From My Nature Journal: Running with the Bison

Well, ok, they weren’t really bison, just tumbleweeds…

Remember those old movies where a horseman would be galloping alongside a herd of wide-eyed bison as they stampeded across the plains, dust flying amidst thundering hooves? I had my closest experience ever to that interesting feeling today…

On our way to Chicago to visit family for the Thanksgiving holiday, we happened to leave the day following an early and burly winter storm yesterday, a fierce and old-fashioned nor’easter; its blizzard conditions packed some ferocious winds in excess of fifty miles per hour. But the snow had given way by today to a crystal blue Colorado sky, and the roads were clear and dry. We’ve driven that angled stretch of Interstate 76 between Denver and the Nebraska state line many times, always marveling at the piles of tumbleweeds stacked up against the barbwire fences on the east side of the highway. In fact, on the days we’d made a predawn departure, they had often provided quite the curious scene as a colorful morning sky dawned beyond them.

But here’s the thing: yesterday’s storm had moved all the tumbleweeds to the west side of the highway, and, as so typically happens, yesterday’s gale force winds from the east were matched almost completely today by their corresponding counterforce from the west -- all that unstable air had to somehow get back to the place it had occupied the day before! So as we traveled east and northeast along the interstate, hundreds and hundreds, nay, thousands of tumbleweeds had to do the same, all of them being blown back to the east side of the road. The first time we came upon a bunch of them moving east or northeast with our car, I commented to Gail that I felt like we were in one of those old movie scenes surrounded by a stampede! We, of course, traveled ‘with’ the ‘herd,’ inevitably running over many as they exploded in the wind around our car. But what a sight the vehicles were on the opposite side – many of them, cars and trucks alike, completely covered across their grills with growing tumbleweed layers. It made them look like a bunch of thickly bearded goblins running down the road.

Tumbleweeds have always fascinated me. (Apparently they’ve also fascinated my sister Denise – she once asked if we’d bring her one in Chicago, a request we were glad to oblige. But it sure took up a lot of room in the back seat and we still find an occasional poker sticking out of the cloth. Also, I’m not sure what my beloved brother-in-law had to say about it…) As we hike, we see them as small as basketballs and as large as Volkswagen Beetles. The pair shown below to the left were a couple of random ones we saw as we walked along a Las Cruces, New Mexico trail beside the Rio Grande.

In spite of their ubiquity in cheesy western films (picture one now rolling lazily across the dusty ghost-town street), the most common species in the interior west today is actually not even native but invasive. It’s called Russian Thistle, and is reputed to have come over in a shipment of flax seed from Eastern Europe to North Dakota in the 1870’s. Who knew? But there are lots of different kinds, and they vary widely in size and structure. Wikipedia says, “A tumbleweed is a structural part of the above-ground anatomy of a number of species of plants, a diaspore that, once it is mature and dry, detaches from its roots or stem, and tumbles away in the wind... Tumbleweed species occur most commonly in steppe and arid ecologies, where frequent wind and the open environment permit rolling without prohibitive obstruction.”

Beyond their physical fascination, I haven’t taken them particularly seriously over the years except when I try to aim my car at them as they cross a highway. You get points for that, you know, even if it makes your wife nervous. But farmers and agronomists have learned through hard experience to treat them much more seriously. Not only do they crowd out native foliage, but in drier regions they also starve both native plants and dryland crops of much needed moisture, each tumbleweed plant using up to forty gallons or more of water during a growing season. They also can negatively impact soil erosion, and produce fire hazards as they stack up in massive piles against buildings or vehicles. By and large, they are bad dudes.

But back to the ‘diaspore’ thing from the Wikipedia article. Though it’s just one word in the explanatory paragraph, this is the part that has always fascinated me most. Tumbleweeds are made to roll, not to provide forlorn and lonely ambience for old westerns, but in order to disburse their seed. Plants have different methods for seed dispersal – they can explode them, fly them, hitchhike them on animals or humans, or just drop them – but I think tumbleweeds are the only ones where the whole plant becomes the mechanism to deliver its seed wherever the wind rolls it. As it rolls and breaks down, seeds fall, or small pieces of the plant break off with seed attached, finding potential welcome in a harmonious place. They leave a mark of their presence wheresoe’er they roam.

I want to leave seeds of life,

hope and faith wherever I go.

