Walking in the bush is a wonderful experience. Fiona and I try to take a three or four day walk each year in a National Park. We are not always successful.

One aspect of the wonder is not always being particularly confident that I am in the right spot or heading in the appropriate direction. I have read books about being lost and confused in the desert, where each rise looks precisely like the previous one, and nothing seems different, or appears to change.

Standing in the midst of the Australian bush can be confounding for the entirely opposite reason. It’s full – of trees, which are reliably irregular in size and shape; of low scrub, so footprints are obscured as if you have never walked to where you are; and it’s dense, so that seeing the path (if there is one, in particular), or the goal of your walk is frequently unclear.

The sounds can also be disorienting. Cicadas in summer can be stunningly loud, sounding triumphant, even mocking, if you are confused. Frogs take their harmonic turns through the evening.

The raucous choral wonder of birds is operatic, if you know your path; if you aren’t sure, or have missed your turn, they can taunt you at every step.   

A map, and a compass, a GPS (if you have range) and an EPIRB (as a last resort) are either essential or preferable in your walking, moving from a model of orientation which has served us for centuries, to one which many of us still don’t completely trust.

I have European friends who regard the disorder of our native forests as chaotic, even threatening. The concern of becoming lost looms large for them, as it has for those of us who have settled in this land since the last decade of the eighteenth century.

Becoming lost is a fear many second Australians share. A book, The Country of Lost Children – An Australian Anxiety, by Peter Pierce, describes how art and story depict the deep concern of what lies in the scrub, the bush, the area beyond our fence. McCubbin’s artwork, stories like Dot and the Kangaroo, serious movies like Wake in Fright and One Night, The Moon all echo the fear of being lost in the Australian landscape.

That fear translates into many aspects of our world; in the increasing urgency of life around us; harried by the insistence of electronic communication; the constant need to learn new skills; all these lead to a feeling of disorientation and lostness.

We are often unsure that we know where the path leads, or even how we arrived where we are. We remember the safety of home, of the spaces we know. We are thankful for a familiar friend, our favourite chair.

This season in which we find ourselves now, this season walking towards Jerusalem and the cross, with Jesus, can be disorienting. The concept of Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice might be well known to us, but the journey for disciples – especially the original mob – takes them (us!) from familiar territory into apparent danger.

We know the story of Easter from the other side. We have seen not only Jesus’ death; we also know of his resurrection. We journey with this hope already in our lives.

One theologian uses the Prodigal Son parable as a starting image, and describes Jesus as the son who journeys into a far country, risking himself, to find us all in our lostness and bring us home.

What might we say of a God who persists in seeking us out and, in Jesus Christ, finds us? We have this traditional image of the Aboriginal tracker, who can read the signs no one else can identify, finds the lost child and brings them back to their family and community.

Our language of “finding Jesus” is, perhaps, a subversion of the truth. The one who seeks is God, in mercy and love, who insists on finding us and bringing us safe home. When we encounter  – and are embraced by – this God, we most certainly discover our one true refuge.

This piece was first written for Ruminations, the rural journal of Saltbush – Uniting the Scattered Community, a ministry of the Uniting Church in NSW & the ACT for rural and regional communities.

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https://saltbushcommunity.uca.org.au