The Wild God we can't coerce

Weird and increasingly encountered beyond the wilderness.

Belle Tindall

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.

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26 June 2025

14 min read

The book for those who didn't live happily ever after

Walk in my shoes, invites Mick Fleming

Jean Kabasomi

Jean is a consultant working with financial and Christian organisations. She also writes and broadcasts.

Mick Fleming.

BBC News.

Mick Fleming was first arrested at the age of nine. He’s been entangled in crime, addictions, and faced death just a few times. Yet he is now in recovery and is a pastor in his hometown of Burnley. He knows what it means to suffer. His new book Walk In My Shoes explores not just the suffering and pain he experienced but that of others he met on the way.

Jean Kabasomi sits down with him.

Jean Kabasomi: You write about your journey in your autobiography, your first book, Blown Away, which outlines your struggles and recovery. Now you’ve released this new book called Walk In My Shoes. Why did you write this book?

Mick Fleming: I came across so many inspirational people. I found something that was transformative from my pain. I didn't find it from just the good happy times, I just didn’t, and I was coming across people in my life for years and years and years that had had the same sort of pain that I had. I had learned how to tell them that things can change if you can stand this message that somebody gave to me.

I was becoming quite interested in why do people have to suffer and what is the end of suffering. Every person in the book I know personally, and I've journeyed with them one way or another. So, I wanted to write the book to say this,

“Look, it's not just me, listen. It's going to hurt. But, you know, there's something at the end. There's something, there's a way through.”

When I look around in the world, nobody wants to go through pain. They try to step around it. I came to this conclusion, that you can't, it's impossible to avoid pain. It's not possible. You're going to have to go through pain, everybody. A notion of faith that says, I can take you through the pain, was something that really stood out to me. And then I thought, how does pain turn to love? How is that possible? It's only when you share it.

And I kind of thought about this Jesus Christ fella who was on this cross, and I thought, wow, he shared his pain, and it turned to love, wow. So, the stories in the book are people sharing the pain and it's turned to love.

JK: One of the things I found was most striking about the book is the way you intertwine their stories with your own story. Is there a reason for wanting to do that?

MF: It was something profound for me. It didn't seem profound for me at the time. So, in the first story I find a guy who's unconscious, an addict. His legs are sticking out of these flower beds. I stopped my car. I had someone in the car with me. As I jumped out and ran to see if this guy were alright, my friend came out behind me. I woke the guy up, and he had no shoes. He was really disappointed, because he was still alive. The guy was still alive, but he'd wanted to die, and I put my shoes on his feet. I wasn’t trying to be clever, it was just that he had no shoes.

I knew I could get back in my car and just drive home and put some new shoes on, because I've got four or five pairs of shoes. That was a real simple transaction. My passenger jumped back into the car, and he just burst into tears. It shocked me, so I asked,

“What's up? Are you alright?”

And he said, “I've never seen anything like that in my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“You giv’ ‘im your shoes?”

He then added, “It’s not just giving him your shoes. I don't know. Something has happened to me”.

That was the fact that we are intertwined together. All our stories are intertwined. So, the title, Walk In My Shoes are my literal shoes - an invitation, but also for me to walk in theirs, as well. Ultimately, if you can do that, and you're walking in a different pair of shoes altogether, aren't you? You're carrying your cross, basically.

JK: You and I are familiar with the expression carrying your cross. But what does that actually mean? What does that mean in layman's terms?

MF: So, for me, I'm going to suffer sometimes. Sometimes the load is going to be heavy. But it leads me to a place that's far better than where I have come from. And also, it means that I can't do that alone. I can't do that by myself. I kind of need God. I get courage, it isn't just from other people. The courage is something that's deep down inside me. It's like a spiritual thing, and that's what carrying a cross means to me.

JK: People who have had similar paths to you, might say that relating with people who are in those same positions might be triggering for them. How do you deal with triggering if there is any triggering?

If I'm talking to other people, there’s a term that [professionals] use, ‘being trauma informed’, so that you don't re-traumatise people deliberately, with the language that you use. So, I don't do that anyway.

