From My Nature Journal: Recruitment from the Seed Bank

Amateur naturalists frequently encounter provocative things as they observe creation, things they may never have seen before and perhaps never will again. Presenting themselves by direct experience, all one needs to do is pay good attention to their surroundings and ask inquisitive mental questions about what one is observing. But alternately, as we continue to seek understanding, we go deeper and learn through our reading. We come across details that have been studied by scientists in differing fields, and are often introduced to concepts that become equally intriguing. I recently ran into one such as I was reading about invasive plants: recruitment from the seed bank.

Anyone who pays attention to plants has encountered invasives -- whether kudzu in the Southeast, tamarisk in the Southwest, Scotch broom or English ivy in the Northwest, knotweed in the Northeast, milfoil in northern lakes or knapweed in the Midwest. My interest last week was purple loosestrife, a beautiful species brought to the USA as a cultivar in the 1800’s for
ornamental and medicinal use. In the last several decades it has proliferated such, especially in wet, marshy areas, that there are several states that have banned its sale. Like other invasives it chokes out native plants, and is especially damaging to species, both flora and fauna, already under other threats. We often see it in our travels across the northern states. 

But here’s the particular problem with loosestrife. It can grow to seven feet or more and can put out 2 to 3 million seeds per plant, regularly overwhelming nearby terrain in a hurry. And what’s worse is that the seeds are opportunists, and can lay dormant for years until just the right (or wrong!) ground disturbance brings them to the surface, presenting their perfect growing conditions; they then multiply so quickly that the land steward doesn’t know what hit them, and very soon it’s too late to manage. Recruitment from the seed bank, botanists call it. 

Now, that’s a rich concept, and it got me to thinking about just how much, and in just how many ways, that reality is active in our lives. And it can go either direction – to our or others’ benefit or to our or others’ detriment. Choosing to love makes for future recruitment from the seed bank. But so does choosing to hate. Small acts of kindness and mercy pay seeds forward. They come back to us. But so does the holding of resentment, or the withholding of forgiveness. Faith is a powerful investment in the seed bank. But a critical spirit is also; it’s just in the opposite direction to something positive. Even such things as people of faith memorizing Bible verses becomes a contribution to some kind of an endowment fund, what the Bible speaks of as ‘hiding God’s word in our hearts,’ so that its truth will come back to us in specific situations when we need it the most. I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrased Psalm 119:11 – “I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I will not sin myself bankrupt.”

Choosing to love makes for future recruitment

from the seed bank. Small acts of kindness and

mercy do the same. They come back to us.

Each of the above practices – loving, hating, showing mercy, resenting, withholding forgiveness, acting in faith, criticizing, committing the Bible to memory – each of them stores up seeds for the future. Each of them, and so many more, bear fruit in times when the right (or wrong) conditions come calling. The question is, is it good fruit or bad? Is it a welcome wildflower or an invasive or noxious weed? Does it build up or destroy?

A beloved seminary professor of mine described even church work in this way as the constant planting of seeds. And I have surely found this to be so as a pastor. Things ‘sown’ one day may sprout quickly or can take an excruciatingly long time to produce an effect. These latter can lie buried. They’re dormant, but not dead, kept from action until a disturbance. My prof called pastoral work ‘soil work,’ preparation of the seed bank. We constantly lay the seed, then wait and watch for a disturbance – ‘a crisis, a visitation of the Holy Spirit to recruit the seed, surface it and let it sprout.’ 

But it’s not just true of pastoring work. It’s true of parenting work, of marriage work, in fact of all relational work. So, sow only good seed. Sow a LOT of it. Then trust God’s recruitment from your seed bank.

~~ RGM, July 27 2024

From My Nature Journal: Is Creation Still Happening?

Sure, the typical default of us who believe that it truly was God who created all things is this sense that God did so at some point in the past, Genesis 1 and 2 and all. But I wonder about that sometimes. I like to think that creation is still happening. 

