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And perhaps nowhere does God seem so present to some of us as in nature. May went to the wilderness almost a decade and a half ago, feeling "an increasingly passionate yearning for … something. I called it my longing for God, and of course that's what all our deepest longings really are, but I could have just as well have said it was a longing for love, for union, for fully being in life, for being vitally connected with everything."The precedent is a good one. Christ had a pressing agenda, crushing demands, and a strong sense of purpose concerning what needed to be accomplished during his short time on Earth. Yet, Jesus modeled for us that these desires to do what is right and good must be balanced by times away in solitude, in wilderness.

May's writing is invitational, and his dry humor appealing. As he plans one solo camping trip, he regrets he ever saw the movie Deliverance; "I actually thought about buying a gun," he confesses. He writes with joy and awe, but also unsentimentally. Unlike many nature lovers, May isn't afraid to look at the darker side of his experiences in the outdoors, which at times become almost too painful to read (as in the story of a tortured turtle).

It's not always pleasant or easy to strip ourselves down to the place where we live in a state of attentiveness. Gerald May had his bear. Mark Buchanan had his lions.  I had my night with the screams. Several days later into my hike, I heard them again in daylight with a Park Ranger. "Oh, that," she said. "The wolves killed a moose. The screaming is the sound of the ravens fighting over the remains." So much for the serial killer I had envisioned.

And what are we afraid of, if not of death itself? Even if we talk about our yearning for our eternal destination, we're not so happy to have a ticket dated for the next heaven-bound train. This fear of death can keep us busy coping, running, drowning out our anxieties in a welter of activities, afraid to be in touch with what we feel in any given moment. Perhaps May's book is so authentic, so vibrant, and so vulnerable because as he was writing it he was aware of his own impending death from cancer. When we "live like we are dying," as Tim McGraw sings, we are in touch with what is most important. And perhaps that is the biggest piece of wisdom that wilderness teaches us.

Cindy Crosby is the author of three books, including By Willoway Brook: Exploring the Landscape of Prayer (Paraclete), and editor/compiler of the upcoming Ancient Christian Devotional (InterVarsity Press).

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Books & Culture Corner and Books & Culture's Book of the Week, from Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture: A Christian Review (want a free trial issue?), appears regularly on Tuesdays at Christianity Today. Earlier editions include:

Alchemy in Philadelphia | Revising the history of the "Scientific Revolution." (Aug. 1, 2006)

Welcoming Resurrection | A volume of new poems from Luci Shaw. July 18, 2006)

Truth, Justice, and … | Some critics of Superman Returns are more blinkered than Lex Luthor. (July 11, 2006)

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August (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50