The Wild Ones
My meditation from a week ago led to these wonderings:
Where are the wild ones? The ones who see far away?
Those who can see where we are headed, where we should go?
Where are the wild ones? The ones who fly?
Are they gone? Are they lost? Are they crushed by the culture of today?
Have they left us? Flown away to be with other wild ones?
How can we be true without them?
Will we just sink into a restricted version of what was?
As we re-open our world, as the Government give us back freedom to do what we always used to do, will we have learnt and grown and changed from the experience we have been through?
Or will we simply rush to be even more fully what we were, that is those who grabbed and hoarded, those who wanted and consumed, those who blamed and accused, those who looked back, those who cared less, those who looked inward?
We have missed our consumer culture with fast food, easy service, instant gratification, social credit, accumulated wealth, holidays away, food from abroad, religious satisfaction (whether it be by sport, church, leisure, gym).
Our idols were stripped away and we had to live a simple life for a wee while.
A life where nature abounded, wildlife flourished, birdsong was heard; pollution abated, water ran clean, litter disappeared.
A life of home and family, learning to bake, enjoying cooking, taking up reading, playing games, DIY and gardening.
In a world of silence, stillness, emptiness, closure, lockdown, isolation.
In a world of loss that required us to embrace practical care, neighbourhood songs, enterprising love, sacrificial work.
As the world re-opens the song of neigbours is lost, time to stop is stolen, busy lives, social lives and consumerist loves resume, and we recover our idols.
Where are the prophets who will proclaim the wild way, the way of freedom and care, of clean air and clear water, of community, of love and of God?
Where are the prophets who will buck the system and allow closure and failure to find a new way forward and risk growth in love and truth?
Where are the prophets as the church once again locks itself in its buildings and resumes its rituals?
Where are the prophets who will call us out of the buildings and let them stay shut?
Where are the prophets who will unlock the padlocks of legal requirement and set us free to live wild and in love?
