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: Pastime, Passed Time, Past Time or Passing Time?

A day off…

I sit restfully on a dock and let time pass, contentedly watching not much of anything. A Kingfisher flits across the bay; something in motion flashes on an opposite shoreline; sunlight mirrors a lava-lamp effect on the rippling water; a squirrel leaps a gaping maw from a high branch of one hemlock to that of another; a stationary wolf spider ambles out to sun, or to watch for prey, or to do whatever it is that wolf spiders do, maybe, like me, just to sit restfully on a dock and let time pass, contentedly watching not much of anything.

Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? Who knows how long I have been resting here? Oxymoronically, the time passes in no time. I feel fully alive, but still, somehow, sad.

What is it about the passing of time that makes for something of a sadness? It matters not that one is having fun, as the saying goes, though that is where the sensation can seem most acute. Family time, meaningful work time, free time, day off time, cabin time, friend time, vacation time, sabbath time, up time, down time: there is a kind of sadness when they’ve ended.

We long for the seemingly timeless moments, to feel free of duration, to enjoy interludes when the clock stands still, periods that constitute what author Sheldon Vanauken envisions as “…the dream of unpressured time – time to sit on stone walls, time to see beauty, time to stare as long as sheep and cows.” Such moments sear themselves in our memories, especially, for me, when they have been shared with a loved one. But those interludes are too rare, and we are held captive to duration, cognizant, oh so very cognizant, of the passage of time.

And yet this cognizance should not be all there is to the story. Again Vanauken: “Awareness of duration, of terminus, spoils now.” This is often certainly true for me. How frequently I find myself mentally, inadvertently, even against my will, counting off the vacation days like ticks off a timer, numbering each day backwards to zero.

Yet, as God’s creatures, for now, time is merely another dimension in which we must live. Like space, it simply is. In that regard it’s also not unlike the air we breathe, or the space we take up as we move: but we don’t sit around decrying whether or not we’re going to run out of air or the space to get around.  So, why time? A thousand generations pass, all bound by this same dimension, yet somehow we still let it not be simply what it is.

Back to the flitting bird, the jumping squirrel, the lounging spider. Animals do not sense time. They are completely at home in the present in their natural surroundings. I wish I could do that, live that way. Perhaps this longing for timelessness is a uniquely human curse. Perhaps, as a result, it also becomes a proof, or at least an inference, of the existence of eternity. Perhaps, just for now, timelessness can only belong to God and God alone. Just for now…

~~RGM, From an Earlier Entry

in My Nature Journal

From My Nature Journal: Restless

[Another year has turned. Many reflect on the passing of time in these first few days of a New Year. I recently ran across this piece in my nature writings, reflecting on such a time some years ago. My prayer is that it will be a blessing to any who are experiencing a season of restlessness.]

In light of a wind of change that has been blowing over me, I have been thinking lately of seasons: I seem to be coming off a long season of unrest, the exact nature of which has not been clear. Depression? No… Anxiety? No, not quite that either. But restlessness? Disquiet? I think for now, those seem to describe it best.

When actual climatic seasons begin to change, it could be said that a restlessness settles in. In mid-season the weather seemed to have normed into an ‘at-restness,’ but within a short time after that, something happens – one may first notice it as a faint whiff, a color, a sound, a sighting – and a harbinger of change presents itself. It may be a September snow flurry or a faint peal of March thunder. Perhaps it’s a towhee at the February feeder or an early fall sundog. From then on, one notices more and more the cues and clues that change is in the offing. Even these become the norm after awhile, until finally the mid-April snow dump or the late fall Indian Summer provide the last vestiges, the death throes, of a season dying, and a new norm ascends reign.

Seasons of course are not known to be static, not always predictable or black and white, at least climate seasons, that is, unless you live nearer the Equator. Winter, spring, summer and fall progress and fade in turn, with their capricious timings and geographic variations. Our years in Minnesota convinced us that winter there seemed to rob a month from each of the most pleasant seasons -- spring and fall -- producing a five-month deep freeze that just went on interminably. That variation is all the more pronounced where my daughter lives in Alaska.

But then there are seasons that are exact, fixed: annual solar seasons of 365¼ days; daily solar seasons of 24 hours, give or take the occasionally added leap minute; lunar seasons of 28¼ days; celestial seasons of other planets that share our solar system, or other extra-terrestrial rotations within our expanding universe, calculable but too vast for most to notice. Are any of earth’s short weather seasons not tied to some of these?

