Landscapes of the Sacred 1

In the beginning of the book, Landscapes of the Sacred, Lane talks about an encounter he had in the woods. He began his story of this encounter saying how he had set out with the intention of finding God in “every leaf and bush”, but in this time he was dissatisfied with the fact that God could not be caught. Not long after this, a clearing hailed him to enter and he found that the simplicity of a moment with a deer is where the holy was revealed. Lane says “My own simple story fits this larger pattern--- with its idealized flight to a redemptive wilderness, a renewed innocence never quite realized but always sought, a quest for the holy that is fulfilled finally in accepting the ordinary”. This is what led to Lanes axioms of sacred space. The pattern that shows how we are nature is redemptive and it taps into our innocent love of the wilderness and our innocent love for God.

 Because we have spent time focusing on the axioms already I decided to focus on this quote. I believe Lane is correct in saying there is a pattern in what people experience when they go into the wilderness. It is a place that people go to seek something, intentionally or unintentionally, but as the pattern shows what is revealed to us is never what we were expecting.

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