Excerpt
Wild Wonder
The Adventure Begins"I'm going on an adventure!"
~The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Is there anything quite like going off on an adventure? Taking the scenic route instead of the main highway, driving down a winding road deep in the forest, hiking on a new trail and wondering what scenery awaits around the corner, or taking a flight to some distant land and exploring its hidden landscapes—any kind of adventure, however long or short, is a chance to recalibrate our souls and reconnect to the child within.
I grew up in a small, rural town in northeast Arkansas. Hunting, fishing, hiking, and four-wheeler riding were constants in my outdoor life. I loved exploring the woods with my dad and my friends. We’d discover hidden gems in the woods like ponds, fallen trees, and rock quarries and give them names such as “The Resting Log,” “The Secret Lake,” and “The Frontier.” I’d even sketch out maps as though my surroundings were Narnia or Middle-earth. Nature was one big playground for my imagination, and so I spent as much time as I could outside. (Well, that and playing Super Mario Bros., of course.)
When it came to nature, I was taught that all of Creation was fashioned by a loving Creator and that the Earth, along with the whole universe, declared the creativity and glory of God. This majestic and divinely inspired aspect of nature made sense to me because, though I didn’t realize it at the time, being out in nature was where I felt most alive and connected to my imagination. And even more significantly, nature would eventually become the place where I would experience the most profound of spiritual awakenings. It’s where I would discover a passionate love for the Creator of the cosmos and where I would nurture a deep communion with Christ. Because, to paraphrase Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire, when I’m outside, I feel God’s pleasure.
Of course, that realization wouldn’t come until later.
Touching GrassIn 2007, I went on an unexpected adventure that wrecked me in the best of ways. My business partner at the time, Nate, had encouraged me to spend some time in a distant country where he used to live: Papua New Guinea. This trip was designed as one of those full-immersion, educational experiences for young adults who want a taste of what it’s like to live and work among remote Indigenous tribes. It was also an opportunity to see the world through a different cultural lens.
The whole experience was eye-opening and humbling, to say the least. One of the most memorable moments was when one of the staff asked me, “When’s the last time your feet touched the grass every single day?” That question seemed so simple, yet it really made
me think. Grass was never something I really thought about until it got too tall. It was always just . . . there. In plain sight. And taken for granted.
My friend went on to say, “Our bodies rarely touch the Earth back home. Our feet go from the bed, to the floor, to our socks and shoes, to the pavement, into our car, back to pavement, into an office or store or coffee shop, and so it continues until we get back into bed. How often do our bodies actually touch the Earth?” Once he explained it that way, the issue made complete sense to me. Deep down, I felt this truth bomb drop on my soul. And I started to wake up to the fact that even though I was traveling all over the world, I was rarely touching the Earth.
After that, I started walking around barefoot a little more often. I began caring less about checking emails and texts and more about checking in with the beauty that fills the landscape. Slowly, my eyes widened and my prayers deepened. And I encountered a wild wonder as I walked down red clay roads and hiked through jungles with locals while eating raw sugarcane freshly picked from a nearby field.
Overall, that experience in Papua New Guinea planted a seed of awareness and stirred in me a primal hunger for a more natural connection to the planet we call home. As the years went by, I found myself wanting to get out of the city and into the wild. Even the imagery I was drawn to in my creative work started to reflect the natural world more. The reconnection to my childhood roots had begun, albeit slowly.
But it wasn’t only a return to the same experience of nature I had enjoyed in my early years. This reawakened desire for a more grounded, Earth-connected life also brought with it the gift of a new perspective, and I began to recognize in myself an equally life-giving longing: to see our world not just from the ground but from above as well.
A Bird's-Eye ViewIn 2016, this longing to enjoy different perspectives of our world led me to embrace a new way of seeing: drones. These little bird robots gave me the gift of a third eye in the sky. With a camera- equipped drone, I could hit record and then send it up a mountain, into a cloud, and back down over a forest. Being able to capture my own unique perspectives of the Earth became my new love language. It was, and still is, pure euphoria, especially when I pair the flight with music (more on that later).
Sometimes, I find a scene I could stare at for a while. I might hover in place with the camera aimed down to watch white waves crash on a black sand beach. And for a moment, nothing else in the world matters except those waves and the mesmerizing contrast of the scene. The fears connected to flying thousands of dollars over the ocean start to fade, and a calm begins to wash over me like those waves.
Similarly, the troubles of this world begin to fade. The beauty of nature starts to heal my exhausted, anxious soul, and I once again feel reconnected—to my own body, to Creation, and to the Creator. I’m able to catch my breath and let my shoulders down. As I begin to fully take in the scene through the screen on my remote control, I am reminded that it is not a video game, virtual reality, or some image constructed by AI, but a real, tangible, larger-than-life reality.
Touching both grass and sky has brought my childhood love of nature back to life. Maybe it’s the same for you. Because whether you enjoy life with your feet on the ground or your head in the clouds, both perspectives invite us into a wild, childlike wonder. And that’s the invitation with this book as well.
Every Story Has a SoundListening to music as I experience the natural world—both from the air and from the ground— makes me feel like I’m in one of my favorite movies. Somehow, beautiful scores always seem to pair well with a moving landscape. And once in a while, I catch the landscape doing visually what the music is doing sonically. As if the two were meant to go together.
These cinematic and synchronous pairings in nature have become one of my favorite forms of inspiration, which is why music is a common theme in this book. You’ll notice that I’ve organized the landscape photos and stories into suites, a term borrowed from the classical music world. And in each landscape suite, I’ve asked a composer to contribute a few thoughts on the relationship of their music with nature.
I truly believe that we can experience our world in a fresh and profound way when we integrate art with the beauty of the created world. (If you’d like a powerful example of this, check out the Creation sequence in Terrence Malick’s film The Tree of Life.) Because if we really pause to listen, as I invite you to do in this book, we might even hear the symphony of nature itself.
