From My Nature Journal: Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

These were words of Danish philosopher and social critic Søren Kierkegaard (in fact, they were a book title of his), speaking of the singularity of purpose and will with which the mature follower of Christ pursued the life of faith. Off the top of one’s head it might be challenging to describe that ‘one thing’ in a single sentence, and would be interesting to raise that subject among a group of friends sometime soon. But it no doubt relates to the same ‘one thing’ about which Jesus exhorted Martha in Luke 10:41-42, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about so many things. But only one thing is needed…”

Singularity of will… Sometimes, by contrast, my seeming multiplicity of wills is an annoyance, and that not only to me.

Singularity of will… Sometimes, by

contrast, my seeming multiplicity of wills

is an annoyance, and that not only to me.

Over the last several springs there has been a bass nest in a couple feet of water about twenty feet south of our dock. A fish nest? Yes, they’re different from most other animal nests – in the wide open with little cover, and in the case of bass and many other fish, are simply a roughly circular clearing where the male has driven away the sand and silt with his tail and left a slight, gravelly depression. Nose anchored in a fixed position, he pivots to create a bed approximately twice his length. (‘Our’ nest is twenty-four to thirty inches in diameter.) He’ll then coax a ready female over it and woo her; mama releases her eggs, papa gives them a spray of sperm (called ‘milt’), and the fertilized eggs settle into the sparse cover of cracks and crevices below. She swims away, often to spawn again

A bass nest

elsewhere, and the male may entice another female to spawn with him, assuring good diversity of offspring. The male then guards the nest for several days, not exactly settling on but hovering over it or patrolling nearby; when the fry hatch (I always thought ‘fry’ was an ironic name for juvenile fish, given their potential future…), papa will guard it for another day or two and then be gone. Many of these nests are visible in shallow water, as the gravel tends to be lighter in color than the silt and sand that has been blown aside. And if the lake is calm, it is usually quite easy to spot a nice-sized fish perched over it.

During spawning season, fishermen work these beds with various techniques to catch them. (I won’t reveal here what I think is the most effective method, as that would be to disclose trade secrets.) Most fisherpeople I know have long since progressed to catch-and-release when it comes to bass, especially in pristine natural settings where better food fish like sunnies, walleye and trout are more available. It takes a pretty large bass to be a legal keeper in the northwoods anyway, in excess of fifteen inches here in Michigan. Up north, that’s a big fish; individuals that reach this size do not do so because they’re dumber than average.

But bass are just plain fun to catch. Even small ones give an amazing thrill, and they are just so beautiful to see up close. Only very rarely is one wounded in the catch-and-release process, if it is done right. A few seconds out of the water, liberation from the hook, maybe a photo, and finally a gentle release and they’re back in the water in a few flashes, more quickly gone in a flash of their own.

And this is if a spawning fish can even be caught. Getting back to the idea with which I started, they are pretty intent on their purpose. Typically a nesting fish will ignore the distraction of nearby food, including bait or lure; in fact, it is not unusual for a nested fish to pick up the edge of a lure ever so gently, too smoothly and lightly for the fisherman to even feel it, then move to the edge of the nest and just spit it out. I’ve seen them do this. Can’t you picture it? “Oh, there’s that annoying little thing again… (Lift.) Puhtooey!” In fact, if a fisherman has the ability to actually see his lure move slowly left or right, defying physics, a quick tug might capture him right then and there.

This past Memorial weekend my dear son-in-law could not resist seeing if he could raise the old boy in our swimming area and take a look. I watched for a short while from the three-season porch as he worked the bed, and, immediately after I looked away, he was clambering quickly up the steps with his catch held carefully in both hands. We hastily shared the joy of this little natural beauty, and Beej was off quickly for the release.

Here’s the thing, though… Later that morning, out of curiosity I asked him if he could tell if the fish had returned to its nest at all while he was down there continuing to fish. “Oh, within seconds it was back on it,” he replied. “Really? Within seconds?” “Yes, maybe ten.” We both shook our heads in amazed delight. It had just gone through what was likely a first-in-its-life experience, fought a fight that would mean life or death, was forcefully yanked from its familiar environment and was finally introduced to as foreign a setting as underwater would be to us. Once back in the water, wouldn’t you think it’d take off for the most distant cover it could find, in sheer fear? Nope, within a brief moment he was back at it as before.

That is singularity of purpose. That is willing one thing.

