“Blowin’ in the Wind:” Cole Arthur Riley and a Prayer for Place

("Blowin’ in the Wind" is a periodic feature on my blog containing an assortment of nature writings – songs, excerpts, poems, prayers, Bible readings or other things – pieces written by others but that inspire me or give me joy. I trust they’ll do the same for you.)

One of my more recent discoveries is a work by young African-American writer Cole Arthur Riley. I first became acquainted with her initial 2022 book, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us, in some of my racial righteousness work. I found her writing astonishingly and even painfully lovely as she shared poignant essay after essay on her experience as a woman of color, particularly her situation, of course, as a black woman of color. She wrote there on such subjects as dignity, wonder, rage, belonging, fear, lament, place, justice and liberation, among others.

Her early reputation and following, however, was first established in a series of online writings called “Black Liturgies,” which she began in 2020. It is then no surprise that Riley’s second 2024 book came out with that selfsame title, Black Liturgies, subtitled Prayers, Poems and Meditations for Staying Human. Both of these books are New York Times bestsellers. It, too, is deeply moving and tender, an affecting collection of poems, prayers, ‘letters’ and spiritual practices that draw a person into meditation and prayer over some of the same subjects she writes on in her first book; but then the last half of the book presents liturgical and meditative resources on holidays and seasons of the church year. I recommend both of these books highly.

This brings me to the prayer I’d like to share on my blog this month from the book Black Liturgies, Riley’s third chapter entitled Place, and the prayer, “For the Land:”

God of creature and sky,

We have not protected the divine in all of creation. We have forgotten our origins, placing ourselves as superior to the very earth that formed us. Humble us, God; shake us from the belief that we are capable of ruling over the earth when we cannot even care for humanity. Remind us just how young we are in comparison to the cosmos. We are no saviors; make us learners. Make us listen for and heed the quiet things whispered by the soil and sea. Free us from our narcissism as we look on the suffering of other creatures and find our souls at last stirred. And as we become honest about our flagrant degradation of land, may we protect those countries and peoples who have disproportionately suffered the greed of the powerful. May we listen to the Indigenous wisdom in our midst, those who have long warned us that this land does not belong to us – that our ownership of it is our collective delusion. As we look up from the lie, may we find tree and star and dirt, and become the earth’s meekest disciples and fiercest protectors. Amen.

I will let this beautiful prayer speak for itself, and urge you to join with me in praying it.

~~ RGM, January 30, 2025

Blowin’ in the Wind: Mary Oliver -- “My Work is Loving the World”

("Blowin’ in the Wind" is a periodic feature on my blog containing an assortment of nature writings – songs, excerpts, poems, prayers, Bible readings or other things – pieces I haven’t written but that inspire me or give me joy. I trust they’ll do the same for you.)

I want to share with you today a poem from one of my favorites, Mary Oliver. My sister-in-law Beth recommended her to me one time when I was visiting her and my brother’s home. And what do you know? There just happened to be a book of Oliver’s poetry there at the bedstand in their guest bedroom. Once I found that my hosts went to bed a lot earlier than me, it gave me plenty of opportunity that visit to spend some time with her writing. 

Mary Oliver was an American poet who died in 2019. A Pulitzer Prize winner for her 1983 American Primitive, much of her work has a natural bent to it, which is what attracts me to it. Some of her critics call her too accessible, but to me, that is hardly a criticism but a compliment. When it comes to poetry, I need accessibility! Though not a woman of declared religion, I find not infrequent references to the divine or sacred in her work, which is welcome to me as a person of faith. Having written twenty books of poetry and six of prose, her collection Devotions is a compilation of many favorites written over a fifty year span from the 60’s to the twenty-tens, and would be a great place for new readers to begin.

The poem I share here is titled “Messenger” from her 2006 collection Thirst. Her life-long habit of solitary walks, and the place these played in her inspiration, may easily be imagined.

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird--

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters…

 

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The robin, the rosehips.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing,

since all the ingredients are here,

 

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

What are three of the important things that matter? Not only in natural observation but in life? Astonishment, joy and gratitude, she says. These not only build a life but call us deeper into creation care, because we care for the things we love. 

My work is loving the world. Not a bad gig. Sounds like Jesus.