The deeper and deeper we go into the faraway cosmological mysteries of the universe and the nearby complexities of the human brain, for example, the more we seem to see how these things just eventually have a sense about them that we only discover a little at a time. To me, that is the revealing and unraveling of the creation story. And if that cannot be considered by some as creation still happening, perhaps it is at least simply God still creating something in us, and that not just for those with spiritual eyes (Matthew 13:13-15).

I watched the move Oppenheimer a couple nights ago. One cannot help but be impressed with humankind’s ability to garner previous knowledge in multiple disciplines and bring it to bear on a new creative challenge in crisis situations. Of course, what was created in that circumstance was a weapon of mass destruction with a checkered history since and an unpredictable and nerve-wracking future. Nevertheless, what was said could not possibly be done was done. What was not understood to make sense eventually made sense. We ‘discover’ things that border on or cross over into the realm of the unbelievable, but then, in time, they become not only believable but even logical. The imponderables become ponderable, then in turn plausible, comprehensible and finally understandable.

I recently read of a ‘new discovery’ of an enormous ring of galaxies reported to the American Astronomical Society. The laws of cosmological physics as we know them cannot account for such a thing as a ring of galaxies. The cosmos is relatively random, obeying known laws of nature such as gravity and inertia. It is supposedly just not possible for a ring of galaxies to exist, and this discovery challenges what seems to be known of the cosmos. Yet there it is a gazillion miles away.

And this is the way it seems again and again – not only in scientific cosmology but in medicine, technology, biology and the other sciences, sociology, exploration, you name it. 

Maybe even faith. Forgiveness given and received. Impossible? Relationships restored. Preposterous? Peacemaking. Outlandish? Healing of mind, soul or body. Absurd? Humans have the capacity to create monstrous things, but we also have the capacity to join in on what God creates for our good.

The Christian reformer Martin Luther once said, “God made the world out of nothing. It is only when we become nothing that God can make something out of us.”

Maybe creation never quits. 

For God chose… things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one can boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:28-29)

By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… All things were created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:16)

~~ RGM, January 31, 2024

From My Nature Journal: When the Curtain Draws Back

There is so much going on around us in the natural world of which we are unaware.  I have often advised budding naturalists, especially children, how important it is simply to pay closer attention to one’s environment in order to see God’s creation reveal its rarities, secrets and mysteries, but a couple experiences these past two weeks brought this home to me yet again. 

Several months ago I finally got around to downloading a newer feature of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s “Merlin” app to my phone, its bird identification by sound tool. I have always wanted to learn to better identify birds by their songs or calls and have watched for an app such as this for a long time. (Get it! It’s amazing!) But there it sat on my phone these many weeks without getting to it. Finally, on a quirk while I was doing something else a couple weeks ago, I heard a call that I had always wondered about: dzee-zee-zee-zoo-zee. I impulsively turned on the tool for a few seconds and, when the bird called again, a photo popped up in a heartbeat of a black-throated green warbler. What? I don’t know warblers at all, and to my memory had never even identified one. All these years I’ve been listening to a warbler? Well, I got hooked. Or perhaps a birder would say, “I got netted.”

Sometimes now I’ll just go out on our deck early in the morning, turn on the app and see what’s out there. I never fail to be stunned. I had no idea so many species were nearby and identifiable amongst what often seems to me the confusion of overlapping birdsong. Even a song I assumed belonged to the ubiquitous robin ended up being something else, in this case a black-headed grosbeak, and I am now learning by experience to distinguish them from each other. ID’ing by sound is helping me to ‘see with my ears,’ giving me cues and clues to more easily spot the bird by sight when I am able. 

So that’s example number one of the reality that there is much going on around us of which we can be unaware. 

There is so much going on around

us in the natural world of 

which we are unaware…

Example two. I met my friend Mark for coffee yesterday. He nearly came out of his seat (and me mine) as he regaled me with a recent whale-spotting experience. In spite of our living near the ocean for over five years here in Washington (can’t see it but can hear and smell it!), Gail’s and my whale sightings have been pathetically few, and that not for wont of watching. We watch the water all the time! But Mark knew something special was up: he could see the water not far offshore disturbed with something, as a stirred area suddenly became very popular with gathering and crying gulls, dipping and diving, then harbor seals surfacing, and finally minke whales spyhopping and fluking, taking advantage along with the others of the herring school or whatever school it was that was in session near the surface that day. The whole thing did not last long but Mark was mesmerized. Then he said, “Isn’t that amazing? There are things like that going on below the surface all the time but we never see them unless they manifest themselves.” 

