Nature

Standing at Edge of the World Singing

Steve · October 28, 2015 · 5 Comments

tree — Monochrome horizon, Lauderdale By the Sea. SJG photo.

I stand at the edge of the world
Sea and sand swirling ‘round my feet
Anchored by the weight of the pulling and swelling
Facing outward, toward a monochrome horizon
Ocean and sky barely distinguishable one from the other
A landscape that could have been sketched by a No. 2 pencil.

Hidden in plain view before the sand and the foam
I sing you a song only you can hear within the roar,
A song I’ve known from before I could even pronounce the words
Prayers from my Grandmother’s throat as she rocks me to sleep
A lullaby that lured me into a bigger life than I could possibly imagine.

And as I sing, blowing words into the wind that rush back into my mouth
The clouds shift ever so slightly, a last-ditch effort, it seems,
For a sunny day that has not been,
And I catch glimpses of something beyond
black, white, gray.

A gull’s beak, the color of a yield sign.
How had I missed that?
A soaring pelican with a hint of blue in its wing.
No, wait. Brown. Green.
There it is. Blue again.

Further out, white swimming buoys bob,
Nearly lost in the metallic except for the red icon of danger,
A warning not to be missed,
A signal that there is always something waiting, lurking
Something to be seen.

blob — Looking closely at new life. SJG photo.

For if we look
Give ourselves over to standing still,
Paying attention,
Rejoicing in the present, recalling the past, peering ahead.
We are sure to see in all three directions at once.

What have I done?
What am I doing?
What should I do?
For you, maker of monochrome skies that hide rainbows.
For you, creator of gull beaks and pelican wings.
For you, hidden but right before my eyes.

Then sings my soul:
How great thou art.
How great thou art.

The Creative Spirit: Cultivating the Earth and Ourselves

Steve · May 23, 2015 · 3 Comments

cilantro2 — My cilantro...our salsa. SJG photo.

I am not much of a grower of things. I almost typed, “I am not much of a farmer” but that would be even less true. Maybe someday I will be. For now, a few containers on my deck grow a small selection of my favorite herbs (rosemary, cilantro, parsley and basil) along with a couple of jalapeno pepper plants and some green onions. I’m looking forward to homemade salsa and pesto as the summer lingers on.

My father was an urban backyard farmer in North St. Louis in the 1960s and 1970s, planting short rows of lettuce, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, radishes and carrots in the poor soil (made organically better by him) beneath our old unused swing set in the back of the yard by the alley. He ran a hose up the uprights of the swing set and secured a sprinkler to the crossbar, creating an easy and gentle “rain” on the garden that supplied us with fresh salads and vegetables, which I didn’t really appreciate at the time, I am sure. Today, I wish I had him nearby to share his knowledge and passion for a small plot of earth, as well as his collection of old copies of Organic Gardening Magazine. Oh, the things we lose and throw away.

All this reminded me this morning of songwriter David Mallett’s, “The Garden Song,” which I first learned from a John Denver album back when I was a teenager and which I have performed for many years since:

Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow.
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground.
Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow,
Someone warm them from below ‘til the rain comes tumbling down.

The song has been recorded by many artists over the years, including Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary in addition to Denver, but I was delighted to find this YouTube version of Dave performing it himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m0LewjkO4s

Garden2 — Lenz House garden, New Harmony, Indiana. SJG photo.

Growing a garden is an act of faith and an acknowledgement of gratitude. It is a gesture of creativity and hope — that what we begin and nurture “with a rake and hoe” can become something else, something bigger and more, something that can be shared around a table. A garden beckons family and community to come together in thanksgiving. A garden is a reminder of our obligation to use what we have been given to help others and offer praise to the ultimate giver of life and sustenance.