How about you?

Noxiousness aside, of course, I guess in a different way I want to be like that, too. I want to leave seeds of life, hope and faith wherever I go. How about you?

Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place… a sweet aroma from life to life.  

(2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

~~ RGM, from a 2014 entry in my nature journal,

adapted for my blog on November 25, 2016

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

From My Nature Journal: Contrast

This morning in church our pastor used a photo to illustrate a point he was making, a photo I saw many years ago: it’s a composite of multiple images taken by satellite of the entire earth at night. It captured me so at the time I first saw it that I bought a large poster of it that still sits in the cardboard tube, too large for me to put anywhere. With my apologies that I could not find an image with higher resolution, here it is.

If you clicked on it to enlarge it and studied it a bit (please do so, it’s pretty amazing), you can see that the major cities of the world are easily recognizable by their intense light shining into the night – Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, London, etc. Did you spot them? Certain places, like the eastern third of the United States, Japan and the UK are practically nothing but light, where populations are dense. By contrast, it is also easy to recognize the oceans, or to see Mongolia, the least densely populated country in the world, by their lack of light, similar to the vast blackness of Africa’s Sahara Desert region or the Australian Outback. Living as I do in the more sparsely populated American Interior West, I enjoy trying to pick out the cities I so often travel to. And though the photo is titled “Light Pollution” by some, giving it a negative connotation, I think the image is absolutely beautiful. My eyes are drawn to both the highly populated and meagerly inhabited regions, I think about those who live there, and I am struck once again by the power of light.

Light.

In a universe that on average is exceedingly black, light is more than a physical beacon. Not even taking into consideration light’s spiritual associations, there is profound emotion attached to light in darkness. And this is to say nothing of some children’s (or adults’) need for a nightlight. (Did you know that there are at least five words for fear of the dark -- none of which I even recognized -- such as achluophobia and nyctophobia?). Who can fail to be moved by the routine shtick done by park rangers or tour guides in vast underground caves, where all lights are extinguished, one is given the chance to feel the almost suffocating palpability of total darkness, and then, off across the titanic expanse, a candle flame is lit, drawing every eye to its simple, inviting, almost salvific glow.

It’s all about contrast. That’s where the emotive power is.

Here’s another cool expression of the same idea from a Japanese photographer, who is moved by the simple light of fireflies in the night (OK, lightning bugs if you’re from the Midwest). Using sensitive equipment, he has taken time-lapse photography of firefly lights in natural settings. (This particular photo is from a series shared in Smithsonian magazine.) Growing up in Chicago, I found them so thick on muggy summer evenings that I could catch a jarful in an hour. But to see them like this, that’s another thing. Astounding. Again, contrast.

It’s light’s contrast with darkness that is so impacting, and frankly, yes, so emotional. Our pastor was making the point that it’s the same contrast that should exist between devoted followers of God and a world that often seems bent on its own destruction – not in the sense of God-followers taking pride at all in their enlightened condition, but rather taking joyful responsibility for bringing and offering light in the midst of darkness.

Here is a true truth: it’s a jungle out there, and a dark one at that. Be light.

...Become pure children of God, without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine like stars in the sky. (Philippians 2:15)

Let your light shine in order that others may see your holy lives and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

~~ RGM, From an earlier entry in my nature journal,

Adapted for my blog October 21, 2016

From My Nature Journal: “Holy Buckets in the World is THAT?”

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak to them, and tell them, ‘At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread: and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” It happened at evening that quail came up and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay around the camp. When the dew that lay had gone, behold, on the surface of the wilderness was a small round thing, small as the frost on the ground. When the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, “What is it?” For they didn’t know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.” …The house of Israel called its name Manna (which is to say, “What is it?”), and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey. (Exodus 16:11-15, 31)

Several months ago, our two-year-old granddaughter Myla, pictured at left, coined a new phrase that has taken on with the rest of our family. While several of us were out for a saunter together, she saw something that startled her, opened her eyes wide and blurted out, mixing her newly-learned phrases, “Holy buckets in the world is THAT?”

I recently had one of those ‘holy buckets in the world is THAT?’ moments, and it still has me scratching my head in wonder.