We never see them unless they manifest themselves. 

So true, in so many ways. God’s actions are so often below the surface rather than blatant. Spiritual realities can hardly seem real. I truly wish God would manifest God’s self more often, openly for anyone to see. Don’t you? It’s something the people of Jesus’ day seemed to ask for often, in spite of the miracles Jesus performed from time to time in their very presence. Amazingly (and frustratingly), Jesus always seemed to refer them (and us) to the ways God was manifesting God’s self all the time if they just observed the signs, if they just opened their awareness to the irrational possibilities rather than only the presumed certainties. 

Once in awhile, like a furtive bird one had no clue was even nearby, like a whale fluke that seems to come out of absolutely nowhere, just when we thought nothing was happening, God manifests God’s self; a veil is opened, a dimness brightens, a path appears, a curtain draws back, and we glimpse something that near takes our breath away.

I’m not a tattoo guy, but if I ever were, I’ve always thought my ink would either be a Celtic cross or a whale tail: the cross for obvious reasons, but the whale tail because a view of one has always reminded me there is nearly always something fantastic, something astonishing, something perhaps even miraculous going on underneath what’s apparent.

~~ RGM, June 22 2022

From My Nature Journal: The Proof is in the Pudding

It’s a strange phrase, isn’t it? What does pudding prove, after all? If you know your metaphors, however, you know its simple meaning: if one wonders the nature of a thing, that thing has simply to be experienced. 

Etymologically, it is first found roughly in English in the 1300’s without reference to an author, going this way: Jt is ywrite that euery thing Hymself sheweth in the tastyng. By 1605 a first named source is found, British historian William Camden, who has it: All the proofe of a pudding’s i’ the eating. And we’re not talking about Jello pudding or a tapioca here. The common meal among the English was something called a pudding, which was most often a savory, even meaty dish, constituting the main or sometimes the only course. Of course, there were also some sweet ones, and many of us have even ordered it from time to time without knowing it or even knowing what it is. ‘Oh, bring us some figgy pudding,’ indeed.  In the case of our phrase, it could be paraphrased like this: Don’t judge the dish by its looks or even by what the cook says. Take a bite.

But here’s another way the phrase is used: if something is distrusted or unknown, just look at its evidences. I had cause yet again to think about this recently in relation to such an enormous subject as the existence of God, of all things, and this in a text in The Apocrypha. Okay, okay, as an evangelical Protestant, I must say I’m not greatly familiar with these intertestamental Christian writings found in Roman Catholic and a few other traditions’ translations. Most of the main Protestant translations don’t include these few ‘books’ written in between the historic times of what Christians call the Old Testament (the history and faith of Israel pre-Jesus) and the New Testament (the life of Jesus and inspiration of the early church). I’m not sure why this is so, likely just the traditions of the various reform movements of the 16th and 17th Centuries. 

And frankly, I cannot even remember where I ran into this passage. Was it on the Jesuit Pray as You Go app I listen to daily on my smartphone? They occasionally use an apocryphal text as the passage of the day. Or was it in some other ecological reading I did somewhere? Anyway, there it was, this surprisingly firm yet still lovely text about the proof of God in God’s creation. Here it is, from The Apocrypha’s ‘book’ called Wisdom, chapter 13 in its entirety (the bolding is mine):

1 For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the One who exists, nor did they recognize the Artisan while paying heed to his works;

2 but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world.

3 If through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the Author of Beauty created them.

4 And if people were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is the One who formed them.

5 For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.

6 Yet these people are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him.

7 For while they live among his works, they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful.

8 Yet again, not even they are to be excused;

9 for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?

Wow, that’s a pretty strong text. It reminds me of two others in the Bible versions I am much more familiar with. First from Job 12:7-10 (bold again mine):

Ask the animals, and they will teach you;

    the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;

    and the fish of the sea will declare to you.

