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Belief
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Wildness
6 min read

The Wild God we can't coerce

Weird and increasingly encountered beyond the wilderness.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A pianist raises his arms while sitting at a grand piano amid recording equipment.
Nick Cave recording Wild God.
nickcave.com

Christianity is a wild thing.  

I say this, even while only half-understanding what I’m saying. It’s something that I’m learning. Or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that it’s something that I’m unlearning. Because, admittedly, I’m far more familiar with a somewhat domesticated view of my own faith tradition. The kind that allows me to fashion fences out of my expectations; to put parameters around God’s presence and boundaries upon his behaviour. Both of which are a farce, of course - but a comforting farce, none the less.  

You see, there is nothing ‘comfortable’ about a God who cannot be wholly predicted or comprehended, let alone controlled or contained. A wild God is always going to be a challenge to a culture that has enthroned comfort. We’re too easily spooked and too unused to the sensation of being cosmically baffled.  

But, affronting as it may be, I am trying my best to sit in the knowledge that the God I believe in is a wild God. And I’m finding this wildness increasingly hard to ignore. Perhaps it’s all the Rowan Williams I’ve been reading, or my newfound interest in the Romantics (as in, the eighteenth and nineteenth century poets, not the 1970’s American rock band). Or maybe it has more to do with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ new album, which I have been listening to relentlessly over the last week. 

In this musical offering, Nick Cave introduces us to his ‘Wild God’, who I think is my God too. It’s just that ‘wild’ has never been the first adjective I reach for when describing him.  

Until now, I suppose.  

Let me clarify what I mean by wild, because what I’m not saying is that God is inherently chaotic, unruly, reckless or irrational. Wild Gods, as we know them from the myths and legends, act on tempestuous whims, and are more than a little havoc prone. They are perilous, largely because one can never truly know where they stand with them. That couldn’t be further from what I mean. The entire Old Testament - as complex, nuanced and masterful as it is - can be understood as a collection of ways in which the God at its centre is saying – this is who I am, this is what I desire, this is what I’m going to do, this is where you stand with me. If you were to read the Bible, it would become pretty clear pretty quickly: God is insistent that those who seek to know him will never have to second guess him. God’s wildness does not mean that we cannot know the essence of who he is or how he feels towards us. I like to think that we can endeavour to know him accurately, but never exhaustively.  

Rather, what I’m trying to get my head and heart around is the knowledge that God, and therefore Christianity, cannot be wholly domesticated. Despite my best efforts, it cannot be made into an entirely comfortable and cozy thing. To make it so, one would have to dilute it, shrink it, bleed any truth out of it. In his poem - Sometimes a Wild God -Tom Hirons writes, 

Oh, limitless space. 
Oh, eternal mystery. 
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth. 
Oh, miracle of life. 
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all’. 

There’s an innate weirdness to the Christian worldview, a pure wildness at the heart of it. It’s brimming with mystery and mysticism. As Hirons hints, it’s bigger and more consequential than our comfort-zones would like it to be. And, what’s more, much of it is communicated through the natural world. Biblical narratives and poetry are endlessly pointing us toward the places and spaces that are outside human cultivation – the stars, the mountains, the oceans – the things that pre-date and will outlive us.  

Christianity is wild in that there’s an alluring organic-ness about it. Its truth sits beyond human manipulation and coercion.  

For millennia, whole lives have been given over to this truly wild and, I believe, wildly true story. Can I give you just two recent examples? Two people who have (utterly unexpectedly) adventured their way into this wild and wonderful way of seeing the world? Two people I’ve had the joy of learning from over the past year? 

First up is Paul Kingsnorth.  

Paul is an award-winning poet and a best-selling author of both fiction (including the Buckmaster Trilogy: Wake, Beast and Alexandria) and non-fiction (including Real England, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and his ongoing Sub-Stack series: Abbey of Misrule). He is, and always has been, an advocate for treating the natural world as if it were far more than a machine to be used or a resource to be obtained. Such behaviour is, according to Paul, nothing short of sacrilegious. As well as an enchantment with what he can see and sense in the natural world, he also has a long-standing fascination with all things mystical.  

Buddhism, Witchcraft – you name it, he’s tried it. 

He told Justin Brierley and I the story of how he his adventures have led him to arrive at the wildest possible destination: Christianity.   

And then there’s the renowned mythologist, Dr Martin Shaw, who decided to do a 101-day wild vigil in Dartmoor. Despite not being a Christian, on the very last night, he prayed. While praying, he looked up and saw something utterly unexplainable, something ‘properly Old Testament’. And that was it – after a night of dancing, several other ‘odd’ experiences, and eighteen months of deep pondering – he was able to say, ‘I went into the forest expected to be wedded to the wild and I came out wedded to Christ’

Thinking about it, it’s probably no accident that ‘Christianity’ began on the margins, and from there, worked its way into the cities. There was a time where the prediction of Jesus’ arrival was being yelled out into the countryside, so loudly that people were emptying the surrounding towns to come and hear more. A time when rumours of redemption were being whispered in the rural hills. A time when its chief messenger was an inexplicably weird man named John the Baptist; who shunned his prestigious priestly heritage to live in the wilds, to dress in camel skins, to eat honey and insects and insist upon the imminent coming of the long-awaited Messiah. This Messiah, by the way, who would be born where animals are kept, sleep on mountains, retreat into deserts, walk on water, speak to storms, and break people (including himself) out of stone graves.  

You see what I mean, Christianity is a wild story to believe and live in accordance with.   

It’s the story that drove the ‘Desert Mothers and Fathers’ of the Third Century AD to reject civilisation and all its comforts, in order to seek God in the silence and solitude of the desert. It’s the story that is still inspiring people to live in caves on Mount Athos, secluded islands just off the coast of Wales and forests in the heart of Ireland. An uncontainable message has, since its inception, been lived out in uncontainable places.  

