does not advocate loosy–goosy, take the easy-way kind of spirituality. It asks – no, demands the asking of hard questions; of looking seriously into the very real despair that comes with climate devastation and the change of behaviors such demands of morally conscious communities. How do we look directly at the reality which has been unfolding for several centuries and is now upon us, and not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by despair? How do we love that which we are losing? How do we care for ourselves and each other in the face of such devastation? Most of the people I see for spiritual direction are asking that very question. I am grateful to have another resource to which I can send them. Chapter Seven, “Love is as Strong as Death” alone is worth the price of admission.We who follow the Christ in the person of Jesus but just can’t do the power structures of the church any longer (and I write as a card-carrying member of such), need this book to help us be faithful in a new, ancient way which allows the Holy One to live through us, in our skin, in ways which do so with courage, humor, groundedness and love. The world needs this book because it shows a way of being incarnational that many of us believe Jesus was actually modeling, he who did everything important as far away from the synagogues and Temple as possible; who met by the seaside, who taught on the hillside, who slept under the stars, who went off into the wilderness to pray. Victoria did not make this up. Jesus did.It is hard to define this book very clearly. In that respect it is like the wilderness it seeks to work across a wide spectrum of participation. The wilderness knows that every single part belongs; that nothing meaningful is disposable, that the sky and the wind and the river and the oceans and the creatures and the rain forests and the fungi are all equal partners in the working of the world. Thus we need this book to be just the way she wrote it – a little memoir, and a little epistomology, some cave-diving into words, the long view of history, the wider perspective of humanity, the flow of time.Bravo, Victoria. And, if you don’t mind, could I please be adopted as your children’s eccentric auntie?Canyon Woman

This is an excellent book.
Well written. Insightful and personal. For any person wanting to delve into the importance of nature and spirituality, this is excellent. I enjoyed reading it. I would also put it on the edge of modern Christianity, but squarely within historic Christianity.

This is a beautiful, thought provoking, joy inspiring book. And accessible to all. A great read.