Nature

Choosing the Better Part

Steve · July 29, 2022 · 8 Comments

I am up early this morning in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, where we’re visiting family. It’s about 4:30 as I begin to write this and I’m facing east, watching the sky grow orange at its base and ever brighter in its further reaches. The reservoir that lies about a football field away from the porch where I sit is slowly making its way into the light.

Sound is amplified by the expanse of water, so I’m hearing the world come alive for another day, too. A dog barks far across the water and the sound reaches my ears as if coming from a deep cave. A crow caw-caws. Several roosters are up and letting the rest of us know it. I’m just sitting here, taking it all in. I’ve got nothing better to do.

And as I read today’s Gospel reading from Luke 10, the well-known and commented-on story of Martha and Mary, I am reminded that this seeming “nothing to do” is the right thing to do. It is choosing the better, as Jesus tells the sisters:

Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.”
The Lord said to her in reply,
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”

Every day, like Mary, we get to choose to sit at the feet of the Lord and listen. Each day, we can sit amidst the glory of creation, welcoming another day and praising the Creator who made it and continues to make it anew. There will be time enough for us to let our “Marthas” out, time enough for the worries of the day, many hours ahead to do our work and bear our burdens.

But we begin by choosing the better part. The sun’s up. The geese are flying.

Grace + peace to you today.

Resting in Creation and in Love

Steve · July 20, 2022 · 3 Comments

A few weeks ago, Sue and I drove up the California coast from San Jose all the way up into Oregon. Along the way, we stood and walked and rested in the glory of God’s creation. The first half day of driving, north of San Francisco, it seemed like we were pulling into every single scenic view parking lot we encountered on the Pacific Coast Highway. We were so struck with the beauty of waves crashing into rock, so reminded of the power and dominion of the Creator.

Further north, we stopped the car on the side of a road that cut through Redwood National and State Parks. We got out, stretched our legs and looked up (and up and up) staring in utter amazement at the height and breadth and glory of these organisms that have stood witness to more than a thousand years of history and growth. We walked a hiking trail among them for several hours, slowly and resolutely and gratefully treading ground that felt ancient and holy, as is every acre of this planet.

After crossing into Oregon and hugging the coast for a few days, we headed east to visit the natural and incredible beauty of Crater Lake, which I had only seen in books and magazines. Nothing prepared us for our first glimpse, walking up a small incline from a parking lot, for the perfectly pristine and almost unreal blue of the lake, formed by a collapsed volcano 7,700 years ago. Later, we sat above another rise by the lake, resting in creation and amazed by the silence, the color, the grandeur of it all.

Over and over, we couldn’t help but sense the divine presence of our still-creating Creator. To those who do not believe in the role of a Creator, all I can say is that I see no other way, no reason or purpose for the beauty of it all without the moving and loving hand of “something else” bringing light, life and order. In the beginning (and in the end), everything in me screams, “there must be something else.” And I will rest in that.

In the beginning, God. That’s all.
Then standing, his smile wide with promise
the Creator begins the ritual building
the story we now repeat around the fire
not a wild and violent tale
but a gentle voice and hand
urging and molding all into life and light.

The ritual revealed form and purpose:
no mere architect
but artist and lover
a child playing in the dirt
creating love in his mind and finding it good
breathing his own breath into it
walking with this new life
in the cool and breezy part of the day
when the great light lowers itself into dry land.

Not content with just creating
the Creator decides to love those to whom he gave dominion
searches us out when we hide
sews garments to cover our shame.
And we live in this abundance of love still.
Today, whether restless or satisfied,
we rest in it, still.

A (Very) Short Story: He Who Sings to Deer

Steve · November 14, 2021 · 8 Comments

At dusk, he walked the same paved path he walked just about every day through and around his suburban neighborhood. It was good for his health but boring. On most days he saw only the cookie cutter condos, the powerlines, and the comings and goings of the other neighbor-pilgrims who trod the same concrete.

It was a long way from the land his ancestors had walked, he thought. He was Osage, somewhere deep in his bones and blood, but that was all gone, had all been given up or taken away or forced out of them over centuries. Ah well, he thought, it’s just a walk. Keep moving.

He was singing along to the old hymn that was playing in his headphones: Just a closer walk with thee. He sang loud in his supposed solitude and so startled a small trio of does that were feeding on a landscaped mound of flowers. He opened his eyes and saw them about the same time they saw him. He kept singing. They didn’t budge as he came within 10 feet of them. They tilted their heads at him and at his song and gave him a pass, sensing he was of no danger.

He stopped walking but kept singing. He became lost in this moment of found communion, and the houses and powerlines disappeared, replaced by trees and rocks and clouds and the rise and fall of the land that had been there all the time. He was no longer a retired factory worker but, rather, “He Who Sings to Deer,” connected for a brief moment to something bigger and older and more real than anything he had experienced in many years.

Nothing had changed, of course, except his perception, his awareness of what was happening around him. He sang more and the deer devoured the flowers. He smiled and nodded. He said thank you to the giver of it all, to the Father Creator he had known for so many years. To the One who made all things and who continues to make all things new.

