From My Nature Journal: Sequoia National Park and the Memory of Muir

Several months ago in the online version of our Covenant denominational magazine, COV, an invitation was given for people to submit a three-hundred-word essay about finding God in the national parks. Prompted by the 2016 centennial observance of the National Park Service, the invitation stated, Our national parks have often been referred to as living temples formed by God… places where many renew and deepen their faith. In one way or another, visitors often echo the words of the psalmist: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

I took COV up on its invitation and sent an essay on a remembrance of mine visiting Sequoia National Park in California. Last month it was published along with several others, and I thought I’d pass it along on my blog this week, as it was about this time of year that I visited. Here it is:

Gail and I have been to scores of national parks, monuments and wildlife areas over the years, along with numberless other places of natural interest. Time spent in the splendor, silence and solitude of the parks never cease to bring us spiritual peace and perspective as we contemplate the grandeur of God.

One of our favorites is Sequoia National Park in the California Sierras. It’s not only the beauty that arrests us there, however, it’s also the memory of Christian naturalist John Muir (1838-1914), for whom the Sierras, and particularly the Sequoia and Yosemite parks, were a beloved haunt. One does not have to read much of Muir before they are well acquainted with what he considered the Source of the parks’ magnificence. Consider this, from his My First Summer in the Sierra:

“Look at that now… And to think that God should plan to bring us feckless creatures here at just the right moment, and then flash such glories at us. Man, we are not worthy of such honor! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!”

I could not say it better. Whether it’s the hush of a remote grove of sequoias or sugar pines, a hike with a panoramic view over California’s cloud-shrouded Central Valley, or standing before the largest singular organism in the world, the General Sherman Sequoia (pictured at right), spiritual inspiration and praise to the Creator run deep. In fact, I here confess my weakness in having sought a token of remembrance of the experience: may the National Park Service forgive me the pinecone I slid into my pocket while standing beneath the Sherman! To me, that simple cone is like a communion wafer, a remarkably tiny thing belying the main object’s astonishing scope!

If you’d like to see the e-published COV article which included the five submissions, and some fantastic photography (including some by my dear friend Win Houwen, Covenant church planting pastor in Longmont, Colorado), click here.

Get outside. No box required.

~~ RGM, November 11, 2016

QOTM...*: John Muir's Enthusiasm

(*Quote of the Month)

It’s time again for something from John Muir. Muir, as many of you know, was a naturalist and author of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, a man of Christian faith, and an enthusiastic and effusive observer of the natural world. For me, he embodies some of the best of the etymology of the word ‘enthusiasm’: break the word down and it comes from two Greek words – en, which as you can imagine means ‘in,’ and often finds itself a prefix to a larger word, and theos, the Greek for ‘god.’ To be enthusiastic, therefore, is to be ‘in god,’ or put another way, ‘to be possessed of God.’ I like that, more fun with words! The man Muir was indeed wholeheartedly possessed, so much so that some considered him a kook. But at times I know that feeling…

I wrote on him in one of my very first blogs nearly three years ago and you can learn more about him here, including the fearsome experience that launched his zealous attention upon God’s creation.

Here are the quotes. They have little to do with each other and their sources escape me, yet I include them together here only because they both are found on the interpretive signs (the photos) surrounding the visitor center at White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico, which we called upon several times during our ministry nearby this past year.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

This sounds a little C.S. Lewis-y to me. What do you think? Perhaps it is just reminding me of a Lewis quote. But the propensity for the natural world to mingle our out-goings and our in-goings… it’s a lovely thought. God’s presence is like that as well. Even the Psalmist said, The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore (121:8).

The second quote:

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and places to pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.

I imagine this kind of quote was part of his rhetoric as he stumped for the establishment and extension of the National Park system. Yet it’s true, beauty and bread. It’s what keeps me ‘going out.’ I trust you will be fully blessed by both at some point in the days immediately ahead.

~~ RGM, September 26 2015

POTM...*: Ducksology

(*Photo of the Month)

OK, please forgive me, but this month’s POTM and this week’s blog is going to be somewhat more ‘down home’ than normal. That’s because I did something today I’ve never done before: my son-in-law invited me to go hunting with him. Well, actually, it wasn’t ‘a hunting WE will go,’ I went with him while HE hunted. But I have to say that I could not possibly have enjoyed myself more. What a beautiful day to be outdoors, cloudy but lovely; and what an enjoyable time I had watching him do his thing. The good conversation we relished whenever in proximity to one another only added to the enjoyment.

Parenthesis. Jer and I had talked these last few days regarding some conversation he and a few friends were having on the prospect of trying to do something intentionally memorable each week all year long, fifty-two notable acts or experiences over the next twelve months – nothing intentionally extravagant or epic, just memorable. Well, I guess I may have had my first of the year today. Come to think of it though, I can’t say it was intentional on my part, all I did was say yes to an invitation! So maybe it’s just his first intentionally memorable act! But I was sure glad to be a part of it. End parenthesis. 

My older brothers have all been hunters, yet somehow that’s something that didn’t work its way into my bag of interests. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve got nothing at all against it – at least when it’s done legally and with respect and appreciation for the animal as game food. I enjoy eating game, in fact found the wild duck dinner presented on New Years Day here at my daughter’s Seattle home absolutely delightful. I love talking with hunters about their experiences and adventures. I do a lot of reading in the natural sciences, which often takes me to reading in the fields of hunting and fishing, or the journals and reflections of those who hunt. (On that note, one of my favorite hunting/outdoorsman books is one I got years ago from my mom by former president Jimmy Carter, An Outdoor Journal, which must have been WAY more enjoyable for him to write than his political memoirs…) But I have always chosen to shoot photography rather than guns when communing with wildlife.

