All Creatures
Animate and Otherwise
Dear Friend,
I want to believe our friendship is one of those about which we might say, “It doesn’t matter if we have been apart for a day or for a week or for thirty years. Coming back together is as easy as slipping on a long-sleeve t-shirt, gym shorts, and comfortable, trustworthy shoes, heading to the woods for a walk on a cool June morning, and finding that we are in step before either of us even starts talking.” Better that we might not find ourselves apart for so long, but I am grateful to have a friend that can outlast any absence, and grateful that friend is you.
How have you been? How do you do?
I think that when we last spoke, I was struggling to find balance and struggling to notice things. I have come to find your encouragement to be meaningful and welcome. Especially your insistence that the unbalanced times are when waiting for an unexpected visitor, rather than setting out on a voyage of discovery, is often the best way forward.
At the time, it felt paradoxical, but today, I appreciate the wisdom of your words. I think you were suggesting that the absolute worst time to work to notice anything is when the water is heaving beneath our tiny boats and we are (appropriately) preoccupied with not-falling-out or capsizing, and there is nothing to which we cling to steady ourselves because we are in a tiny boat on a great unsteady sea, after all.
Perhaps you were suggesting that sometimes, even most times, somebody will show up and gently lift us from the boat, or maybe even say a word that steadies the seas. But only if we can find the courage to be still and wait, rather than trying to outrun the storm, which feels like a fool’s errand when all we have is a couple of splintered oars. Perhaps you were suggesting that when we wait for, and accept the steadying hand or the steadying word, noticing follows the gift of balance. Not in trying to fix our eyes on a horizon that refuses to surrender to us or to our desires.
I don’t want to forget that. Not ever. Especially when I consider the price you must have paid for that wisdom, and your generosity in sharing it. With me and freely.
Thank you, and how do you do?
What have I noticed since my friend arrived to steady the harsh sea? So many things. So many. There is only space for one of them, and it’s hard for me to articulate that one thing clearly. Thank you for your patience as I share one of the sketches that I’ve been collecting for the last week or so. At some point, maybe the others will find their ways into our letters, and we might wonder how they come together or perhaps how they resemble some of the pictures in your own sketch book. Perhaps there is a pattern that we will notice that neither you nor I would notice on our own. That, maybe, is the nature of a good friendship.
I’ve been wondering about words again, especially the word creature. This isn’t some random wondering. Not a spark that spontaneously erupted from nowhere. No. I was with another friend, another curious friend, in a remote place last week and together we noticed a grove of tall pines, I think, maybe a thousand yards away, lining the far side of a grass marsh. And what became self-evident in that moment was that these trees comprised a vibrant, integrated community, rather than a collection of randomly scattered, individual plants. The trees nearest us reached majestically skyward, almost as if in prayer. Some of the smaller trees seemed to huddle in behind them, accepting their protection from the hot sun or cold wind, or whatever happened to brewing on that day. What became evident was that the connection between these fantastical creatures was far deeper than I ever imagined, and that we were, that I was, also connected to them in a way that I did not, and perhaps still cannot, completely comprehend.
Merton described his famous 4th and Walnut moment this way:
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .
…This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
I sometimes wonder if each of us understands what Merton describes on some level. That each of us, in some place deeper than our minds and in some Time deeper than our days, has experienced what Merton experienced. I feel like so many people crack the door open to their experience in our conversations, but stop short of describing it fully. Between the pace of our lives and the relentless inside voices who insist the experience was an overactive imagination or maybe even some bad oysters from the night before, or simply madness, it’s hard to take this unspeakable connectedness seriously, and especially hard to risk sharing it with others. I get it. But I still wonder if it’s not more common than we imagine it to be.
But this felt different for me. Though I can point to a 4th and Walnut experience, I had never considered that a connection similar to what Merton describes, a connection I am certain exists between people, and even between people and animals, might exist between people and the “inanimate things.” Now, I think it might. I might ever believe it does.