~~ RGM, February 29 2024

From My Nature Journal: Crows... And the Power of Hope

One of the things I greatly enjoy is volunteering at our local historic lighthouse, Admiralty Head Light on the Admiralty Inlet into Puget Sound. Whenever there and the going is slow (which isn’t very often, even on bad weather days, as the lighthouse tends also to be at times a warming house for cold or wet state park visitors!), I always pull a good book from the giftshop shelves and while away any spare time there may happen to be. There’s a lot there on natural history, so I’m never disappointed.

Am reading lately a delightful book titled Crow Planet by Lyanda Haupt, subtitled Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness. Originally published in 2011, it was revised just last year. As the two titles imply, there is much here specifically on crows, what Haupt considers the wild creature most available to urban nature observers, and deeply interesting to boot. Indeed, many of us have our unique crow stories! But the book also contains a great deal of fine philosophizing on the study of nature in general and the importance of earth stewardship (what many of us prefer to call creation care) for us urban and non-urban stewards alike.

I particularly appreciate her positive approach, and wanted to highlight with this blogpost an excerpt from one of her early chapters. 

We all know dour environmentalists (or perhaps we are one), wringing their hands while myopically bemoaning the disasters to befall the earth in the near future. Why, when we know that they are right, do we want to spill organic cranberry juice all over their hemp sandals? Because they are no fun, for one thing. And, more important, because they will suck us dry if we let them. But we don’t have to let them. There is a way to face the current ecological crisis with our eyes open, with stringent scientific knowledge, with honest sorrow over the state of life on earth, with spiritual insight, and with practical commitment. Finding such a way is more essential now than it has ever been in the history of the human species. But such work does not have to be dour (no matter how difficult) or accomplished only out of moral imperative (however real the obligation) or fear (though the reasons to fear are well founded). Our actions can rise instead from a sense of rootedness, connectedness, creativity, and delight…

Haupt then goes on to emphasize in the book that urban dwellers, who think they may have less access to nature than those who are blessed to live more immersed in it, and thus may feel less motivated to activism, actually often have more access to it than may first appear if they are simply diligent and creative in their observation. (Take crows, for example, who somehow have made their sassy yet cautious peace with humans in nearly all settings.) But I also deeply appreciate at least her head nod to the spiritual sensitivities and creativities that can motivate all people, especially people of faith, to be active in creation care. 

Secular naturalists often lay earth degradation and exploitation at the feet of the church, very unfairly IMHO (which is too frequently not so humble). But it has become clearer to many Christians (especially in the younger generations) that we can no longer stand on the sidelines of these efforts but rather take a leading role. Thus, it gives older people like me great joy to see organizations springing up like Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and Circlewood. 

But key to effective Christian involvement in this cause will be our spiritual sensitivities first to the classic faith practices of lament and repentance. Lament, of course, is Godly sorrow, a sorrow that matches God’s sorrow. But repentance, as you who have studied it know, is not only about Godly sorrow, but about a Godly turnaround, in short, a change of action, a new and better approach, a leaving behind of the old bad habit or behavior and a taking up of a new or renewed practice of a redeemed comportment in a moral and holy manner. 

However, something additional to these is also needed. Hope. Though Haupt does not use that word in the excerpt I shared above, her book is a tribute also to the hope that will be necessary as we work to redeem centuries of creation misuse. Hope will be indispensable to ongoing earth care. Despondency will not help. Indeed, the Bible assures us that hope has the power to keep us from despondency, “…Hope does not disappoint us… (Romans 5:3-5)” 

So check out the book. I think you’ll enjoy it, may even come up with some amazing crow stories to add to your own. 

But on the subject of creation care? Work hard. And never stop hoping. 

~~ RGM, March 31, 2022

From My Nature Journal: Earth Day -- Reflections of a Steward

“Fill the earth and subdue it,” You said. One of these days I’m going to study my Biblical languages more carefully to learn exactly what You meant by that.

Fill the earth? OK, I get that. There was quite a bit of vacant real estate at the time. But subdue it? Webster defines subdue as ‘to conquer or to bring under subjection.’ I highly doubt subdue is an accurate current rendering of the Hebrew word. It's certainly not befitting of the Biblical concept of earth care.  We talk of animals or land broken, ostensibly domesticated, the wild taken out. We talk of hills and mountains mastered, of wilderness tamed, of entire forests repurposed. Repurposed? Who are we trying to kid? I guess only ourselves it ends up. And, even that, only to our loss at best and our peril at worst. 