Ask yourself in silence:

Where and when do you feel most connected to the Creator?

A related note: Thomas Merton remarked in his journal on Feb. 13, 1968 about the crows around his monastery in Kentucky: “Two sat high in an oak beyond my gate as I walked on the brow of the hill at sunrise saying the Little Hours. They listened without protest to my singing of the antiphons. We are part of a menage, a liturgy, a fellowship of sorts.”

Even Wind and Sea Obey

Steve · June 20, 2021 · 6 Comments

This morning, up early and sitting on my porch, I am watching my little piece of the world recover and dry out from a beating of rain and wind and lightning last night. We needed the rain, to be sure, but the wind, thunder and lightning were there for what effect? To remind us of our smallness in the face of it all? Maybe so. A parable embedded in a storm.

It’s peaceful now, the birds and squirrels noisy in their gathering around the feeders and searching the saturated ground for what can be found from and on the earth. A young doe wanders through the yard, paying no attention to the man on the porch with the moving, tapping fingers, and I wonder where she hid away last night in the face of such a destructive (and yet life-bringing) display of the power of creation and Creator.

And then I open the Word to see what it has for us today and discover Jesus and the disciples in a night crossing in a small boat being tossed by a storm, the disciples fearful and confused by their teacher, asleep on a cushion, as secure and restful as a young doe in high grass, knowing that this, too, will pass…

Leaving the crowds, well into the crossing
the storm overcame, spilled over the sides
turning boat into bowl
fishermen into hasty bailers
and there you slept, at rest on a cushion.

Finally, unable to wait any longer, we woke you
wondering if you knew or feared our peril.
You blinked yourself awake, took in our fearful faces
smiled a crooked little smile, held up your hand
as if waving to someone on shore.
“Quiet, be still,” you said, speaking,
it seems now, to both us and sea.

And a great calm spread over both
the sea ceased its roiling anger
and in us
terror and lack of faith
subsided.

We looked at you, looking at us
and saw for maybe the first time
you who even the wind and sea obey.

– from Mark 4:35-41

Photo credit

Watching for Wisdom

Steve · November 8, 2020 · 10 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I could use a little wisdom. I’m sitting on my back porch this Sunday morning, enjoying the last remnants of warmer weather, relishing the chance to sit out here just a little longer before the days get colder and I have to stay inside for my time of morning coffee, reading and prayer.

It’s the day after the national election results and, no matter which side you were on or how your candidate did, you’re likely feeling some of the same uneasiness I’m feeling today. The battle will likely go on for a while. Social, racial and political unrest will continue. Violence and war rage. COVID continues its march across the world and seems to be resurging in some areas, including mine. My 29-year-old daughter, Jenny, and her husband and nine-month-old baby tested positive this week and are making their way through it. Sue and I would appreciate your prayers for Jenny, Zach and little Jason, who came into the world prematurely back in January and has been making steady progress ever since. He’s a fighter.

The world just seems a little disheveled these days. Maybe it always has been. But eight months of masking up and hunkering down are taking their toll on us all in myriad ways. I awoke (thankfully) this morning from a dream in which I had lost all control of my ability to make my own way through the world, and I’m still a little shaken by the whole ordeal. You don’t have to be Freud to figure out where those kinds of dreams come from.

No politician on either side of the aisle is going to make our lives right. Scientists, given time and the freedom to do their work, will ultimately bring us a vaccine, but it’s going to take some time. The country and the world can heal, but no one person or party is going to get us there. That job of healing belongs to us, and it is found in the ways each of us arise each day and set about our own work of moving and working in the world.

And where do we begin? Today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom is a start. Wisdom — deep understanding and knowledge — is not as elusive as we might believe. Rather, presented as a woman, she is ”resplendent, unfading and readily perceived”:

Resplendent and unfading is wisdom,
and she is readily perceived by those who love her,
and found by those who seek her.
She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire;
Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed,
for he shall find her sitting by his gate.

I don’t have a “gate” these days but sitting on my back porch on this warm autumn day, I can yet imagine her out there among the falling leaves, beckoning for me to come a little closer. As I do, she offers me a seat beside her and gently reminds me where wisdom lies. For it is not the wisdom of the world and its leaders that we yearn and thirst for. That wisdom is always flawed and fleeting. Rather, her wisdom is a “knowing” that that lies deep within and comes only from the Creator. Wisdom lies in the beauty and truth of ancient scripture, yes, but also and perhaps more importantly in our deepest selves and in the sacredness of quiet times of solitude and prayer. Wisdom is not earned, nor can it be bought, sold or elected.

Wisdom is a gift that, like the peace in William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” comes, “dropping slow” for those wise enough to pause and wait.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Wisdom is not to be found in the flurry of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, but it can be found by those who look for it in faith and in the knowledge that we are not it. It’s right there by the garden gate, next to the pile of red and yellow leaves.