My friend and I talked about this, and to my relief that he didn’t immediately chalk my thoughts up to bad oysters or madness. Instead he pointed me toward a book called The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World. Did you know that individual trees can learn? And remember? And can pass that knowledge and memory onto other trees in a language we can only guess at?
Stop. Think of that.
Maybe you’ve read the book. Maybe you haven’t, but for the past two days, the audio version has been my walking companion through the little woods near my home, and both days, seeing what has always been right in front of me - hiding in plain sight - has 1) brought me to tears, and 2) convinced me that my previous understanding of the word creature was ridiculously small and smug and kept God in a box that was tiny enough for me to manage on my terms.
What if creature simply means a created thing? Then suddenly, everything is a creature, and flowing out of the same source, and therefore connected. I don’t make any claims to be a scholar on such matters, but it seems that everything, and I mean everything points to this connectedness of all creation as a fundamental truth. Pick your source.
Ancient myths? Yes.
Literature? Uh-huh. From the ancient to the contemporary.
Science? Absolutely, and increasingly so.
And if that is not enough, consider these:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made….
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…
See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these…
And finally:
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Hasn’t God been inviting us to notice our connectedness to all his creatures? Both animate and seemingly otherwise? And I mean, said as much over and over and over again?
And while I promised that I wouldn’t try to tie this up in neat bow, I do find the idea of our connection to all things to be very comforting. A few weeks ago we talked about a deeper level of knowing and remembering than that which can fit into our minds - minds that will inevitably fail each us. In his book, Pilgrim Heart, Darryl Tippens writes:
It is ironic that the final task of rationality was to announce its own limitations, to open the door to a way that goes deeper, more in tune with the ultimately ineffable nature of God.
To me, the trees and the mountains and all manner of creatures point to a different and profound sort of memory and knowing and a time-scale that far exceeds that in which we ordinarily operate, and one that simply does not depend on what we know or what we think we know, one that recognizes the limitations of human rationality and is open to God’s ineffable nature. Open to God’s bigger-than-that-ness - no matter how big we try to make God through rational thought.
And insofar as we are all connected, I want to think, and maybe even believe, that sort of memory and knowing - or another altogether - is also in our DNA, as it flows from the same source that created the trees. How could that not be comforting to me? I hope that it might be to you, as well.
Okay, I feel like I’m skirting the edge of a sermon, and please no. Maybe It’s just that these are the things I’m noticing, and wondering if you might notice them, too. And if you do, when you consider how trees feel and communicate and learn and remember, and when you wonder at the beauty of a bird and marvel at the idea of mountains and hills bursting into song and trees clapping their hands, then you can be certain I am right beside you, awestruck at the wonder of all creatures, great and small, and at the glory of their creator.
And if you do not, and if it really is bad oysters, then I am still with you, and hopefully reminding you of your belovedness, and the one who simply can’t take his eyes off his beloved kid.
Oremus,
C
Tree BY JANE HIRSHFIELD It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being, this clutter of soup pots and books— Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
Chris, aww your words are an invitation to dive a little deeper, thank you.
Rilke said, "That in difficult times you should endeavor to stay close to once simple thing in nature."
I was reminded of the mighty Sequoias that grow up to 350 feet in height but have very shallow roots that only run a few feet below the surface, but they make up for it in width, where the roots intertwine and fuse together. They don't survive alone ever, they form communities. The first thing they provide is strength and support by intertwining their roots and living in the embrace of others. Like the mighty Redwoods we need each other to help us think past what we can't do alone. When times are tough we can reach out and connect first, with ourselves and then our communities and knot our roots into even stronger, tighter bonds against all the fires that race toward us or the floods that threaten to wash us away.
When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn we can find healing in the silence of the trees, coaxing the soul to a land of wonder where the journey becomes a bright path between Source and horizon, awakening and surrender.
Here we can become subtle enough to hear a tree breathe.
Sending so much love and peace my friend.
“Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.”
(It’s always been there, tapping)