Savages of the Desert: the Savage's Battle

"Numquam pronunciare mendicam sed ego sum homo indomitus." I never tell lies, but I am a savage.-- William Wallace, Braveheart.

On the desert,

There's a reason that all the people who want to speak with God go to the desert," [he] said. "It's easier to see."

"But isn't it difficult, too?" I said. "Aren't there things you dislike about living here?"

"At first you don't like the fact that you can't get what you want when you want it," he said. "In the settled areas people are spoiled. I was spoiled. When you live in the city you can control everything. You control the temperature, you control the food, you control the water. In the desert, you have to take things as they are...."

"So why stay?"

"Because we don't control everything. When you live in the bubble, you see just what human beings make. When you live here you see things other people don't. It's difficult. Sometimes you get frustrated. You want to press a button and make things better. But you can't. I invite you in the winter, to see a flood, and you will see that we are not masters of the world. It's the most destructive thing I've ever seen, and the most beautiful."

"How is it beautiful?"

"It comes out of nowwhere. No signal. No warning. Just suddenly the skies open and the water starts to fall. And fall. In Avadot, just north of here, I saw water running so hard off the top of the cliff that it continued in midair for twenty meters before it fell to the ground. I almost cried. I knew all the things it was washing away. The Bedouin tents, the newly planted trees, the soil. But I also knew what it would bring in the spring." -- Bruce Feiler, Walking the Bible.

On God and Israel,

"God is not a stoic, does not teach stoicism, does not honor or encourage resignation or acceptance, and is, by and large, impossible to please. In each of these regards, Isarel is made in His image." --Bruce Feiler, Walking the Bible.

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Our God is savage, according to His definition, not ours.

That quote from Braveheart comes from a scene where the evil King of England sends the beautiful French princess played by Sophie Marceau to try and connive William Wallace into surrendering his fight for the freedom of the Scotts. The queen offers Wallace titles and lands in England in exchange for his compliance with the foreign tyrant, an offer he promptly refuses. The queen's advisor, in what he thinks is a show of his intellectual superiority, tells the Queen in Latin that this savage is lying and that he can be bought. To this, Wallace replies back, in crisp, unexpected Latin, "Numquam pronunciare mendicam, sed ego sum homo indomitus." I never tell lies but I am a savage.

At first glance, this scene is inherantly contridictory. Savages do not speak Latin. Not only that, he proceeds to argue with the queen in her native French. Earlier in the movie, Wallace also speaks Italian, English and Scot's Gaelic. In the movie, Wallace knows the wisdom of the world, and still chooses the live of a warrior. It is almost as if Wallace lives as a savage because he is a scholar and not in spite of it.

This cuts to the definition (as if God speaks in definitions!) of the savage heart to which God has called us. As Christians, He has called us to live the life of a warrior. If you wonder at my claim you live in a war zone, look around you. Tragedy is the one human constant. Evil is the one thing every soul has experienced and participated in (to one degree or another). You still think your life is meant to be comfortable? I disagree, and I say we stand and fight.

I'm only barely talking about materialism here (I have no problem with money when I really think about it. My needs are provided for, Blessed be the Name.). No, the comfort I am talking about is the comfort of not loving, of not fighting for the people around you. If you are anything like me, it's so easy to just drift through life with the souls around you as a type of scenery that exists to hand you things and meet your needs. It's so easy to think of people as things instead of precious lovers of the Highest and True God.

People, men and women alike, must be fought for. Step out, take risks, impose, LOVE PEOPLE. The souls of men and women in your daily sphere depend on it. If you only talk to those who love you, the ones whom you expect to receive from, then are you really fighting the enemy or rabble-rousing in the camp? Sure, a little rabble-rousing never hurt anyone, but that's not why you are here. You are here to fight!

I pray you pick up your sword and fight this battle of the desert. I pray you win, and I pray you love (because Christ first loved) with all the ferocity of William Wallace quipping in Latin in the courts of the queen. If you are anything like me, then you have set down your sword and must go to retrive it. It lies adjacent the love-thirsty hearts of the men and women you meet everyday, waiting to be yielded. Go, fight, my love for THE love, nay, even the passion of the Savage God of the Desert compels us.

Next Time: Savages of the Desert: The Savage God

Daniel