From My Nature Journal: Flow

I stand atop a rickety footbridge, under which swiftly flows from the Canadian Rockies into its eastern foothills a cold and shallow but fairly wide stream, the Ghost River, northwest of Calgary. I have come to help lead a contemplative retreat for pastors who are in seasons of change or discernment, seeking direction and renewed vision from God. One cannot lead these kinds of retreats without also being moved to do much personal reflection and contemplation of their own. At least that is always true for me. 

The Ghost, at least in the fall season, runs through a fairly wide and open valley. The rocky streambed is easily four or more times the size of this late September flow. It must be quite a spectacle in the fury of spring runoff. But for now the river is completely contained beneath a small bridge, which may be moved into place on wheels over wherever the stream has finally chosen to make its path that particular summer. Crystal clear and certainly no more than a couple feet at its deepest, it runs swiftly, yet, because of the lack of large boulders, also quite smoothly, allowing the stream bottom to be almost plainly seen. It makes me feel I am soaring over the water, or even walking on it. 

Facing upstream, quickly on the flow comes. Then turning easily and facing downstream, quickly away the flow goes. I cannot help but think about the passage of time, coming and going, allegorically called to mind. Having done a pretty good job convincing myself that a person in his 60’s is not old, I cannot for the life of me convince myself the same as the next decade looms, now not far away. 

What seems to be flowing toward me as I face upriver? Aging, obviously, and what always seems the very speedy passage of time. Physical limitations will be coming on; that’s what older bodies do, something my doctor has been telling me since my thirties! Then there’s change, personal and corporate, local and global, always flowing toward me in one way or another. Cultural changes also come on steadily, some that delight me, others that surprise me, and a few that just plain make me mournfully sad. Unknown new relationships are coming my way. Yes, there are even new ministry opportunities that may flow to me that I cannot yet conceive. Heck, even death is certainly getting nearer, though hopefully not imminent, as unstoppable as the Ghost River. Of course, then, my heavenly reward is also nearing, though I confess I don’t think much about heaven, content with the fullness of life God gives me now and the ongoing mission God has called me to. And finally, my ultimate legacy flows toward me, where everything I have labored toward will be behind me, all of it tested for ultimate value; whether it will show itself as ‘silver, gold and precious stones, or wood, hay and stubble’ (see 1 Corinthians 3:11-12) remains to be known. 

These are the things that flow toward me. 

Turning around, what seems to be flowing away from me? Certainly ministry as I have heretofore known it these near fifty years. Similar to above, time always drifts downstream, along with my virility. Definitely. In some ways, my progeny seem to be rushing away, as well they all should, on into their own lives and futures. Thankfully, some of the the ‘wood, hay and stubble’ of my lifelong labors I can already see fading in the distance, some of them things I thought so important at the time. And then there’s culture again; it seems also not only to be rushing toward me but moving away, as I have a more difficult time keeping up with it all. And lastly, of course, old dear ones are flowing away, passing, people whom I have loved profoundly; yet by faith they are also in my future, me flowing strangely toward them. 

Still, no matter what is flowing toward me or away, coming or going, I find myself in a settled place. Perhaps this particular Ghost is Holy. 

An old hymn text occurs to me…

Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace, 

Over all victorious in its bright increase:

Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day; 

Perfect, yet it growth deeper all the way.

Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed, 

Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

~~ RGM, September 29 2022

From My Nature Journal: The Hard Work Yet to be Done

Life is physical.

Speaking personally and vulnerably, this has seemed especially so to me with arthritis recently flaring up in practically every joint of my body these last couple of months!

But as a nature observer, one of the times that the physicality of life seems most pronounced to
me is at the change of seasons, and, though there are four changes annually in northern climes, it’s the change from summer to fall that astounds me the most. Whether it’s the eye-popping delight of green trees turning red, gold and purple here in the northwoods of Michigan, the taste of a good crisp caramel apple with peanuts, the smell of smoked fish or burning leaves (which have some similarities!), the honking of chevron after chevron of Canada geese heading south, or the tingle of early morning air already in the 30’s, the five senses alone declare the physicality of life. And this is to say nothing of that sixth sense: something in us actually sometimes senses the very physicality of change. 