But I for myself, personally, I'm not triggered by other people's pain or their suffering. I am sort of connected to it. I kind of like being connected to other people's pain, because I'm also connected to the joy as well when they come out of it. I love this saying, if you ever heard it, “You can't have an operation without a few scars.” So, I think for me personally I don't have any fear or reservations connecting with other people's pain. It doesn't traumatise me. It leads me to joy.

JK: Another story I found quite interesting was when you went into the private school. There's always a tendency for us to “other” people - these people aren't like me. How have you overcome your biases and what have you learned from that type of othering?

MF: I'm biased all the time because I come to the table with me. I used to hate rich people, that was as a Christian. I worked out it were because I had nowt.

I see my bias straight away because I allow myself to. You've got to allow yourself to see it. I ask myself questions. Am I trying to manipulate a person to get something? And if I am, what is it and why? What do I want from that person? But I believe that that is what set me free, and I believe that's a godly thing to do.

So, I don't pretend anymore. I've been in churches full of pretenders all my life. They don't know that they are pretending. I don't mean it's a deliberate act. I mean not prepared, or they don't understand how to look at their own motive and things. So that's how I deal with it. I look deeply within myself. I pray and I meditate, and I ask questions all the time, of myself.

I believe that this power lives in me. I believe it's in me. It's not a distant God that I can’t touch. He's actually with me and in me. Therefore, I go to that, to ask, and it gets revealed, and that's real. What a remarkable thing. My God lives in me. If you grasp that, then you can speak to and experience that.

JK: You feel that you're called to be passionate but not political if so, where does politics fit in?

MF: I was with Alistair Campbell last night. Alistair Campbell doesn't believe in God, and he has, maybe, a left-wing agenda that doesn’t line up with my moral Christianity at all, and I was asked the same question. I believe that politicians should be put under pressure by the people that have elected them - under pressure to speak truth.

Why is it, Mr MP that I'm going to visit a house where a dad's took his own life because he couldn't get adequate mental health support?

Why is it that I go to a house where the children haven’t been fed for two days because mum's run out of money?

Why is it that this family are being put out of the house and they're gonna have to go into bed and breakfast? That's going to cost you more than it would to write a debt off.

These are political questions. I don't believe I'm called to be a politician. I believe that I’m called to be a Christian activist for social justice and restorative justice. But I go beyond that. I don't just think I'm called to do that. I think every Christian should be called to do that.

JK: Outsiders looking in they may argue that the Church could do more in some of these areas. What can the Church do better, to be a better witness?

MF: I think take the blinkers off. Understand that the people are the Church. I think understand what the gospel is. Fully understand what the gospel is. If I put 10 drug addicts who are trying to find God but still using drugs in any church in the country, apart from this one, they'll shut your church down. They shut it down because they'll rob you. If that's how you're ministering, you need some lived experience. Lived experience by itself is not enough. It just isn't. It doesn't work. You're just creating a church full of people like yourself and that's an ego trip. That's not how it should be. So, I think the Church needs to look and understand who it's ministering to, who it wants to minister to, where it's called to be, rather than just open your doors and see what happens.

So, to any other church, do you know that you need the poor, more than they need you? And how does that make you feel? And do you believe that?

JK: In the book you said the Gospel makes the poor rich and the rich humble.

MF: Yeah, 100 per cent. It's a different way, isn't it? Go to the back of the queue and then turn around. Tell me what you see. It's a little bit like that. I think that is what the Church need to do.

JK: You said that both the haves and the have nots, rich and poor - pray, give and receive, but they all struggle to receive love. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

MF: My experience has been that you can tell people all day long where they're going wrong and they'll usually take it. They don't like it, but they'll take it. But when you tell them good things about themselves, especially broken people or people from addictive backgrounds or people who've gone through trauma, they just can't take it. They just can't receive the love. It's like they bat it off. If you can't receive that, are you truly receiving the love of God fully into your life and into your heart? I think people need help with that.

If I can't love myself, how can I love other people? I ask people this a lot, have you ever really felt loved? Really, just be honest. And a lot of people, the majority anyway, say no. I’ve never allowed [it]. I can give, give, give all day long, but it's far more difficult to receive. The gospel is about receiving because it comes from God, and he wants you to receive it.