We are up for a few early fall days to close for the year our little cabin in the big woods of Michigan’s Ottawa National Forest. Among the many things to do, large and small, I remembered I had not yet pulled the thermometer that hangs off the end of our dock out of the lake. I was also curious, of course, to know the difference in water temperature since we had last been here a couple months back, because if it wasn’t below 55 yet, I might even take a dip. Pulling up the five-foot string, I noticed immediately that it was heavier than it should have been, and before it broke the surface I saw something dark and strange the size of a large cantaloupe attached to the thermometer’s plastic casing. Hoisting it to eye level, it was some kind of huge,

gelatinous mass of eggs of some sort, the slimy likes of which I had never seen before. Frog eggs? Fish eggs? No, it’s way too late in the season for those kinds of things. Insect larvae eggs? I took out my phone camera to take a photo to show and ask around with some of the neighbors, but my next quick question was whether or not whatever it is was good for the lake. I put it back and launched upon my search. Surely someone will know.

Yet not one of our friends had ever seen or heard of such a thing. Oh, we see weird little masses or strings of eggs floating in the water or attached to lily pads, or odd little creatures coming up out of the lake to leave their watery abode and exoskeletons behind and take flight, but this thing was unusual. So my dear wife went to the Internet on her phone (she is always much quicker than I to think of such a thing), simply keyed in “egg sac under water” and voila, up pops a URL to a site that is quickly becoming one of my new faves, askanaturalist.com, with just our answer. It’s not only fun to read the stupid questions people ask there, but it’s fun to read the great questions people also ask there. (Yes, I know, it’s only a great question if it’s my question, but there are some really stupid things people ask!)

Someone else had wondered what I wonder and included a photo. My strange mass is not an egg mass but a colony of something called bryozoa, and, I was happy to find, it is good for the lake. Nowhere could we find a completely satisfying and simple definition of what bryozoa are, but suffice it to say they are akin somewhat to coral, tiny little filter feeder creatures that clean out impurities as they ingest the water around them. Lo and behold (who knew?), there are in excess of three thousand species known around the world, fifty in freshwater, and fifteen of these in North America, mostly in southern waters. How would you like to make a living as a zoologist who studies such things? Three thousand?

And immediately when I first encountered this mystery the other day and pulled it from the water, I was reminded yet again of one of my favorite things about being a naturalist. And it can be stated in two ways.

·      One: Even after years and years of nature observation, in my case fifty or so, the curious naturalist will come across things he or she has never seen before, and never will again. For example, my daughter and son-in-law, while canoeing, came across an eagle swimming in our lake, like a breaststroker, dragging a dead blue heron to shore it had apparently taken in flight. Crazy!

·      Two: Even after these same years and years of nature observation, the curious naturalist will see things they have not the foggiest clue what they are, things that will utterly astound and mystify them. Take for example my mystery blob. (Does that make this a blob blog?)

For me, it raises the issue of wonder. Any naturalist would do well to have plenty of it. Why? Because we are naturally curious, unless it has somehow been lost along the way. Most creatures actually are naturally curious, not just cats. I can stand on the end of a dock and wave my hands at a loon a hundred yards away, or swing a towel over my head in circles, and it will often come to investigate. It’s curious. It wonders.

Where does simple awe just knock us

back a step or two once in awhile?

Where but in the natural world!

But where do you and I find wonder regularly? Where do we scratch our heads at mystery? Where does simple awe just knock us back a step or two once in awhile? Where but in the

natural world! In our scientific age, many have lost the ability to wonder, yet wonder is a wonderful thing!! Who can keep from being struck by the wonder of children? Wonder is one of the childlike graces I think Jesus had in mind when he said, “Unless you become like a little child…” I like to think that the Israelites spent many, many days in awestruck and childlike wonder about the food God was providing them before they became frustrated with the limitations of their wilderness menu.

So I’ll add my blob experience to the long list of experiences I’ve had that have knocked my socks off. Because for me, to be drawn by the wonder of nature is to be drawn by the mystery and wonder of God.

~~RGM, October 1, 2016

From My Nature Journal: A Small Examen

I’ve written briefly before on the examen as a centuries-old, daily spiritual practice (see September 22, 2013 post). The examen, or examination of conscience, is a discipline whereby the follower of God takes intentional time, typically near the close of the day, to consider the manner in which they served and represented their God that day.