And yet life is also spiritual. 

I wouldn’t blog these thoughts over these nearly nine years past if I did not believe this was so. Most of you who share these musings with me also find in nature a simple and beautiful pathway to God, though some of you might not describe it in quite that same way. God has created a lovely universe. The ancient Psalmist said it very well: “Your works, God, are wonderful, and my soul knows that very well (Psalm 139:14).” Yet, while holding precious God’s creation and committing to its care as its responsible ‘keepers,’ or stewards, it is of course not creation that we revere but the Creator. 

To me, these two simple declarations are to state the obvious. Life is physical. Life is spiritual. I typically write of elemental things. 

It is, however, as these two realities converge – the physicality of life and the spirituality of life – that deeper learnings and yearnings present themselves. Just as there is something in the physicality of creation’s beauty, awe and majesty that leads me to contemplation of spiritual realities, there is also somehow something in my arthritis for me to contemplate spiritually. Where is God when we are in pain? Is there anything possibly redemptive when one suffers? These are questions that have vexed many through the eons, and the answer that God is right there with us in our pain, while true, is not always that satisfying. 

Covid-19 has ravaged the world these past eighteen months, and the flourishing of variants present anew the prospect that we are not quite beating this thing as we had anticipated. The work that is still before us in our country to address racial conciliation and righteousness is as daunting as it is necessary. Our hyper-charged political climate and its absence of civil discourse has become such that the commonweal is neither common nor well. Each of these will require tremendous physical and emotional sacrifices and effort to overcome. And yet none of that can begin to be accomplished without the work of the spirit, both the God-given human spirit and the Holy Spirit, calling upon the mercy of God to empower our most creative spiritual resources. The physical beauty of God’s creation can belie the ugliness of the challenges we face, can play a part in its healing.

But we need the holy. And we need to remember, as Anne Lamott said in a recent National Geographic article, “The holy is not a spectacle… It is more often felt in small graces and blessings, although you do have to be paying attention to catch the momentousness. It’s around us, above us, below us and inside us all the time. It’s here, but often we’re not. Life wants to keep reminding us of its sacred self, but we have to open our eyes and hearts.”

Let’s put all of our resources to work, both physical and spiritual, to meet the challenges before us. 

~~ RGM, September 28, 2021 

From My Nature Journal: Shifting Sands

The beach, as usual, is gorgeous, but very, very different this year from last: as far north and south as my eye can see it looks like three feet of depth of sand has washed out compared to my last time here.  That’s a lot of sand. And above the tide line there is a steep ledge about four feet high that rises to the vegetation level, grasses and sedges beginning there almost immediately. The high tide right now is washing up against the ledge, and above that, the walking zone varies in width from twenty feet at most to as narrow as three.

I know it is likely just an unusual surge in recent days. It IS hurricane country, after all. But it still leaves the impression of almost no beach. How different from a year ago, when the beach was spacious and wide, a huge playlot for the kids. 100 feet wide? 150? Today that play space is gone. This afternoon the frisbee tossers and football throwers will be tripping over the sunbathers, if they’re here at all.

Beach gone? Where does it go? Does the sand just wash out and fill in the depressions on the continental shelf? Does it work its way out further? What exactly pulls it all out? And what force, or combination of forces, ultimately restores it?

I am this beach, different this year

than last, changed this day from

yesterday, altered, yet the same.

Beaches are constantly changing, as are, to a less noticeable degree, the dunes that back them. It may be wildly different or subtle, but it is almost always evident. Even on a beach that seems from one day to the next to be level and elevationally unchanged, today I find a

carpet of shells. And tomorrow? Nothing but sand as blank as a huge sheet of sandpaper. One day the beach seems absolutely littered with those small, one-lobed scallop shells the reddish-purple of Michigan sunsets: the next there’s not one to be found, though there are numerous of another kind I did not see yesterday. 