Your earth can never be tamed.

As a follower of God, the Bible calls me simply to be a steward of the earth, never its conqueror or vanquisher. Unfortunately, there are many ways in which people have made themselves even worse: earth’s tyrant. But a steward’s role is to care for something their superior has left in their care, and to leave it in at least as good a condition as when they began. 

…A steward’s role is to care for something

their superior has left in their care, and to leave

it in at least as good a condition as when they began.

Yet even as a dedicated steward, I sometimes find I’ve been given responsibility for something over which I often have very limited control. (Hmmm… Sounds like my job sometimes!) And then to that add floods, earthquakes, wildfire, storms, tornados and hurricanes, volcanoes, hail, heat, cold, drought, tsunamis, climate change -- ‘acts of God’ they are called, with a little help from your friends on the last one. Sad how You only ever seem to get the credit for the bad stuff and rarely the good.

A poet has written: 

In a bathtub one is master of his universe.

But a universe in which I am master holds little appeal.

-- Edwin Dobbs

So take Your earth back, God. Give it not to me or any other to subdue. Steward it I gladly will, and do. In fact, I’ll do my best. But You alone are its Master, and mine.

~~~ RGM, April 22 2021

From My Nature Journal: The Oldest Profession in the World

No, it’s not what some might think. I’ve run into a couple of nature writers recently who have cleverly asserted that it’s actually the taxonomist who is a member of the world’s oldest profession, because naming the animals was the first task commanded by God of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Hmm, unarguable point, that one…

So what’s a taxonomist? In the natural sciences, a taxonomist is one who describes and names life forms, or, more specifically, the one who practices the science of biological classification. Now, I’m sure a gifted humorist could have some good, clean fun imagining poor ol’ Adam in the garden sorting through all the names without the benefit of either Latin or a field guide, or a woman, for that matter, who always seems to be better at these kinds of things. “Ummmm, OK God, let’s call this one ‘Little Brown Bug Number Eighteen-thousand, Six-hundred and Twenty-two. No, wait, hmmm, I think it’s almost exactly the same as Number Eleven-thousand, One-hundred and Sixteen… No? Say what? It’s the same but it’s a female? What’s a female?”

Humor aside, taxonomy is an intriguing thing, something about which I have actually been thinking a lot lately. Naming. The power of names. People say I have a gift of learning names easily and quickly, but I do not believe that is true, since it is always only someone whose name I can coincidentally recall who compliments me on this, and they don’t have a clue the many, many others there are whose names I do not remember at all. I can meet someone, ask their name, and not remember it sixty seconds after I walk away. Of course, perhaps that is more of an attention problem than a memory one.

But the power of names is not the only reason that I’ve been thinking lately of taxonomy. I think it has to do with the responsibility of names. To know a name is to have a specific kind of knowledge, and knowledge is not just power, as the saying goes, as if that’s the only thing people should care about in knowing something or someone. Much more than that, knowledge is also responsibility. The more one knows, the more one must take responsibility for the adjustments and accommodations that are required by knowing what one knows.

If something is significant enough to name, it’s significant enough to know about and care about. And vice versa. In other words, naming is the first part of knowing, so naming is the first part of caring.

If something is significant enough to name,

it’s significant enough to know about

and care about. And vice versa.

Which brings me back to taxonomy and naming. For those of you who never had an introduction to biology (I didn’t either), taxonomy classifies every living organism, plant and animal, into groupings based on similarities, if they have any, to other living things, isolates that organism’s uniqueness from all others, and then gives it a scientifically recognized name. Carl Linneaus kick-started this whole system in the 1700’s. It can get complicated, because it’s science, after all, but you’ve heard of species, right? Species is the final step in the classifying/naming process, the end of the line when it comes to differentiating a living thing from any other living thing. Along the way, that living thing’s Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family and Genus have also been described and defined, all before its species is scientifically named. Some biology students are taught cute sentences to remember these categories of classification, something along the order of  ‘King Philip Came Over For Great Scones,’ or the like. These finally clarified, it is thus fully named and, as a result, known in the scientific world, and this always by a two-part Latinized species name which stands beside its common name. The Common Loon, for example, is the species Gavia immer, or the Black Bear Ursus americanus. Get this: scientists have classified and named 1.78 million organisms in the 250 years this naming has been going on, all the animals and plants and microorganisms currently known, but biologists say five million more are yet to be discovered, described and named. Wow. The vast majority of these are, understandably, in the microorganism category, but not a year goes by when scientists are not classifying several new and rare animals, and scores of new plants. It seems there is still a lot yet to know, and, as humans, back to my point, to be responsible for.

