“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it”
(Gen 2:15).

As I reside in the controlled comfort of my life in the developed world, I have become challenged to think more deeply about questions of place and faith that are seldom conveyed in sermons. I am a Christian ecologist and university professor, and as such, I am frequently asked by students how we might approach our roles as creation’s stewards and what God has for us in creation for our faith journey.

Fundamentally, I believe these questions should compel us to delve deeply into the concepts of wilderness and garden. These two terms seem to pivot about the direction of cultivation. Humanity can cultivate the creation by exerting control to bring about a transformation (a garden) from a formerly untamed setting (the wilderness). One could contrast this with wilderness in which the creation cultivates our humanity by exerting its control to bring about a transformation from one’s untamed, undisciplined flesh. It is cultivation, and its transformative outcomes, that relate to an ecological sense of place in the life of the Christian.

Sermons that touch upon the concepts or purposes of the natural world for our spiritual walk tend to focus on three main themes. First, that creation can impart a deeper sense of awe in us toward our Creator. Second, that it can provide a substrate for spiritual reflection upon the nature of God (general revelation). And third, that it can promote therapy and wellness through an experience of physical or spiritual trial. These are indeed some of the significant benefits that an experience in creation with God can bring about in the spiritual life of a Christian.

Rarely, however, are the physical derivatives of time spent in creation recognized. Many churches encourage their congregations to escape civilization for a time of retreat in a remote place, removed from the frenetic pace of (sub)urban existence. Parishioners, more often than not, flock to retreat centers or camps in the forest or mountains, only to congregate indoors to discuss and work through life’s challenges without ever connecting with the Creator of all life in a small corner of His creation. We come to gaze upon the beauty of the temple, but through protective glass to avoid biting insects, harsh conditions, and physical exertion. However, we end up falling short of truly entering in.

The Austral Wilderness

A picturesque summer morning in Tierra del Fuego National Park near Ushuaia, Argentina set the scene for me to explore some of these questions a few years ago. Our students were scattered across the park in teams assigned to engage their intellect by studying the flora and fauna of this Magellanic Subpolar Eco-region. My friend and colleague, David Foster, and I left them to their tasks and decided that we would ascend Sierra Valdivieso, a tongue of the Fuegian Andes that flanks the north shore of the Beagle Channel. We hoped to experience two elements of this unique Gondwanan wilderness.

The first goal was to observe the Magellanic Woodpecker, a sister species of the ultra-endangered Ivory-Billed Woodpecker that teeters upon the brink of extinction due to human caused degradation of their North American habitat. As with the Ivory Bill, these avian residents of the southern Andean beech forests are known for their shy disposition and, on that day, they taunted us with their characteristic two-tap tree drumming nearby. Each time we approached, they retreated to a safer distance and remained unseen. As they led us off the trail and deeper into the forest, we were finally impeded by a steep, formidable ravine. Making visual contact with the woodpeckers would have to wait until another day, although we both had a clear sense that we had encountered them nonetheless. We then pressed on to our second objective, to ascend and observe the alpine landscape overlooking the Murray Narrows to the south.

It was in the Narrows that Admiral Robert FitzRoy anchored the HMS Beagle in a cove to escape the harsh maritime conditions of the region. Here was where the young Charles Darwin made intensive collection forays into a mysterious wilderness that subsequently filled British museums with specimens and fueled thought and debate over the origin and diversity of life.1 We were greatly excited at the prospect of gazing out over the geography described in The Voyage of the Beagle that had helped shape human understanding of flora and fauna around the world.2 A mixture of snow flurries, rain, and sun made our summer hike one of great intrigue. We continued upward to meet the high slopes of Valdivieso and together we peered out over the landscape. From our elevated vantage, it was easy for our minds to drift to the historic collision of indigenous and Western cultures during the European colonization of this region.