I am this beach, different this year than last, changed this day from yesterday, altered, yet the same.

Blow your quickening winds over me, Lord. Force the clean currents of your Spirit against my obstinate shores. Shape me in every way your will intends, and sculpt me constantly into such beauty that would bring you as much delight as this beach does me.

~~ RGM, from an entry years ago in my old nature journal,

after a beach hike at Hobe Sound NWR, Florida

From My Nature Journal: "...When Suddenly..."

I turned sixty earlier this week. (In fact, it’s that year for many of my friends – Happy Birthday Dave, Gary, Tom, Craig, John, other Dave, etc., etc.!) But it has caused me to pause and think about certain kinds of life change. Just when does senior adulthood begin, for example? For that matter, when does an infant become a toddler, or a toddler a little girl, or a little girl an adolescent, or an adolescent an adult? And this is to say nothing of the conundrum of at just what point a person enters or exits the wonderfully and ambivalently-phrased stage, ‘middle-age.’ I’m guessing that sixty must mean that I am on the exit side of that poser, in spite of my denial. (Please, can’t we make it sixty-five, the traditional retirement age? Or even seventy, when the government insists I must start drawing Social Security?)

Change in nature can seem equally ambivalent. It can be excruciatingly slow if we’re talking about something like geologic time; or it can be surprisingly fast if we’re referring to an abnormally warm spring thaw or to ephemeral blooms. William Bridges in his book Transitions puts it this way:

Throughout nature, growth or change involves periodic accelerations and transformations: things go slowly for a time and nothing seems to happen – until suddenly the eggshell cracks, the branch blossoms, the tadpole’s tail shrinks away, the leaf falls, the bird molts, the hibernation begins.

And this is to say nothing of the baby dropping, the lake icing-out, the branch crashing down, the tectonic plate shifting, the first snow flurrying, the rabbits scurrying or the trout finally hitting my lonely fly.

So then, just like that, am I now a senior adult? Let’s think about this.

Bridges says that human change is different than that in the rest of the natural world, in that it tends to consist of three stages or seasons: a season of endings, a neutral in-between zone, and a season of new beginnings or possibilities. It’s usually not just *zap* and I’m different. It takes time to move into change, and that neutral zone can be accompanied by confusion and chaos, or by just plain reorientation. But the neutral zone -- that middle place -- is very real, and critically important to navigate well if life change is going to be understood and embraced. For just as in nature more can be going on than meets the eye, more also is going on in all three of these seasons than may always be seen. So the author continues to clarify the differences between plain change and true transition. In short, change is external, transition internal. Change is what happens to me, transition what takes place within me as a result of that change, either positively or negatively. Change is inevitable; transition is a personal choice, and it’s in that middle zone where healthy transition can form. Or not.

Change is inevitable, transition a choice…

And though change is a normal part of all of

nature, it is only us humans who must

undergo, if we are willing, healthy transition.

All this is to say that though change is a normal part of all of nature, it is only us humans who must undergo, if we are willing, healthy transition. Transition seems uniquely human, at least in its spiritual, emotional and psychological dimensions. So I guess that leaves it up to me if I am now a senior adult. And since people live in denial about all sorts of things – aging, self-awareness, fading beauty (whatever that is), health challenges, addictions, loss of position, decreasing skill, dying of a dream – I guess that also leaves it up to me about a lot of those kinds of things; the last thing I want is to be one of those people.

Yup, not so suddenly I’m a senior adult, or most certainly nearing the end of my neutral zone. But as I proclaim this, I also want to lean into what the old King James Version of the Bible says:

The days of our years are threescore and ten;

     And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

Yet is their strength labor and sorrow;

     For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

So teach us to number our days,

     That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:10, 12)

~~RGM, March 29, 2014