This is why the natural world is such an important study, such a critical thing for normal, everyday people to know about. How can people take care of things unless they know, even in a limited way, what something is, how it works, how it relates to other things, and what impacts it both positively and negatively?

So, as I have been thinking lately of taxonomy and the significance of naming, I ran across a couple quotes that struck a personal chord. The first is from a delightful collection of essays by urban naturalist and Chicago newspaper columnist Jerry Sullivan, now deceased, whose writing is all the more evocative to me because his essays feature many of my familiar nature haunts growing up on Chicago’s north side. And besides, his book, Hunting For Frogs on Elston Avenue, engagingly conveys a truth I’ve always maintained, that one can find astounding natural beauty even in a hardcore urban setting. Sullivan says:

When you step off the pavement and into a natural area, the depth of your experience is directly correlated to the number of things you can name. If you operate with preschool categories like “tree” and “bird” and “bug” you are going to miss a whole lot.

I like that. Just for starters, naming leads to knowing, and knowing deepens and enriches our experience. Throughout his entertaining book, citified Sullivan makes clear how simple things contribute to his passionate love for nature. And it all may start for any of us by knowing as simple a few things as a Douglas Fir, a Black-capped Chickadee and a Tiger Swallowtail.

You see, it goes far deeper when we not only name and know, but also care, even love. This brings me to Paul Gruchow’s Grass Roots. In contrast to Sullivan, Gruchow wrote from a rural perspective, but like Sullivan, his also is a lovely book on environmental stewardship. Now, I want to point out that this book was written nearly twenty-five years ago, but notice how relevant his statement is:

A very old but not outmoded idea is that we will find our salvation in what we love. We have learned in recent times to fear for the earth, for its suddenly apparent fragility… But fear is no basis for an intelligent relationship… We will love the earth more competently, more effectively, by being able to name and know something about the life it contains. Can you, I asked my students, imagine a satisfactory love relationship with someone whose name you do not know? I can’t. It is perhaps the quintessentially human characteristic that we cannot know or love what we have not named. Names are passwords to our hearts, and it is there, in the end, that we will find the room for the whole world.

Room for the whole world. The same whole wide world that God holds in his hands. So if taxonomy is the world’s oldest profession, I guess I want to get very good at it myself. Maybe we all could get better at it, and, in the process, do a whole lot better job of taking care of things around here.

~~ RGM, October 27, 2017

From My Nature Journal: Walking Softly

(It’s going on ten years since I wrote this. I was on retreat at the Sophia Center of Atchison, Kansas, Sister Terese leading a wonderful workshop on Celtic spirituality. She allowed ample time in our weekend for reflection, personal journaling and creative writing, and the following is what bubbled up during an afternoon recess. And by the way, I’ve shared before something written at that same retreat. Check the index above under Celtic Christianity, or find that piece here.)

Walking Softly

Do I walk so gently upon the earth

That the grass springs back quickly from underfoot?

Do I tread lightly as I pass, knowing that what I leave behind

Must be able to also support the weight and lives of those who follow?

            From whence comes my impulse to leave an imprint, to mark territory,

            to insert a sign of my presence, a blaze or initial on a tree,

            a rock cairn, a footprint?

Do I inflict myself upon my environment,

As if my passing that way is intended to leave permanent impact?

Similarly, do I walk humbly among the sons and daughters of God,

Imparting the presence of Christ, or imparting the presence of me?

            From whence comes my impulse to over-perform, or to outperform,

            To exert uncalled influence, influence that is sometimes

            Neither necessary nor truly helpful?

Gentle and Holy Lord, lead me to walk softly upon your earth and among your people,

Leaving everywhere the fragrance of You. Amen.

~~ RGM, September 27, 2017,

from an earlier entry in

my nature journal

Blowin' in the Wind: Richard Rohr and Creation Theology

("Blowin’ in the Wind" is a periodic feature on my blog consisting of an assortment of nature writings – hymns, songs, excerpts, prayers, Bible readings, poems or other things – pieces I may not have written but that inspire me or give me joy. I trust they’ll do the same for you.)

