Here is a meditation written for our Saturday evening event with a 'Wilderness' theme:

Welcome to the wilderness.

Welcome to the wilderness.
This is a place of material deprivation.
In the wilderness your means of support are stripped away.
You have no money.
No coins or notes in your pocket. There is nothing to buy – no shops, no food, no water in taps or bottles.
You have become poor. You are deprived.
To survive you have to rely on the rain and the land.
There is nothing you can do to provide for yourself, water is either there or it is not.
You can search for it but you cannot make it appear.
You have the clothes you arrived in. Eventually they will wear out.
Your shelter is a tree or a cave. They do not belong to you but you can use them.
You have no friends, no family.
There is no-one for you to rely on. You are alone.
Welcome to the wilderness.
This is a place of sensory enhancement.
Can you hear the wind? Does it whistle or does it howl?
Does it bring an unwelcome chill to the air or a refreshing coolness?
Is it night or is it day?
Do you long for the sun’s light or dread its unrelenting heat?
Do you fear the night and what may be hidden in the darkness or do you relish the chance to hide from the open spaces?
What can you smell? The dryness or the damp?
Can you smell plants or flowers?
Are there animals nearby?
Is there earth or sand between your toes? Does the ground feel sharp or smooth?
When you run are there rocks to cut your feet?
If you cut yourself how will you stop the bleeding?
If you fall how will you climb back up?
If you become sick who will tend you?
When you are tired where will you lay your head? A rock for a pillow?
Are there insects in your wilderness? Will they crawl over you?
Is your wilderness a place of fasting or will you eat the berries?
Will you try to catch an animal?
Will you try to light a fire?
You are alone. You have no-one to rely on. You can hear the wind, you can feel the ground beneath your feet, the sky stretches far above you, you can smell the plants.
You are very small in the vastness of the wilderness.
Just a speck.
Yet something or someone has been searching every corner of the wilderness. They know you’re there. They know you are very small, yet they search because you are of immense value.
The searcher knows the wilderness very well. He has been there. He understands the loneliness, the deprivation. He knows the cost of the wilderness.
A note of desperation enters his cry as he searches. His promise echoes to the heavens as he strives for its fulfilment: “I will never leave you nor forsake you”.
Are you scared? Do you feel like shrinking into the depths of your cave?
Or do you feel like running and running until you meet with the searcher?
Either way you know there is an inevitability about this search. The searcher will find you. You know it somewhere deep inside your being, yet still you don’t know whether to hide or to run.
The searcher approaches - very gently. As you would approach a small child tentatively stretching out your hand, so the searcher approaches you, and you know you have the option to refuse.
Words come into your head: “My beloved, come to me. Are you thirsty? I will give to you such that you will never thirst again. Are you weary? Are you laden with burdens too heavy to bear? I will take them and give you rest. I have promised never to leave you nor forsake you. Come to me.”
What will you do? The searcher has travelled great distances to find you, yet the last small step is up to you. The searcher is very close. Can you hear him? Can you feel his breath nearby? Can you hear the rustling of his clothes? What will you choose to do?
In the wilderness some find that for which they have been looking. They emerge renewed, enlightened, with a new perspective on life.
Others spend their wilderness as they spend everything else, in striving for what isn’t there, in wishing things were other than they are, in self-absorption.
How will you emerge from this wilderness? If you have met the searcher you will be changed, your eyes will have been opened. There will be freshness in your life. Your priorities will have changed. There will be a wellspring of love deep within you. Your life will become a simple act of worship.
If you have not met the searcher, there will be other wildernesses, other times. He will not stop searching, he will not stop loving and wanting you.
You can be sure that it is within the nature of the searcher to search,
for his name is Jesus.