Civility in the Wildnerness

We have convinced ourselves that we are not alive in the wild.

We have cushioned and wired and insulated every manner of thing, so much that we have arrived at this false reality with great sure: we are tame.

But we are not. Ask the fallen. We are not.

We plant artificial civility in the midst of a wildnerness too great for our plastics and drink tea in shiny manufactured cups, telling ourselves our beiges and bikes are the cure.

Shouldn't you laugh at that?

In truth we are as muted as we are vulgar and violent and unashamed.

There is as much in the quick as in the dull wit.

Some cannot soar through the towers of books and fame, but still they rise.

There should be place and space to keep us all, though we know that in the wilderness some are injured, some die.

When we squeeze here, the pain seeps out there. We can salve but not erase, it is always there.

The questions I have are these: have we cushioned the right seat? wired the right connection? insulated from the right injury?

I wonder that we might do better to dwell on the rightness of the wildnerness in her natural form, casting the civility for its false promise, so we can know in sun the good just as we embrace the moon, her twin. I wonder if that is not the call of the faithful. To be wild.