The word “bewildered” means completely confused or lost.

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Its root, the rare verb be-wilder, means to lead astray or cause someone to lose their way in a wild, trackless place. It’s used today when your brain feels lost, like being stuck in a maze of hard choices or complex information. Even looking at driving directions on your phone can be bewildering, which is ironic because that is the precise moment you are trying to find your way.

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The connection between the words “bewilder” and “wilder” comes from the noun wild. But as an old verb, “wild” means to wander or lose your path in the woods. Adding the prefix be- turns it into an intensifier. Bewilder literally means to be thoroughly lost in the wilderness.

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Jesus knew the wilderness as a physical place of extreme physical deprivation, solitude, and testing, enduring forty days of fasting among wild animals while being tempted by Satan. Theologically, he understood it as a place to depend completely on God rather than a place of self-sufficiency. He did a better job of it than the Israelites did in their 40 years wandering in the desert.

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There is an irony here as well: being lost in the wilderness, being bewildered, can be a place of connection with God, which is most certainly the ultimate way-finding goal.

 

For many of us, that connection to God in the wilderness is a part of our spiritual life, even if we do not endure significant deprivation and testing. Solitude, quiet, and the witness of water, of trees, wildlife and high plateau views reminds us we are part and parcel of God’s creation.

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This service is meant to call us into nature, to be wilder, and perhaps to become bewildered in order to find what is sacred all around us.

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One of our small group studies this fall is using Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred by Victoria Loorz. With an ecospiritual lens on biblical narratives and a fresh look at a community larger than our own species, the book uncovers the wild roots of faith and helps us deepen our commitment to a suffering earth by loving it—and calling it church. The book’s core values are:

• Ecospiritual Connection: Viewing Earth and wildlife as sacred kin rather than background scenery.

• Redefining Faith: Critiquing traditional, human-centered structures and returning to nature-based biblical wilderness narratives.

• Practical Rewilding: Learning how to listen to local ecosystems, trees, animals, and weather as spiritual teachers