In response to my last post on finding the extraordinary in our ordinary life I received a wonderful and beautifully written note from a REAL farmer who reminded me of the healing and spiritual power of just sinking our hands into the soil and urging things to grow up from the ground. Ordinary, sure, but it’s also extraordinary at the same time if we allow it to be. Jan owns a fruit farm in Winnebago County, Illinois with her husband Thomas. Sunrise Market Farm is just a mile from the Wisconsin state line and grows blueberries, raspberries and pumpkins. Jan wrote:

I have practiced prayer when I work outdoors with our plants and growing things but the best practice by far seems to be a focus on exactly what is at hand, seeing the beauty even in the weed that needs to be pulled as well as in the plump blueberry that needs to be picked. To breathe deeply of the perfume of the soil and the newly cut clover. And I think “Jesus is here” and my task is a task of love for Him and there is peace and joy. Best of all, there is a further chipping away of the old me, the me I was never meant to be, and a growing of the real me, the one that the One created me to be.

Sign2 — In Carol's Garden, New Harmony, Indiana. SJG photo. CLICK for a larger view.

We can find God wherever we look for God, and sometimes, too, in places where we never expected to experience the Divine. We create from what we have been given. We live by what we cultivate in ourselves and in our lives.

Ask yourself in silence: What am I cultivating in my life? By what fruits will I be known?

Today’s Word: Pattern

Steve · November 1, 2014 · 2 Comments

field — Getting ready for winter wheat near Mascoutah. SJG Photo.

When we live a more reflective, contemplative life, filled with a greater awareness of the “more” that is all around us, we begin to see the patterns in our existence. We create some of these ourselves, to be sure. Over time, we develop personal rituals — repeating patterns — of work, play, love and prayer. We create patterns in the way we approach the world, for that helps us meet each day with a sense of something bigger, a knowing that we do not need to “recreate the wheel” with each passing day. That’s the beauty of ritual and disciplined practice of any kind.

But I was reminded in a recent daily email from the writer Richard Rohr that there’s something even bigger going on here. We may create our own patterns but, as he writes: “Only if you trust such a ‘Someone’ will you eventually know that you do not have to create all the patterns nor do you have to solve all the problems. You are in fact being guided.”

There are, indeed, patterns in our lives that exist whether we recognize them or not, whether or not we give them even a passing nod or sing to them a hymn of gratitude. The passing of seasons and years, the rising and setting of the sun, the pulsing of the waves and the flowing of rivers and creeks and streams, all these point us to the Someone who is guiding us on and home. For God exists in these patterns and flows, as sure as the moments in our lives somehow add up to a day, a month, a year, a lifetime.

It is in stopping occasionally (hopefully often) to ponder and appreciate the moments — and so recognizing the complexity and enduring nature of the patterns — that we find God and offer ourselves the blessing of gratitude for it all. For gratitude to the Maker is a blessing that comes back to bless us all the more.

Ask yourself in silence: What are the patterns in my life (physical and ritual) that point me to God?

Photo by John Pettinger

Speaking of Gratitude: This past weekend I presented my first-ever parish mission at Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church in the beautiful small town of Mascoutah, Illinois. I spoke over three evenings (with some wonderful help from my Nathanael’s Creed bandmates on the first night and my musical collaborator Phil Cooper on the other two nights), and the title of my mission was, “Groping for God and Reaching for Others: Living a More Contemplative Life.” My thanks again to all the organizers and all who came out to pray with me.

Today’s Word: Green

Steve · October 12, 2014 · 4 Comments

This morning I almost decided NOT to go on the long Sunday morning walk around Creve Coeur Lake that has recently become my habit. It was gray, dreary and a bit cold after raining much of the night, although it wasn’t raining at the moment as I stared out of my bedroom window at the deck and the yard and the woods beyond. What the heck, I finally thought, the worst that could happen is that I’ll get a little wet. I got dressed and drove the quick few miles to the park.

My soundtrack for much of the walk was Rich Mullins’ wonderful and eclectic “A Liturgy, a Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band” album, which begins with the late-Mullins mumbling into the studio microphone: “Bear with me everybody, I’m barely ready to do this…” I felt sort of the same. But let’s move on, I thought.

The first part of the walk was as dull as the steel-gray lake surface reflecting the cloudy and overcast sky above. “Just keep your head down and walk,” I thought to myself, “it’s good exercise, but not so much about the view today.” I circled my way through the woods along the back stretch, walked the length that runs under the highway overpass and finally came to the long homestretch about three-quarters of the way around the approximately 4-mile loop.

About that time, Mullins’ “The Color Green” came in through my ear buds. It is perhaps my favorite song for walking through nature and includes these picture-painting lyrics:

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands,
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land.
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise.