Forgive my anthropomorphism, but, as always, natural realities constantly remind me of spiritual realities. I wish I could possess that kind of singularity of will. My mind at times wanders, my commitment at times wavers. If purity of heart is to will one thing, my heart must be pretty adulterated. Will it be Jeremiah’s description that wins out, who said, The heart is deceitful above all things, and is exceedingly corrupt…? Or Paul’s description – This one thing I do. Forgetting what lies behind… I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus…? One clever commentator asked the question, “Do we say, with Paul, ‘This one thing I do,’ or do we rather say, ‘These twenty things I dabble in?’”

God knows me and knows my heart, and I draw great consolation from that. As Thomas Merton prayed, “…I believe that the desire to please You does, in fact, please You.” God knows your heart, too. In the midst of life’s distractions, however annoying, or its traumas, however shocking, there is a place of purpose to which we may return and find again the possibility of life renewed and hope restored.

~~ RGM, June 1 2016

From My Nature Journal: All From a Knock in the Head…

“Yowwww!?!!!”

I was walking in the Michigan woods last fall and, out of the blue (literally), something hit me in the head, hard! Looking to where I had heard whatever it was hit the ground and had seen in my peripheral vision something roll to a stop, I found a large, fresh acorn. Maybe a squirrel had just clipped it and let it drop (or aimed it -- I have had that happen to me before with pinecones!). But the oak above was large enough to impede my ability to spot any guilty party nearby. The knock really smarted, though, and I rubbed my head while wondering if it drew blood. The tip had a sharp point, and the nut may have hit me from that position.

Thinking of Isaac Newton under the proverbial apple tree, and the alleged falling orb by which he brilliantly began to deduce the force of gravity, I wondered if there was anything brilliant I was supposed to construe from this occurrence -- besides perhaps wearing a hat when I walk under oak trees in the fall, or avoiding proximity to coconut trees altogether. So it set me to thinking. Why, indeed, do some trees produce large seeds like this, and others produce tiny, wispy ones that float on the breeze? And what is their essential difference? I decided to do a little research, and here is what I found.

In general, trees produce one of two kinds of seed: one has enough substance to give the potential plant some resources with which it can get its start in life, so to speak, and the other kind does not. Rather, the latter’s seed is released to find its own resources if it can. Interestingly, the tree that produces the first kind expends so much energy preparing a seed with its own resources that it doesn’t produce many seeds; conversely, the tree that produces the second kind, expending so much less energy preparing its seed, can release them by the millions. As Bernd Heinrich says in his book The Trees in My Forest, “A tree has only so much to give… It can either have millions of seeds, each with a tiny inheritance… or relatively few seeds, each endowed with a large inheritance.”

Cases in point: my assaulting oak compared with the ubiquitous aspen. The oak produces a limited number of acorns, dropping them in the fall with, of course, the assistance of squirrels. All nut trees, oaks included (and coconuts!), are of the first kind mentioned above: the entire seed contains enough resources to get it started even on a less-than-perfect patch of ground, even in the shade. By contrast, an aspen releases millions of cottony tufts to the wind, each carrying a seed so small it can hardly be seen. One can brush against my face when it flies in May and I likely may not even feel it, yet the ground might be covered in the down. Each aspen tuft and seed drifts randomly in the rare hope of landing on some hospitable piece of real estate, the one with the most suitable depth and health of soil, the most advantageous amount of sunshine and most suitable quantity of moisture to thrive. Infinitesimally few are so lucky, for, on

Aspen seeds

average, perhaps only one of the seeds a mature aspen releases in its lifetime will grow to fully replace it. (Think averages. If this were not true, northern climes would be covered with nothing but aspens.) Luckily, aspens have another thing going for them by which they are far more successful in their reproductive efforts: most aspens grow from shoots sent underground by a parent plant, and are thus clones of the original. It’s what allows aspens to be the first up after a blowdown, fire or clearcut, without having to wait for a parent tree to release its seed.

But I also found some other interesting things. For example, I wondered how oaks reproduce successfully if animals eat all their acorns. After all, they are a favorite of bear, deer, jays, squirrels and others. I knew, of course, that one of the ways is that squirrels forget (or don’t quite get back to) all the places they’ve buried their stores, and those left behind often sprout, with gratitude for the convenient planting. But in addition to this, I found that nut bearing trees don’t produce every year, and after producing very well can go for several seasons with no crop; this gives them a better chance of eventually sneaking in some seeds that don’t get eaten, while the animal, who has been used to feasting there each season, turns up empty a year or two and writes the tree off his to-do list. I thought that was pretty wonderful.

Of course, thinking about these things leads me naturally to think of Jesus’ parables of the good soil (Luke 8:4-18) or the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32). Each of these texts would offer me much to consider if I spun them awhile through my cranium. But the concept most clear and dear to me from this musing is a takeoff on his little parable of the dying kernel in John 12:24, “…Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit…” We humans die as a seed, but of the first kind, like the acorn – with all the resources having been made available while we lived that would be necessary for us to sprout and live fruitfully again, even forever. The only difference is that we need to have realized and taken advantage of it.

