A Backward Glance

 

Osoyoos Sky

Let’s take a moment for a backward glance before we proceed to our next conversation. It is too easy to think that we have resolved nothing from our discussions if we don’t unearth what we have discovered. 

First, about ourselves, we are each unique and different. We are inclined to approach things in different ways. Some of us are inclined to take action — to find something to do. Some of us are interested in knowledge, in what we can know. Some of us are interested in being. Some of us see change as most important, inner personal change or societal change. In reality, we all tend towards these things in varying degrees and at different times.

The themes that we have encountered are familiar, but possibly in new ways: 

• We need to avoid being trapped in black-and-white thinking. We need to see the nuances in everything, even when things are black and white. 
• There is a middle way that is often helpful. For example, providing for oneself needs to avoid excessive greed, the spirit of this age. This middle way might be similar to the centre of the spiral.
• Further, sometimes we do not see the problem when the problem is not happening to us. We are not having a direct experience of it. We understand differently when the issue comes close to home.
• Lastly, we are so focused on ourselves, our individualism, that we don’t value the collective. We don’t understand or listen to the other.

Let’s carry the past into the present. Recall Peter’s 5-4-3-2-1 exercise applied to nature. Its purpose was to ground ourselves. To slow ourselves down and let us observe.

Here is the post-meeting reflective practice from Peter as a model for us to practice this ourselves:

Worcester College Playing Field and Lake (Peter Farrugia)

One of my most vivid memories of nature is of the walks Liisa and I would make on weekday mornings across the college playing field and round the lake en route to the British Rail station. The image that springs to mind is more pen and ink drawing than vast oil on canvas.

5 Colours

the grey tone murk of early autumn morning
the stark pavilion, white like pads and sweaters worn by cricketers
the black shape of the swallows, barely visible as they wheeled 
the deep green of the manicured playing field
the blazes, blue and purple, on the ducks’ wings on the lake
4 Sounds       
the faint squish of our footfalls on the wet grass
the whisper of the leaves on hundred-year oaks
the rumbling of an engine, incongruous with the pastoral spell
the quacking ducks as they took morning baths
3 Textures
the yielding of the perfectly coiffed grass we trod
the bumpy roots that broke the gravel pathway past the lake
the wrinkled trunks of trees ringed round the college lake
2 Smells
the over-ripe perfume of fallen apples left to rot
the whiff of acrid train smoke from the station just beyond the walls
1 Taste

the residue of streaky bacon, HP sauce and strong black tea, reminding me to brush my teeth when I got back!

Following well from this is an article sent by Mark D by Randy Woodley, also author of Shalom and the Community of Creation. It is provocative and worth the read:

“Our traditional calendar was not a corporate fiscal year. It was creation itself. In the fall, the land signals unmistakably: gear up. The animals are fattening. The berries and nuts are coming in. The roots are ready. Wild game, medicines, camas, serviceberries, acorns—creation is handing you its abundance, and your job is to receive it with gratitude and preserve it well. You dry the meat, you store the roots, you put up what winter will require. This is not laziness; it is attunement. You work intensely because creation is calling you to work.”

The full article, Work, Family, and Economic Democracy—Why Ownership, Care, and Security Belong Together is HERE.

Experiencing nature as creation helps us to appreciate the gifts that we are given. It also reduces our anxiety about the overwhelming, complex issues that we are experiencing, the so-called polycrisis. These practices above, like the Acknowledge-Accept-Release- Rest mantra, allow us to pause and experience a kind of sabbath-rest in each passing moment. 

Another item forwarded from Rick R, by Henri Nouwen, speaks directly to our concern about not knowing what we should do – and of being overwhelmed by the complexity.

Our Unique Call (Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)
So many terrible things happen every day that we start wondering whether the few things we do ourselves make any sense. When people are starving only a few thousand miles away, when wars are raging close to our borders, when countless people in our cities have no homes to live in, our own activities look futile. Such considerations, however, can paralyze and depress us.

Here, the word call becomes important. We are not called to save the world, solve all problems, and help all people. But each of us has our own unique call, in our families, in our work, in our world. We have to keep asking God to help us see clearly what our call is and to give us the strength to live out that call with trust. Then we will discover that our faithfulness to a small task is the most healing response to the illnesses of our time.

To move from a backward glance to a forward one. Here is a podcast shared by Ev, of Kristin Kobes du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne, on the Bible for Normal People. It shares some historical context for how the current (American) political climate may have contributed to what we now know as danger, excess and global instability. 

In our daily practice, we recognize that each of us is different, that we do have a hopeful capacity for growth, that the voice of creation around us speaks louder than the narratives that frighten us, and that we have a call to faithfulness in small things. And that these things are a magnanimous and spiritual response to the suggestion that Eden is burning.