Recently I came across another excerpt from Church of Scotland minister Alistair Maclean’s Hebridean Altars, a lovely little fragment that can serve as a tiny examen for those so inclined. The Altars are a beautiful collection of Celtic Christian prayers and praises that Maclean compiled from oral and written tradition in his native Hebrides, an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. First published in 1937, it consists of over a hundred petitions, sayings and poems, along with brief commentary, and highlights the down-to-earth manner in which Celts expressed and lived their faith life. You’ll quickly notice why I find this little selection so appealing, and why I chose to share it on my nature blog.

When the shadows fall upon hill and glen:

and the bird-music is mute:

when the silken dark is a friend:

and the river sings to the stars:

ask thyself, brother,

ask thyself, sister,

the question you alone have power to answer --

O King and Saviour of all,

what is Thy gift to me?

and do I use it to Thy pleasing?

I love this. In similar fashion to the lyrics of the traditional hymn Day is Done, sung to the tune of Taps, it employs the circadian rhythms of nature as a jumping off place for daily spiritual reflection. In amazingly few words, the first lines completely and effectively draw one in to the mood of the night, and then challenge the thoughtful person to consider their personal condition with two simple questions: God, what are Your blessings in my life? And, Do I employ them for You?

What is Thy gift to me?

And do I use it to Thy pleasing?

One of these days I am going to share more thoroughly here on the examen, but for now, this charming text can get us there. Reflect on it tonight as God gives you opportunity, and consider passing this along to others who may find nature an important spiritual pathway.

~~ RGM September 26, 2016

P.S. Interestingly, I believe the compiler of Hebridean Altars was the father of the popular novelist of the same name who lived later in the 20^th Century. Remember The Guns of Navarone?

P.P.S. No extra charge: On the same page that the elder Maclean shares the above piece, he also includes this gem which can in like manner be used as a mini-examen: Take me often from the tumult of things into Thy presence. There show me what I am and what Thou hast purposed me to be. Then hide me from Thy tears.

Blowin’ in the Wind: A Prayer of Thanksgiving – On a Summer’s Day

("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 give me joy. I trust they’ll do the same for you.)

Well, the summer is waning quickly, or, as Joni Mitchell sang, ‘…Summertime is fallin’ down and winter’s closin’ in.’ Before the season is officially gone I thought I’d share a lovely piece I ran across recently in a book of prayers. The book, entitled The Prayers of Peter Marshall, was compiled and prefaced by novelist Catherine Marshall, whose husband was a very popular pastor, as well as Chaplain of the U.S. Senate from 1947-49.

Peter Marshall was a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman who had emigrated pennilessly to the United States in 1927 as a 24-year-old, attended Columbia Theological Seminary, and served two churches in Georgia before being called to pastor the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C. in 1937. Appointed by the Senate as Chaplain in late 1946, he was elected twice to the position, during which he continued to serve his church. He died suddenly of heart failure in late January of 1949 at the young age of 46.

Marshall’s prayers were simple and heart-spoken, of a homespun character, very rarely written down, many of them penned only by a faithful secretary who recorded them in shorthand. But they were a beloved part of worship in his churches, and appreciated in new ways by members of the Senate; previous chaplains’ prayers were filled with pretentious or pompous language that

tended to match that of the politicians themselves. The Prayers of Peter Marshall includes both a small collection of prayers from the churches he served as well as the complete collection of prayers spoken to open Senate sessions. 

Here is the prayer that caught my spirit a few days ago, one he prayed in church, and I share it in hopes that it will be as meaningful to you as it was to me. And, my goodness, if you can find the book, long OP, any of the prayers from those prayed in Senate Chambers would be appropriate for our ongoing intercession for our public leaders.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving – On a Summer’s Day

We give Thee thanks, Lord of heaven and earth, for the promise of summer, for the

beauty of this day – a day

            that shall ripen grain,

            that shall provide good things for the table,

            that shall make all growing things rejoice,

            that shall make more sweet the music of the birds,

            that shall make more beautiful the gardens which Thou hast

                        planted and watered.

We thank Thee for the fertility of the land that encourages us to sow and to plant. We thank Thee for the dependence of the seasons, for all Thy sustaining providence by which we work today and harvest tomorrow.

We well know, our Father, that we are not worthy of Thy bounty, but help us to be good stewards of that bounty. We thank Thee for the endless delight of our lives on this lovely earth. Amen.

~~ RGM, September 6, 2016