Honestly, you want weird? Christianity can darn-well give you weird.  

Don’t be fooled by over-familiarity or be swayed by that pesky left-side of your brain, the part that wants to convince you that you know all that there is to know. Christianity is a story that I, myself, had forgotten was quite this wild. 

Article
Books
Comment
Digital
Distraction
5 min read

Reading is the perfect act of rebellion in our screen society

A fortunate meeting with the right text works an unfathomable, transformative magic.

Rachel is a reader and writer, a coach, and an educator. 

A young boy pores over a book tracing the lines with a finger.
Michael Parzuchowksi on Unsplash.

Every year out of the 22 years that I have been teaching, there has been at least one child, increasingly several, who lay down the gauntlet in September. They steady their feet and ball their fists before sizing up to inform me that they hate reading, they always will, no matter what I do, so there!  

I likely raise an eyebrow and one side of my mouth; I don’t rub my hands together but the flame inside me leaps as I accept this familiar challenge. I’ve faced it so many times before and have almost always emerged the victor come July.  

The secret is knowing great books, knowing the individual reader and knowing how to make that perfect match.  

To read or not to read? That is the perplexing and troublesome question bothering many a teacher and (in my opinion) not enough parents in the present day. Need convincing? Though numerous research studies have evidenced significant benefits to cognitive function, brain health, physical longevity, mental health, stress relief, empathy, intelligence and sleep patterns, the National Literacy Trust's 2024 survey of over 76,000 children found that reading for pleasure saw an 8.8 per cent drop in just one year from 43.4 per cent to a worryingly low 34.6 per cent. This represents the lowest percentage since records began in 2005. Furthermore, trends are much the same throughout the adult population. It’s perhaps not hard to work out why picking up a book has declined in popularity. In our high-speed world of fleeting concentration, where bright, moving images flicker and fade, the monochrome, demanding, inanimate pages of a book can seem dull by comparison.  

But a little effort can be hugely rewarding. Indeed, imaginatively creating, rather than consuming digital images, is the perfect act of rebellion in an utterly conformist, screen-based society. It is counter-cultural and subversive to sit awhile and demand that you bring your undivided attention to an effortful activity. To switch off devices and work your way into the unexplored possibilities of your own mind through the pages of a good book.   

Teaching this to children has been my mission through 22 years of teaching English. I consider myself one of the stalwart guardians of the flame. The responsibility weighs heavy, urgent, and terrifying as resistance increases year on year. I obsess over it, feeling rationally afraid that if I stop breathing onto those embers for even one moment, the opportunity for revival will be lost…forever.  

So, what of these books? What are we guarding? What is this paper-based treasure? 

Imagine, for a moment, the sensational day when some tech billionaire creates a functioning portal or time machine, facilitating transportation back to the Tudors or the Trenches at the touch of a button.  

Consider the mindless jostling to board a new rocket destined for a dystopian future not too distant or dissimilar from the present. Picture the frantic rush to buy personal transportation devices to enable visits to the rainforests of Guatemala, the Arctic glaciers or tropical island shores at a moment’s notice.  

Imagine the insatiable sales of holograms masquerading as friends next to whom we could sink into an armchair creating free access to the minds of the rich and famous.  

There would be jostling, posturing and frantic networking to get in on the action. That billionaire could set his price. Millions would be hastily spent to gain access. 

But when that experience can be easily bought for somewhere in the region of £7.99 and comes in a 20x13cm rectangular paper format with monochrome printed pages, the levels of sensation and desirability dramatically drop through the floor.  

In a world of fakery, a written encounter with truth transforms. Where empathy and compassion are eroded, accessing the imagination redeposits. 

We fail to see that our books are indeed those time machines, transportation devices and conversations with wise giants. We were gifted such possibilities at the time of the printing press. A well-chosen book should never leave you the same at its last word as you were when encountering the first. Between those two covers was a moment in time when you were profoundly and fundamentally changed for eternity. You acquired new knowledge, encountered new people and places, travelled through time, experienced ranging emotions and developed thoughts and ideas in conversation with the greats. Something within you was transformed for good or for ill with your choice of book. If nothing happened, you need help choosing. 

Content matters also. We should feed our minds as carefully as we should feed our bodies.  

In a world of fakery, a written encounter with truth transforms. Where empathy and compassion are eroded, accessing the imagination redeposits. Where loneliness and depression devour, explorations of good character and relationship will nourish. Where fame and power corrupt, examples of service and humility will heal.  

Good books will always nourish the soul. 

Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy – we should think on such things. This is why running our eyes over good words and filling our ears with exemplary voices is essential.  

It is nothing short of a miracle that I can consult the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, the brave imagination of Katherine Rundell, the compassion of Maya Angelou and the teaching of Tom Wright in the silent space surrounding my armchair. I can equally learn from those who knew Frederick Douglass and those who knew Jesus not as figures in history but as a friend and teacher, a person of flesh and bone, in their literal time and space. They saw his face, they heard his voice, they felt the warmth of his hands on their skin, and I can know about it from their contemporary writings. I can consult equally with the writer of those ancient songs of wisdom that are the Psalms and the writer to the citizens of Philippi and know that between the words on those pages lies a moment when I am profoundly and fundamentally changed for all eternity.   

Wise words are powerful, and they endure. They outlive a lifetime. They are miraculous and accessible. The world needs them. 

So, to read or not read? The question is significant. It defines humanity. We guardians know that those last glowing embers must never be allowed to die. To read is a gift. It is noble work. It is a powerful and necessary act of rebellion in a world so out of touch with the Word. 

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