Given a few more days following the news that rattled our state, I reflect back and see how my past weekend experience could hardly be further from the escalating global chaos about us.
Want to unplug from this chaos?
Take a walk in nature.
Want to really dig your toes into this spiritual ground that nature nurtures?
Attend a silent retreat with spiritual guidance.
I returned Sunday night from the lakeside estate in suburban Saint Paul, where the Jesuits hold weekly men’s retreats. The objective is simple yet as deep as one wishes to go: From Thursday to Sunday night, reside in your dorm-style room, attend the talks from the visiting priest, and spend spare time reflecting on the talks as well as your own spiritual journey.
To support this purpose, there is no talking amongst the 60 or so attendees. And there are to be no electronics connecting us to the outside world. The connection belongs upward and right there with nature. This universal idea of “God in nature” or “God’s creation” was introduced in Father Johnson’s first talk. Each “wow” moment inspired by a sight in nature, he said, is not not just a moment to appreciate the world God created but a call to lean into that inspiration, whether with deeper embrace or perhaps to share with others.
The following day, I strolled along a narrow road between rows of mid-sized pines. The grass floor adding to the scene's shades of green made all the more brilliant the anomaly I noticed: A bright orange mushroom, its cap a sunburst two-toned deep-to-light orange, exclaimed in a space between some trees. Already primed by a day-and-a-half of silence and reflection, I stood and observed the organism.
The longer I looked, the more its existence spoke to me.
It said this:
Such a life brought forth
Through the floor of the earth.
An exclamation in a setting so serene
Its decoration a brilliant note
Within a sonata of breezes and birds.
And this symphony of various greens
With a composition this complete,
I wondered what was under my feet.
For even something as ordinary as ground
We’re reminded that life is all around.
Each walk in nature a spherical canvas
Painted upon with the life energy about us.
And like our lives defined by routine,
Nature deals its shades of green.
And then, “bam!” an orange so bright
Just as God blesses our lives with delights.
Because nature isn’t something outside ourselves.
This same life force is in us as well.
Not just something to observe
A reminder of the God we serve
Not just something to adore
A reminder of who and what we are
There were other natural “wow” sights over the weekend attached here.
But photos and words can’t convey in the moment that which takes many hours in person to reveal. But the takeaway from the weekend is that this rather intense (yet serene) experience homing in on the present, natural, & spiritual is in direct opposition to the scattered noise & drama of the chaotic, uber-connected world of today.
So consider making some plans to go walk with God in nature.