Who among all these does not know

    that the hand of the LORD has done this?

In his hand is the life of every living thing

    and the breath of every human being.

And then from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, 1:19-20, which has it this way in the
Christian New Testament (I am using Eugene Peterson’s creative translation, The Message, and, again, the bold mine):

But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. 

Back to our pudding, sometimes it just needs to be said: If the reality of God is still at best a stretch for you, look at God’s creative and loving evidences. Go ahead. Take a bite. The Master Chef is eager that you do that. Or, as the Bible says elsewhere, “Taste and see…” Have patience with the possibility that God is not only real, but that God desires to be known and even makes that a possibility for all willing to consider it.

~~ RGM, April 30 2022

From My Nature Journal: Faith Sees

Eyes see the January-barren tree.

Faith sees spring’s leaf buds and blossoms, tastes autumn’s fruit.

Eyes see the storm.

Faith sees life-enhancing rain that refreshes and supples the land.

Eyes see the small, inert-looking speck.

Faith sees all of that tiny seed’s fertile potential.

Eyes see the trail’s steep grade, effort and toil.

Faith sees the panoramic view at trail’s end.

Eyes see flames consuming, ravaging.

Faith sees warmth, light, nutrients and purification.

Eyes see wilderness’s danger and foreboding.

Faith sees its ability to produce recollection, thoughtfulness and intention.

Eyes see glitz, neon lights, goods, attractions, and amusements.

Faith sees their prospective power to damage the spirit.

Eyes see geese in chevron flight moving south for the long winter.

Faith sees a spring return on pacific breeze.

Eyes see little, scanning quickly over natural beauty.

Faith sees the good pleasure of the Creator, and lingers.

Eyes see death, stark and brutal.

Faith sees resurrection, hope springing eternal.

Eyes fail.

Only faith sees.

Marvelous redemption.

Blessed Easter Tomorrow, 
RGM, March 31 2018

Blowin’ in the Wind: Modeling Christian Faith with Children (And the Part Nature Can Play in That)

(Blowin’ in the Wind is a regular 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 have given me joy. I trust they will do the same for you.)

I’ve a cool but untypical thing to share this week. My daughter sent this long ago, and I regretfully confess from the start I do not recall its source (if memory serves me it was from another pastor’s blog), but it immediately found itself in my ‘I Wish I’d Said That’ category. Before I get to it, though, let me explain.

As my parenthesized paragraph above states whenever I do my “Blowin’ in the Wind” feature, I come across a lot of things that inspire me in my pursuit of God through God’s creation, things I don’t write myself, and I enjoy sharing some of them occasionally here. A couple times in the past I’ve written on the importance of inspiring children with God’s creation, but this piece says much more than that, and it’s very, very good.

And there's been one more since this photo was taken...!

What’s prompting my thinking about this subject is that a couple of my grandchildren from Alaska are coming today to spend some Grandma and Grandpa time these next three weeks. We’ve tried to pull this off each summer once they begin elementary school, and have found it good for them and for us, especially when all of them live so far away. Having raised our own kids with an appreciation for God’s creation, it has only been natural for us to continue this in the next generation, and what a pleasure this has been! Kids have a natural curiosity that finds the fun and wonder in things Gail and I might even miss.

…A child’s faith is not meant so much

to be instilled as to be inspired…

Back now to the piece I wanted to share with you, apologizing for such a long introduction! This pastor’s writing was stimulated by a quote he had heard from Princeton Seminary President Craig Barnes, “We can’t make our children believe. We can only make our children believe that we believe.” Instilling faith in children is an important subject most Christian parents have on their minds and hearts. What I think Barnes was getting at is that a child’s faith is not meant so much to be instilled as to be inspired. In other words, children must ultimately choose faith on their own volition rather than it being ‘force fed.’ Barnes’ quote caused this pastor to wonder what he does to help his children believe that he believed, wondered even if his children knew he believed. What he wrote is worth every parent’s and grandparent’s (and uncle and aunt and mentor’s) consideration. Here’s what he said:

