a novitiate in noticing...

Everywhere I turned this week, someone was speaking, writing, or reflecting on the wisdom of trees. "In the old times," Richard Rohr posted, "our elders say, the trees talked to each other. They’d stand in their own council and craft a plan." In Ottawa in a chance conversation at a coffee house about housing prices, the spectacular tree in the wetlands behind our house that bursts into an electric yellow for a few days each autumn found a way into our reflections. And in the exquisitely crafted and meticulously researched BrainPickings, a weekly "inventory of the meaningful life" by Maria Popova, a "lyrical exploration of Robert Macfalrane's Underland: A Deep Time Journey," was featured in Sunday's edition. One particular passage called out to my heart:

Beneath the canopy, Macfarlane marvels at the slim contour of empty space around each tree’s crown — a phenomenon known as crown shyness, “whereby individual forest trees respect each other’s space, leaving slender running gaps between the end of one tree’s outermost leaves and the start of another’s.” In this, too, I see a poignant lesson in love, evocative of Rilke and what may be the greatest relationship advice ever committed to words: “I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” (for more go to: https://www.brainpickings.org)

Wisdom keepers from differing traditions have long trusted that a web of sacred connections exists within creation that is in constant communion. That is, there is an "interconnected nature" to reality that we rarely see.. Sometimes we ascribe the effects to angels, other times to "telepathy, providence, or synchronicity," periodically we call this chance, or even the mysterious will of the Lord. Fr. Rohr has started speaking of the phenomenon as "quantum entanglement" where all of reality, spiritual and material, embrace. "In quantum physics, it appears that one particle of any entangled pair “knows” what is happening to another paired particle—even though there is no known means for such information to be communicated between the particles, which are separated sometimes bu very large distances." (Rohr, https://cac.org/the-field-of-love-2019-11-07/) The Psalmist of ancient Israel once told us that there would come a time when we would trust that: "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky." (Psalm 85) In our lifetime, contemporary wisdom keepers help us acquire the analytical tools needed to describe long trusted mystical insights as well as new poetry to teach our hearts. In this I think of Wendell Berry, Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall and Mary Oliver. From Berry's Sabbath Poem collection:

The clearing rests in song and shade.
It is a creature made
By old light held in soil and leaf,
By human joy and grief,
By human work,
Fidelity of sight and stroke,
By rain, by water on
The parent stone.
We join our work to Heaven's gift,
Our hope to what is left,
That field and woods at last agree
In an economy
Of widest worth.
High Heaven's Kingdom come on earth.
Imagine Paradise.
O Dust, arise!

The trees, the land, the water, the air, the sounds and our movement through them all are asking us to notice. Pay attention. This is the holy telling you something essential about your life and all life.

Scientists don’t know how far this phenomenon applies beyond very rare particles, but quantum entanglement hints at a universe where everything is in relationship, in communion, and also where that communion can be resisted (“sin”). Both negative and positive entanglement in the universe matter, maybe even ultimately matter. Prayer, intercession, healing, love and hate, heaven and hell, all make sense on a whole new level...Ilia Delio says, “If reality is nonlocal, that is, if things can affect one another despite distance or space-time coordinates, then nature is not composed of material substances but deeply entangled fields of energy; the nature of the universe is am undivided wholeness.”

What we say matters. What we think has consequence. How we use our time and resource can strength or destroy life. As part of my on-going training in the realm of spiritual direction I recently revisited the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the father of the Jesuit movement. Upon being wounded in battle, and taking up residence in a convent for healing, Ignatius started to notice what brought him a lasting sense of life and what was fleeting. As a wealthy soldier he had long loved wild, exciting stories with romance and violence. One of our generations wise women, Teresa Blythe, writes: 

Not having those books in the covent... Ignatius daydreamed about romance and noticed that when he did, he would feel warmth and joy for a little while, but was left feeling "dry and dusty." And when he read about the life of the saints, he noticed that he felt a lasting peace and a desire to be like them...(From this) Ignatius determined that we too can examine the movements of our heart for evidence of consolation - those lasting feelings of peace, joy, love and patience; or for desolation - the feelings of being dry, dull, despairing, or anxious. He taught that an examination of these inner movements can help us discern how to follow the path of life which is what God desires fore us all. 
(Spiritual Direction 101: p.36)