Still, wonderful today were the sights. The quiet, subdued wetlands greeting us as the sunrise made its only peek of the day through leaden clouds. Hundreds of ducks, perhaps many thousands, eventually coming in or over, raft upon raft, wave upon wave – sleek pintails, stub-headed widgeons, green-winged teal in lunatic flight, even the ubiquitous but exquisitely colorful mallards. At one point of the morning (I think Jer called it the ‘ten o’clock rise’ or something like that), it appeared that level after level of descending birds, in formation, rose to the highest heaven as far as the eye could see, like Jacob’s Ladder. All this set against a backdrop of the Cascade Mountains to the west and the Snohomish Valley surrounding.

And the sounds? Equally marvelous. Ducks calling, responding to Jer’s imitations. The whoosh of a hundred teals and their two hundred beating wings screaming past like the sound of a freight train. The passing blips, caws and chatters of eagles, crows and kingfishers. The plop of a bird hitting the water after a successful shot, followed by the blast’s echo off the valley hills. Even the sound of Jeremy slogging through slough and backwater, breaking through thin ice in water up over knees while retrieving.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I did not mention the feel, the touch, the palpably holy texture holding a freshly fallen bird. I struggle to fully describe this. Sure, it’s bound

for the stewpot or grill, but the splendor of the animal up close is stunning, The intricacy of its wing and tail feathers, the softness of its down, the smoothness of its head and bill, the complexity of its coloring from every angle, sometimes iridescent. I was struck with a reverence, a sacred hush of gratitude, to see it in this way.

In one of the ancient genealogies in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, there’s a great-grandson of Noah mentioned by the name of Nimrod. It is said of him that he was ‘…the first on earth to be a mighty man, a mighty hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:8-9).’ Gail and I vacation often in an area of Michigan’s U.P. where the local school’s team name is The Nimrods, apparently once taken on by Jay Leno as the most ridiculous sports team name in the country. But the first mighty man on earth? The first mighty hunter before the Lord? That’s quite a distinction. I’m sure my son-in-law would not qualify for Nimrod’s place of honor. Yes, he bagged his limit today, seven birds -- six mallards and a teal -- though a marsh hawk feasted on our teal before we got back to the place we’d left it lying under a bush a couple hours before. Just the same, it was an exciting morning for me, and I am grateful to God and to Jeremy for it. I feel like John Muir, when he said,

“Look at that now… And to think that God should plan to bring us feckless creatures here at just the right moment, and then flash such glories at us! Man, we are not worthy of such honor! Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!”

~~RGM, January 2, 2015

P.S. Happy New Year!

QOTM...*: John Muir

(* Quote of the Month)

"Look at that now… And to think that God should plan to bring us feckless creatures here at just the right moment, and then flash such glories at us! Man, we are not worthy of such honor! Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!"

                                                                    ~~ John Muir  

A bit about John Muir –

'The Valley' from Sequoia NP area

I love this quote. Maybe it is just because I have never, as a wordsmith, had occasion to use the word feckless in a sentence before! No, not really, I love the quote because I love John Muir. He is one of the very few well-known naturalists who was unabashed in his willingness to attribute nature’s beauty to a creative Creator, and to advocate for our role, as God’s people, to be responsible stewards of the earth.

 

Yosemite Falls (photos by R&G Mylander)

Often referred to as ‘the father of national parks,’ Muir (1838-1914) was an eccentric and impassioned American naturalist of the late 19th and early 20th Century. Born in Scotland and raised in rural Wisconsin in perhaps an overly strict Christian home, he nonetheless practiced a lifelong faith, something reflected often in his writings and dealings. He believed that the primary source for understanding God best was ‘the book of nature’ that God had provided us.

Half Dome and Yosemite Creek, Yosemite NP

As a young man working in an Indiana wagon-wheel factory, he suffered an eye injury that nearly blinded him; by the time he recovered, he had made a personal vow should his eyesight be restored to pursue with all his heart his passion for the study of nature. And so he did. In the process he was instrumental in the founding of the Sierra Club, and helped establish Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, recognizing the enormous value of preserving the incredible beauty of these areas. He was friend to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Teddy Roosevelt, utilizing whatever bully pulpit he could find to advocate respect for creation. Muir Woods National Monument, a National Park unit just north of San Francisco, is named after him.

The General Sherman Sequoia, Sequoia NP

One of my favorite ‘wish I’d thought of that’ anecdotes about Muir comes from his early years in the Yosemite Valley of California: his first two years there he lived in a small cabin that he built right on Yosemite Creek, constructed in such a way that the stream ran openly through a corner of the room so he could hear it all the day long. How’s THAT for a white noise machine!

My two favorite books of his are My First Summer in the Sierra and Travels in Alaska. There is also a beautifully illustrated little boardbook for children that tells his story, John Muir: America’s Naturalist.

 ~~RGM, January 18, 2013

P.S. The General Sherman Sequoia is 37 feet in diameter at the base, wider than a three-car garage, and is the world's largest tree by mass. See the December 2012 National Geographic for photos and cover story of the world's second largest, The President, also in Sequoia NP. Included is an amazing fold-out composite pic of the entire tree, top to bottom.