Hmmm, all from a knock on the head…

~~RGM, May 12, 2016

From My Nature Journal: “Please… None of that God S**t…”

I recently had a conversation with a seasoned, career spiritual director whose husband is a Christian research scientist. As colleague spiritual directors, she and I conversed for some time about the nature of spiritual care with those who do not believe (or who do not think they believe) in God. It is something I had been thinking about for awhile. Her husband runs easily in that crowd, and since she and he share an active social life with his associates, many of them know what she does and I wondered about her experience in that regard.

Here’s a story she shared with me.

One of her husband’s friends who says he’s an atheist casually came up to her at a gathering and told her, “Please, I don’t want to hear any of that god s**t from you.” She responded politely she’d have no trouble being a friend.

Some time later, he and she were engaged in a conversation and it turned toward an experience he had had recently at the ocean shore. He was standing on the end of one of those

long Los Angeles-area piers, and it was surrounded by jellyfish, hundreds of them, pulsating as they do, hovering just below the surface of the water. He was completely mesmerized, and found them so amazingly beautiful, even ethereal, that it brought him to tears right then and there. Even as he described it to her he choked back emotion. “What’s that all about, Kris?” he asked. She replied, “I’m not exactly sure what to say to you, as I happen to believe it has something to do with that God s**t...”

Several months ago I spoke at a retreat

about nature as one of the many spiritual pathways people engage in a meaningful journey toward God. There are numerous reasons why nature can serve men and women in this way, and I shared several of them. One is the nature of gratitude: there is something in us that needs someone or something to thank, something bigger than us, whatever it is. Philosophers and thinkers, Christian or not, have long said that the need for a human to express gratitude, even if its focus at the outset is to ‘the fates’ or to ‘mother earth,’ is an important step toward the possibility of a more informed spirituality. That’s one of the reasons why I often ask you to share this blog with others you know, Christ follower or not, who may themselves find nature a critical step along their way to a greater God-consciousness.

Philosophers have long said that the

need for a human to express gratitude is

an important step toward the possibility

of a more informed spirituality...

Back to the man of whom my new friend spoke. I pray he is on his way to recognize that there is One constantly ready to share his experience of beauty, to receive his thanks, One he can find has been waiting for that recognition by him all along.

~~ RGM, May 4, 2016

From My Nature Journal: How’s Your GQ, Your Gratitude Quotient? Gratitude as an Upward Spiral…

I read this morning of something an author calls the ‘spiral’ of gratitude. Upon further thinking, it’s a phrase I find I like very much.

Of course, when we tend to think of spirals, if we’re not thinking footballs we’re first thinking of the downward variety, gravitational force being what it is and all; we quickly picture the proverbial circular descent that leads to a crash as object meets earth. I’m not sure why this is so, why we first think of the downward spiral, except that gravity at first glance seems to have a much greater hand in our daily lives than does lift. But that’s only at first glance, because absolutely every single time we move we are exerting an antigravity force. It’s probably also because most people tend first to think the worst…

Contrarily, it’s the upward spiral I want to think about. No, not the first half of a Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers ‘hail Mary’ pass. Though we have fairly few examples of such in the realm of nature (again, gravitational force being what it is and all), we do have at least one. Picture the soaring red-tailed hawk, rising slowly but persistently on the thermal. It’s an almost spiritual image, and maybe can help lift the concept of gratitude as an upward spiral to a spiritual place.

How grateful am I? Are you? Such a thing surely cannot be measured, as if there’s some kind of gratitude quotient, but it’s something worth thinking about. Maybe there should be. And though it can’t be measured, I do believe there’s a gratitude intelligence just as surely as there’s an intellectual, relational and emotional intelligence. In fact, I believe gratitude intelligence most certainly must contribute to the other three, and to any other kind of intelligence for that matter. Lacking the former, I shudder to think what kind of world this might be.

Some have spoken of the sharing of thanks as the important completion of a circle. It’s a tolerable image, but doesn’t that seem kind of closed to you, a circle? It does to me. It’s significant, to be sure, especially between the two parties. But what of a possible larger grace? What of a broader sense of shalom that might go beyond what only two parties may share? What about the potential for something we might even see as a cosmic joy that can rise to a greater Reality?