1. I will seek to share an image of God so large that they never fear that what I believe is absolutely what they must believe. Jesus told the church before his death that he had more things yet to say to us, but that we couldn’t bear them yet. So he made a promise: the Spirit of truth would come who would guide us into all the truth (John 16:12-13). Michael Jinkins describes a riff by Cindy Rigsby with which I heartily agree: “If you have understood something, that which you have understood is not God.” Because God is more than I can ever comprehend, I will remain open to what God may yet reveal to me, even by way of my children.
2. I will seek to show through my words and actions that I believe being connected to a community of faith is not a burden, but a joy. I know all of the reasons folks have left the church. At times, I am tempted to think that it would be a whole lot easier if it were just me and Jesus, but then a day comes when I have no prayers to offer, and discover someone is praying for me. Or a morning breaks when clinging to faith seems impossible, but another holds it for me. Life in community is always messy and frustrating and even infuriates me from time to time. And yet, left on my own, my vision always grows more narrow; my arrogance always rises; and my understanding of God becomes pitifully small. I believe in the power of the community Jesus calls together, even though we often betray our own beliefs. So I will keep showing up to give thanks that I do not have to journey alone.
3. I will seek to take seriously my baptismal promise to nurture my children in the faith. One of my kids once told me, “This is my life! It’s not your life to live.” And she was right. But, as I reminded her, it is my life to shape, and I want to do that with as much love and grace and care as I can. And I will need the community of faith to help me keep my promises as well.
4. I will sing. Ours is a singing faith, and I have found that by singing the hymns and songs in worship, even the ones I don’t particularly enjoy, I discover myself believing in a deeper and truer way. Just a few weeks ago, I stood beside my mother in worship. Hearing her sing the words she can no longer see made me even more grateful for her voice, and for her faith. I want my children to hear in my voice what I heard that day in hers.
5. I will seek to reflect the generosity of God as I relate to others. I love the way Eugene Peterson renders a verse from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in his paraphrase of the Bible: “Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you” (Matthew 5:48, The Message). Looking back through the course of my (almost) fifty years, I see countless times the grace of God has surprised me with joy and transformed chaos into hope. It is that grace I seek to bear in my life toward others.
6. I will seek to live my life in grateful response for the gifts of God that fill this world. In Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, David Steindl Rast opened my eyes to the truth that all of life is sheer gift. The world and everything in it didn’t have to exist, yet by the sheer gift of God, it does. I do not simply wish to notice these things which fill the world with God’s goodness; I also want to offer back my grateful praise.
7. I will seek to share a sense of awe and wonder as we explore God’s good creation while hiking. Henry David Thoreau was right: in nature we return to reason and to faith. I want to explore with my children the beauty of all that God has created, showing them along the way how the heavens and earth tell the glory of God. While nature doesn’t reveal the whole picture of who God is, there is also nothing quite like seeing the sun rise through the mist hanging on the mountain ridge.
8. I will talk with them about events in their lives or on the news that reveal a corruption or serious mis-understanding of what it means to follow in the way of Jesus Christ. This could be called the Westboro Baptist clause, but there are simply too many people who are beyond mean in the way they seek to share the love of God. As I seek to clarify and correct, however, I will also seek to avoid sarcastic dismissal of those who are earnestly seeking to be faithful.
9. I will seek to let my life show the radical nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ. While there are myriad ways to do that, I will be particularly attentive to welcoming the outcast; to forgiving those who sin against me; to loving my enemies; and to embracing the other. I will do some of this by working through the systems of care at work in our community; more importantly, I will seek to do these things in the midst of the messiness of my real life relationships.
10. I will always be ready to account for the hope that is within me, so that my children know why I’m living the way I am. I guess by this I simply mean, “I believe.” And I want my children to know that what I believe matters for the way I live and how I worship and the kindness I share.

This is a lot to think about, and I commend it not only to you but also to myself during Grandpa time! If you have children at home, discuss these things with your mate or friends and see what they think. As for us, Gail and I will be much outdoors with our grandkids these next days, a perfect and natural place to live out a natural faith.

~~ RGM, July 23 2015