It has been a very busy couple of months, and my personal practice of ‘contemplative activism’ (a.k.a. active contemplation!) has had to take a back seat simply to activism. I know, I know, I am the worse for it, and I expect a more reflective season before me, but one of the results of the pace has been insufficient time to give to a blog post yet this month. Please, I apologize. I am the worse for that, too. So before July is history, allow me a morning muse on the subject of Franciscan creation theology. This is not as heavy a subject as it sounds, because, after all, it is I who is writing. But the subject alone will drive me back to a more meditative space, and I pray it will do the same for you, as I always pray for these blog musings.

Many followers of Christ do not have a creation theology. I'm not talking at all about a theology of creationism, but the theology behind the practice that respects, honors and protects the good earth our good God has created for us. Some would call that Christian environmentalism. I call it creation theology. In fact, I called it that a long time before I found there are others who call it that as well.

A good friend to creation theologians who are Christ followers, if they look at Christian traditions beside their own, is St. Francis of Assisi, references to whom have popped up in this blog from time to time. Hit the index key above to see several posts that cite him specifically. Now, Francis is medieval history, 1200’s A.D., so how relevant can he be to our modern, complicated day? Well, that’s the beauty of theology. It is timeless, and so, I believe, is our friend Francis. He’s not considered the patron saint of environmentalism/ecology/creation care for nothing, you know.

Today I want to approach Francis’ thought through an excerpt from one who is a vastly better theologian than I, the Catholic priest Richard Rohr. Say what you want about Rohr (and I have also cited him in an earlier post); I don’t agree with all his theology, but as a Franciscan friar, there is much about his approach to creation that seems spot on to me.

I have a friend, Steve, who more closely follows Rohr’s writings, including a daily devotional piece I do not routinely use. But Steve periodically sends me one of Rohr’s postings when he knows, as a reader of this blog, that it will be meaningful to me. I am deeply appreciative of this, in fact, always love to hear back from readers regarding things related to creation care that inspire them. My sister Carolyn often does this kind of thing, too, and these sharings mean a lot to me.

“…You have to sit still in nature

for a while, observe it, and love

it without trying to rearrange it...”

Rohr shared a post in June entitled “At Home in the World” that I thought was quite good. Here are extracts from it:

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy emphasized the cosmos instead of churchiness. For the first few centuries, Franciscans’ work was not about the building of churches and the running of services… We were not intended to be parish priests. Francis himself refused priesthood, and most of the original friars were laymen rather than clerics. Francis knew that once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited… He wanted us to live a life on the edge of the inside -- not at the center or the top, but not outside it throwing rocks either. [In, but not of…] This unique position offers structural freedom and, hopefully, spiritual freedom, too.

Francis, a living contemplative, walked the roads of Italy in the 13^th century shouting, “The whole world is our cloister!” By contrast, narrowing the scope of salvation to words, theories, churches, and select groups, we have led many people to not pay any attention to the miracles that are all around them, all the time, here and now. Either this world is also the “Body of God” or we have less evidence of God at all.

The early Franciscans said the first Bible was not the written Bible, but creation itself, the cosmos. “Ever since the creation of the world, God's eternal power and divinity -- however invisible -- have become visible for the mind to see in all the things that God has made (Romans 1:20).” This is surely true; but you have to sit still in it for a while, observe it, and love it without trying to rearrange it by thinking you can fully understand it. This combination of observation along with love -- without resistance, judgment, analysis, or labeling – is probably the best description of contemplation I can give. You simply participate in ‘a long, loving look at the real.’

For Francis, nature itself was a mirror for the soul, for self, and for God… He would rejoice in all the works of the Lord, and saw behind them things pleasant to behold -- their life giving reason and cause. In beautiful things he saw a beauty itself. And all things were to him good. This mirroring flows naturally back and forth from the natural world to the soul… Once that flow begins, it never stops. You’re home, you’re healed… in this world.

This is what I love about nature, why so many of us find nature such an important spiritual pathway. What Rohr says is true, that “…you have to sit still in it for a while, observe it, and love it without trying to rearrange it...,” that the ‘combination of observation along with love’ will get us somewhere good.

~~ Yours for just such a good thing,

RGM, July 31, 2017