A Voice and a Wilderness

This passage—and the verses that follow—carry a rich complexity of meaning for both Jewish and Christian readers. The prophetic and pastoral undertones are fertile ground for spiritual reflection.

And then there is me.

When I’m in a playful mood, I sometimes find myself pondering the difference punctuation makes in the reading of the verse.

The King James Version places the colon after the word wilderness, giving us the familiar image of a voice crying out from within the wilderness. The translation itself is not the most precise available to modern readers, but the image is powerful.

Still, I occasionally wonder what would happen if the colon were placed a few words earlier:

The voice of one crying: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord…”

This thought isn’t original to me. Others have noticed the same possibility. But it has become meaningful to me, especially when I think about it in terms of chaplaincy.

During my years in the Army, I can’t count the number of times this verse drifted into my thoughts while setting up for a field service. Sometimes it happened in a GP Medium or Large dining tent. Sometimes under the cover of trees in a forest clearing. Sometimes beneath camouflage netting in a sandy expanse.

In those moments I would ask myself a simple question:

Am I the voice crying in the wilderness, or the one crying, “In the wilderness…”?

There were times I arrived at the worst possible moment. No one could break away from the work of the day. Mine was the lone voice calling into the wilderness.

And then there were other times when I arrived at just the right moment—though still in the midst of chaos—when soldiers gathered briefly out of the swirl of activity. In those moments it felt as if I were standing within a wilderness of frenetic energy, quietly calling out:

Prepare the way of the Lord.

In some ways, this online library of my thoughts feels like a continuation of that same pastoral and prophetic presence.

During my years as a chaplain, the setting was often a dining tent, a clearing in the woods, or a patch of sand beneath camouflage netting. The circumstances were rarely quiet, and the congregation—when one gathered—was usually temporary.

Writing offers a different kind of gathering place.

The reflections collected here arise from many of the same questions that accompanied me through those years of ministry and service. Some are theological. Some concern leadership, institutions, or public life. Others are simply observations gathered along the way.

I would not want the spiritual underpinnings of my writing to become an impediment to a visitor’s exploration of the essays gathered here. At the same time, it would be nearly impossible—and probably unwise—to disguise that element of my life. It has shaped too much of what I have seen and how I have come to understand the world.

So I offer these writings in the same spirit that once accompanied field services in unlikely places: an invitation to pause for a moment, consider a thought, and perhaps see the landscape a little differently.

If you choose to wander among these pages, you are most welcome.