Imagine my surprise when two days later at the L'Arche Ottawa retreat we started to use a streamlined version of Ignatius's examen: what brings us life, and what drains life from our being? Now here's the thing: as soon as we start noticing patterns, repetitions, and connections in our lives, a quiet sense of joy is being born in our hearts. We are NOT alone. Alienated. Grasping in isolation with despair. We are a part of the communion of saints, the living family of God, in every realm including the trees, the water, the air, and the earth. Rejoicing in these connections, however, calls me to slow down and ponder them. Honor them. Strengthen them.

So much of my life has been lived in a blur. Not because I didn't care about those I loved, not at all. I thought I needed to be important to make a difference for God. I had to be big: struggling constantly for power and numerical success in both my churches and justice organizations. That's part of the burden of changing gender roles for men, but also the dominant model for engagement in my all-too activist denomination. In my soul I knew this wasn't the path of life for me, but it was the model I embraced, so I kept at it and regularly chose a self-obsessed mania rather than the peace that passes understanding. To use the parlance of my tradition these were my sins of omission rather than sins of commission. I overlooked what was small and in need. I failed to notice when my little ones needed more quiet time with dad. I chose a way of being in the world that brash and selfish. Not in all things, of course. My skills for noticing nuance in one-on-one pastoral encounters were well-honed. I reveled in the practice of quiet, tender listening. And others said that I had a reasonably sophisticated eye for grasping the macro-trends when it comes to social and political analysis. But time and again I missed the mark with those who were small, quiet, and not obviously important. As the stories of many saints like Francis or Ignatius document, when you believe yourself to be the center of the universe , there's no room for the still, small voice of the Lord. So, time and again reality conspires with the holy to help us crash and burn. The expression, "the bigger they come, the harder they fall" comes to mind.

One result of my collapse after 25 years of ministry has to do with honoring what is small. God's still small voice, of course, but also that small sense of grace deep within my heart. Or the small voices of people who just want their hand held. Or a song sung to them. One of my mantra's continues to be: small is holy. So after we came back from Tucson last winter, I started to think of myself as a novice in noticing. Much like new recruits in a monastery must learn formation, prayer, obedience, and trust, I need to pay attention to the small world of our wetlands and gardens if I am going to trust the connections between all living beings. Jesus used to say that there are some who know how to read the signs of the sky but are clueless about the signs of the times. To become more tender, more real, more present, and more connected to those I cherish I am about to enter year two of my novitiate of noticing. Like it says in Deuteronomy 30: what we need "is not too high or too far away - the word is in your hearts for you to observe." Hard research and vigorous prayer are telling us to pay attention to the connections:

There is now compelling evidence that our elders were right—the trees are talking to one another. They communicate via pheromones, hormone-like compounds that are wafted on the breeze, laden with meaning. Scientists have identified specific compounds that one tree will release when it is under the stress of insect attack—gypsy moths gorging on its leaves or bark beetles under its skin. The tree sends out a distress call: “Hey, you guys over there? I’m under attack here. You might want to raise the drawbridge and arm yourselves for what is coming your way.” The downwind trees catch the drift, sensing those few molecules of alarm, the whiff of danger. This gives them time to manufacture defensive chemicals... The individual benefits, and so does the entire grove. Trees appear to be talking about mutual defense... There is so much we cannot yet understand with our limited human capacity (and certainly) tree conversations are still far above our heads.

(NOTE: It is softly snowing right now, by way of confirmation of what I am discerning.) This weekend a small consortium of musicians are calling together other artists and friends to sit together in community and sing, pray, dance and think about how we can strengthen the ties that bind. For me, music-making in community embodies sacred connections: our very flesh becomes an instrument. We are able to listen to others do likewise and realize we are not alone. We are connected. If you are in town on Friday, November 22 @ 7 pm, join us at First Church on Park Square (27 East Street, Pittsfield, MA) for a few hours of little blessings and a whole lotta fun.