Trent Heath- The Wilderness- Outside Reading #2

Trent Heath

Blog #11

December 4, 2009

The Wilderness

It doesn't have to be

a desert: sheer cliffs,

wild beasts, scorpions

beneath the rocks.

It could be your

kitchen table at midnight,

where you relive the past,

dread the future.

How long will it last?

Forty days? Forty years?

Only God knows,

but an angel with dirty wings

sits across from you,

makes promise after

false promise sound

so real, so tempting.

William Miller. (2005). The Wilderness. Anglican Theological Review, 87(3), 469. Retrieved December 4, 2009, from ProQuest Religion. (Document ID: 884463571).

This is a poem I found concerning wilderness and religion, and I would like to let others read it and think about what it means to them. In my opinion it discusses the temptations that we face no matter where we are, whether we are in the wilderness or in the middle of civilization. There are going to be negative forces tempting us everywhere. We face the same challenges, sometimes those challenges wear different masks, or disguises but they exist either way. I believe this also relates to what we may perceive as easy because it is unknown and we see promises of security and comfort, but they really are not there. Does the man who lives in the woods not have the same problems as the banker? I mean so often we believe that other people have easier lives than we do, but really it is more that it is foreign to us, so we perceive it as easier. Think about that. Who do you envy? What problems do you have? Or maybe I am way off base here, I do not know because I did not write the poem, but this is what the poem means to me, and maybe interpretations of literature can be wrong, and obviously there are because we are graded in classrooms everyday in college on these things, but in my opinion just contemplating and coming to your own conclusions regarding a poem like this is a success in itself because it is a step to educate yourself.