It's been a long time ...

When was the last time that you spent a day in absolute hermitage from the human race? I've done that a few times ... intentionally ... hiking the Continental Divide of southern Colorado I went four days without talking to another person one time. There have been days that I walked across the Chihuahuan Desert without seeing another human ... and several occasions where I spent days in the wilderness of southern Ontario - guiding a canoe across placid waters, interrupted only by the lonely call of the Northern Loon. These have been experiences of choice ... times that I have chosen to remove myself from the world and have been blessed by the silence of wilderness and the haunting voice of GOD. I relish those days and have been given some understanding of why the Lord often retreated to wilderness to get away from the crowds that pressed against him in their selfish pursuit of his presence - to experience the touch of the Father and hear his voice among the rocks of the desert mountains.

Over the course of the past few weeks I've become more poignantly aware of a different wilderness - that of my friend Mehmet - an achondroplasia dwarf who has been paralyzed from the waist for the past eight years. His wilderness is his own apartment ... a hermitage that has been forced upon him because of his unwilling retreat from society. He has no one ... no one. I watched him tonight as he prepared a red lentil soup from the memory of a recipe he brought with him from the hills of Turkey. His stories of a life left behind challenge my daily walk. I go to visit and am blessed more than he. How can this little man who has lost so much and suffered at the hands of so many have such love in his heart? I think it has to do with his wilderness ... in the quiet of his apartment ... day in and day out ... he listens to the voice of GOD. It is the only voice he hears most days. I plan to go next week to cook with him and sit at the gnarled feet of this great chef as he transforms a chicken and Turkish spices into a celebration meal. It is there we will share wilderness ... I'd never thought of that!