My devotional writer this morning said that, when seen this way, the exchange is more like a spiral than a circle, a spiral in which the giver gets thanked and so becomes the receiver, and the joy of giving and receiving rises higher and higher. Another contemplative theologian puts it this way:

A mother bends down to her child in the crib and hands him a toy. The baby recognizes the gift and returns the mother’s smile. The mother, overjoyed with the childish gesture of gratitude, lifts the child up with a kiss. There is a spiral of joy. Is not a kiss a greater gift than a toy? Is not the joy it expresses greater than the toy that set our spiral in motion?

With all of these realities in play, it’s now almost impossible to differentiate which is the giver and which the recipient.

I think it’s possible for someone to know

if a life of gratitude is being lived, if a

spiral is proceeding upward or not…

So, though gratitude cannot be measured – and pity the place where it is, the place where everything is tit for tat, reciprocity rules, the value of every gift is calculated and an accounting is always kept of who owes who what – I think it’s possible for someone to know if a life of gratitude is being lived, if a spiral is proceeding upward or not. Not only are thanks expressed easily and genuinely, but a larger gratitude comes into play, one that has the potential to save us from our greedy selves, one that extends further that same upward trajectory in which the thanks continuously seems to be rising.

I’ve written elsewhere that gratitude is one of the cardinal personal attributes expressed by those who find nature an important spiritual pathway. There’s always something in the natural realm for which to be grateful. Thankfulness is a marvelous discipline worth developing and celebrating, and an appreciative contemplation of God’s creation can help get us there. But it’s not necessarily only thanks to the Giver that is possible; think me not odd, but one can even be thankful to the gift for helping create the grateful awareness. If it’s an animate thing, one can be grateful even to it, and through it, to its Creator. For it’s all an acknowledgement that the earth is full of the works of the Lord (Psalm 111:2) whose good pleasure is that things have beauty. It’s a confession of faith that the earth is full of the glory of the Creator (Isaiah 6:3). It’s a testimony even of anticipation that the Giver has more gifts to share if we will but acknowledge their Source and receive them (Matthew 7:11 and James 1:17). In these ways, back to the image of the hawk on the thermal, the praise and gratitude keep ascending.

~~ RGM, April 19 2016

QOTM...*: Wendell Berry's Spring

(*Quote of the Month)

To sit and look at light-filled leaves

May let us see, or seem to see,

Far backward as through clearer eyes

To what unsighted hope believes:

The blessed conviviality

That sang Creation’s seventh sunrise,

Time when the Maker’s radiant sight

Made radiant every thing He saw,

And every thing He saw was filled

With perfect joy and life and light.

His perfect pleasure was sole law;

No pleasure had become self-willed.

For all His creatures were His pleasures

And their whole pleasure was to be

What He made them: they sought no gain

Or growth beyond their proper measures,

Nor longed for change or novelty.

The only new thing could be pain.

                        ~~ Wendell Berry

I have shared quotes and poetry before by Wendell Berry, one of my favorite writers. (Click here for one of those posts.) But I recently reread his A Timbered Choir, a collection of pieces he calls his Sabbath poems, written during and after Sunday walks on his Kentucky farm. I was particularly touched by this piece, titled simply 1979, III.

It’s an Eastertide poem to me, something of which my spirit remains full. Speaking of the time before sin entered our existence, before we even had need of a Redeemer, it tells the ‘blessed conviviality of Creation’s seventh sunrise,’ when ‘our whole pleasure was to be what he made’ us to be. But other pleasures came to prevail within

and about us, many of which could only produce pain. Inferred here in spite of them is the hope of redemption, the longing for a restoration, or a re-creation, that could also only come from Creation’s Creator.

But for me it’s also a poem of springtime. The young season here has been nothing but a wild one so far. It started out with a bang -- a foot and a half of snow on spring’s third day -- in a storm that was supposed to have brought only three to five inches. (It’ll give us some great spring wildflowers in our arid meadows.) But since then we’ve had wildly vacillating temps between the teens and even the 70’s, tempestuous winds in excess of fifty miles an hour, a little bit

of rain, sleet and flurries, and much sunshine. The snow is long gone, but it still seems there’s a battle waging between old man winter and Mother Nature’s summer. We know, of course, which will prevail. At least for now…

Through the days here at 6000 feet, the leaf buds have swollen and we’ve begun to see the first hint of green on the river willows and cottonwoods, always the first deciduous trees to show here in Colorado. But I find my anticipation swelling along with the buds, and it brings me back to the joy of the poem. In my mind’s eye I already see that spring sun shining through those leaves, and I celebrate the hope-filled images of joy, life, light and a re-created earth that Easter makes 

                                         possible. Read the poem again if you have time, and enjoy these 

                                         images with me.

~~Blessed Eastertide,

RGM, April 6 2016