The Yamana were the direct descendants of the first humans that inhabited this Fuegian zone and were well adapted to extreme conditions. They were able to exist sustainably in this formidable climate and without the vast material wealth that accompanied the visiting European naturalists and explorers of the 1800s.3 To the Yamana, this land was a garden; to the visiting Europeans, it was a wilderness to be conquered. During and after the subjugation and genocide of the Yamana, the settlers sought to tame this wilderness with the passion of looters, resolute to gain the lavish praise of royal benefactors by bringing back the spoils of the New World to the Old.4 The ecologically literate had been exchanged for the ecologically illiterate. By the time the offspring of European settlers came to call southern Patagonia “home,” the tamed land could no longer effectively mentor its humans in the key traditions of sustainable living.

During a chatty roadside breakfast near Lago Escondido just two days after our experience on Valdivieso, our class was awed at seeing not one, but three Magellanic Woodpeckers land on and forage on the insect larvae in a dead tree only twenty meters away. Astonishing! Yet upon later reflection, my first experience with the woodpeckers seemed to have been more profound. The venture into the beech forest after a treasured, elusive creature yielded a more satisfying understanding of it than when we were effortlessly presented with them along the roadside. On the trail up to Valdivieso, I can remember the sight of coarse woody debris, the smell of the tree roots and humid soil, the moist air, the taste of the stream’s water, the medley of green hues, the geographic relief, and the communion with both my fellow naturalist and the drumming birds. I had walked in a garden. The day in the wilderness released a fuller awareness through multiple senses in ways I could not have perceived otherwise.

I have experienced many wild lands across North, Central, and South America; the windy pampas of Argentina; the tropical dry forests of the Darien Gap of Panama, the misty highlands of Costa Rica, the scrubby pine savannahs of Belize, the temperate deciduous Appalachian forests, the Sonoran desert of Mexico, and the boreal forest of the Minnesota Boundary Waters. However, on that particular day in Tierra del Fuego, God revealed to me a new sense of place: that one of the world’s greatest wilderness was really a garden.

Erik Lindquist, is Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Messiah College. His Ph.D. research at Ohio State University, completed in 1997, explored communication among “earless” tropical frogs. He has devoted nearly 15 years to the conservation of the Panamanian golden frog and other endangered tropical amphibians. Erik has extensive experience in research, teaching, and service in Latin America. He believes that excellence in science instruction must move beyond the passive learning environment into a learning space that is visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Erik’s two chief goals in his professional life are to help Christians live intentionally and to help reveal the magnificence of Creation. As a professor, he strives to make every effort to encourage students to become introspective by examining their lives, their faith, and their world and, as a result of this process he hopes that students develop character and a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment in life. He and his wife, Molly, have four children and extensively travel through Central and South America. The Lindquist family also serves as advocates for Food for the Hungry.

Notes

1 For firsthand journal entries, see Darwin, Charles R. The Voyage of the Beagle. London: Penguin Books, 1989, c.1839, p 171-185; colonial era historic synopses, Murphy, Dallas. Rounding the Horn: Being the Story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Natives – a Deck’s-eye View of Cape Horn. New York: Basic Books, 2004, p 145-158; and Nichols, Peter. Evolution’s Captain: the Dark Fate of the Man who Sailed Charles Darwin Around the World. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

2 Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle.

3 Borrero, Luis A. and McEwan, Colin. “The Peopling of Patagonia,” in Colin McEwan, Luis A. Borrero, and Alfredo Prieto, (eds), Patagonia: Natural History, Prehistory and the Ethnography at the Uttermost End of the Earth. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, p 32-46.

4 Mateo, Martinic B. “The Meeting of Two Cultures,” in Colin McEwan, Luis A. Borrero, and Alfredo Prieto, (eds). Patagonia: Natural History, Prehistory and the Ethnography at the Uttermost End of the Earth. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, p 110-126.

All photos provided by author.

More information and photos about the Magellanic Woodpecker can be found at www.avesdechile.cl/115en.htm.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible has been referenced.