No blue sky today, I thought. But then I looked, perhaps for the first time that day, at the green. The green of the grass and the trees exploded into my vision and I was taken aback by the utter beauty and contrast of the wet green against the coldness of the rest of the landscape. I woke up, it seems. It’s not drab, I thought, it’s just God telling me to remember that beauty lies all around us, all the time, if we’ll only wake up and pay attention.

And then, as if on cue from the great director in the sky (and I kid you not nor do I exaggerate the perfect timing on this), there was a flash of brown and white in the corner of my right eye. I turned my head just in time to see a bald eagle gliding to rest on a tree branch not 50 feet in front of me, clutching in its talons two (two!) approximately two-pound fish, obviously and recently pilfered from the lake. My hand went to my chest. I could not move. Seriously, God?

“Seriously, Steve. This is what I do, day in and day out.”

Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time you were totally caught off guard by the wonder and power of God?

Note: As I was writing this, I searched online for the lyrics to the song to double check them, and while I was there ran across this video of Rich Mullins singing the song while walking through a drab, gray Irish landscape, with contrasting scenes in black and white and vibrant color. Great minds and all that. Enjoy the video by clicking on the highlighted text above.

Today’s Word: Beauty

Steve · September 14, 2014 · 4 Comments

Unknown (to me!) plant, North Carolina. SJG photo.

Last evening’s walk around Mallard Lake in Creve Coeur Park in suburban St. Louis was a walk through beauty. No less than a dozen deer crossed my path as I walked along, a few so close we could look each other in the eye. The slant of light from the setting sun caught the water on the lake, the tips of trees and the wings of a soaring red-tail hawk at just an angle so as to take my breath away. I had to stop for a second on my trek and whisper a silent “thank you,” knowing that was enough of a prayer for the moment. I can only imagine that beauty magnified a thousand times in a few months when full-on autumn hits us with the gentle ferocity of Jackson Pollock-like splatters of color and light. There’s so much to be seen on such a walk, so much beauty to take in if we place ourselves in the position to see it. I walk for exercise, but I walk in such settings for the beauty. I need them both to be healthy.

And even as I write this, I realize that this word — beauty — is so overused in our world and culture that we barely pay any attention to it at all. Or if we do, we may be speaking of some artificial kind of beauty. Indeed, if you google “beauty” the very first entry will be a link to products and merchandise that will MAKE you beautiful, a social ploy created God knows how long ago to make people, especially women, think they are just not good enough as they are. Shame on us for buying into that at the expense of the inner and outer beauty that already exists in us.

Beauty may indeed be in the eye of the beholder, but aren’t some things innately beautiful? Thoughtful people have been asking that question for millennia, of course. I’m no expert on aesthetics, but I do know that my concepts of beauty are formed (or should be) by my faith and belief in the creator of all that is beautiful — in something that transcends both me and the created world.

yoyoma — Yo-Yo Ma from "On Being" website.

This past week I listened to a podcast (something else I sometimes do on my walks) of an interview by Krista Tippett with renowned cellist and composer Yo-Yo Ma on her public radio show “On Being.” Near the end of the interview, Tippett asks Ma for his definition of beauty and, after a bit of creative and interesting rambling, he settles on this: “I can’t say the word beautiful without also equating it with the word transcendence…a moment of reception and cognition of the thing that is, in some ways, startling. There’s that moment where there is, essentially, a transfer of life…human cognition of that vastness, awe and wonder.” (To hear the whole glorious interview, click here: http://bit.ly/WAkzFB.)

For me, this comes close to the mark. This “transfer of life” that takes place in the presence of real beauty is perhaps why we gasp, as if we’re being re-born and sucking in air for the first time. It’s why so many of us find God in nature, in wind-blown places where the spirit wanders as it pleases and finally comes to rest on our lips and helps us pray, helps us whisper that “thank you.” For whether we find God in the natural beauty of a lush forest or a stark desert, whether in a museum or a concert hall, it’s the same God showing us beauty in the bounty and diversity of the earth and in the people who walk it.

Ask yourself in silence: Where do I most easily see beauty? What is my response to it? Do I often enough put myself in a place where I can experience it?