I think that people use fairness as a measure. They can't help it. “It's not fair. That's unjust.” But fairness doesn't exist. It's a lie. And yet the world uses it to measure things by. Use love as a measure instead and you'll get a better answer to every question that you ask. Do I love that person? Can I be loved? Is it loving and kind to help that person? Or is it not? Not is it fair? I think that's at the crux of the message. The message in the Bible anyway. It's that kind of love. Christians and Muslims and everybody get behind something that doesn't even exist and use it as a measuring stick. Jesus didn't do that. He used love. We missed the point.

JK: You seem very rooted and fixed on what you're doing. You get invited to join different conversations and events like Prince William and Princess Catherine’s Carol Service. How do you stay focused? How do you not get distracted?

MF: Well, I don't have anything, so everything I have, I've given away. There's a mission which is to get this message out. Anything I do around things like that just seems to allow me to speak the message. I used to have really low self-esteem, and I used to think I wasn't worthy, like lots of people do. Or false pride, even. But I don't have that anymore.

I'm as good as anybody. There's nobody better than me. I'm the same. But it works the other way around as well. I really strongly believe that because I've got this God that lives inside me and he loves me that much. He wants me to go and show him off to other people and I'll go anywhere.

Bearing in mind, I also sit on the streets, and I go into prisons, hospitals and psychiatric units and lots of other things. But I've also got to go into palaces. Not very often and probably never again! I probably won't get invited back!

The stuff I do with the media always has a focus. I knock loads of stuff back. Someone wanted me to go on TV to talk about becoming a pastor after being a bad person, and there's somebody else who is a pastor that used to be a stripper. There's not much point doing it because why would I do that? Why do I need to put that on television? It's not going to change a social justice issue. It's not going to lead people to Christ. It was a sensationalist programme. So, I don't do that rubbish. Well, it's rubbish to me. I know it's not to other people.

To me there has to be a meaning and a reason for anything I'm doing. But also, we don't have any money. People support the work because they see what we do and the lives that get touched and get changed. So, I will do the stuff that shows the work that we do so that people can support us because, people are dying.

The biggest part of it, is this message transforms and it can transform anybody if they're willing to listen to it. Everybody goes where they feel God's put them. There's no way, I could put myself there. I can't put myself next to Prince William, can I? I'm just a lunatic, you know, a bald headed, ex-addict with sunglasses on. I can't make that happen. I can't put myself on BBC or ITV or get a bestselling book. I can't do that. I've only just learned how to properly read and write 10 years ago!

JK: Stepping right the way back, who would you say this book is for? Who did you have in your mind's eye when you were writing the book?

MF: I had my friend, the last story of the book. I had him in mind. I can tell you a little bit about him, but it's for people like him, would be the answer.

The last story of the book is called Just 2 Steps More. I took him through the 12 steps. He found God and his life transformed. He and his wife were emigrating to Australia. They were going to fly out on the Monday, and I said my farewells to him, put my arms around him and he said, “You'll have to come over.” And I said “Yeah, that's great.” And he rang me on the Friday and aid, “She's collapsed, can you come to the hospital?” I rushed to the hospital. The doctors and the nurse came and said “Oh, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do for her. She's had a bleed on the brain and it's too big. I stayed. She was on life support, and they turned the life support machine off.

Now what I'm getting at is the story should have been that they all lived happily ever after, but they didn't. The book is for the ones where they didn't just all live happily ever after because that's a normal life, at one time or another for everybody. I wanted the book to be that. The book is for people that start to understand or who can tell that life isn't fair and don't judge life on fairness. In that instance the healing has come from the love that my friend has got from the tragedy. The people that have come round him and shared and he's sharing himself with other people. That is the transformation in him. So definitely the book is for people that didn't all live happily ever after.

JK: Did you get pushback from the publisher? Because when it ended abruptly like that, I was like, ‘Wow, the publisher allowed this?’

MF: Yeah, is the answer. I did. But I wanted it to finish there because it's real life. It's not a fairy tale. That story in particular, I wanted at the end because it's like, “What? Eh?” Because it makes you think it. It resonates and starts to make you think “Is that it?” But then the real question is, what's your “and they all lived happily ever after”? Because it won't be. It might be today because it was for my friend until something happened. And something will always happen. So, where's God when something happens? That was why I wanted to finish it there.

Walk In My Shoes is published by SPCK.

Walk In My Shoes

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