But this is not all. We speak of seasons of life and death, epochs that affect every animal, vegetable and mineral. There are seasons of biological gestation, thirty-nine weeks or whatever. There’s apple blossom season, or morel mushroom season, ‘when the oak leaves are the size of squirrel paws,’ according to my dear hunter-gatherer brother Greg. There’s sugarbush time when the maples are running with early spring sap, or ‘those years the cherry tree grew by the garage.’ Then there are recognizable seasons of human time. ‘My high school years’ is an example of that, or ‘while he was in the military,’ ‘while I had that job,’ or ‘all that time Dad was sick.’ There are tectonic seasons of colliding plates, of mountain formation, volcanism, erosion. There are seasons of a friendship, seasons of childhood and adulthood, puberty, child-bearing years, empty-nestedness, old age. Ownership has its seasons: ‘those years we had the Ford conversion van,’ or ‘the time our cat Spencer lived with us (for certainly, does anyone ever really ‘own’ a cat? Actually, I think the cat looked at it as ‘the season he let us live in his house.’)’ Then there are seasons of place: ‘those years we went to the farm every summer’ or ‘our time at 1540.’ Of course, the longer a season the less it may be spoken of as such; for example, my family does not say ‘while we were on Rockwell Street’ the same way my wife’s says ‘our time on Hemlock,’ for our Rockwell season in Chicago was so long, fifty years, the only home some of us ever knew. In the same way, one does not say ‘my time in the solar system.’ Seasons tend to have duration. Not all their endings and beginnings can be pointed to, but some can.

Joni Mitchell had it:

And the seasons, they go ‘round and ‘round

And the painted ponies go up and down:

We’re captured on the carousel of time.

We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came

And go ‘round and ‘round and ‘round in the circle game.

Still, I’m thinking these days that seasons sometimes define us, as it seems this season of unrest has defined me, at least from my perspective. I long for it to be over, glad the harbingers of its passing are becoming more frequent. Just the same, how I need again and again to be led to my immutable God -- “…Whose compassions fail not, Whose mercies never cease…,” and of Whom it is said possesses not a single “shadow of turning” (Lamentations 3:22-23 and James 1:17) -- while on and on, from my vantage-point, cycles on the music of the spheres. 

~~RGM

From My Nature Journal: The Cycle

To my right, a brittle and monstrous-looking dragonfly exoskeleton clings to an alder sapling at water’s edge. Like an outgrown pair of overalls, a nymph left it behind weeks ago after climbing from the watery depths and emerging from its skin shell. We often see these lovely creatures fresh out of the lake, having climbed bush, tree trunk, even cabin walls, clinging to their outgrown suit for several hours while they unravel their wings, pump blood into their veins, and finally skitter off to do their barnstorming thing.

I’ve delighted this summer season in the helicopter antics of a particularly large adult that has graced the dock, vigilantly doing its part to relieve me from mosquito peskery. It seems to strike an occasional photogenic pose on the weathered wood while it surveys its hunting grounds, even lighting on me from time to time for a loftier view of its riparian domain. One time it landed on my forearm barely ten inches from my face, cocked its head several times, and stared at me with seeming inquisitiveness through its huge iridescent eyes. Is this the same one that left its used clothing hanging on its alder hook?

Yet now as I watch, a female does her little darner dance low over the water. She will die soon. But now she flits irregularly, dropping her abdomen’s backside quickly to the surface about once every second or two, depositing a fertilized egg with each dip, a seed that will sink to the bottom and, if it survives the weather and hungry fish, will ready itself for its own debut late next spring, perchance climbing this same alder.

The cycle.

Whether all the same insect or not, I see before my very eyes a generation rising and passing, a life cycle in full, miniature to my own. What’s the difference in the grand scheme of things between a summer season and the season of a human lifetime? What’s to say that the passing of time in God’s perspective, before Whose eyes a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, is any different? This tiny one’s life cycle has its purpose and I mine. Its intention has played itself forward before my eyes, as mine does before God’s. In their proper time, both its biography and my own will be complete.

For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. (Psalm 103:15-18)

~~ RGM, August 11 2017

P.S. I wrote once before on dragonflies, but from a bit more poetic of a perspective. Hit this link to check it out.